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AN ESS A Y 
 
 
 ON THE 
 
 DEVELOPMENT 
 
 OF 
 
 CHRISTIAN D 0 C T RI N E. 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, 
 
 AUTHOR OF LECTURES ON THE PROPHETICAL OFFICE OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 OCULl MEI DEFECEKUNT IN SALUTAEE TUUM, 
 ET IN ELOQUIUM JUSTITLE TILE. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 JAMES TOOVEY, 192, PICCADILLY. 
 
 M.DCCC.XLVI. 
 
 ' <A 
 
LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED BY W. BLANCHARD AND SONS, 
 
 Warwick Lane, St. Paul’s. 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 It is now above eleven years since the writer of 
 the following pages, in one of the early Numbers 
 of the Tracts for the Times, expressed himself 
 thus:— 
 
 “ Considering the high gifts, and the strong claims of the Church 
 of Rome and its dependencies on our admiration, reverence, love, and 
 gratitude, how could we withstand it, as we do; how could we 
 refrain from being melted into tenderness, and rushing into com¬ 
 munion with it, but for the words of Truth itself, which bid us prefer 
 it to the whole world ? ‘ He that loveth father or mother more than 
 
 Me, is not worthy of Me.’ How could we learn to be severe, and 
 execute judgment, but for the warning of Moses against even a 
 divinely-gifted teacher who should preach new gods, and the 
 anathema of St. Paul even against Angels and Apostles who should 
 bring in a new doctrine?” 1 
 
 He little thought, when he so wrote, that the 
 time would ever come, when he should feel the 
 obstacle, which he spoke of as lying in the way 
 of communion with the Church of Rome, to be 
 destitute of solid foundation. 
 
 The following Work is directed towards its re¬ 
 moval. 
 
 Having in former Publications directed atten¬ 
 tion to the supposed difficulty, he considers himself 
 1 Records of the Church, xxiv. p. 7. 
 
IV 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 bound to avow his present belief that it is imagi¬ 
 nary. 
 
 He has neither the ability to put out of hand a 
 finished composition, nor the wish to make a power¬ 
 ful and moving representation, on the great subject 
 of which he treats. His aim will be answered, if 
 he succeeds in suggesting thoughts, which in God’s 
 good time may quietly bear fruit, in the minds of 
 those to whom that subject is new; and which may 
 carry forward inquirers, who have already put them¬ 
 selves on the course. 
 
 If at times his tone appears positive or peremptory, 
 he hopes this will be imputed to the scientific cha¬ 
 racter of the Work, which requires a distinct state¬ 
 ment of principles, and of the arguments which 
 recommend them. 
 
 He hopes too he shall be excused for his frequent 
 quotations from himself; which are necessary in 
 order to show how he stands at present in relation 
 to various of his former Publications, j 
 
 His more important changes of opinion will be 
 seen of course by referring to his Lectures on the 
 Prophetical Office of the Church, published in the be¬ 
 ginning of 1837. In these Lectures there are various 
 statements which he could wish unsaid; but he 
 thinks it right to draw the reader’s especial atten¬ 
 tion to the following passage, which he retracts 
 with the others:— 
 
 “ We must take and deal with things as they arc, not as they 
 pretend to be. If we are induced to believe the professions of Rome, 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 V 
 
 and make advances towards her as if a sister or a mother Church, 
 which in theory she is, we shall find too late that we are in the arms 
 of a pitiless and unnatural relative, who will but triumph in the arts 
 which have inveigled us within her reach. No; dismissing the 
 dreams which the romance of early Church history, and the high 
 doctrines of Catholicism, will raise in the inexperienced mind, let us 
 be sure that she is our enemy, and will do us a mischief when she 
 can. In speaking and acting on this conviction, we need not depart 
 from Christian charity towards her. We must deal with her as we 
 would towards a friend who is visited by derangement; in great 
 affliction, with all affectionate tender thoughts, with tearful regrets 
 and a broken heart, but still with a steady eye and a firm hand. 
 For in truth she is a Church beside herself; abounding in noble gifts 
 and rightful titles, but unable to use them religiously; crafty, obsti¬ 
 nate, wilful, malicious, cruel, unnatural, as madmen are. Or rather, 
 she may be said to resemble a demoniac, possessed with principles, 
 thoughts, and tendencies not his own; in outward form and in natural 
 powers what God has made her, but ruled within by an inexorable 
 spirit, who is sovereign in his management over her, and most subtle 
 and most successful in the use of her gifts. Thus she is her real self 
 only in name; and, till God Vouchsafe to restore her, we must treat 
 her as if she were that evil one which governs her. And, in saying 
 this, I must not be supposed to deny that there is any real excellence 
 in Romanism even as it is, or that any really excellent men are its 
 adherents. Satan ever acts on a system; various, manifold, and 
 intricate, with parts and instruments of different qualities, some 
 almost purely evil, others so unexceptionable that, in themselves and 
 detached from the end to which all is subservient, they are really 
 ‘ Angels of Light,’ and may be found so to be at the Last Day. In 
 Romanism there are some things absolutely good, some things only 
 just tainted and sullied, some things corrupted, and some things in 
 themselves sinful; but the system itself so called must be viewed 
 as a whole, and all parts of it as belonging to the whole, and in 
 connexion with their practical working and the end which they 
 subserve.” 1 
 
 He will add that there is one statement in 
 these Lectures, about which he has never seen 
 
 1 Proph. Off. pp. 103, 4. 
 
 ) 
 
VI 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 any reason at all for changing his opinion. It 
 is this:— 
 
 44 In England the Church co-operates with the State in exacting 
 subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles as a test, and that not only 
 of the Clergy, but also of the governing body in our Universities, a 
 test against Romanism.” p. 287. 
 
 Such a statement is quite consistent with a wish, 
 on which he has before now acted, to correct 
 popular misapprehensions both of the Roman Ca¬ 
 tholic doctrines, and of the meaning of the Thirty- 
 nine Articles. 
 
 Some years since a retractation of his appeared in 
 the public prints, which he is desirous of formally 
 acknowledging here, and of preserving. It is as 
 follows:— 
 
 44 It is true that I have at various times, in writing against the 
 
 i 
 
 Roman system, used, not merely arguments, about which I am not 
 here speaking, but what reads like declamation. 
 
 44 1. For instance, in 1833, in the Lyra Apostolica, I called it a 
 4 lost Church.’ 
 
 “2. Also, in 1833, I spoke of ‘the Papal Apostasy’ in a work 
 upon the Arians. 
 
 “ 3. In the same year, in No. 15 of the series called the 4 Tracts 
 for the Times,’ in which Tract the words are often mine, though 
 I cannot claim it as a whole, I say— 
 
 4 True, Rome is heretical now—nay, grant she has thereby forfeited her orders; 
 yet, at least, she was not heretical in the primitive ages. If she has apostatized, 
 it was at the time of the Council of Trent. Then, indeed, it is to he feared the 
 whole Roman Communion hound itself, by a perpetual bond and covenant, to the 
 cause of Antichrist.’ 
 
 44 Of this and other Tracts a friend, with whom I was on very 
 familiar terms, observed, in a letter some time afterwards, though 
 not of this particular part of it— 4 It is very encouraging about the 
 Tracts—but I wish I could prevail on you, when the second edition 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 Vll 
 
 comes out, to cancel or materially alter several. The other day 
 accidentally put in my way the Tract on the Apostolical Succes¬ 
 sion in the English Church; and it really does seem so very unfair, 
 that I wonder you could, even in the extremity of oiKopo/uia and 
 < pevaKLcrfxog , have consented to be a party to it. 
 
 “ On the passage above quoted, I observe myself, in a pamphlet 
 published in 1838— 
 
 ‘ I confess I wish this passage were not cast in so declamatory a form; but 
 the substance of it expresses just what I mean.’ 
 
 “4. Also, in 1833, I said— 
 
 c Their communion is infected with heresy; we are bound to flee it as a pesti¬ 
 lence. They have established a lie in the place of God’s truth, and, by their 
 claim of immutability in doctrine, cannot undo the sin they have committed.’ 
 Tract 20. 
 
 “ 5. In 1834, I said, in a magazine— 
 
 ‘ The spirit of old Rome has risen again in its former place, and has evidenced 
 its identity by its works. It has possessed the Church there planted, as an evil 
 spirit might seize the demoniacs of primitive times, and makes her speak words 
 which are not her own. In the corrupt Papal system we have the very cruelty, 
 the craft, and the ambition of the Republic; its cruelty in its unsparing sacrifice 
 of the happiness and virtue of individuals to a phantom of public expediency, in 
 its forced celibacy within, and its persecutions without; its craft in its falsehoods, 
 its deceitful deeds and lying wonders; and its grasping ambition in the very 
 structure of its polity, in its assumption of universal dominion: old Rome is still 
 alive; no where have its eagles lighted, but it still claims the sovereignty under 
 another pretence. The Roman Church I will not blame, but pity—she is, as I 
 have said, spell-bound, as if by an evil spirit; she is in thraldom.’ 
 
 “ I say, in the same paper— 
 
 ‘ In the book of Revelations, the sorceress upon the seven hills is not the 
 Church of Rome, as is often taken for granted, but Rome itself, that bad spirit 
 which, in its former shape, was the animating principle of the fourth monarchy. 
 In St. Paul’s prophecy, it is not the Temple or Church of God, but the man of 
 sin in the Temple, the old man or evil principle of the flesh which exalteth itself 
 against God. Certainly it is a mystery of iniquity, and one which may well ex¬ 
 cite our dismay and horror, that in the very heart of the Church, in her highest 
 dignity, in the seat of St. Peter, the evil principle has throned itself, and rules. 
 It seems as if that spirit had gained subtlety by years ; Popish Rome has suc¬ 
 ceeded to Rome Pagan : and would that we had no reason to expect still more 
 crafty developments of Antichrist amid the wreck of institutions and establish¬ 
 ments which will attend the fall of the Papacy !.I deny that the distinction 
 
 is unmeaning. Is it nothing to be able to look on our mother, to whom we owe 
 the blessing of Christianity, with affection instead of hatred, with pity indeed, nay 
 and fear, but not with horror ? Is it nothing to rescue her from the hard names 
 
Vlll 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 which interpreters of prophecy hove put on her, as an idolatress and an enemy of 
 God, when she is deceived rather than a deceiver ? 1 
 
 “ I also say— 
 
 4 She virtually substitutes an external ritual for moral obedience; penance for 
 penitence, confession for sorrow, profession for faith, the lips for the heart: such at 
 least is her system as understood by the many. 1 
 
 “ Also I say, in the same paper— 
 
 ‘ Rome has robbed us of high principles which she has retained herself, though 
 in a corrupt state. When we left her, she suffered us not to go in the beauty of 
 holiness ; we left our garments and fled. 1 
 
 “ Against these and other passages of this paper the same friend, 
 before it was published, made the following protest:—‘I only except 
 from this general approbation your second and most superfluous hit 
 at the poor Romanists. You have first set them down as demoni¬ 
 acally possessed by the evil genius of Pagan Rome, but notwith¬ 
 standing are able to find something to admire in their spirit, particu¬ 
 larly because they apply ornament to its proper purposes: and then 
 you talk of their churches: and all that is very well, and one hopes 
 one has heard the end of name-calling, when all at once you relapse 
 into your Protestantism, and deal in what I take leave to call slang.’ 
 
 “ Then, after a remark which is not to the purpose of these ex¬ 
 tracts, he adds— 4 I do not believe that any Roman Catholic of edu¬ 
 cation would tell you that he identified penitence and penance. In 
 fact I know that they often preach against this very error as well as 
 you could do.’ 
 
 “ 6. In 1834 I also used, of certain doctrines of the Church of 
 Rome, the epithets 4 unscriptural,’ 4 profane,’ 4 impious,’ 4 bold,’ 
 4 unwarranted,’ ‘blasphemous,’ ‘gross,’‘monstrous,’ ‘cruel,’ ‘admi¬ 
 nistering deceitful comfort,’ and 4 unauthorised,’ in Tract 38. I do 
 not mean to say that I had not a definite meaning in every one of 
 these epithets, or that I did not weigh them before I used them. 
 
 “ With reference to this passage the same monitor had said— 4 1 
 must enter another protest against your cursing and swearing at the 
 end of the first Via Media as you do. (Tract ‘38.) What good can 
 it do? I call it uncharitable to an excess. How mistaken we may 
 ourselves be on many points that are only gradually opening to us! ’ 
 
 “ I withdrew the whole passage several years ago. 
 
 “ 7. I said in 1837 of the Church of Rome— 
 
 ‘ In truth she is a Church beside herself, 1 8:c. [as above.] 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 IX 
 
 “8. In 1837, I also said in a review— 
 
 ‘ The Second and Third Gregories appealed to the people against the Emperor 
 for a most unjustifiable object, and in, apparently, a most unjustifiable way. 
 They became rebels to establish image-worship. However, even in this transac¬ 
 tion, we trace the original principle of Church power, though miserably defaced 
 and perverted, whose form 
 
 ‘ Had yet not lost 
 
 All her original brightness, nor appeared 
 Less than Archangel ruined and the excess 
 Of glory obscured.’ 
 
 Upon the same basis, as is notorious, was built the Ecclesiastical Monarchy. It 
 was not the breath of princes, or the smiles of a court, which fostered the stern 
 and lofty spirit of Hildebrand and Innocent. It was the neglect of self, the 
 renunciation of wordly pomp and ease, the appeal to the people.’ 
 
 “ I must observe, however, upon this passage, that no reference 
 is made in it (the idea is shocking) to the subject of Milton’s 
 lines, who ill answers to the idea of purity and virtue defaced, of 
 which they speak. An application is made of them to a subject 
 which I considered, when I so wrote, to befit them better, viz. 
 the Roman Church as viewed in a certain exercise of her power 
 in the person of the two Popes. 
 
 “ Perhaps I have made other statements in a similar tone, and 
 that, again, when the statements themselves were unexception¬ 
 able and true. If you ask me how an individual could venture, 
 not simply to hold, but to publish such views of a communion 
 so ancient, so wide-spreading, so fruitful in Saints, I answer that 
 I said to myself, 6 I am not speaking my own words, I am but 
 following almost a consensus of the divines of my Church. They 
 have ever used the strongest language against Rome, even the 
 most able and learned of them. I wish to throw myself into 
 their system. While I say what they say, I am safe. Such 
 views, too, are necessary for our position.’ Yet I have reason 
 to fear still, that such language is to be ascribed, in no small 
 measure, to an impetuous temper, a hope of approving myself to 
 persons I respect, and a wish to repel the charge of Romanism. 
 
 “ An admission of this Jdnd involves no retractation of what I 
 have written in defence of Anglican doctrine. And as I make 
 it for personal reasons, I make it without consulting others. I 
 am as fully convinced as ever, indeed I doubt not Roman Catholics 
 
 •' ——■—— 1 — „ —t i n II I I nr I II I II I 11 ■ - I n il III . I in Il f 
 
X 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 themselves would confess, that the Anglican doctrine is the stronges t, 
 nay the only possible antagonist of their system. If Rome is to be 
 withstood, it can be done in no other way.” 
 
 Of course he now withdraws the arguments al¬ 
 luded to, as far as they reflect upon the Church of 
 Rome, as well as the language in which they were 
 conveyed. 
 
 Littlemore, 
 
 Oct 6, 1845. 
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 Since the above was written, the Author has 
 joined the Catholic Church. It was his intention 
 and wish to have carried his Volume through the 
 Press before deciding finally on this step. But 
 when he had got some way in the printing, he re¬ 
 cognised in himself a conviction of the truth of the 
 conclusion to which the discussion leads, so clear 
 as to supersede further deliberation. Shortly after¬ 
 wards circumstances gave him the opportunity of 
 acting upon it, and he felt that he had no warrant 
 for refusing to do so. 
 
 His first act on his conversion was to offer his 
 Work for revision to the proper authorities; but 
 the offer was declined on the ground that it was 
 written and partly printed before he was a Catho- 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 XI 
 
 lie, and that it would come before the reader in a 
 more persuasive form, if he read it as the author 
 wrote it. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to add that he now sub¬ 
 mits every part of the book to the judgment of the 
 Church, with whose doctrine, on the subjects of 
 which it treats, he wishes all his thoughts to be 
 coincident. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ' 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 . ' * 
 
 ■ - 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 * 
 
 - 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction . . . . . .1 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF IDEAS. 
 
 Sec. I.—On the Process of Development in Ideas . . 80 
 
 II.—On the Kinds of Development in Ideas . . 43 
 
 III.—On the Corruption of an Idea . . .57 
 
 § 1.—Distinctive Tests between Development and 
 
 Corruption .... ib. 
 
 § 2.-—First Test of a True Development.—Preser¬ 
 vation of Type or Idea . . . G4 
 
 § 3.—Second Test.—Continuity of Principles . 66 
 
 § 4.—Further Remarks on the Second Test . 70 
 
 § 5.—Third Test.—Power of Assimilation . 73 
 
 § 6.—Fourth Test.—Early Anticipation . .77 
 
 § 7.—Fifth Test.—Logical Sequence . , 80^ 
 
 § 8.—Sixth Test.—Preservative Additions . 86 
 
 § 9.—Seventh Test.—Chronic Continuance . 90 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN IDEAS, ANTECEDENTLY 
 
 CONSIDERED. 
 
 Sec. I.—On the Probability of Developments in Christianity . 94 
 
 II.—On the Probability of a Developing Authority in 
 
 Christianity . . . . .114 
 
XIV 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ON THE NATURE OF THE ARGUMENT IN BEHALF OF THE EXISTING 
 DEVELOPMENTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Sec. I.—Presumptive Character of the Proof . .131 
 
 II.—Character of the Evidence . . .139 
 
 III. —Method of Conducting the Inquiry . .146 
 
 IV. —Instances in Illustration . . . .158 
 
 V.—Parallel Instances . . . .179 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE ARGUMENT IN BEHALF OF THE EXISTING 
 DEVELOPMENTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Sec. I.—Application of the First Test of Fidelity in Develop¬ 
 ment.—The Church of, the First Centuries . 204 
 
 II.—Application continued.—The Church of the Fourth 
 
 Century . > . . . . 242 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS CONTINUED. 
 
 Application of the First Test continued.—The Church of the 
 
 Fifth and Sixth Centuries . . . .270 
 
 Sec. I.—The Arians of the Gothic race . . .271 
 
 II. —The Nestorians . . . . .281 
 
 III. —The Monophysites . . . .293 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS CONTINUED. 
 
 Sec. I.—Application of the Second Test of .Fidelity in Deve¬ 
 lopment ..... 318 
 
 § 1.—Scripture and its Mystical Sense . .319 
 
 § 2.—The Supremacy of Faith . . . 327 
 
 II.—Application of the Second and Third Tests.—The 
 Dogmatic and Sacramental Principles, and the For¬ 
 mation of a Theology by means of them . .337 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS CONTINUED. 
 
 Application of the Fourth Test of Fidelity in Development 
 § 1.—Resurrection and Relics 
 § 2 .—Cultus of Saints and Angels 
 § 3.—Merit of Virginity . 
 
 § 4.—Office of St. Mary . 
 
 § 5.—Specimens of Theological Science 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS CONCLUDED. 
 
 Sec. I.—-Application of the Fifth Test of Fidelity in Develop¬ 
 ment . . . . . .397 
 
 § 1.—Developments growing out of the Question of 
 
 our Lord’s Divinity . . . ib. 
 
 § 2.—Developments following upon the Doctrine of 
 
 Baptism . * . . . 410 
 
 II. —Application of the Sixth Test of Fidelity in Develop¬ 
 
 ment . . . . 428 
 
 III. —Application of the Seventh Test of Fidelity in De¬ 
 
 velopment . . . . .445 
 
 XV 
 
 PAGE 
 
 369 
 
 ib. 
 
 376 
 
 381 
 
 384 
 
 388 
 
 CORRIGENDA. 
 
 Page 3, line l,/or were read was. 
 
 „ 205, line 7 from end, for punishment those, read punishment, those. 
 „ 284, note, for Ephrem read Ephraem. 
 
 „ 285, note, for Ephrem read Ephraem. 
 
 „ 338, line 18, dele of. 
 
 „ 357, line 2b, for Old read the Old. 
 
 „ 365, line 21, for infusion read allusion. 
 
 „ 368, line 9, for devoutedness read devoutness. 
 
 „ 394, line 3, for born read borne. 
 
 „ 394, for tKvo(popr)Qr) read hcvo(popr)Sr}- 
 „ 445, line 1 9, for Matrum read Matrem. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 ' r " v 11 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Christianity has been long enough in tlie world 
 to justify us in dealing with it as a fact in the 
 world’s history. Its genius and character, its doc¬ 
 trines, precepts, and objects cannot be treated as 
 matters of private opinion or deduction, unless we 
 may reasonably so regard the Spartan institutions 
 or the religion of Mahomet. It may indeed legi¬ 
 timately be made the subject-matter of theories; 
 what is its moral and political excellence, what its 
 due location in the range of ideas or of facts which 
 we possess, whether it be divine or human, whether 
 original or eclectic, or both at once, how far favour¬ 
 able to civilization or to literature, whether a re¬ 
 ligion for all ages or for a particular state of society, 
 these are questions upon the fact, or professed 
 solutions of the fact, and belong to the province of 
 opinion; but to a fact do they relate, on an ad¬ 
 mitted fact do they turn, which must be ascertained 
 as other facts, and surely has on the whole been 
 so ascertained, unless the testimony of so many 
 centuries is to go for nothing. Christianity is no 
 dream of the study or the cloister. It has long 
 since passed beyond the letter of documents and 
 the reasonings of individual minds, and has become 
 public property. Its “ sound has gone out into all 
 lands,” and its “words unto the ends of the world.” 
 It has from the first had an objective existence, 
 and has thrown itself upon the great concourse of 
 men. Its home is in the world; and to know what 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 2 
 
 it is, we must seek it in the world, and hear the 
 world’s witness of it. 
 
 The hypothesis, indeed, has met with wide re¬ 
 ception in these latter ages, that Christianity does 
 not fall within the province of history,—that it is 
 to each man what each man thinks it to be, and 
 nothing else; and thus in fact is a mere name for 
 a number of different religions all together, at va¬ 
 riance one with another, and claiming the same 
 appellation, not because they can assign any one 
 and the same doctrine as the common foundation 
 of all, but because certain points of agreement may 
 be found here and there of some sort or other, by 
 which each in its turn is connected with one or 
 another of its neighbours. Or again, it has been 
 maintained, or implied, that all existing denomi¬ 
 nations of Christianity are wrong, none represent¬ 
 ing it as taught by Christ and His Apostles; that 
 it died out of the world at its birth, and was forth¬ 
 with succeeded by a counterfeit or counterfeits 
 which assumed its name, though they inherited 
 but a portion of its teaching; that it has existed 
 indeed among men ever since, and exists at this 
 day, but as a secret and hidden .doctrine, which 
 does but revive here and there under a supernatural 
 influence in the hearts of individuals, and is mani¬ 
 fested to the world only by glimpses or in gleams, 
 according to the number or the station of the illu¬ 
 minated, and their connexion with the history of 
 their times. 
 
 This is what, with more or less distinctness, is 
 said or thought; and it is sufficient to observe 
 upon it simply that it is an hypothesis, which has 
 no claim on our time and attention till facts are 
 adduced on which it is built, or for which it ac¬ 
 counts. Till it is shown why we should view the 
 matter differently, it is natural, or rather necessary, 
 it is agreeable to our modes of proceeding in parallel 
 cases, to consider that the society of Christians 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 which the Apostles left on earth were of that reli¬ 
 gion to which the Apostles had converted them; 
 that the external continuity of name, profession, and 
 communion is a primd facie argument for a real 
 continuity of doctrine; that, as Christianity began 
 by manifesting itself to all mankind, therefore it 
 went on to manifest itself; and that the more, con¬ 
 sidering that prophecy had already determined that 
 it was to be a power visible in the world and so¬ 
 vereign over it, characters which are accurately ful¬ 
 filled in that historical Christianity to which we 
 commonly give the name. It is not a great as¬ 
 sumption, then, but rather mere abstinence from 
 the wanton admission of a principle which would 
 necessarily lead to the most vexatious and prepos¬ 
 terous scepticism , 1 to take it for granted that the 
 Christianity of the second, fourth, seventh, twelfth, 
 sixteenth, and intermediate centuries is in its 
 substance the very religion which Christ and his 
 Apostles taught in the first, whatever may be the 
 modifications for good or for evil which lapse of 
 years, or the vicissitudes of human affairs have 
 impressed upon it. 
 
 I am not denying the abstract possibility of ex¬ 
 treme changes. The substitution is certainly, in 
 idea, supposable of a counterfeit Christianity for the 
 original, by means of the adroit innovations of sea¬ 
 sons, places, and persons, till, according to the fami¬ 
 liar illustration, the “blade” and the “handle” are 
 successively renewed, and identity is lost without 
 the loss of continuity. It is possible; but it must 
 not be assumed. The onus prohandi is with those 
 who assert what it is unnatural to expect; to be 
 just able to doubt is no warrant for disbelieving. 
 
 Accordingly, some writers have gone on to give 
 reasons from history for their refusing to appeal to 
 it. They say that, when they come to look into 
 
 1 On “The Difficulties of Latitudinarianism,” vide Tracts for the 
 Times, No. 85, Lecture 2. 
 
 B 2 
 
4 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the history of Christianity, they find its doctrines 
 so variously represented, and so inconsistently main¬ 
 tained by its professors, that, however natural it be 
 a priori , it is useless, in fact, to seek in history the 
 matter of that Revelation which has been vouchsafed 
 to mankind; that they cannot be historical Chris¬ 
 tians if they would. They say, in the words of 
 Chiliingworth, “There are popes against popes, 
 councils against councils, some fathers against 
 others, the same fathers against themselves, a con¬ 
 sent of fathers of one age against a consent of 
 fathers of another age, the Church of one age 
 
 against the Church of another age.” And it must 
 be allowed to such persons that, while reason ante¬ 
 cedently suggests an historical inquiry, as the 
 means of arriving at a knowledge of Christianity, 
 it makes no promise that difficulties will not embar¬ 
 rass its course, or even, preclude its satisfactory 
 completion. The remoteness or the nearness of the 
 times, the scantiness or the abundance of materials, 
 the multitude of details, the depth and intricacy 
 of the system, the subtle intermixture of received 
 teaching and personal opinion, and the disorder 
 which is ineyitable in any mass of historical facts,— 
 the problem of finding a point of view from which 
 minds born under the gracious shelter of Revelation 
 may approximate to an external and general survey 
 of it,—these are considerations which lead to mis¬ 
 givings, that, even though history be the true mode 
 of determining the character of Christianity, still it 
 cannot be satisfactorily used for the purpose. 
 
 Row it cannot be denied that this anticipation is 
 in a measure, though only in a measure, fulfilled. 
 It is not fulfilled in such sense that an inquirer, 
 coming to history, would not obtain a certain defi¬ 
 nite impression what Christianity was, and certain 
 general views of its doctrines, principles, and cha¬ 
 racteristics. The nature and temper of the religion, 
 as a matter of fact, no one can mistake, whether he 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 h 
 
 accept it or stumble at it. No one, for instance, 
 will say that Christianity has not always taught 
 benevolence and mercy; that it lias sanctioned in¬ 
 justice, or made light of impurity; that its spirit 
 has been sceptical; that it has discountenanced what 
 is called the sacramental principle, or the principle 
 of mystery. Bold outlines, which cannot be disre¬ 
 garded, rise out of the records of the past, when wc 
 look to see what it will give up to us: they may be 
 dim, they may be incomplete, but they are definite; 
 —there is that which they are not, which they can¬ 
 not be. Whatever be historical Christianity, it is not 
 Pr otestantism. If eve r there were a safe truth, it 
 is this. 
 
 And Protestantism has ever felt it. I do not 
 mean that every Protestant writer has felt it; for 
 it was the fashion at first, at least as a rhetorical 
 argument against Rome, to appeal to past ages, or to 
 some of them; but Protestantism, as a whole, feels 
 it, and has felt it. This is shown in the determina¬ 
 tion already referred to, of dispensing with histori¬ 
 cal Christianity altogether, and of forming a Chris¬ 
 tianity from the Bible alone : men never would 
 have put it aside, unless they had despaired of it. 
 It is shown by the long neglect of ecclesiastical 
 history in England, which prevails even in the 
 English Church. Our popular religion scarcely 
 recognises the fact of the twelve lone; acres which 
 lie between the Councils of Nicsea and Trent, ex¬ 
 cept as affording one or two passages to illustrate 
 its wild interpretations of certain prophecies of St. 
 Paul and St. John. It is melancholy to say it, but 
 the chief, perhaps the only English writer who has 
 any claim to be considered an ecclesiastical historian, 
 is the infidel Gibbon. German Protestantism, on 
 the other hand, has been of a bolder character; it 
 has calmly faced and carefully surveyed the Chris¬ 
 tianity of eighteen hundred years, and it frankly 
 avows that it is a mere religion of man and the 
 
- 6 * 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 accident of a period. It considers it a syncretism 
 of various opinions springing up in time and place, 
 and forming such combinations one with another as 
 their respective characters admitted; it considers it 
 as the religion of the childhood of the human mind, 
 and curious to the philosopher as a phenomenon. 
 r And the utter incongruity between Protestantism 
 and historical Christianity is true whether the latter 
 be regarded in its earlier or in its later centuries. 
 /Protestants can as little bear its Ante-nicene as its 
 t Post-tridentine period. I have elsewhere observed 
 on this circumstance: u So much must the Protes¬ 
 tant grant that, if such a system of doctrine as he 
 would now introduce ever existed in early times, it 
 has been clean swept away as if by a deluge, suddenly, 
 silently, and without memorial; by a deluge com¬ 
 ing in a night, and utterly soaking, rotting, heaving 
 up, and hurrying off every vestige of what it found 
 in the Church, before cock-crowing: so that 4 when 
 they rose in the morning ’ her true seed 4 were all 
 dead corpses’—nay dead and buried—and without 
 grave-stone. 1 The waters went over them; there 
 was not one of them left; they sunk like lead in the 
 mighty waters.’ Strange antitype,* indeed, to the 
 early fortunes of Israel!—then the enemy was 
 drowned, and 4 Israel saw them dead upon the sea¬ 
 shore.’ But now, it would seem, water proceeded 
 as a flood 4 out of the serpent’s mouth,’ and covered 
 all the witnesses, so that not even their dead bodies 
 4 lay in the streets of the great city.’ Let him take 
 which of his doctrines he will, his peculiar view of 
 self-righteousness, of formality, of superstition; his 
 notion of faith, or of spirituality in religious wor¬ 
 ship ; his denial of the virtue of the sacraments, or 
 of the ministerial commission, or of the visible 
 Church ; or his doctrine of the divine efficacy of 
 the Scriptures as the one appointed instrument of 
 religious • teaching; and let him consider how far 
 antiquity, as it has come down to us, will counte- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 7 
 
 i 
 
 nance him in it. No; he must allow that the alleged 
 deluge has done its work; yes, and has in turn dis¬ 
 appeared itself, it has been swallowed up in the 
 earth mercilessly as itself was merciless .” 1 
 
 That Protestantism, then, is not the Christianity ^ 
 of history, it is easy to determine; but there is a de¬ 
 termination which is difficult. It is difficult to com¬ 
 plete, to finish from history that picture of the divine 
 religion which, even in its outlines, is sufficient to 
 condemn Protestantism, though not sufficient to im- 
 print upon our minds the living image of Christi¬ 
 anity. Confused, inaccurate knowledge is no know¬ 
 ledge. It is the very fault we find with youths 
 under education that thev use words without mean- 
 ing, that they are wanting in precision and distinc- 
 ness, that they are ignorant what they know and 
 what they do not know. We account this a great 
 defect of mind, which must be overcome. Now our 
 difficulty lies in getting beyond this half-knowledge 
 of Christianity, if we make history our teacher; in 
 obtaining from it views serviceable, ready, for belief 
 and practice, whole views, definite answers to definite 
 questions, critical decisions between truth and error, 
 explanations of its own variations, measures of its 
 meaning. History is not a creed or a catechism ; 
 i t give s lesso ns r ather than rules; it does not bring 
 out clearly upon tKe canvass the~details which were 
 familiar to the ten thousand minds of whose com¬ 
 bined movements and fortunes it treats. Such is 
 it from its very nature; nor can the defect ever ► 
 fully be remedied. This must be admitted: at the 
 same time, principles may be laid down with consi¬ 
 derable success as keys to its various notices, ena¬ 
 bling: us to arrange and reconcile them. 
 
 Such a key, as regards the teaching of Christi¬ 
 anity, it has been imagined was contained in the ce le- 
 brated dictum of Vincentius,—a method of account¬ 
 ing for whatever variations we may find in the 
 
 1 Church of the Fathers, p. 327. 
 
8 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 historical testimonies concerning it, of separating 
 authoritative doctrine from opinion, of rejecting 
 what is faulty, and combining and forming a theo¬ 
 logy. That u Christianity is what has been held 
 always, everywhere, and by all,” certainly promises 
 a solution of the perplexities, an interpretation of 
 the meaning of history. What can be more natural 
 than that divines and bodies of men should speak 
 sometimes from themselves, sometimes from tradi¬ 
 tion ? what more natural than that individually they 
 should say many things on impulse, or under ex¬ 
 citement, or as conjectures, or in ignorance? what 
 more certain than that they must have been all in¬ 
 structed and catechised in the Creed of the Apos¬ 
 tles? what more evident than that what was their 
 own would in its degree be peculiar, and differ from 
 what was similarly private and personal in their 
 brethren ? what more conclusive than that the 
 doctrine that was common to all at once was not 
 really their own, but public property in which they 
 had a joint interest, and proved by the concurrence 
 of so many witnesses to have come from an aposto¬ 
 lical source? Here, then, we have a short and easy 
 method for reconciling the various informations of 
 ecclesiastical history with that antecedent probabi¬ 
 lity in its favour, which nothing but its actual varia¬ 
 tions would lead us to neglect. 
 
 Such is the rule of historical interpretation which 
 has been professed in the' English school of divines; 
 and it contains a majestic truth, and offers an intel¬ 
 ligible principle, and wears a reasonable air. It is 
 congenial, or, as it may be said, native to the An¬ 
 glican mind, which takes up a middle position, nei- 
 
 f 
 
 ther discarding the Fathers nor acknowledging the 
 Pope. It lays down a simple rule by which to mea¬ 
 sure the value of every historical fact as it comes, 
 and thereby it provides a bulwark against Rome 
 while it opens an assault upon Protestantism. Such 
 is its promise; but its difficulty lies in applying it in 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 9 
 
 particular cases. The rule is more serviceable in 
 determining what is not, than what is Christianity; \ 
 it is irresistible against Protestantism, and in one , 
 sense indeed it is irresistible against Pome also, but / 
 in the same sense it is irresistible against England. 
 
 It strikes at Pome through England. It admits of 
 being interpreted in one of two ways: if it be nar¬ 
 rowed for the purpose of disproving the catholicity 
 of the Creed of Pope Pius, it becomes also an objec¬ 
 tion to the Athanasian; and if it be relaxed to 
 admit the doctrines retained by the English Church, 
 it no longer excludes certain doctrines of Pome 
 which that Church denies. It cannot at once con -) 
 demn St. Thomas and St. Bernard, and defend St./ 
 Athanasius and St. Gregory Nazianzen. 
 
 This general defect in its serviceableness has been 
 heretofore felt by those who appealed to it. It has 
 been said: “The Pule of Vincent is not of a mathe¬ 
 matical or demonstrative character, but moral, and 
 requires practical judgment and good sense to apply 
 it. For instance, what is meant by being ‘ taught 
 alwaysV does it mean in every century, or every 
 year, or every month ? Does ‘ every where 1 mean in 
 every country, or in every diocese? and does ‘the 
 Consent of Fathers ’ require us to produce the direct 
 testimony of every one of them? How many Fa¬ 
 thers, how many places, how many instances con¬ 
 stitute a fulfilment of the test proposed? It is, then, 
 from the nature of the case, a condition which never 
 can be satisfied as fully as it might have been. It 
 admits of various and unequal application in various 
 instances; and what degree of application is enough, 
 must be decided by the same principles which guide 
 us in the conduct of life, which determine us in 
 politics, or trade, or war, which lead us to accept 
 Revelation at all, for which we have but probabi¬ 
 lity to show at most, nay, to believe in the exist¬ 
 ence of an intelligent Creator .” 1 
 
 1 Proph. Office, pp. 68, 69, ed. 2. 
 
10 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 So much was allowed by the writer; but then he 
 added:— 
 
 “ This character, indeed, of Vincent’s Canon, will 
 but recommend it to the disciples of the school of 
 Butler, from its agreement with the analogy of 
 nature; but it affords a ready loophole for such as 
 do not wish to be persuaded, of which both Pro¬ 
 testants and Romanists are not slow to avail them¬ 
 selves.” 
 
 This is the language of disputants who are more 
 intent on assailing others than defending them¬ 
 selves; as if similar loopholes were not necessary 
 for Anglican theology. 
 
 He elsewhere says: u What there is not the 
 shadow of a reason for saying that the Fathers 
 held, what has not the faintest pretensions of being 
 a Catholic truth, is this, that St. Peter or his suc¬ 
 cessors were and are universal Bishops, that they 
 have the whole of Christendom for their one diocese 
 in a way in which other Apostles and Bishops had 
 v and have not .” 1 Most true, if, in order that a 
 doctrine be considered Catholic, it must be for- 
 | mally stated by the Fathers generally from the very 
 | first; but, on the same understanding, the doctrine 
 also of the apostolical succession in the episcopal 
 j order u has not the faintest pretensions of being a 
 \ Catholic truth.” 
 
 Nor was this writer without a feeling of the dif¬ 
 ficulty of his school; and he attempted to meet it 
 by denying it. He wished to maintain that the 
 sacred doctrines admitted by the Church of Eng¬ 
 land into her Articles were taught in primitive 
 times with a distinctness which- could not be fan¬ 
 cied to attach to the characteristics of Rome. 
 
 u We confidently affirm,” he said in another pub¬ 
 lication, u that there is not an article in the Atha- 
 nasian Creed concerning’ the Incarnation which is 
 not anticipated in the controversy with the Gnos¬ 
 tics. There is no question which the Apollinarian 
 
 1 Ibid, p. 221. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ir 
 
 or the Nestorian heresy raised which may not be 
 decided in the words of Irenaeus and Tertullian .” 1 
 
 This may be considered as true. It may be true 
 also, or shall here be assumed, for there will be an 
 opportunity of recurring to the subject, that there 
 is also a consensus in the Ante-nicene Church for 
 the doctrines of our Lord’s Consubstantiality and 
 Coeternity with the Almighty Father. Let us 
 allow that the whole circle of doctrines, of which 
 our Lord is the subject, was consistently and uni¬ 
 formly confessed by the Primitive Church, though 
 not ratified formally in Council. But it surely is 
 otherwise with the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity. 
 I do not see in what sense it can be said that there 
 is a consensus of primitive divines in its favour, 
 which will not avail also for certain doctrines of 
 the Roman Church which will presently come into 
 mention. And this is a point which the writer of 
 the above passages ought to have more distinctly 
 brought before his mind and more carefully weigh¬ 
 ed ; but he seems to have fancied that Bishop Bull 
 proved the primitiveness of the Catholic doctrine 
 concerning the Holy Trinity as well as concerning 
 our Lord. 
 
 Row it should be clearly understood what it 
 is which must be shown by those who would 
 prove it. Of course the doctrine of our Lord’s di¬ 
 vinity itself partly implies and partly recommends 
 the doctrine of the Trinity; but implication and 
 suggestion belong to another kind of proof which 
 has not yet come into consideration. Moreover the 
 statements of a particular father may certainly be 
 of a most important character; but one divine is 
 not equal to a Catena. We must have a whole 
 doctrine stated by a whole Church. The Catholic 
 Truth in question is made up of a number of sepa¬ 
 rate propositions, each of which, if maintained with¬ 
 out the rest, is a heresy. In order then to prove 
 that all the Ante-nicene writers taught it, it is not 
 1 British Critic, July 1836, p. 193. 
 
12 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 enough to prove that eacli has gone far enough to 
 he a heretic—not enough to prove that one has held 
 that the Son is God, (for so did the Sabellian, so did 
 the Macedonian,) and another that the Father is not 
 the Son, (for so did the Arian,) and another that the 
 Son is equal to the Father, (for so did the Tritheist,) 
 and another that there is but One God, (for so did 
 the Unitarian,)—not enough that many attached 
 in some sense a Threefold Power to the idea of the 
 Almighty, (for so did almost all the heresies that 
 ever existed, and could not but do so, if they ac¬ 
 cepted the Mew Testament at all;) but we must 
 show that all these statements at once, and others 
 too, are laid down by as many separate testimonies 
 as may fairly be taken to constitute a u consensus of 
 doctors.” It is true indeed that the subsequent 
 profession of the doctrine in the Universal Church 
 creates a presumption that it was held even before 
 it was professed; and it is fair to interpret the early 
 Fathers by the later. This is true, and admits of 
 application to certain other doctrines besides that of 
 the Blessed Trinity in Unity; but there is as little 
 room for antecedent probabilities as for the argu¬ 
 ment from intimations in the Quod semper , quod 
 ubique , quod ab omnibus , as it is commonly under¬ 
 stood by English divines. What we need is a suf¬ 
 ficient number of Ante-nicene statements, each dis¬ 
 
 tinctly anticipating the Athanasian Creed. 
 
 Now let us look at the leading facts of the case, 
 in appealing to which 1 must not be supposed to be 
 ascribing any heresy to the holy men whose words 
 have not always been sufficiently full or exact to 
 preclude the imputation. First, the Creeds of that 
 early day make no mention in their letter of the 
 Catholic doctrine at all. They make mention in¬ 
 deed of a Three; but that there is any mystery 
 in the doctrine, that the Three are One, that "They 
 are coequal, coeternal, ail increate, all omnipotent, 
 all incomprehensible, is not stated, and never could 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 be gathered from them. Of course we believe that 
 they imply it, or rather intend it. God forbid we 
 should do otherwise ! But nothing; in the mere 
 letter of those documents leads to that belief. To 
 give a deeper meaning to their letter, we must in¬ 
 terpret them by the times which came after. 
 
 Again, there is one and one only great doctrinal 
 Council in Ante-nicene times. It was held at An¬ 
 tioch, in the middle of the third century, on occasion 
 of the incipient innovations of the Syrian heretical 
 school. Now the Fathers there assembled, for what¬ 
 ever reason, condemned, or at least withdrew, when 
 it came into the dispute, the word u Homousion,” 
 which was received at Niciea as the special symbol 
 of Catholicism against Arius. 1 
 
 Again, the six great Bishops and Saints of the 
 Ante-nicene Church were St. Iremeus, St. Hippoly- 
 tus, St. Cyprian, St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, St. 
 Dionysius of Alexandria, and St. Methodius. Of 
 these, St. Dionysius is accused by St. Basil of 
 having sown the first seeds of Arianism; 2 and St. 
 Gregory is allowed by the same learned Father to 
 have used language concerning our Lord, which he 
 only defends on the plea of an economical object 
 in the writer. 3 St. Hippolytus speaks as if he were 
 ignorant of our Lord’s Eternal Sonship; 4 St. Metho¬ 
 dius speaks incorrectly at least upon the Xncarna- 
 
 1 This of course has been disputed, as is the case with almost all 
 facts which bear upon the decision of controversy. I shall not think 
 it necessary to notice the possibility or the fact of objections on ques¬ 
 tions upon which the world may now be said to be agreed; e. g. the 
 arianizing tone of Eusebius. 
 
 2 a^ECov ravTijal rrjc pvp 7repL^rpv\\ovgipr]g aatfieiac, Ti/g /card 
 to ’A pogoLOv Xiyo), ovTog iffrtp, ocra ye ygeTg ’tags v, 6 vpatrog 
 (ip$pu)Troig ra cnrepgctTa 7 rapcujygop. Ep. ix. 2. 
 
 3 Bull, Defens. F. N. ii. 12, § 6. 
 
 4 “ The authors who make the generation temporary, and speak 
 not expressly of any other, are these following : Justin, Athenagoras, 
 Theophilus, Tatian, Tertullian, and Hippolytus.' 1 — JVaterland, vol. i. 
 part 2, p. 104. 
 
14 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 tion; 1 and St. Cyprian does not treat of theology 
 at all. Such is the incompleteness of the extant 
 teaching of these true saints, and, in their day, 
 faithful witnesses of the Eternal Son. 
 
 Again, Athenagoras, St. Clement, Tertullian, and 
 the two SS. Dionysii would appear to be the only 
 writers whose language is at any time exact and 
 systematic enough to remind us of the Athanasian 
 Creed. If we limit our views of the teaching of 
 the Fathers by what they expressly state, St. Igna¬ 
 tius may be considered as a Patripassian, St. Justin 
 arianizes, and St. Hippolytus is a Photinian. 
 
 Again, there are three great doctrinal writers of 
 the Ante-nicene centuries, Tertullian, Origen, and, 
 we may add, Eusebius, though he lived some way 
 into the fourth. Tertullian is heterodox on the 
 doctrine of our Lord’s divinity, 2 and, indeed, ulti- 
 \ mately fell altogether into heresy or schism; Origen 
 is, at the very least, suspected, and must be de¬ 
 fended and explained rather than cited as a witness 
 of orthodoxy; and Eusebius was an Arian. 
 
 Moreover, it may be questioned whether any Ante- 
 nicene father distinctly affirms either the numerical 
 Unity or the Coequality of the Three Persons; except 
 perhaps the heterodox Tertullian, and that chiefly 
 in a work written after he had become a Montanist: 3 
 yet to satisfy the Anti-roman use of Quod semper , 
 fc., surely we ought not to be left for these 
 great articles of doctrine to the testimony of a later 
 age. 
 
 1 “ Levia sunt,” says Maran in his defence, “ quae in Sanctissi- 
 mara Trinitatem hie liber peccare dicitur, paulo graviora. quae in 
 mysterium Incarnationis.” Div. Jes. Christ, p. 527. * Shortly after, 
 p. 530, “ In tertia oratione nonnulla legimus Incarnationem Domini 
 spectantia, quae subabsurde dicta fateor, nego impie cogitata.” 
 
 2 Bishop Bull, who is tender towards him, allows, “Ut quod 
 res est dicam, cum Valentinianis hie et reliquo gnosticorum grege 
 aliquatenus locutus est Tertullianus; in re ipsa tamen cum C-atho- 
 licis omnino sensit.”— Defens . F. N. iii. 10, § 15. 
 
 3 Adv. Prax. 
 
INTK< )DUCTION. 
 
 15 
 
 Further, Bishop Bull allows that “nearly all the 
 ancient Catholics who preceded Ariiis have the 
 appearance of being ignorant of the invisible and 
 incomprehensible ( immensam ) nature of the Son of 
 God;” 1 an article expressly contained in the Atha- 
 nasian Creed under the sanction of its anathema. — 
 
 It must be asked, moreover, how much direct 
 and literal testimony the Ante-nicene Fathers give, 
 one by one, to the divinity of the Holy Spirit? 
 This alone shall be observed, that St. Basil, in the 
 fourth century, finding that, if he distinctly called 
 the Third Person in the Blessed Trinity by the 
 Name of God, he should be put out of the Church 
 by the Arians, pointedly refrained from doing so 
 on an occasion on which his enemies were on the 
 watch; and that, when some Catholics found fault 
 with him, St. Athanasius took his part. 2 Could 
 this possibly have been the conduct of any true 
 Christian, not to say Saint, of a later age ? that is, 
 whatever be the true account of it, does it not 
 suggest to us that the "testimony of those early 
 times lies very unfavourably for the application of 
 the rule of Yincentius ? 
 
 Let it not be for a moment supposed that I im¬ 
 pugn the orthodoxy of the early divines, or the 
 cogency of their testimony among fair inquirers; 
 but X am trying them by that unfair interpretation 
 of Yincentius, which is necessary in order to make 
 him available against the Church of Rome. And 
 now, as to the positive evidence which the Fathers 
 offer in behalf of the Catholic doctrine of the 
 Trinity, it has been drawn out by Dr. Burton, and 
 seems to fall under two heads. One is the general 
 ascription of glory to the Three Persons together, 
 both by fathers and churches, and that on continu¬ 
 ous tradition and from the earliest times. Under 
 the second fall certain distinct statements of particular 
 Fathers; thus we find the word “ Trinity” used by 
 
 i 
 
 Defens. 
 
 F. N. iv. 
 
 o 
 
 2 Basil, eel. Ben. v r ol. 3, p. xcvj. 
 
16 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 St. Theophilus, St. Clement, St. Hippolytus, Ter¬ 
 tullian, St. Cyprian, Origen, St. Methodius; and 
 the Divine Circummcessio , the most distinctive 
 portion of the Catholic doctrine, and the unity of 
 power, or again, of substance, are declared with more 
 or less distinctness by Athenagoras, St. Iremeus, 
 St. Clement, Tertullian, St. Hippolytus, Origen, and 
 the two SS. Dionysii. This is pretty much the 
 whole of the evidence. 
 
 Perhaps it will be said we ought to take the Ante- 
 nicene Fathers as a whole, and interpret one of 
 them by another. This is to assume that they are 
 all of one school, which is a point to be proved; 
 but it is even doubtful whether, on the whole, such 
 a procedure would strengthen the argument. For 
 instance, as to the second head of the two, Ter¬ 
 tullian is the most formal and elaborate of these 
 Fathers in his statements of the Catholic doctrine. 
 u It would hardly be possible,” says Dr. Burton, after 
 quoting a passage, u for Athanasius himself, or the 
 compiler of the Athanasian Creed, to have delivered 
 the doctrine of the Trinity in stronger terms than 
 these.” 1 Yet Tertullian must be considered hete¬ 
 rodox on the doctrine of our Lord’s eternal exist¬ 
 ence. 2 If then we are to argue from his instance 
 to that of the other Fathers, we shall be driven to 
 the conclusion that even the most exact statements 
 are worth nothing more than their letter, are a 
 warrant for nothing beyond themselves, and are 
 consistent with heterodoxy where they do not 
 expressly protest against it. 
 
 And again, as to the argument derivable from 
 the Doxologies, it must not be forgotten that one of 
 
 1 Ante-nicene Test, to the Trinity, p. 69. 
 
 2 “ Quia et Pater Deiis est, et judex Deus est, non tamen ideo 
 Pater et judex semper, quia Deus semper. Nam nec Pater potuit 
 esse ante Filium, nec judex ante delictum. Fuit autem tempus, 
 cum et delictum et Filius non fuit, quod judicem, et qui Patrem 
 Dominum faceret.”— Contr. Herm. 3. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 17 
 
 the passages in St. Justin Martyr includes the wor¬ 
 ship of the Angels. “We worship and adore,” 
 he says, “ Him, and the Son who came from Him 
 and taught us these things, and the host of those 
 other good Angels, who follow and are like Him, 
 and the Prophetic Spirit.” 1 A Unitarian 2 might 
 argue from this passage that the glory and worship 
 which the early Church ascribed to our Lord was 
 not more definite than that which St. Justin was 
 ready to concede to creatures. 
 
 Thus much on the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. 
 Let us proceed to another example. There are two 
 doctrines which are generally associated with the 
 name of a Father of the fourth and fifth centuries, 
 and which can allege little definite testimony in 
 their behalf before his time,—Purgatory and Ori¬ 
 ginal Sin. The dictum of Vincent admits both or 
 excludes both, according as it is or is not rigidly 
 taken; but if used as the “Lesbian Rule,” then of 
 course it can be made to admit Original Sin and 
 exclude Purgatory. 
 
 On the one hand, the notion of suffering, or trial, 
 or punishment after this life, in the case of the faith¬ 
 ful departed, or other vague forms of the doctrine 
 of Purgatory, has almost a consensus in its favour 
 of the four first ages of the Church, though some 
 Fathers state it with far greater openness and de¬ 
 cision than others. It is, as far as words go, the 
 Confession of St. Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, 
 St. Perpetua, St. Cyprian, Origen, Lactantius, St. 
 Hilary, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Ambrose, St. 
 Basil, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, and of Nyssa, St. 
 Chrysostom, St. Jerome, St. Paulinus, and St. Au¬ 
 gustine. And, on the other hand, there is an agree- 
 
 1 Vid. infra, towards the end of the Essay, where more will be 
 said on the passage. 
 
 2 There seems no reason why we should not allow the title 
 Unitarian as we allow that of Presbyterian. Error is generally 
 partial truth. 
 
 € 
 
18 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ment of Fathers from the first that mankind has 
 derived some disadvantage from the sin of Adam. 
 
 Next, when we consider the two doctrines more 
 distinctly,—the doctrine that between death and 
 judgment there is a time or state of punishment; 
 and the doctrine that all men, naturally propagated 
 from fallen Adam, are in consequence born destitute 
 of original righteousness,—we find, on the one hand, 
 several, such as Tertullian, St. Perpetua, St. Cyril, 
 St. Hilary, St. Jerome, St. Gregory Nyssen, as far 
 as their words go, definitely declaring a doctrine 
 of Purgatory: whereas no one will say that there 
 is a testimony of the Fathers, equally strong, for the 
 doctrine of Original Sin, though it is difficult to 
 make any definite statement about their teaching 
 without going into a discussion of the subject. 
 
 On the subject of Purgatory there were, to speak 
 generally, two schools ofi opinion; the Greek, which 
 contemplated a trial of fire at the last day through 
 which all were to pass; and the African, resembling 
 more nearly the present doctrine of the Roman 
 Church. And so there were two principal views 
 of Original Sin, the Greek and the African or Latin. 
 Of the Greek, the judgment of Hooker is well-known, 
 though it must not be taken in the letter : “ The 
 heresy of freewill was a millstone about the 
 Pelagians’ neck; shall we therefore give sentence 
 of death inevitable against all those Fathers in the 
 Greek Church which, being mispersuaded, died in 
 the error of freewill?” 1 Bishop Taylor, arguing 
 for an opposite doctrine, bears a like testimony: 
 “Original Sin,” he says, as it is at this day com¬ 
 monly explicated, was not the' doctrine of the pri¬ 
 mitive Church; but when Pelagius had puddled the 
 stream, St. Austin was so angry that he stamped and 
 disturbed it more. And truly .. I do not think that 
 the gentlemen that urged against me St. Austin’s 
 opinion do well consider that I profess myself to fol- 
 
 1 Of Justification, 26. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 19 
 
 low those Fathers who we're before him; and whom 
 St. Austin did forsake, as I do him, in the ques¬ 
 tion.” 1 The same is asserted or allowed by Janse- 
 nius, Petavius, and Walch, 2 men of such different 
 schools that we may surely take their agreement as 
 a proof of the fact. A late writer, after going 
 through the testimonies of the Fathers one by one, 
 comes to the conclusion, first, that “ the Greek 
 Church in no point favoured Augustine, except in 
 teaching that from Adam’s sin came death, and, 
 (after the time of Methodius,) an extraordinary and 
 unnatural sensuality also;” next, that “the Latin 
 Church affirmed, in addition, that a corrupt and 
 contaminated soul, and that, by generation, was 
 carried on to his posterity,” 3 a doctrine denied by 
 St. Augustine and the Church since; and, lastly, 
 that neither Greeks nor Latins held the doctrine of 
 imputation. It may be observed, in addition, that 
 the doctrine of Original Sin appears neither in the 
 Apostles’ nor the Nicene Creed. 
 
 One additional specimen shall be given as a 
 sample of many others:—I betake myself to one of 
 our altars to receive the Blessed Eucharist; I have 
 no doubt whatever on my mind about the Gift 
 which that Sacrament contains; I confess to myself 
 my belief, and I go through the steps on which it 
 is assured to me. “ The Presence of Christ is here, 
 for It follows upon Consecration; and Consecration 
 is the prerogative of Priests; and Priests are made 
 by Ordination; and Ordination comes in direct line 
 
 1 Works, vol. ix. p. 396. 
 
 2 “ Quamvis igitur quam maxime fallantur Pelagiani, quum asserant, 
 peccatum originale ex Augustini profluxisse ingenio, antiquam vero 
 ecclesiam illud plane nescivisse; diffiteri tamen nemo potest, apud 
 Graecos patres imprimis inveniri loca, quae Pelagianismo favere video - 
 tur. Hinc et C. Jansenius, ‘Graeci,’ inquit, ‘nisi caute legantur et 
 intelligantur, praebere possunt occasionem errori Pelagianoet D. 
 Petavius dicit, 4 Graeci originalis fere criminis raram, nec disertam 
 mentionem scriptis suis attigerunt.’ ”— Walch. Miscell. Sacr . p. 607. 
 
 3 Horn, Comment, de Pecc. Orig. 1801, p. 98. 
 
20 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 from the Apostles. Whatever be our other misfor¬ 
 tunes, every link in our chain is safe; we have the 
 Apostolical Succession, we have a right form of con¬ 
 secration : therefore we are blessed with the great 
 Gift.” Here the question rises in me, u Who told 
 you about that Gift?” I answer, 44 1 have learned 
 it from the Fathers: I believe the Real Presence 
 because they bear witness to it. St. Ignatius calls 
 it 4 the medicine of immortality:’ St. Irenasus says 
 that 4 our flesh becomes incorrupt, and partakes of 
 life, and has the hope of the resurrection,’ as 4 being 
 nourished from the Lord’s Body and Blood; ’ that the 
 Eucharist 4 is made up of two things, an earthly 
 and an heavenly:’ 1 perhaps Origen and perhaps 
 Magnes, after him, say that It is not a type of our 
 Lord’s Body, but His Body: and St. Cyprian uses 
 language as awful as can be spoken, of those who 
 profane it. I cast my lot with them, I believe as 
 they.” Thus I reply, and then the thought comes 
 upon me a second time, 44 And do not the same 
 ancient Fathers bear witness to another doctrine, 
 which you disown? Are you not as a hypocrite, 
 listening to them when you will, and deaf when 
 you will not? How are you casting your lot with 
 the Saints, when you go but half-way with them? 
 For of whether of the two do they speak the more 
 frequently, of the Real Presence in the Eucharist, 
 or of the Pope’s Supremacy? You accept the lesser 
 evidence, you reject the greater.” 
 
 In truth, scanty as the Ante-nicene notices may 
 be of the Papal Supremacy, they are both more 
 numerous and more definite than the adducible 
 testimonies in favour of the Real Presence. The 
 testimonies to the latter are confined to a few pas¬ 
 sages such as those just quoted. On the other 
 hand, of a passage in St. Justin, Bishop Kaye re¬ 
 marks, 44 Le Nourry infers that Justin maintained 
 the doctrine of Transubstantiation; it might in my 
 opinion be more plausibly urged in favour of Con- 
 
 1 IRcr. iv. 18, § 5. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 21 
 
 substantiation, since Justin calls the consecrated 
 elements Bread and Wine, though not common 
 bread and wine 1 ... We may therefore conclude 
 that, when he calls them the Body and Blood of 
 Christ, he speaks figuratively.” “ Clement,” ob¬ 
 serves the same author, “ says that the Scripture 
 calls wine a mystic symbol of the holy blood . . . 
 Clement gives various interpretations of Christ’s ex¬ 
 pressions in John vi. respecting His flesh and blood; 
 but in no instance does he interpret them literally . . 
 His notion seems to have been that, by partaking of 
 the bread and wine in the Eucharist, the soul of 
 the believer is united to the Spirit, and that by this 
 union the principle of immortality is imparted to 
 the flesh.” 2 “ It has been suggested by some,” says 
 Waterland, “that Tertullian understood John vi. 
 merely of faith, or doctrine, or spiritual actions ; 
 and it is strenuously denied by others.” After 
 quoting the passage, he adds, “ All that one can 
 justly gather from this confused passage is that Ter¬ 
 tullian interpreted the bread of life in John vi. of the 
 Word, which he sometimes makes to be vocal, and 
 sometimes substantial, blending the ideas in a very 
 perplexed manner; so that he is no clear authority 
 for construing John vi. of doctrines, &c. All that 
 is certain is that he supposes the Word made flesh, 
 the Word incarnate to be the heavenly bread spoken 
 of in that chapter.” 3 u Origen’s general observa¬ 
 tion relating to that chapter is, that it must not be 
 literally, but figuratively understood.” 4 Again, “ It 
 is plain enough that Eusebius followed Origen in this 
 matter, and that both of them favoured the same 
 mystical or allegorical construction; whether con¬ 
 stantly and uniformly I need not say.” 5 I will but 
 add the incidental testimony afforded on a late 
 occasion:—how far the Anglican doctrine of the 
 Eucharist depends on the times before the Nicene 
 
 1 Justin Martyr, ch. 4. 2 Clem. Alex. ch. 11. 
 
 3 Works, vol. vii. p. 118—120. 4 Ibid. p. 121. 5 Ibid. p. 127. 
 
22 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Council, how far on the times after it, may be ga¬ 
 thered from the circumstance that, when a memor¬ 
 able Sermon was published on the subject, out of 
 about one hundred and forty passages from the 
 Fathers appended in the notes, not in formal proof, 
 but in general illustration, only fifteen were taken 
 from Ante-nicene writers. 
 
 With such evidence, the Ante-nicene testimonies 
 which may be cited in behalf of the authority of 
 the Holy See, need not fear a comparison. Faint 
 they may be one by one, but at least they are various, 
 and are drawn from many times and countries, and 
 thereby serve to illustrate each other, and form a 
 body of proof. Thus St. Clement, in the name of 
 th& Church of Rome, writes a letter to the Corin¬ 
 thians, when they were without a bishop; St. Igna¬ 
 tius of Antioch addresses the Roman Church, and 
 it only out of the Churches to which he writes, as 
 “ the Church which has the first seat in the place 
 of the country of the Romans;” St. Poly carp of 
 Smyrna betakes himself to the Bishop of Rome 
 on the question of Easter ; the heretic Marcion, 
 excommunicated in Pontus, betakes himself to 
 Rome; Soter, Bishop of Rome, sends alms, accord¬ 
 ing to the custom of his Church, to the Churches 
 throughout the empire, and, in the words of Euse¬ 
 bius, “ affectionately exhorted those who came to 
 Rome, as a father his children;” the Montanists 
 from Phrygia come to Rome to gain the counte¬ 
 nance of its Bishop; Praxeas, from Africa, attempts 
 the like, and for a while is successful; St. Victor, 
 Bishop of Rome, threatens to excommunicate the 
 Asian Churches; St. Iremeus speaks of Rome as “the 
 greatest Church, the most ancient, the most conspi¬ 
 cuous, and founded and established by Peter and 
 Paul,” appeals to its tradition, not in contrast indeed, 
 but in preference to that of other Churches, and 
 declares that “in this Church, every Church, that is, 
 the faithful from every side must meet” or “agree 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 MM O 
 
 together, propter potiorem principalitatem” u 0 
 Church, happy in its position,” says Tertullian, “into 
 which the Apostles poured out, together with their 
 blood, their whole doctrine.” The presbyters of St. 
 Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, complain of his 
 doctrine to St. Dionysius of Rome; the latter ex¬ 
 postulates with him, and he explains. The Em¬ 
 peror Aureli'an leaves u to the Bishops of Italy and 
 of Rome” the decision, whether or not Paul of 
 Samosata shall be dispossessed of the see-house at 
 Antioch; St. Cyprian speaks of Rome as u the See 
 of Peter and the principal Church, whence the unity 
 of the priesthood took its rise, . . whose faith has 
 been commended by the Apostles, to whom faith¬ 
 lessness can have no access;” St. Stephen refuses to 
 receive St. Cyprian’s deputation, and separates him¬ 
 self from various Churches of the East; Eortunatus 
 and Eelix, deposed by St. Cyprian, have recourse to 
 Rome; Basilides, deposed in Spain, betakes himself 
 to Rome, and gains the ear of St. Stephen. 
 
 Whatever objections may be made to this or that 
 particular fact, and I do not think any valid ones 
 can be raised, still, on the whole, I consider that a 
 cumulative argument rises from them in favour of 
 the active and the doctrinal authority of Rome, 
 much stronger than any argument which can be 
 drawn from the same era for the doctrine of the 
 Real Presence. 
 
 If it be said that the Real Presence appears by 
 the Liturgies of the fourth or fifth century to have 
 been the doctrine of the earlier, since those very 
 forms probably existed from the -first in Divine 
 worship, this is doubtless an important truth; but 
 then it is true also that the writers of the fourth 
 and fifth centuries fearlessly assert, or frankly allow, 
 that the prerogatives of Rome were derived from 
 apostolic times, and that because it was the See of 
 St. Peter. 
 
 Moreover, if the resistance of St. Cyprian and Fir 
 
24 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 milian to the Church of Rome, in the question of Bap¬ 
 tism by heretics, be urged as an argument against 
 her primitive authority, or the earlier resistance of 
 Polycrates of Ephesus, let it be considered, first, 
 whether all authority does not necessarily lead to 
 resistance; next, whether St. Cyprian’s own doc¬ 
 trine is not more weighty than his act; thirdly, 
 whether he was not already in error in the main 
 question under discussion, and Firmilian also; and, 
 lastly, which is the chief point, whether, in like 
 manner, we may not object against the Real Pre¬ 
 sence the words of Tertullian, who explains, u This 
 is my Body,” by “a figure of my Body,” and of 
 Origen, who speaks of u our drinking Christ’s Blood 
 not only in the rite of the Sacraments, but also 
 when we receive his discourses,” 1 and says that u that 
 Bread which God the Word acknowledges as His 
 Body is the Word that npurishes souls,” 2 —passages 
 which admit of a Catholic interpretation when the 
 Catholic doctrine is once proved, but which prima 
 facie run counter to that doctrine. 
 
 It does not seem possible, then, to avoid the con¬ 
 clusion that, whatever be the proper key for har¬ 
 monizing the records and documents of the early 
 and later Church, and true as the dictum of Vincen- 
 tius must be considered in the abstract, and possible 
 as its application might be in his own age, when he 
 might almost ask the primitive centuries for their 
 testimony, it is hardly available now or effective of 
 any satisfactory result. The solution it offers is as 
 difficult as the original problem. 
 
 A second hypothesis, far more widely adopted, 
 not less plausible, and in a certain measure recon¬ 
 cilable with the former, is that of an early corrup¬ 
 tion of Christianity from external sources, Oriental, 
 Platonic, and Polytheistic; an hypothesis which is 
 certainly sufficient in the abstract to account both 
 for variations which may exist in doctrine and prac- 
 
 1 Numcr. Horn. xvi. 9. 2 Interp. Com. in Matt. 85. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 25 
 
 tice, and for the growth of opinion on particular 
 points. Some light may be thrown on this hypo¬ 
 thesis as we proceed; meanwhile, however freely it 
 may be assumed and largely applied, it has no 
 claims on our attention till it is drawn out scienti¬ 
 fically;—till we are distinctly informed what the 
 real Christian doctrine or evangelical message is, or 
 if there be any; from what sources it is drawn; 
 Iioav those sources are ascertained to us; and what 
 is a corruption. 
 
 A third hypothesis, which has been put forward 
 by divines of the Church of Rome, is what has been 
 called the Disciplina Arcani. It is maintained that 
 doctrines which are associated with the later ages 
 of the Church were really in the Church from the 
 first, but not publicly taught, and that for various 
 reasons : as, for the sake of reverence, that sacred 
 subjects might not be profaned by the heathen; and 
 for the sake of catechumens, that they might not 
 be oppressed or carried away by a sudden commu¬ 
 nication of the whole circle of revealed truth. And 
 indeed the fact of this concealment can hardly be 
 denied, in whatever degree it took the shape of a 
 definite rule, which might vary with persons and 
 places. That it existed even as a rule, as regards 
 the Sacraments, seems to be confessed on all hands. 
 That it existed in other respects, as a jiractice, is 
 plain from the nature of the case, and from the 
 writings of the Apologists. Minucius Felix and 
 Arnobius, in controversy with Pagans, imply a 
 denial that then the Christians used altars ; yet Ter- 
 tullian speaks expressly of AieAraDei in the Church. 
 What can we say, but that the Apologists deny 
 altars in the sense in which they ridicule them; or, 
 that they deny that altars such as the Pagan altars 
 were tolerated by Christians ? And, in like manner, 
 Minucius allows that there were no temples among 
 Christians; yet they are distinctly recognised in the 
 edicts of the Dioclesian era, and are known to have 
 
26 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 existed at a still earlier date. It is the tendency of 
 every dominant system, such as the Paganism of 
 the Ante-nicene centuries, to force its opponents 
 into the most hostile and jealous attitude, from the 
 apprehension which they naturally feel, lest, in 
 those points in which they approximate towards it, 
 they should be misinterpreted and overborne by its 
 authority. The very fault now found with clergy¬ 
 men of the English Church, who wish to conform 
 their practices to her rubrics, and their doctrines 
 to her divines of the seventeenth century, is, that, 
 whether they mean it or no, whether legitimately 
 or no, still, in matter of fact, they will be sanction¬ 
 ing and encouraging the religion of Pome, in which 
 there are similar doctrines and practices, more 
 definite and more influential; so that, at any rate, 
 it is inexpedient to attempt what is sure to be 
 mistaken. That is, they are required to exercise a 
 disciplina arcani; and a similar reserve was in¬ 
 evitable on the part of the Catholic Church, at a 
 time when priests and altars and rites all around it 
 were devoted to malignant and incurable super¬ 
 stitions. It was wrong indeed to deny, but it was 
 a duty to withhold, the ceremonial t of Christianity; 
 and Apologists might be sometimes tempted to deny 
 absolutely what at furthest could only be denied 
 under conditions. An idolatrous Paganism tended 
 to repress the externals of Christianity, as, at this 
 day, the presence of Protestantism is said to repress, 
 though for another reason, the exhibition of the 
 Homan Catholic religion. 
 
 On various grounds, then, it is certain that por¬ 
 tions of the Church system were held back in pri¬ 
 mitive times, and of course this fact goes some way 
 to account for that apparent variation and growth 
 of doctrine which embarrasses us when we would 
 consult history for the true idea of Christianity; 
 yet it is no key to the whole difficulty, as we find 
 it, for an obvious reason;—the variations continue 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 27 
 
 beyond the time when it is conceivable that the 
 discipline was in force. 
 
 The following Essay is directed towards a solu¬ 
 tion ’of the difficulty which has been stated,—the 
 difficulty which lies in the way of using the testi¬ 
 mony of our most natural informant concerning 
 the doctrine and worship of Christianity, viz. the 
 history of eighteen hundred years. The view on 
 which it is written has at all times, perhaps, been 
 implicitly adopted by theologians, and, I believe, 
 has recently been illustrated by several distinguished 
 writers of the continent, such as De Maistre anc]^ 
 Mohler: viz. that the increase and expansion of | 
 the Christian Creed and Ritual, and the variations 
 which have attended the process in the case of in¬ 
 dividual writers and Churches, are the necessary 
 attendants on any philosophy or polity which takes 
 possession of the intellect and heart and has had 
 any wide or extended dominion; that, from the 
 nature of the human mind, time is necessary for the 
 full comprehension and perfection of great ideas; 
 and that the highest and most wonderful truths, 
 though communicated to the world once for all by 
 inspired teachers, could not be comprehended all at 
 once by the recipients, but, as received and trans¬ 
 mitted by minds not inspired and through media 
 which were human, have required only the longer 
 time and deeper thought for their full elucidation. 
 This may be called the Theory of Developments 
 and, before proceeding to treat of it, two remarks 
 may be in place. 
 
 First, it is undoubtedly an hypothesis to account 
 for a difficulty; and such too are the various expla¬ 
 nations given by astronomers from Ptolemy to 
 Newton of the apparent motions of the heavenly 
 bodies. But it is as unphilosophical on that account 
 to object to the one as to object to the other. Nay, 
 more so; for an hypothesis, such as the present, rests 
 
28 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 upon facts as well as accounts for them, and, inde¬ 
 pendent of the need of it, is urged upon us by the 
 nature of the case. Nor is it more reasonable to 
 express surprise, that at this time of day a theory is 
 necessary, granting for argument’s sake that the 
 theory is novel, than to have directed a similar 
 wonder in disparagement of the theory of gravi¬ 
 tation, or the Plutonian theory in geology. Doubt¬ 
 less, the theory of the Secret and the theory of De¬ 
 velopments are expedients, and so is the dictum of 
 Yincentius; so is the art of grammar or the use of 
 the quadrant; it is an expedient to enable us to 
 solve what has now become a necessary and an 
 anxious problem. For three hundred years the 
 documents and the facts of Christianity have been 
 exposed to a jealous scrutiny; works have been 
 judged spurious which once were received without 
 a question; facts have been discarded or modified 
 which were once first principles in argument; new 
 facts and new principles have been brought to light; 
 philosophical views and polemical discussions of 
 various tendencies have been maintained with more 
 or less success. Not only have the relative situation 
 of controversies and theologies altered, but infidelity 
 itself is in a different,—I am obliged to say in a more 
 hopeful position,—as regards Christianity. The facts 
 of revealed religion, though in their substance un¬ 
 altered, present a less compact and orderly front to 
 the attacks of its enemies, and allow of the intro¬ 
 duction of new conjectures and theories concerning 
 its sources and its rise. The state of things is not 
 as it was, when an appeal lay to the supposed works 
 of the Areopagite, or to the primitive Decretals, or to 
 St. Dionysius’s answers to Paul, or to the Coena 
 Domini of St. Cyprian. The assailants of dogmatic 
 truth have got the start of its adherents of whatever 
 Creed; philosophy is completing what criticism has 
 begun; and apprehensions are not unreasonably ex¬ 
 cited lest we should have a new world to conquer 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 29 
 
 before we have weapons for the warfare. Already 
 infidelity has its views and ideas, on which it ar¬ 
 ranges the facts of ecclesiastical history; and it is 
 sure to consider the absence of any antagonist theory 
 as an evidence of the reality of its own. That the 
 hypothesis, here to be adopted, accounts not only for 
 the Athanasian Creed, but for the Creed of Pope 
 Pius, is no fault of those who adopt it. No one has 
 power over the issues of his principles; we cannot 
 manage our argument, and have as much of it as 
 we please and no more. An argument is needed, 
 unless Christianity is to abandon the province of 
 argument; and those who find fault with the ex¬ 
 planation here offered of its historical phenomena 
 will find it their duty to provide one of their own. 
 
 And as no aim at Roman Catholic doctrine need 
 be supposed to have given a direction to the inquiry, 
 so neither can a reception of that doctrine be imme¬ 
 diately based on its results. It would be the work 
 of a life to apply the Theory of Developments so 
 carefully to the writings of the Fathers, and the 
 history of controversies and councils, as thereby to 
 vindicate the reasonableness of every decision of 
 Rome; much less can such an undertaking be ima¬ 
 gined by one who, in the middle of his days, is be¬ 
 ginning life again. So much, however, might be 
 gained even from an Essay like the present,—a solu¬ 
 tion of such a number of the reputed corruptions 
 of Rome, as might form a fair ground for trusting 
 her, where the investigation had not been pursued. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF IDEAS. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 ON THE PROCESS OE DEVELOPMENT IN IDEAS. 
 
 It is a characteristic of our minds to be ever en¬ 
 gaged in passing judgments on tlie things which 
 come before thenC " No sooner do we learn, but we 
 judge ; we allow nothing to stand by itself: we 
 compare, contrast, abstract, generalize, adjust, clas¬ 
 sify; and we view all otir knowledge in the asso¬ 
 ciations with which these processes have invested 
 it. 
 
 Of the judgments thus exercised, some are mere 
 opinions, which come and go, or remain with us 
 only till an accident displaces them, whatever in- 
 f v huence they may exert meanwhile. Others are 
 firmly fixed in our minds and have a hold over us, 
 whether they are principles of conduct, or are views 
 ^ of life and the world, or fall under the general head 
 
 of belief. These habitual judgments often go by 
 the name of ideas, and shall be called so here. 
 
 Of these ideas,—religious, political, or other¬ 
 wise relating to human affairs,—some are rg&L, 
 that is, represent facts existing; and others are 
 mere imaginations, and stand for nothing external 
 to themselves. Thus the heathen mythology, or 
 the Cartesian system of vortices, supplied a variety 
 
DEVELOPMENT IN IDEAS. 
 
 31 
 
 Sec. I.] 
 
 of ideas, which were but fanciful and unreal; 
 whereas the idea of a saint, or a hero, or a tyrant, 
 or what are called the laws of motion, are the repre¬ 
 sentatives of things. 
 
 Ideas thus described, being of the nature of judg¬ 
 ments, must, properly speaking, be considered as 
 true by those who hold them. The absence, how¬ 
 ever of this condition of course does not change 
 their nature: thus poets are familiar with fable; 
 orators and pleaders make a case or embellish a 
 character; and philosophers lay down some great 
 principle, not necessarily as representing a fact, but 
 as a generalization of phenomena, convenient, fact 
 or not, for the purposes of science. 
 
 The number of persons holding an idea is no 
 warrant for its objective character, else the many 
 never could be wrong fToFumformity of education, 
 or the sympathy kindled by enthusiasm, may carry 
 many minds into one state, in which belief in cer¬ 
 tain ideas, and the mistake of formuke or usages for 
 external truths, will be natural or necessary. Such 
 are popular superstitions; or the law of honour, as 
 professed by men of the world; or the heated no¬ 
 tions created by mob oratory; all of which are as 
 baseless and untrue as they are influential. Again, 
 a whole train of investigation or inference may de¬ 
 pend on the original admission of some one propo¬ 
 sition which is false; and the consequent unanimity 
 with which separate minds regard and treat the 
 same matters may be unfairly- taken as a concur¬ 
 rent evidence of the truth of the conclusions at 
 which they arrive. 
 
 But when one and the same idea is held by per¬ 
 sons who are i ndependent of each other, and are 
 variously circumstanced, and have possessed them¬ 
 selves of it by different Avays, and Avhen it presents 
 itself to them under very different aspects. Avithout 
 losing its substantial unity and its identity, and 
 Avhen it is thus variously presented, yet recom- 
 
 
 Vw* 
 
 
32 
 
 ON THE PROCESS OF 
 
 [Chap. I. 
 
 mended, to persons similarly circumstanced; and 
 when it is presented to persons variously circum¬ 
 stanced, under aspects, discordant indeed at first 
 sight, but reconcilable after such explanations as 
 their respective states of mind require; then it 
 seems to have a claim to be considered the repre¬ 
 sentative of an objective truth. 
 
 For instance, there is a general sentiment obtain¬ 
 ing at very different times and places, and variously 
 expressed, concerning the danger of unmixed pros¬ 
 perity, or security, or high spirits; as signified in 
 the proverbs, “Pride will have a fall,” and “Many 
 a slip,” or the Scotch saying about persons who are 
 “fie,” or the Greek (pOovtpov 6 Sa'ipwv, and the like; 
 which is proved by that manifold testimony to be 
 well founded, or to be a real law in human affairs. 
 
 “Great is Diana of the Ephesians,” is an instance, 
 on the other hand, of a popular cry long sustained, 
 to which numbers and energy contribute no credi¬ 
 bility. 
 
 An idea ever presents itself under different as¬ 
 pects to different minds, and in proportion to that 
 variety will be the proof of its reality and its dis¬ 
 tinctness. On the other hand, meagre and mono¬ 
 tonous statements, and those simply reiterated, as 
 in the case of the Ephesian clamour, betoken ideas 
 which are unreal, or which are not properly under¬ 
 stood by the speakers. Or such characteristics de¬ 
 note mystery, that is, dim information taken on 
 faith; as we see in the theological enunciations of 
 Scripture. 
 
 Ideas are not ordinarily brought home to the 
 mind, except through the medium of a variety of 
 aspects; like bodily substances, which are not seen 
 except under the clothing of their properties and 
 influences, and can be walked round and surveyed 
 on opposite sides and in different perspectives and 
 in contrary lights. And as views of a material ob¬ 
 ject may be taken from points so remote or so dis- 
 
Sec. I.] 
 
 DEVELOPMENT IN IDEAS. 
 
 33 
 
 tinct that they seem at first sight incompatible, 
 and especially as their shadows will be dispropor- 
 - tionate or even monstrous, and yet all these will be 
 harmonized together by taking account of the point 
 of vision or the surface of projection, so also all the 
 representations of an idea, even all the misrepresen¬ 
 tations, are capable of a mutual reconciliation and 
 adjustment, and of a resolution into the subject to 
 which they belong, and their contrariety, when ex¬ 
 plained, is an argument for its substantiveness and 
 integrity, and their variety for its originality and 
 power. 
 
 For instance, persons who have not cultivated 
 the science of music are often slow to believe that 
 the harmonies of its great masters are more than a 
 display of skill, or than literally a composition, 
 which falls in with the fancy of particular persons, 
 and is taken up by others as a fashion; as though 
 its laws were conventional, and proficiency in it a 
 mere successful application of general talent to a 
 medium of exhibition accidentally chosen, and as 
 if the satisfaction it affords were felt not sponta¬ 
 neously but upon rule, the mere approbation of 
 those who were witnessing instances of conformity 
 to principles which they had themselves arbitrarily 
 propounded: that is, they do not believe in the exist¬ 
 ence of truths or laws about the beauty of sounds 
 in the nature of things, external to particular 
 minds, affecting various persons variously, and mas¬ 
 tered by them in various degrees, as the case may be. 
 An instance in point may be mentioned of a person 
 under this impression, who was greatly astonished 
 to be told by another who had some knowledge of 
 the art, and a sensibility to musical creations, that, 
 in spite of this, he was not able to compose; for he 
 took it for granted that any one of fair abilities 
 who knew the rules could put them into practice, 
 and impart to himself a pleasure which Avas of his 
 own making. But ideas which are conversant with 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 ON THE PROCESS OF 
 
 [Chap. I. 
 
 realities are not ours at will, but then only and as 
 far as is given us; and they present themselves 
 very variously, and in various measures to indivi¬ 
 dual minds. 
 
 Since an idea, as has been already said, cannot- 
 be viewed except under particular aspects, the for- 
 smal statements under which it is conveyed are prac¬ 
 tically identical with itself. They introduce us to 
 that idea from which they are derived, and, so far 
 as they seem to oppose, they correct each other, and 
 serve to impress a fuller and more exact represen¬ 
 tation of their original upon the mind. 
 
 And hence, if the illustration on which we are 
 proceeding be correct, there is no one aspect such, 
 as to go the depth of a real idea, no one term or 
 proposition which can duly and fully represent it; 
 though of course one representation of it will be 
 more just and appropriate than another, and though 
 when an idea is very complex, it is allowable to 
 consider its distinct aspects as if separate ideas, for 
 the sake of convenience. Thus with alb our inti¬ 
 mate knowledge of animal life, and the structure of 
 particular animals, we cannot give a true definition 
 of any one of them, but are forced to enumerate 
 properties and accidents by way of description. 
 Nor can we enclose in a formula that intellectual 
 fact, or system of thought, which we call the Pla¬ 
 tonic philosophy, or that historical phenomenon of 
 doctrine and conduct which we call the heresy of 
 Montanus or of Manes. Again, if Protestantism 
 were said to lie in its theory of private judgment, 
 and Lutheranism in its doctrine of justification, 
 this would be an approximation to the truth; but 
 it is plain that to argue or to act as if these were 
 adequate definitions would be a serious mistake. 
 Sometimes an attempt has been made to ascertain 
 the u leading idea,” as it has been called, of Chris¬ 
 tianity; a remarkable essay as directed towards a 
 divine religion, when, even in the instance of the 
 
Sec. I.] 
 
 DEVELOPMENT IN IDEAS. 
 
 35 
 
 works of man, the task is beyond us. Thus, the 
 one idea of the Gospel has been decided by some to 
 be the restoration of our fallen race, by others phi¬ 
 lanthropy, by others the spirituality of true reli¬ 
 gious service, by others the salvation of the elect, 
 by others the union of the soul with God. AH 
 these representations are truths, as. being aspects of 
 Ch ristianity, but none of them is .ihe-whole truth. 
 
 For Christianity has many aspects: it has its imagi¬ 
 native side, its philosophical, its ethical, its politi¬ 
 cal ; it is solemn, and it is cheerful; it is indulgent, 
 and it is strict; it is light, and it is dark; it is love, 
 and it is fear. - 
 
 (When an idea, whether real or not, is of a nature 
 to interest and possess the mind, it is said to have ^ 
 life, that is, to live in the mind which is the reci¬ 
 pient of it.) Thus, mathematical ideas, real as they 
 are, cannot be called living, for they have no influ¬ 
 ence and lead to nothing. But (when some great 
 enunciation,) whether true or false, about human 
 nature, or present good, or government, or duty, 
 or religion,us carried forward into the public throng 
 and draws attention, then it is not only passively 
 admitted in this or that form into the minds of 
 men, but it becomes a living principle within themJV^ 
 leading them to an ever-new contemplation of itself, 
 an acting upon it and a propagation of it. Such 
 is the doctrine of the natural bondage of the will, 
 or of individual responsibility, or of the immor¬ 
 tality of the soul, or of the rights of man, or 
 of the divine right of kings, or of the hypocrisy 
 and tyranny of priestcraft, or of the lawfulness 
 of self-indulgence,—doctrines which are of a nature 
 to arrest, attract, or persuade, and have so far 
 the prima facie appearance of reality that they 
 may be looked at on many sides and strike various 
 minds very variously. Let one such idea get pos¬ 
 session of the popular mind, or the mind of any 
 set of persons, and it is not difficult to under- 
 
 d 2 
 
36 
 
 ON THE PROCESS OF 
 
 [Chap. I. 
 
 stand the effects which will ensue. There will be a 
 general agitation of thought, and an action of mind 
 both upon itself and upon other minds. New lights 
 will be brought to bear upon the original idea, as¬ 
 pects will multiply, and judgments will accumulate. 
 There will be a time of confusion, when conceptions 
 and misconceptions are in conflict; and it is uncer¬ 
 tain whether anything is to come of the idea at all, 
 or which view of it is to get the start of the others. 
 After a while some definite form of doctrine emerges: 
 and, as time proceeds, one view of it tVill he modi¬ 
 fied or expanded by another, and then, combined 
 with a third, till the idea in which they centre will 
 be to each mind separately what at first it was only 
 to all together. It will be surveyed, too, in its re¬ 
 lation to other doctrines or facts, to other natural 
 laws or established rules, to the varying circum¬ 
 stances of times and places, to other religions, poli¬ 
 ties, philosophies, as the case may be. How it 
 stands affected towards other systems, how it affects 
 them, how far it coalesces with them, how far it 
 tolerates, when it interferes with them, will be gra¬ 
 dually wrought out. It will be questioned and cri¬ 
 ticized by enemies, and explained by well-wishers. 
 The multitude of opinions formed concerning it, in 
 these respects and many others, will be collected, 
 compared, sorted, sifted, selected, or rejected, and 
 gradually attached to it, or separated from it, in 
 the minds of individuals and of the community. It 
 will, in proportion to its native vigour and subtlety, 
 introduce itself into the framework and details of 
 social life, changing public opinion and supporting 
 - or undermining the foundations of established order. 
 Thus in time it has grown into an ethical code, or 
 into a system of government, or into a theology, or 
 into a ritual, according to its capabilities; and this 
 I system, or body of thought, theoretical and practi¬ 
 cal, thus laboriously gained, will after all be only the 
 adequate representation of the original idea, being 
 
Sec. I.] 
 
 DEVELOPMENT IN IDEAS. 
 
 37 
 
 nothing else than what that very idea meant from 
 the first,—its e.^acLimage as seen in a combination 
 of the most diversified aspects, with the suggestions 
 and corrections of many minds, and the illustration 
 of many trials. 
 
 This proc ess is called the development of an idea, ' 
 being the g ermin ation, growth, and p erfection of 
 some living, that is, influential truth, or apparent J 
 truth, in the minds of men during a sufficient 
 period. And it has this necessary characteristic,— 
 that, since its province is the busy scene of human 
 life, it cannot develope at all, except either by des¬ 
 troying, or modifying and incorporating with it¬ 
 self, existing modes of thinking and ac ting. Its 
 development then is not like a mathematical theo¬ 
 rem worked out on paper, in which each successive 
 advance is a pure evolution from a foregoing, but it 
 is carried on through individuals and bodies of 
 men; it employs their minds as instruments, and 
 depends upon them while it uses them. And so 
 as regards their existing opinions, principles, mea¬ 
 sures, and institutions, it developes in establishing 
 relations between them and itself, in giving them a 
 meaning, in creating what may be called a jurisdic¬ 
 tion over them, in throwing off from itself what is 
 utterly heterogeneous in them. It grows when it in¬ 
 corporates ; and its purity consists, not in isolation, 
 but in its continuity and sovereignty. This it is 
 which imparts to the history both of states and of 
 religions its especially turbulent or polemical charac¬ 
 ter. Such is the explanation of the wranglings whe¬ 
 ther of Schools or of Parliaments. It is the warfare 
 of ideas, striving for the mastery, each of them 
 enterprising, engrossing, imperious, more or less 
 incompatible with the rest, and rallying followers 
 or rousing foes according as it acts upon the faith, 
 the prejudices, or the interests of individuals. 
 
 Moreover, an idea not only modifies, but, as has 
 been implied, is modified or at least influenced by 
 
 
 
38 ON THE PROCESS OE [Chap.I. 
 
 the state of things in which it is carried out, and 
 depends in various ways on the circumstances 
 around it. Its development proceeds quickly or 
 slowly; the order of succession in its separate stages 
 is irregular; it will show differently in a small sphere 
 of action and in an extended; it may be interrupted, 
 retarded, mutilated, distorted, by external violence; 
 it may be enfeebled by the effort of ridding itself of 
 domestic foes; it may be impeded and swayed or 
 even absorbed by counter energetic ideas; it may 
 be coloured by the received tone of thought into 
 which it comes, or depraved by the intrusion of 
 foreign principles, or at length shattered by the de¬ 
 velopment of some original fault within it. 
 
 But, whatever be the risk of corruption from 
 intercourse with the world around it, such a risk 
 must be undergone, if it is duly to be understood, 
 and much more if it is t b be fully exhibited. It is 
 elicited by trial, and struggles into perfection. Nor 
 does it escape the collision of opinion even in its 
 earlier years; nor does it remain truer to itself, and 
 more one and the same, though protected from vicis¬ 
 situde and change. It is indeed sometimes said that 
 the stream is clearest near the spring. Whatever use 
 may fairly be made of this image, it does not apply 
 to the history of a philosophy or sect, which, on the 
 contrary, is more equable, and purer, and stronger, 
 when its bed has become deep, and broad, and full. 
 It necessarily rises out of an existing state of 
 things, and, for a time, savours of the soil. Its 
 vital element needs disengaging from what is 
 foreign and temporary, and is employed in efforts 
 after freedom, more vigorous and hopeful as its 
 years increase. Its beginnings are no measure of 
 its capabilities, nor of its scope. At first, no one 
 knows what it is, or what it is worth. It remains 
 perhaps for a time quiescent: it tries, as it were, 
 its limbs, and proves the ground under it, and 
 feels its way. From time to time, it makes essays 
 
Sec. I.] 
 
 DEVELOPMENT IN IDEAS. 
 
 39 
 
 which fail, and are in consequence abandoned. It 
 seems in suspense which way to go; it wavers, 
 and at length strikes out in one definite direction. 
 In time it enters upon strange territory; points of 
 controversy alter their bearing; parties rise and 
 fall about it; dangers and hopes appear in new 
 relations, and old principles reappear under new 
 forms; it changes with them in order to remain 
 the same. In a higher wo rld it is otherwise; but 
 h ere b elow to live is to change, and to be perfect 
 
 . . - - .n *«' 'V " , Tr^y 1 — »- ' ■ ' ■ ' 
 
 is to have changed often. 
 
 I conclude with an example : No one but will 
 allow that Wesleyanism represents an idea, a doc¬ 
 trine, system, and polity; no one but will connect 
 it with the well-known divine and preacher whose 
 name it bears. Yet, when we look back upon its 
 course during the hundred years since it com¬ 
 menced, how many are the changes and vicissi¬ 
 tudes through which the man is connected with his 
 work! £o much so that it* is a most difficult task, 
 and one which perhaps must be reserved for a later 
 age, duly to review its history,—to say what really 
 belongs and what is foreign to it, to find a key for 
 the whole and a clue for the succession of its 
 parts. The event alone still future, which will 
 bring its completion, will also bring its interpreta¬ 
 tion. 
 
 When Mr. Wesley began his religious movement 
 at Oxford , 1 first, he visited the sick and prisoners, 
 communicated weekly, fasted on Wednesday and 
 Friday, employed himself in meditation and prayer, 
 and apparently meditated a single life, being, as he 
 afterward considered, in a state of great spiritual 
 ignorance. Moreover, he travelled on foot that he 
 might save money for the poor, doubted the lawful¬ 
 ness of secular studies, and, though in orders, re- 
 
 1 This sketch is for the most part taken from Southey, but in 
 no case from any authority later than 1837. 
 
40 ON THE PROCESS OF [Chap. I. 
 
 solved, for his soul’s sake, never to undertake 
 parochial duty. We read, too, of his letting his 
 hair flow loose on his shoulders, when it was the 
 universal fashion to wear it dressed. 
 
 Next, he goes as a Missionary to Georgia to con¬ 
 vert the Indians; and, on his voyage, progressing 
 in his asceticism, he wholly leaves off flesh and 
 wine, sleeps on the floor, and rises at four in the 
 morning. Then, he is zealous for the Rubric, 
 withholding Baptism from children except by im¬ 
 mersion, repelling one Dissenter from the commu¬ 
 nion, unless he were re-baptized, and refusing to 
 bury another. Then, he forms an attachment to a 
 lady who came to him for religious advice, disap¬ 
 points her in obedience to his Moravian directors, 
 denies her the communion on the ground of dupli¬ 
 city towards himself, is prosecuted for defamation, 
 and escapes for England while the trial is pending. 
 
 On his return, he falls under the influence of 
 Boehler, and experiences what he considers conver¬ 
 sion and assurance. He preaches the new-birth, 
 and the phenomenon of convulsions follows among 
 his hearers; pulpits are closed against him, and he 
 preaches in the fields. Converts lead to religious 
 companies; companies to meeting-houses; meeting¬ 
 houses to a lay-ministry, to which he reluctantly 
 consents. The class system and itinerancy follow. 
 
 Four years had hardly passed since his return 
 from America, and all this was done. Methodism 
 had come into existence as a society and as a doc¬ 
 trine; and its first extravagances had given way to 
 order, though to miracles it still laid claim. Charges 
 of favouring Pope and Pretender are preferred; and 
 the new Societies have to avow in emphatic terms 
 their attachment to the house of Hanover and the 
 Church of England. Other calumnies, however, 
 succeed: mobs rise and ill-treat the new religionists 
 in various places. 
 
 T he theology of the sect becomes of a definite 
 
Sec. I.] 
 
 41 
 
 DEVELOPMENT IN IDEAS. 
 
 character; it consists in the doctrines of the sensi¬ 
 ble new-birth, the suddenness of conversion, assur¬ 
 ance, the gift of perfection, and, what these tenets 
 imply, the inefficacy of forms under the gospel, 
 whether rites, polity, or even creeds. 
 
 When he is towards fifty, Mr. Wesley marries: 
 his wife is a jealous, violent-tempered woman, who, 
 at the end of twenty years, leaves him for good, 
 running off with his papers. 
 
 Soon after his return from America, he had com¬ 
 menced the Annual Conference of Preachers, regu¬ 
 lated, if the word be not a misnomer here, on this 
 principle, that in matters of practice each should 
 be ruled, as far as his conscience would allow, by 
 the majority; but in matters of opinion by himself 
 alone. He establishes this body with the avowal 
 that his followers will either leaven the whole Church 
 or be thrust out; after a time, he begins to doubt 
 whether presbyters may not ordain; next, he ob¬ 
 tains orders for some of his lay-assistants from a 
 so-styled Bishop of Arcadia; at length, when he is 
 past eighty, he himself consecrates one of his fol¬ 
 lowers as Bishop for the ordination of clergy in 
 his American congregations. 
 
 Even in his own day, and much more since his 
 death, his variations of opinion become successive 
 excuses for fresh sects. What he had received 
 from tradition, or learned from contemporaries, or 
 crudely imagined, or thrown out hastily, became 
 matter for development in others. Thus, whereas 
 he had separated from Whitfield from hatred of 
 Calvinism and had been not unwilling to praise, 
 not only St. Ignatius Loyola, but Pelagius and Ser- 
 vetus, Belly, re-acting from Whitfield, extended the 
 principle of comprehension, and gave birth to the 
 Universalists in the United States, who now num¬ 
 ber at least five hundred and fifty Churches. Again, 
 when Bell professed the gifts of miracles and pro¬ 
 phecy, Maxfield supported him, and seceded with 
 
42 
 
 ON THE PROCESS OF 
 
 [Chap. I. 
 
 a number of brethren, professing that man might be 
 absolutely perfect, infallible, and beyond temptation. 
 
 Immediately on Wesley’s death arose an agita¬ 
 tion in favour of conferring on preachers the ad¬ 
 ministration of the Sacraments ; an innovation 
 which he had on the whole steadily withstood. 
 Ivilham, who wrote a book in behalf of the measure, 
 with the significant title of “ Progress of Liberty,” 
 was expelled by the Conference, and, at the end of 
 six years after Wesley’s death, had founded the 
 Methodist New Connexion. The principle which 
 led to this secession from the body worked its way 
 within it, and had its slow development in the 
 course of twenty years. In 1816 the Conference 
 admitted it; and then a secession took place, in 
 the opposite direction, on the principle of re¬ 
 specting, as Wesley had enjoined, the prerogatives 
 of the Established Church. The new body called 
 themselves “Church Methodists,” while they named 
 the parent-society which they had left “Dissenting 
 Methodists,” and professed to be “members of the 
 Church of England”" like Mr. Wesley, having “no 
 design to interfere with the Church or with dissent¬ 
 ing societies.” 
 
 O # * 
 
 Others have wished to perpetuate the bodily ex¬ 
 travagances which attended Wesley’s first preach¬ 
 ing ; and hence the Primitive Methodists, or Ranters, 
 who even admit of female preachers, and form the 
 largest body of the Wesleyan family in Great Bri¬ 
 tain which has separated from the Conference. 
 Another secession is that of the Bryanites; another, 
 of the Independent Methodists, who reject a “hired 
 ministry,” as they call it, and admit nothing but 
 lay teachers. And another is that of the Protes¬ 
 tant Methodists, who objected, or at least objected 
 in 1829, to ministerial education, the growth of a 
 sacerdotal spirit, and the ornaments of worship, as 
 displayed in the Conference Connexion. Later still 
 is Dr. Warren’s secession, which has issued in the 
 
Sec. I.] 
 
 DEVELOPMENT IN IDEAS. 
 
 43 
 
 Wesleyan Association, founded on the general prin¬ 
 ciple of the New Connexion. 
 
 Though these various seceding bodies amount in 
 this country to above a third of the mother-persua¬ 
 sion, they are most of them comparatively small, 
 and would never be confounded with it. The Con¬ 
 ference Connexion remains the representative of the 
 Wesleyan ideas; in its gradual independence and 
 growing substantiveness, in its conservative spirit 
 in politics, in its doctrines of the new-birth, justifi¬ 
 cation, and assurance, it is following or developing 
 the principles of its founder. In its rivalry of the 
 Establishment, it has acted against his feelings and 
 advice; in the growth of the hierarchical element, it 
 has abandoned his principle for his example; in its 
 violence against the Church of Rome, it has for¬ 
 gotten the first years of his religious life; in its care 
 for ministerial education, and its relinquishment of 
 field-preaching, it shows that the point is reached 
 in its course when order takes the place of enthu¬ 
 siasm. 
 
 Varieties in a teacher, and schisms among his 
 followers, are an evidence of life; thou gh life is no 
 criterion of truth, for unreal but plausible, or iso¬ 
 lated ideas may powerfully affect multitudes. On 
 the other hand, they do not argue the absence of 
 one real idea in the movement in which they are 
 found, but only that this man or that is not infal¬ 
 lible. 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 ON TIIE KINDS OF DEVELOPMENT IN IDEAS. 
 
 To attempt an accurate analysis or complete enu¬ 
 meration of the processes of thought, whether purely 
 speculative or practical, which come under the 
 notion of development, exceeds the pretensions of 
 an Essay like the present; but, without some general 
 
44 
 
 ON THE KINDS OF 
 
 [Chap. I. 
 
 view of the various mental exercises which go by the 
 name, we shall have no security against confusion 
 in our reasoning and exposure to criticism. 
 
 1. First, then it must be borne in mind that the 
 Avord is commonly used, and is used here, in three 
 senses indiscriminately, from defect of our language; 
 on the one hand for the process of development, on 
 the other for the result; and again either generally, 
 for a development true or not true, (that is, faith¬ 
 ful or unfaithful to the ideas from Avhich it start¬ 
 ed,) or exclusively for a development deserving the 
 name. A false or unfaithful development is called a 
 corruption. 
 
 2. Next, it is plain that mathematical develop¬ 
 ments, that is, the system of truths drawn out from 
 mathematical definitions or equations, do not fall 
 under our present subject, though altogether ana¬ 
 logous to it. There can be : no corruption in such 
 development, because they are conducted on strict 
 demonstration; and the conclusions in Avhich they 
 terminate, being necessary, cannot be declensions 
 from the original idea. 
 
 3. Nor, of course, do physical developments, as 
 the groAvth of animal or vegetable nature, come 
 into consideration; excepting that, as mathematical, 
 they may be taken as illustrations of those develop¬ 
 ments to which we have to direct our attention. 
 
 4. Nor have we to consider material develop¬ 
 ments, Avhich, though effected by human contriv- 
 ance, are still physical; as the development, as it is 
 called, of the national resources. We speak, for in¬ 
 stance, of Ireland, the United States, or the valley of 
 the Indus, as admitting of a great development; by 
 Avhich Ave mean, that those countries have fertile 
 tracts, or abundant products, or broad and deep 
 rivers, or central positions for commerce, or capa¬ 
 cious and commodious harbours, the materials and 
 instruments of Avealth, and these turned to insuffi¬ 
 cient account. Development in this case- will pro- 
 
Sec. II.] 
 
 DEVELOPMENT IN IDEAS. 
 
 45 
 
 ceed by establishing marts, cutting canals, laying 
 down railroads, erecting factories, forming docks, 
 and similar works, by which the natural riches 
 of the country may be made to yield the largest 
 return and to exert the greatest influence. In this 
 sense, art is the development of nature, that is, its 
 adaptation to the purposes of utility and beauty, 
 the human intellect being the developing power. 
 
 5. When such developments as have last been 
 mentioned are connected with some continuous in¬ 
 tellectual process on which they depend, they are 
 developments of an idea, and may be called political; 
 as we see them in the growth of States or the 
 changes of a Constitution. Barbarians descend 
 into southern regions from cupidity, and their war¬ 
 rant is the sword: this is no intellectual process, 
 nor is it the mode of development exhibited in 
 civilized communities. Where civilization exists, 
 reason, in some shape or other, is the incentive or 
 the pretence of development. When an empire 
 enlarges, it is on the call of its allies, or for the 
 balance of power, or from the necessity of a de¬ 
 monstration of strength, or from a fear for its 
 frontiers. It lies uneasily in its territory, it is ill- 
 shaped, it has unreal boundary lines, deficient com¬ 
 munication between its principal points, or defence¬ 
 less or turbulent neighbours. Thus, of old time, 
 Euboea was necessary for Athens, and Cythera for 
 Sparta; and Augustus left his advice, as a legacy, 
 to confine the Empire between the Atlantic, the 
 Ehine and Danube, the Euphrates, and the Arabian 
 and African deserts. In this day, we hear of the 
 Rhine being the natural boundary of France, and 
 the Indus of our Eastern empire; and we predict 
 that, in the event of a war, Prussia will change her 
 outlines in the map of Europe. The development 
 is material; but an idea gives unity and force to its 
 movement. 
 
 And so in national politics, a late writer remarks 
 
46 
 
 ON THE KINDS OF 
 
 [Chap. I. 
 
 of the Parliament of 1628-29, in its contest with 
 Charles, that, so far from encroaching on the just 
 powers of a limited monarch, it never hinted at the 
 securities which were necessary for its measures. 
 However, “twelve years more of repeated aggres¬ 
 sions,” he adds, “ taught the Long Parliament what 
 a few sagacious men might perhaps have already 
 suspected; that they must recover more of their 
 ancient constitution, from oblivion; that they must 
 sustain its partial weakness by new securities; that, 
 in order to render the existence of monarchy com¬ 
 patible with that of freedom, they must not only 
 strip it of all it had usurped, but of something that 
 was its own.” 1 Whatever be the worth of this au¬ 
 thor’s theory, his facts or representations are an 
 illustration of a political development. 
 
 Again, at the present day, that Ireland should 
 have a population of one creed, and a Church of 
 another, is felt to be a political arrangement so un¬ 
 satisfactory, that all parties seem to agree that either 
 the population will develope in power or the Esta¬ 
 blishment in influence. 
 
 Developments in polities, though really the growth 
 of ideas, are often capricious and .intricate from the 
 nature of their subject-matter. They are influ¬ 
 enced by the character of sovereigns, the rise and fall 
 of statesmen, the fate of battles, and the number¬ 
 less casualties of the world. “ Perhaps the Greeks 
 would be still involved in the heresy of the Mono- 
 physites,” says Gibbon, “if the Emperor’s horse 
 had not fortunately stumbled. Theodosius expired, 
 his orthodox sister succeeded to the throne.” 2 
 
 Again, it often happens, or generally, that various 
 distinct and incompatible elements are found in the 
 origin or infancy of polities, or indeed of philo¬ 
 sophies, some of which must be ejected before any 
 satisfactory developments can take place, if any. 
 And they are commonly ejected by the gradual 
 
 1 Hallam’s Constit. Hist. ch. vii. p. 572. 2 Ch. xlvii. 
 
Sec. II.] 
 
 DEVELOPMENT IN IDEAS. 
 
 47 
 
 growth of the stronger. The reign of Charles the 
 First, just referred to, supplies an instance in point. 
 
 Sometimes discordant ideas are for a time con¬ 
 nected and concealed by a common profession . or 
 name. Such is the case of coalitions in politics 
 and comprehensions in religion, of which commonly 
 no good is to be expected. Such is an ordinary 
 function of committees and boards, and the sole 
 aim of conciliations and concessions, to make con¬ 
 traries look the same, and to secure an outward 
 agreement where there is no other unity. 
 
 Again, developments, reactions, reforms, revolu¬ 
 tions, and changes of various kinds are mixed to¬ 
 gether in the actual history of states, as of philo¬ 
 sophical sects, so as to make it very difficult to 
 exhibit them in any scientific analysis. 
 
 Often the intellectual process is detached from 
 the practical, and posterior to it. Thus it was after 
 Elizabeth had established the Reformation that 
 Hooker laid down his theory of Church and State 
 as one and the same, differing only in idea; and, 
 after the Revolution and its political consequences, 
 that Warburton wrote his “Alliance.” A new 
 theory is now again needed for the constitutional 
 lawyer, to reconcile the existing state of things 
 with the just claims of religion. And so, again, in 
 Parliamentary conflicts, men come to their conclu¬ 
 sions by the external pressure of events or the force 
 of principles, they do not know how; they have to 
 speak, and they look about for arguments: and a 
 pamphlet is published on the subject in debate, or 
 an article appears in a Review, to furnish common 
 places for the many. 
 
 Other developments, though political, are strictly 
 subjected and consequent to the ideas of which they 
 are the exhibitions. Thus Locke’s philosophy was 
 a real guide, not a mere defence of the Revolution 
 era, operating forcibly upon Church and government 
 in and after his day. Such too were the theories 
 
48 
 
 ON THE KINDS OF 
 
 [Chap. I. 
 
 which preceded the overthrow of the old regime in 
 France and other countries at the end of the last 
 century. 
 
 Again, perhaps there are polities founded on no 
 ideas at all, but on mere custom, as among the 
 Asiatics. 
 
 6. In other developments the intellectual cha¬ 
 racter is so prominent that they may even be called 
 logical , as in the Anglican theory of the Royal Supre¬ 
 macy, which has been created in the courts of law, 
 not in the cabinet or on the field. Hence it is carried 
 out with a consistency and minute application which 
 the history of constitutions cannot exhibit. It does 
 not merely exist in statutes, or in articles, or in 
 oaths, it is realized in details: as in the conge delire 
 and letter-missive on appointment of a Bishop;—in 
 the forms observed in Privy Council on the issuing 
 of State Prayers;—in certain arrangements ob¬ 
 served in the Prayer-book, where the universal or 
 abstract Church precedes the King, but the national 
 or really existing body follows him; in printing his 
 name in large capitals, while the Holiest are in 
 ordinary type, and in fixing his arms in churches 
 instead of the Crucifix; moreover, perhaps, in 
 placing “ sedition, privy conspiracy, and rebellion, 77 
 before u false doctrine, heresy, and schism. 77 
 
 Again, when some new philosophy or its por¬ 
 tions are introduced into the measures of the Legis¬ 
 
 lature, or into the concessions made to a political 
 party, or into commercial or agricultural policy, it 
 is often said, u We have not seen the end of this ; 77 
 “ It is an instalment of future concessions ; 77 u Our 
 children will see. 77 We feel that it has unknown 
 bearings and issues. 
 
 The admission of Jews to municipal offices has 
 lately been defended 1 on the ground that it is the 
 introduction of no new principle, but a development 
 of one already received ; that its great premisses 
 
 1 Times Newspaper of March 1845. 
 
Sec. II. j 
 
 DEVELOPMENT IN IDEAS. 
 
 49 
 
 have been decided long since, and that the present 
 age has but to draw the conclusion; that it is not 
 open to us to inquire what ought to be done in the 
 abstract, since there is no ideal model for the infal¬ 
 lible guidance of nations; that change is oidy a ques¬ 
 tion of time, and that there is a time for all things; 
 that the application of principles ought not to go 
 beyond the actual case, neither preceding nor coming 
 after an imperative demand; that in point of fact 
 Jews have lately been chosen to offices, and that in 
 point of principle the law cannot refuse to legitimate 
 that election. 
 
 In theology, the adoption of the word OeoTowg 
 at Ephesus as a test of orthodoxy is an instance of 
 a logical development. 
 
 n- Another class of developments may be called 
 historical; I mean when a fact, which at first is very 
 imperfectly apprehended except by a few, at length 
 grows into its due shape and complete proportions, 
 and spreads through a community, and attains ge¬ 
 neral reception by the accumulation, agitation, and 
 concurrence of testimony. Thus some reports die 
 away; others gain a footing, and are ultimately re¬ 
 ceived as truths. Courts of law, Parliaments, news¬ 
 papers, letters and other posthumous documents, 
 historians and biographers, and the lapse of years 
 which dissipates parties and prejudices, are in this 
 day the instruments of the development. Accord¬ 
 ingly the Poet makes Truth the daughter of Time. 1 
 Thus at length approximations are made to a right 
 appreciation of facts and characters. History cannot 
 be written except in an after-age. Thus by deve¬ 
 lopment the Canon of the New Testament has been 
 formed. Thus public men are content to leave their 
 reputation to posterity; great re-actions take place 
 in opinion; nay, sometimes men outlive opposition 
 and obloquy. Thus Saints are canonized in the 
 Church, long after they have entered into their rest. 
 
 1 Crabbe’s Tales. 
 
 E 
 
50 
 
 ON THE KINDS OF 
 
 [Chap. I. 
 
 8. Moral developments are not properly matter 
 for controversy, but are natural and personal, sub¬ 
 stituting what is congruous, desirable, pious, deco¬ 
 rous, generous, for strictly logical inference. Bishop 
 Butler supplies us with a remarkable instance in the 
 beginning of the Second Part of his “Analogy.” As 
 principles imply applications, and general proposi¬ 
 tions include particulars, so, he tells us, do certain 
 relations imply correlative duties, and certain objects 
 demand certain acts and feelings. He observes that, 
 even though we were not enjoined to pay divine 
 honours to the Second and Third Persons of the 
 Holy Trinity, what is predicated of Them in Scrip¬ 
 ture would be an abundant warrant, an indirect 
 command, nay, a logical reason, to do so. “Does 
 not,” he asks, “the duty of religious regards to both 
 these Divine Persons as immediately arise, to the 
 view of reason, out of the very nature of these offices 
 and relations, as the inward good-will and kind in¬ 
 tention which we owe to our fellow-creatures arises 
 out of the common relations between us and them?” 
 He proceeds to say that he is speaking of the inward 
 religious regards of reverence, honour, love, trust, 
 gratitude, fear, hope. “In what external manner 
 this inward worship is to be expressed, is a matter 
 of pure revealed command; . . but the worship, the 
 internal worship itself, to the Son and Holy Ghost, 
 is no further matter of pure revealed command than 
 as the relations they stand in to us are matter of 
 pure revelation; for, the relations being known, the 
 obligations to such internal worship are obligations 
 of reason, arising out of those relations themselves.” 
 Here is a development of doctrine into worship: in 
 like manner the doctrine of the beatification of the 
 Saints has been developed into their Cutties; of the 
 OeoroKos, or Mother of God, into hyperdulia; and of 
 the Beal Presence into Adoration of the Host. 
 
 A development, converse to that which Butler 
 speaks of, must next be mentioned. As objects 
 
Sec. II.] DEVELOPMENT IN IDEAS. '51 
 
 demand feelings, so do feelings imply acts and objects. 
 Thus conscience, the existence of which we cannot 
 deny, is a proof of the doctrine of a Moral Governor, 
 which alone gives it a meaning and a scope; that 
 is, the doctrine of a Judgment to come is a de¬ 
 velopment of the phenomenon of conscience. Again, 
 it is plain that passions and affections are in action 
 in our minds before the presence of their proper ob¬ 
 jects; and their activity would of course be an an¬ 
 tecedent argument of extreme cogency in behalf of 
 the real existence of those objects, supposing them 
 unknown. And so again, the social principle, which 
 is innate in us, gives a divine sanction to society 
 and government. And the doctrine of post-bap¬ 
 tismal sin and the usage of prayers for the faithful 
 departed have developed into the doctrine of Pur¬ 
 gatory. And rites and ceremonies are natural means 
 through which the mind relieves itself of devotional 
 and penitential emotions. And -sometimes the cul¬ 
 tivation of awe and love towards what is great, high, 
 and unseen, has led a man to the abandonment of 
 his sect for some more Catholic form of Christianity. 
 
 Aristotle furnishes us with an instance of this 
 kind of development in his account of the happy 
 man. After showing that his definition of happi¬ 
 ness includes in itself the pleasurable, which is the 
 most obvious and popular idea of happiness, he 
 goes on to say that still external goods are neces¬ 
 sary to it, about which the definition said nothing; 
 that is, a certain prosperity is by moral fitness, not 
 by logical necessity, attached to the happy man. 
 “For it is impossible,” he observes, u or not easy, 
 to practise high virtue without abundant means. 
 Many deeds are done by the instrumentality of 
 friends, wealth and political power; and of some 
 things the absence is a cloud upon happiness, as of 
 noble birth, of hopeful children, and of personal 
 appearance: for a person utterly deformed, or low¬ 
 born, or bereaved and childless, cannot quite be 
 
 e 2 
 
52 
 
 ON THE KINDS OF 
 
 [Chap. I. 
 
 happy: and still less if he have very worthless 
 children or friends, or they were good and died.” 1 
 
 This process of development has been well deli¬ 
 neated by a living French writer, in his Lectures 
 on European Civilization, who shall be quoted at 
 some length. “ If we reduce religion,” he says, 
 “to a purely religious sentiment ... it appears 
 evident that it must and ought to remain a purely 
 personal concern. But I am either strangely mis¬ 
 taken,, or this religious sentiment is not the com¬ 
 plete expression of the religious nature of man. 
 Religion is, I believe, very different from this, and 
 much more extended. There are problems in 
 human nature, in human destinies, which cannot 
 be solved in this life, which depend on an order of 
 things unconnected with the visible world, but 
 which unceasingly agitate the human mind with a 
 desire to comprehend them. The solution of these 
 problems is the origin of all religion; her primary 
 object is to discover the creeds and doctrines 
 which contain, or are supposed to contain it. 
 
 “Another cause also impels mankind to embrace 
 religion . . From whence do morals originate? 
 whither do they lead? is this self-existing obliga¬ 
 tion to do good, an isolated fact, without an author, 
 without an end? does it not conceal, or rather does 
 it not reveal to man, an origin, a destiny, beyond 
 this world? The science of morals, by these spon¬ 
 taneous and inevitable questions, conducts man to 
 the threshold of religion, and displays to him a 
 sphere from whence he has not derived it. Thus 
 the certain and never-failing sources of religion are, 
 on the one hand, the problems of our nature; on the 
 other, the necessity of seeking for morals a sanction, 
 an origin, and an aim. It, therefore, assumes many 
 other forms beside that of a pure sentiment; it 
 appears a union of doctrines, of precepts, of pro¬ 
 mises. This is what truly constitutes religion; 
 
 1 Eth. Nic. i. 8. 
 
Sec. II.] 
 
 DEVELOPMENT IN IDEAS. 
 
 53 
 
 this is its fundamental character; it is not merely 
 a form of sensibility, an impulse of the imagination, 
 a variety of poetry. 
 
 “ When thus brought back to its true elements, 
 to its essential nature, religion appears no longer a 
 purely personal concern, but a powerful and fruit¬ 
 ful principle of association. It is considered in the 
 light of a system of belief, a system of dogmas? 
 Truth is not the heritage of any individual, it is 
 absolute and universal; mankind ought to seek and 
 profess it in common. Is it considered with refer¬ 
 ence to the precepts that are associated Avith its 
 doctrines? A law which is obligatory on a simple 
 individual, is so on all; it ought to be promulgated, 
 and it is our duty to endeavour to bring all man¬ 
 kind under its dominion. It is the same with 
 respect to the promises that religion makes, in the 
 name of its creeds and precepts ; they ought to be 
 diffused; all men should be incited to partake of 
 their benefits. A religious society, therefore, natu¬ 
 rally results from the essential elements of religion, 
 and is such a necessary consequence of it that the 
 term which expresses the most energetic social senti¬ 
 ment, the most intense desire to propagate ideas 
 and extend society, is the word proselytism , a term 
 which is especially applied to religious belief, and 
 in fact consecrated to it. 
 
 u When a religious society has ever been formed, 
 when a certain number of men are united by a 
 common religious creed, are governed by the same 
 religious precepts, and enjoy the same religious 
 hopes, some form of government is necessary. No 
 society can endure a week, nay, more, no society 
 can endure a single hour, without a government. 
 The moment, indeed, a society is formed, by the 
 very fact of its formation, it calls forth a govern¬ 
 ment,—a government which shall proclaim the 
 common truth which is the bond of the society, 
 and promulgate and maintain the precepts that 
 
54 
 
 ON THE KINDS OF 
 
 [Chap I. 
 
 this truth ought to produce. The necessity of a 
 superior power, of a form of government, is in¬ 
 volved in the fact of the existence of a religious, as 
 it is in that of any other society. 
 
 u And not only is a government necessary, but 
 it naturally forms itself .* . When events are suf¬ 
 fered to follow their natural laws, when force does 
 not interfere, power falls into the hands of the most 
 able, the most worthy, those who are most capable 
 of carrying out the principles on which the society 
 was founded. Is a warlike expedition in agitation? 
 The bravest take the command. Is the object of the 
 association learned research, or a scientific under¬ 
 taking? The best informed will be the leader . . . 
 The inequality of faculties and influence, which is 
 the foundation of power in civil life, has the same 
 effect in a religious society . . . . Religion has no 
 sooner arisen in the human mind than a religious 
 society appears; and immediately a religious society 
 is formed, it produces its government.” 1 
 
 9. It remains to allude to what, unless the word 
 were often so vaguely and carelessly used, I should 
 be led to call metaphysical developments; I mean 
 such as are a mere analysis of the idea contemplated, 
 and terminate in its exact and complete delineation. 
 Thus Aristotle draws the character of a magnani¬ 
 mous or of a munificent man; thus Shakspeare 
 might conceive and bring out his Hamlet or Ariel; 
 and thus, in the sacred province of theology, the 
 mind may be employed in developing the solemn 
 ideas which it has hitherto held implicitly, and with¬ 
 out subjecting them to its reflecting and reasoning 
 powers. 
 
 I have already treated of this subject at length 
 in a former work, from which it will be sufficient 
 here to quote some sentences in explanation:— 
 
 u The mind which is habituated to the thought 
 of God, of Christ, of the Holy Spirit, naturally turns 
 
 1 Guizot Europ. Civil. Lcct. v. Beckwith’s Translation. 
 
Sec. II.] 
 
 DEVELOPMENT IN IDEAS. 
 
 55 
 
 with a devout curiosity to the contemplation of the 
 object of its adoration, and begins to form state¬ 
 ments concerning it, before it knows whither, or 
 how far, it will be carried. One proposition neces¬ 
 sarily leads to another, and a second to a third; 
 then some limitation is required; and the combi¬ 
 nation of these opposites occasions some fresh evo¬ 
 lutions from the original idea, which indeed can 
 never be said to be entirely exhausted. This pro¬ 
 cess is its development, and results in a series, or 
 rather body, of dogmatic statements, till what was 
 an impression on the Imagination has become a 
 system or creed in the Reason. 
 
 u Now such impressions are obviously individual 
 and complete above other theological ideas, because 
 thejr are the impressions of Objects. Ideas and 
 their developments are commonly not identical, the 
 development being but the carrying out of the idea 
 into its consequences. Thus the doctrine of Pen¬ 
 ance may be called a development of the doctrine 
 of Baptism, yet still is a distinct doctrine ; whereas 
 the developments in the doctrines of the Holy Tri¬ 
 nity and the Incarnation are mere portions of the 
 original impression, and modes of representing it. 
 As God is one, so the impression which He gives us 
 of Himself is one; it is not a thing of parts; it is 
 not a system; nor is it anything imperfect and 
 needing a counterpart. It is the vision of an object. 
 When we pray, we pray, not to an assemblage of 
 notions or to a creed, but to One Individual Being; 
 and when we speak of Him, we speak of a Person, 
 not of a Law or Manifestation. This being the 
 case, all our attempts to delineate our impression 
 of Him go to bring out one idea, not two, or three, 
 or four; not a philosophy, but an individual idea 
 in its separate aspects. 
 
 u This may be fitly compared to the impressions 
 made on us by the senses. Material objects are 
 real, whole, and individual; and the impressions 
 which they make on the mind, by means of the 
 
56 
 
 ON THE KINDS OF 
 
 [Chap. I. 
 
 senses, are of a corresponding nature, complex and 
 manifold in their relations and bearings, but, consi¬ 
 dered in themselves, integral and one. And, in like 
 manner, the ideas which we are granted of Divine 
 Objects under the Gospel, from the nature of the 
 case and because they are ideas, answer to the ori¬ 
 ginals so far as this, that they are whole, indivi¬ 
 sible, substantial, and may be called real, as being 
 images of what is real. Objects which are conveyed 
 to us through the senses stand out in our minds, 
 as I may say, with dimensions and aspects and in¬ 
 fluences various, and all of these consistent with 
 one another, and many of them beyond our memory 
 or even knowledge, while we contemplate the ob¬ 
 jects themselves; thus forcing on us a persuasion 
 of their reality from the spontaneous congruity and 
 coincidence of these accompaniments, as if they 
 could not be creations of our minds, but were the 
 images of external and independent beings. This 
 of course will take place in the case of the sacred 
 ideas which are the objects of our faith. Religious 
 men, according to their measure, have an idea or 
 vision of the Blessed Trinity in Unity, of the Son 
 Incarnate, and of His Presence, not as a number of 
 qualities, attributes, and actions, not as the subject 
 of a number of propositions, but as one and indi¬ 
 vidual, and independent of words, like an impres¬ 
 sion conveyed through the senses. 
 
 u Particular propositions, then, which are used to 
 express portions of the great idea vouchsafed to us, 
 can never really be confused with the idea itself, 
 which all such propositions taken together can but 
 reach and cannot exceed. As definitions are not 
 intended to go beyond their subject, but to be ade¬ 
 quate to it, so the dogmatic statements of the Di¬ 
 vine Nature used in our confessions, however multi¬ 
 plied, cannot say more than is implied in the origi¬ 
 nal idea, considered in its completeness, without 
 the risk of heresy. Creeds and dogmas live in the 
 one idea which they are designed te express, and 
 
DEVELOPMENT IN IDEAS. 
 
 57 
 
 Sec. III.] 
 
 which alone is substantive; and are necessary only 
 because the human mind cannot reflect upon it, 
 except piecemeal, cannot use it in its oneness and 
 entireness, or without resolving it into a series of 
 aspects and relations. And, in matter of fact, these 
 expressions are neve r eq uivalen t to i t. We are able, 
 indeed, to define the creations of our minds, for 
 they are what we make them and nothing else; but 
 it Avere as easy to create Avhat is real as to define 
 it. And thus the Catholic dogmas are, after all, but 
 symbols of a divine fact, Avhich, far from being 
 compassed by those very propositions, Avould not be 
 exhausted, not fathomed, by a thousand .” 1 
 
 Nothing more need be said on the subject of this 
 Section, except to remark that, in many cases, de¬ 
 velopment is simply used in the sense of exhibition , 
 as in some of the instances above employed. Thus, 
 both Calvinism and Unitarianism may be oalled de¬ 
 velopments, that is, exhibitions, of the principle of 
 Private Judgment; though groAvth is no part of the 
 process. But this distinction Avill presently come 
 into consideration. 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 ON THE CORRUPTION OF AN IDEA. 
 
 §i- 
 
 Distinctive Tests between Development and 
 
 Corruption. 
 
 Since the developments of an idea are nothing 
 else than its adequate representation and its fulfil¬ 
 ment, in its various aspects, relations, and conse¬ 
 quences, and since the causes which stimulate may 
 1 University Sermons, pp. 330-333. 
 
58 
 
 ON THE CORRUPTION 
 
 [Chap. I. 
 
 also distort its growth, as is seen in the corruptions 
 of truth with which the world abounds, rules are 
 required to distinguish legitimate developments 
 from those which are not such. 
 
 Here the most ready test is suggested by the 
 analogy of physical growth, which is such that the 
 parts and proportions of the developed form cor¬ 
 respond to those which belong to its rudiments. 
 The adult animal has the same make as it had 
 on its birth; young birds do not grow into fishes; 
 nor does the child degenerate into the brute, wild 
 or domestic, of which he is by inheritance lord. 
 “Imitetur,” says Yincentius, “animarum religio 
 rationem corporum, quas licet annorum processu 
 numeros suos evolvant et explicent, eadem tamen 
 quse erant remanent.” 1 Unity in type is certainly 
 the most obvious characteristic of a faithful deve¬ 
 lopment. 
 
 Yet this illustration must not be pressed to the 
 extent of denying all vaH&tion, nay, considerable 
 alteration of proportion and relation, in the deve¬ 
 lopment of the parts or aspects of an idea. Such 
 changes in outward appearance and internal har¬ 
 mony occur in the instance of the animal creation 
 itself. The fledged bird differs from its rudimental 
 form in the egg. The butterfly is the development, 
 but not in any sense the image, of the grub. The . 
 whale claims a place among mammalia, though we 
 might fancy that, as in the child’s game of catscradle, 
 some strange introsusception had been permitted, to 
 make it so like, yet so contrary, to the animals with 
 which it is itself classed. And, in like manner, if 
 beasts of prey were once in paradise, and fed upon 
 grass, they must have presented bodily phenomena 
 very different from the structure of muscles, claws, 
 teeth, and viscera which now fit them for a car¬ 
 nivorous existence. Eutychius, Patriarch of Con¬ 
 stantinople, on his death-bed, grasped his own hand 
 
 1 Commonit. 29. 
 
Sec. III.] 
 
 OF AN IDEA. 
 
 59 
 
 and said, “ I confess that in this flesh we shall all 
 rise again;” yet flesh and blood cannot inherit the 
 kingdom of God, and a glorified body has attributes 
 incompatible with its present condition on earth. 
 
 More subtle still are the variations which are con¬ 
 sistent or inconsistent with identity in political and 
 religious developments. The Catholic doctrine of 
 the Holy Trinity has ever been accused by heretics 
 of interfering with that of the Divine Unity out of 
 which it grew, and even believers will at first sight 
 consider that it tends to obscure it. But Petavius 
 says, u I will affirm, what perhaps will surprise the 
 reader, that that distinction of Persons which, in re¬ 
 gard to proprietaries is in reality most great, is so far 
 from disparaging the Unity and Simplicity of God 
 that this very real distinction especially avails to 
 the doctrine that God is One and most Simple.” 1 
 
 Again, Arius asserted that the Second Person of 
 the Blessed Trinity was not able to comprehend the 
 First, whereas Eunomius’s characteristic tenet was 
 that all men could comprehend God as fully as the 
 Son comprehended Him Himself; yet no one can 
 doubt that Eunomianism was a true development, 
 not a corruption of Arianism. 
 
 The same individual may run through systems of 
 philosophy or belief, which are in themselves irre¬ 
 concilable, without inconsistency, since in him they 
 may be nothing more than accidental instruments 
 or expressions of what he is inwardly from first to 
 last. The political doctrines of the modern Tory 
 resemble those of the primitive Whig; yet few will 
 deny that the Whig and Tory characters have each a 
 discriminating type. Calvinism has changed into 
 Unitarianism: yet this is no corruption, even if it 
 be not, strictly speaking, a development ;_for Hard¬ 
 ing, in controversy with Jewell, surmised the com¬ 
 ing change three centuries since, and it has occurred 
 not in one country, but in many. 
 
 1 De Deo. ii. 4, § 8. 
 
60 
 
 ON THE CORRUPTION 
 
 [Chap. L 
 
 The history of national character supplies an 
 analogy, rather than an instance strictly in point; 
 yet there is so close a connexion between the deve¬ 
 lopment of minds and of ideas that it is allowable to 
 refer to it here. Thus we find England of old the most 
 loyal supporter, and England of late the most jealous 
 enemy, of the Holy See. As great a change is ex¬ 
 hibited in France, once the eldest born of the Church 
 and the flower of her Knighthood, now democratic 
 and lately infidel. Yet, in both nations, these great 
 changes cannot be well called corruptions. 
 
 Or again, let us reflect on the ethical vicissitudes 
 of the chosen people. How different is their grovel¬ 
 ling and cowardly temper on leaving Egypt from 
 the chivalrous spirit, as it may be called, of the age 
 of David, or, again, from the bloody fanaticism 
 which braved Titus and Hadrian! How different 
 that impotence of mind which yielded even at the 
 sight of a pagan idol, from the stern iconoclasm and 
 bigoted nationality of later Judaism! How startling 
 the apparent absence of what would be called talent 
 in this people during their supernatural Dispensa¬ 
 tion, compared with the gifts of mind which various 
 witnesses assign to them now! 
 
 And, in like manner, ideas may remain, when the 
 expression of them is indefinitely varied ; and we 
 cannot determine whether a professed development 
 is truly such or not, without some further knowledge 
 than the mere fact of this variation. Nor will our 
 p feelings serve as a criterion. It must have been an 
 extreme shock to St. Peter to be told he must slay 
 and eat beasts, unclean as well as clean, though such 
 a command was implied already in that faith which 
 he held and taught; a shock, which a single effort, 
 or a short period, or • the force of reason would not 
 /suffice to overcome. Nay, it may happen that a re¬ 
 presentation which varies from its original may be 
 felt as more true and faithful than one whcih has 
 more pretensions to be exact. So it is with many a 
 
Sec. III.] 
 
 OF AN IDEA. 
 
 61 
 
 portrait which is not striking: at first look, of course, 
 it disappoints us; hut when we are familiar with it, 
 we see in it what we could not see at first, and prefer 
 it, not to a perfect likeness, but to many a sketch 
 which is so precise as to be a caricature. 
 
 And, in like manner, real perversions and corrup- u 
 tions are often not so unlike externally to the doc¬ 
 trine to which they belong, as are changes which are 
 consistent with it and true developments. When 
 Rome changed from a Republic to an Empire, it 
 was a real alteration of polity or a corruption; yet 
 in appearance the change was small. The old offices 
 or functions of government remained: it was only 
 that the Imperator, or Commander in Chief, concen¬ 
 trated them in his own person. Augustus was 
 Consul and Tribune, Supreme Pontiff and Censor, 
 and the Imperial rule was, in the words of Gibbon, 
 u an absolute monarchy disguised by the forms of a 
 commonwealth. ’’ On the other hand, when the 
 
 dissimulation of Augustus was exchanged for the 
 ostentation of Dioclesian, the real alteration of con¬ 
 stitution was trivial, but the appearance of change 
 was great. Instead of plain Consul, Censor, and 
 Tribune, Dioclesian became Dominus or King, as¬ 
 sumed the diadem, and threw around him the forms 
 of a court. 
 
 Nav, one cause of corruption in religion is the 
 refusal to follow the course of doctrine as it moves 
 on, and an obstinacy in the notions of the past. 
 Certainly: as we see conspicuously in the history of 
 the chosen race. The Samaritans who refused to 
 add the Prophets to the Law, and the Sadducees 
 who denied what lay hid in the Book of Exodus, 
 wer e in app earance but faithful adherents to the 
 primitive doctrine. Our Lord found Llis people 
 precisians in their obedience to the letter; He 
 condemned them for not being led on to its 
 spirit, that is, to its developments. The Gospel is 
 the development of the Law; yet what difference 
 
62 
 
 ON THE CORRUPTION 
 
 [Chap. I. 
 
 seems wider than that which separates the un¬ 
 bending rule of Moses from the “ grace and truth” 
 which “came by Jesus Christ?” Samuel had of old 
 time fancied that the tall Eliab was the Lord's 
 anointed; and Jesse had thought David only lit for 
 the sheepcote; and when the Great King came, He 
 was “as a root out of a dry ground:” but strength 
 came’out of weakness, and out of the strong sweet¬ 
 ness. 
 
 So it is in the case of our friends; the most ob¬ 
 sequious are not always the truest, and seeming 
 cruelty is often the most faithful. We know the 
 conduct of the three daughters in the fable towards 
 the old King. She who had found her love “ more 
 richer than her tongue,” and could not “ heave her 
 heart into her mouth,” was in the event alone true 
 to her father. 
 
 Natural then as it is at first sight to suppose 
 that an idea will always be the exact image of itself 
 in all stages of its history, experience does not bear 
 out the anticipation. To discover the tests of a true 
 development, as distinguished from a corruption, we 
 must consider the subject more attentively. 
 
 Perhaps it will help us in the difficulty to con¬ 
 sider the literal meaning of the word corruption, 
 as used of material substances. Corruption is a 
 breaking up of the subject in which it takes place, 
 or its resolution into' its component parts, which 
 involves eventually a loss of unity. Again, it is 
 only applied to organized matter; a stone may be 
 crushed to powder, but cannot be corrupted. More¬ 
 over, since organization involves, corruption must 
 in consequence destroy, both life and growth; for 
 which reason it is opposed by philosophers to gene¬ 
 ration. If this analogy is to be followed, the cor¬ 
 ruption of philosophical and political ideas is a 
 process ending in dissolution of the body of thought 
 and usage which was bound up, as it were, into one 
 
OF AN IDEA. 
 
 Sec. III.] 
 
 system; in the destruction of the norm or type, 
 whatever it may he considered, which made it one; 
 in its disorganization; in its loss of the principle of 
 life and growth; in its resolution into other dis¬ 
 tinct lives, that is, into other ideas which take the 
 place of it. 
 
 Moreo ver, corruption, as seen in the physical 
 world, not only immediately precedes dissolution, 
 but immediately follows upon development. It is 
 the turning-point or transition-state in that con¬ 
 tinuous process by which the birth of a living 
 thing is mysteriously connected with its death. In 
 this it differs from a re-action, innovation, or re¬ 
 form, that it is a state to which a development 
 tends from the first, at which sooner or later it 
 arrives, and which is its reversal, while it is its 
 continuation. Animated natures live on till they 
 die ; they grow in order to decrease; and every 
 hour which brings them nearer to perfection, brings 
 them nearer to their end. Here the resemblance 
 and the difference between a development and 
 corruption are brought into close juxta-position. 
 The corruption of an idea is that state of a de-T 
 velopment which undoes its previous advances. 
 
 If the process is suspended and the state chronic, 
 then it is called decay; but it is called corruption 
 when it hastens to a crisis, as a fever, or the dis¬ 
 turbance of system consequent on poisoning, in 
 which the bodily functions are under preternatural 
 influence, whereas in decay there is a loss of ac¬ 
 tivity and vigour. 
 
 Thus, without considering the analogy as strict, 
 or sufficient to rest an argument upon, we may use 
 it to introduce several rules for drawing the line 
 between a development and a corruption. That 
 development, then, is to be considered a corrup¬ 
 tion which obscures or prejudices its essential idea , 
 or which disturbs the laws of development which con¬ 
 stitute its organization, or which reverses its course 
 
64 
 
 ON THE CORRUPTION 
 
 [Chap. I. 
 
 of development; that is not a corruption which is\ 
 both a chronic and an active state , or which is capa¬ 
 ble of holding together the component parts of a 
 system. From this analysis seven tests of a de¬ 
 velopment may be drawn of varying cogency and 
 independence. 
 
 First Test of a true Development; Preservation 
 
 of Idea. 
 
 That the essential idea or type which a philo¬ 
 sophical or "political system represents must con¬ 
 tinue under all its developments, and that its loss 
 is tantamount to the corruption of the system, will 
 scarcely be denied. When, for instance, we pro¬ 
 nounce a monastic institution to have been in a 
 state of corruption, we mean that it had departed 
 from the views or professions in which it was 
 founded. Judges are corrupt, when they are guided 
 in their decisions, not by justice and truth, but by 
 the love of lucre or respect of persons. Severity in 
 living may be carried to excess as well as indulg¬ 
 ence; but we predicate corruption, not of the 
 extreme, which preserves, but of that which de¬ 
 stroys, the type of self-restraint. 
 
 This is in substance acknowledged in a variety 
 of other cases. An empire or a religion may have 
 many changes: but when we speak of its develop¬ 
 ing, we consider it to be fulfilling, not to be belying 
 its destiny; so much so that we even take its 
 actual fortunes as a comment on its early history, 
 and call its policy a mission. ‘ The Popes present a 
 very different appearance to the historian of the 
 world, when in apostolical poverty or in more 
 than imperial power; but, while they protect the 
 poor, reconcile rival sovereigns, convert barbarians, 
 and promote civilization, he recognizes their func- 
 
Sec. III.] 
 
 OF AN IDEA. 
 
 65 
 
 tion in spite of the change, and is contented to 
 praise them. 
 
 It has been argued by a late writer, whether 
 fairly or not does not interfere with the illustration, 
 that the miraculous vision and dream of the La- 
 barum could not have really taken place, as re¬ 
 ported by Eusebius, because it is counter to the 
 original type of Christianity. “For the first time,” 
 he says, on occasion of Constantine’s introduction of 
 the standard into his armies, “the meek and peace¬ 
 ful Jesus became a God of battle, and the Cross, the 
 holy sign of Christian Redemption, a banner of 
 bloody strife. . . . This was the first advance to 
 the military Christianity of the middle ages, a modi¬ 
 fication of the pure religion of the Gospel, if directly 
 opposed to its genuine principles, still apparently 
 indispensable to the social progress of men.” 1 
 
 Again, a popular leader may go through a variety 
 of professions, he may court parties and break with 
 them, he may contradict himself in words, and undo 
 his own measures, yet there, may be a steady ful¬ 
 filment of certain objects, or adherence to certain 
 plain doctrines, which impress upon beholders, not 
 his scrupulousness, but his sincerity and consis¬ 
 tency. On the other hand, a statesman loses his 
 position, and hurts his influence, in proportion as 
 he is neglectful of the special charges or duties 
 which he began by undertaking. 
 
 One of the obvious arts in debate and diplomacy \ 
 is so to anticipate the possible developments of a 
 measure as to be able to hit upon amendments, or 
 modifications, which are contrary to them, and which 
 in consequence, if carried, necessarily nullify the 
 measure itself, without professing to do so; all de¬ 
 velopments being . parts of an original idea, and 
 what i s in consistent with it being no development. 
 
 ~This test, however, is too obvious and too close 
 upon demonstration to be of easy application in 
 
 1 Milman, Hist, of Christ, iii. 1. 
 
 F 
 
G6 
 
 ON THE CORRUPTION 
 
 [Chap. I 
 
 particular cases. It implies an insight into the es¬ 
 sential idea in which a system of thought is set up, 
 which often cannot be possessed, and, if attempted, 
 will lead to mere theorizing. As to Christianity, 
 considering the unsystematic character of its in¬ 
 spired documents and the all but silence of contem¬ 
 porary history, if we attempt to determine its one 
 original profession, undertaking, or announcement, 
 we shall be reduced to those eclectic and arbitrary 
 decisions which have in all ages been so common, 
 and have been censured in a former place. Thus, 
 of old time, the Author of the Clementines gives this 
 rule for separating what he considers the spurious 
 from the genuine portion of Scripture: 44 Every 
 thing is false which contradicts the divine perfec¬ 
 tions.” 1 On the other hand, in a work just pub¬ 
 lished, we are told, u Seize the general tendency of 
 the pure Gospel into one concentrated thought, 
 and you will be persuaded that Jesus’s words, 4 The 
 body profiteth nothing,’ are a master-key to the 
 whole of His revelation. But how totally incon¬ 
 sistent with this leading principle is the account of 
 Jesus’s conception!” 2 Nothing can be easier, and 
 nothing more trifling, than private determinations 
 about 44 the essentials, the peculiar doctrines, the 
 vital* doctrines, the great truths, simple views, or 
 leading idea of the Gospel.” 3 
 
 The first test, then, of a faithful or legitimate 
 development is its preservation of the essential idea 
 of the doctrine or polity which it represents. 
 
 ■« 3. 
 
 Second Test; Continuity of Principles. 
 
 As in mathematical creations figures are formed 
 on distinct formulae, which are the laws under which 
 they are developed, so it is in ethical and political 
 
 1 Horn. ii. 38. 2 Bl. White’s Autobiography, vol. ii. p. 110. 
 
 3 Tracts for the Times, No. 85, p. 15. 
 
Sec. III.] 
 
 OF AN IDEA. 
 
 67 
 
 subjects. Doctrines expand variously according to 
 the mind, individual or social, into which they are 
 received; and the peculiarities of the recipient are 
 the regulating power, the law, the organization, or, 
 as it may be called, the form of the development. 
 The life of doctrines may be said to consist in the 
 JajEjQE principle which they embody. 
 
 The science of grammar affords another instance 
 of the existence of special laws in the formation of 
 systems. Some languages have more elasticity 
 than others, and greater capabilities; and the diffi¬ 
 culty of explaining the fact does not lead us to 
 doubt it. There are languages, for instance, which 
 have a capacity for compound words, which, we 
 cannot tell why, is in matter of fact denied to others. 
 We feel the presence of a certain character or genius 
 in each, which determines its path and its range; 
 and to discover and enter into it is one part of 
 refined scholarship. And when particular writers, 
 in consequence perhaps of some theory, tax a lan¬ 
 guage beyond its powers, the failure is conspicuous. 
 Very subtle, too, and difficult to draw out, are the 
 principles on which depends the formation of proper 
 names in a particular people. In works of fiction, 
 names or titles, significant or ludicrous, must be 
 invented for the characters introduced; and some 
 authors excel in their fabrication, while others are 
 equally unfortunate. Foreign novels, perhaps, at¬ 
 tempt to frame English surnames, and signally fail; 
 yet what every one feels to be the case, no one can 
 analyse: that is, our surnames are constructed on a 
 law which is only exhibited in particular instances, 
 and which rules their formation on certain, though 
 subtle, determinations. 
 
 And so in philosophy, the systems of physics or 
 morals, which go by celebrated names, proceed upon 
 the assumption of certain conditions which are ne¬ 
 cessary for every stage of their development. The 
 Newtonian theorv of gravitation is based on certain 
 
68 
 
 ON TIIE CORRUPTION 
 
 [Chap. I. 
 
 axioms ; for instance, that the fewest causes assign¬ 
 able for phenomena are the true ones: and the 
 application of science to practical purposes depends 
 upon the hypothesis that what happens to-day will 
 happen to-morrow. 
 
 And so in military matters, the discovery of gun¬ 
 powder developed the science of attack and defence 
 in a new instrumentality. Again, it is said that 
 when Napoleon began his career of victories, the 
 enemy’s generals pronounced that his battles were 
 fought against rule, and that he ought not to 
 conquer. 
 
 So states have their respective policies, on which 
 they move forward, and which are the conditions of 
 their well-being. Thus it is sometimes said that 
 the true policy of the American Union, or the law 
 of its prosperity, is not the enlargement of its terri¬ 
 tory, but the cultivation of its internal resources. 
 Thus Russia is said to be weak in attack, strong in 
 defence, and to grow, not by the sword, but by 
 diplomacy. Thus Islamism is said to be the form 
 or life of the Ottoman, and Protestantism of the 
 British Empire; and the admission of European 
 ideas into the one, or of Catholic ideas into the 
 other, to be the destruction of the respective con¬ 
 ditions of their jiower. Thus Augustus and Tiberius 
 governed by dissimulation; thus Pericles in his 
 a Funeral Oration” draws out the principles of the 
 Athenian commonwealth, viz., that it is carried on, 
 not by formal and severe enactments, but by the ethi¬ 
 cal character and spontaneous energy of the people. 
 
 The political principles of Christianity, if it be 
 right to use such words of a divine polity, are laid 
 down for us in the Sermon on the Mount. Con¬ 
 trariwise to other empires, Christians conquer by 
 yielding; they gain influence by hating it; they 
 possess the earth by renouncing it. Gibbon speaks 
 of “the vices of the clergy” as being “to a philoso¬ 
 phic eye far less dangerous than their virtues.” 1 
 
 1 Ch. xlix. 
 
Sec. III.] 
 
 OF AN IDEA. 
 
 69 
 
 Again, as to Judaism, it may be asked on what 
 law it developed; that is, whether Mahometanism 
 may not be considered as a sort of Judaism, as 
 formed by the presence of a different class of influ¬ 
 ences. In this contrast between them, perhaps it 
 may be said that the expectation of a Messiah was 
 the principle or law which expanded the elements, 
 almost common to Judaism with Mahometanism, 
 into their characteristic shape. 
 
 One of the points of discipline to which Wesley 
 attached most importance was that of preaching 
 early in the morning. This was his principle. In 
 Georgia, he began preaching at five o’clock every 
 day, winter and summer. u Early preaching,” he 
 said, “ is the glory of the Methodists; whenever this 
 is dropt, they will dwindle away into nothing, they 
 have lost their first love, they are a fallen people.” 
 
 Now, these instances show, as has been inciden¬ 
 tally observed of some of them, that the destruction 
 o f the spec ial laws or principles of a development is 
 i ts corru ption. Thus, as to nations, when we talk 
 of the spirit of a people being lost, we do not mean 
 that this or that act has been committed, or measure 
 carried, but that certain lines of thought or conduct 
 by which it has grown great are abandoned. Thus 
 the Homan Poets consider their State in course 
 of ruin because its prisci mores and pietas were 
 failing. And so we speak of countries or persons 
 as being in a false position, when they take up a 
 course of policy, or assume a profession, inconsistent 
 with their natural interests or real character. Ju¬ 
 daism, again, was rejected when it rejected the 
 Messiah. 
 
 Thus the continuity or alteration of the principles 
 on which an idea has developed is a second mark of 
 discrimination between a true development and a 
 corruption. 
 
70 
 
 ON THE CORRUPTION 
 
 [Chap. I. 
 
 §4. 
 
 Farther Remarks on the Second Test. 
 
 A comparison of the principles of a philosophy 
 or religion with its doctrines may tend to throw 
 further light on the nature of a development; 
 though it is difficult to go into the subject as fully 
 as is necessary, without incurring the charge of 
 subtlety, and becoming intricate and obscure. 
 
 Principles are abstract and general, doctrines 
 relate to facts; doctrines develope, and principles do 
 not; doctrines grow and are enlarged, principles are 
 illustrated; doctrines are intellectual, and principles 
 are more immediately ethical and practical. Sys¬ 
 te ms live in principles and represent doctrines. 
 Personal responsibility is a principle, the Being of 
 a God is a doctrine; from that doctrine all theology < 
 has come in due course, whereas that principle is 
 not clearer under the Gospel than in paradise, and 
 depends, not on belief in an Almighty Governor, 
 but on conscience. 
 
 Yet the difference between the two sometimes 
 merely exists in our mode of viewing them; and 
 what is a doctrine in one philosophy is a principle 
 in another. Personal responsibility may be made a 
 doctrinal basis, and develope into Arminianism or 
 Pelagianism. Again, it may be discussed whether 
 infallibility is a principle or a doctrine of the Church 
 of Rome, and dogmatism a principle or doctrine of 
 Christianity. Again, consideration for the poor is 
 a doctrine of the Church considered as a religious 
 body, and a principle when she is viewed as a 
 political power. 
 
 Doctrines stand to principles, as the definitions to 
 the axioms and postulates of mathematics. Thus 
 the 15th and 17th propositions of Euclid i. are deve¬ 
 lopments, not of the three first axioms, which are 
 required in the proof, but of the definition of a right 
 
 x 1A 
 
 "r; 
 
 
 & 
 
 
 
 C * 
 
 tfi 
 
Sec. III.] 
 
 OF AN IDEA. 
 
 71 
 
 angle. Perhaps the perplexity, which arises in the 
 mind of a beginner, on learning the early proposi¬ 
 tions of the second book, arises from these being 
 more prominently exemplifications of axioms than 
 developments of definitions. He looks for develop¬ 
 ments from the definition of the rectangle, and finds 
 but various particular cases of the general truth, that 
 u the whole is equal to its parts.” 
 
 Doctrines stand to principles, if it may be said 
 without fancifulness, as the principle of fecundity to 
 generation, though this analogy must not be strained. 
 Doctrines are developed by the operation of princi¬ 
 ples, and develope differently according to those prim 
 ciples. Thus a belief in the transitiveness of worldly 
 goods leads the Epicurean to enjoyment, and the 
 ascetic to mortification; and, from their common 
 doctrine of the sinfulness of matter, the Alexandrian 
 Gnostics became sensualists, and the Syrian devotees. 
 The same philosophical elements, received into a 
 certain sensibility or insensibility to sin and its 
 ' consequences, leads one mind to the Church of Pome; 
 another to what, for want of a better word, may be 
 called Germanism. 
 
 Again, religious investigation sometimes is con¬ 
 ducted on the principle that it is a duty u to follow 
 and speak the truth,” which really means that it is 
 no duty to fear error, or to consider what is safest, 
 or to shrink from scattering doubts, or to regard 
 the responsibility of misleading; and thus it ter¬ 
 minates in heresy or infidelity, without any blame 
 to religious investigation in itself. 
 
 Again, to take a different subject, what consti¬ 
 tutes a chief interest of dramatic compositions and 
 tales, is to use external circumstances, which may be 
 considered their law of development, as a means of 
 bringing out into different shapes, and showing under 
 new aspects, the peculiarities of personal character, 
 according as either those circumstances or those pe¬ 
 culiarities vary in the personages introduced. 
 
72 
 
 ON THE CORRUPTION 
 
 [Chap. I. 
 
 Principles are popularly said to_ develope when 
 they are hut exemplified; thus the various sects of 
 Protestantism, unconnected as they are with each 
 other, are called developments of the principle of 
 Private Judgment, of which really they are but 
 applications and results. 
 
 A development, to be faithful, must retain both 
 the doctrine and the principle with which it started. 
 Doctrine without its correspondent principle remains 
 barren, if not lifeless, of which the Greek Church 
 seems an instance; or it forms those hollow pro¬ 
 fessions which are familiarly called u shams,” as a 
 zeal for an established Church and its creed, on 
 merely conservative or temporal motives. Such, too, 
 was the Roman Constitution between the reigns of 
 Augustus and Dioclesian. 
 
 On the other hand, principle without its corres¬ 
 ponding doctrine may lie considered as the state_of 
 religious minds in the heathen world, viewed rela¬ 
 tively to Revelation; that is, of the u children of God 
 who are scattered abroad.” 
 
 ^Pagans may have, heretics cannot have, the same 
 principles as Catholics; if the latter have the same, 
 they are not real heretics, but in ignorance. Prin¬ 
 ciple is a better test of heresy than doctrine. He- 
 reties are true to their principles, but change to and 
 fro, backwards and forwards, in opinion; for very op¬ 
 posite doctrines may be exemplifications of the same 
 principle. Thus the Antioclienes and other heretics 
 sometimes were Arians, sometimes Sabellians, some¬ 
 times Aestorians, sometimes Monophysites, as if at 
 random, from fidelity to their common principle, 
 that there is no mystery in theology. Thus Calvin¬ 
 ists become Unitarians from the principle of private 
 judgment. The doctrines of heresy are accidents 
 and soon run to an end; its principles are ever¬ 
 lasting. 
 
 This, too, is often the solution of the paradox 
 u Extremes meet,” and of the startling re-actions 
 
OF AN IDEA. 
 
 73 
 
 Sec. III.] 
 
 which take place in individuals; viz., the presence 
 of some one principle or condition, which is domi¬ 
 nant in their minds from first to last. If one of 
 two c ontradictory alternatives be necessarily true 
 on a certain hypothesis, then the denial of the one 
 leads, by mere logical consistency and without direct 
 reasons, to a reception of the other. Ihus the ques¬ 
 tion between the Church of Rome and Protestantism 
 falls in some minds into the proposition, “ Rome is 
 either the pillar and ground of the Truth or she is 
 Antichrist;” in proportion, then, as they revolt from 
 considering her the latter are they compelled to re¬ 
 ceive her as the former. Hence, too, men may pass 
 from infidelity to Rome, and from Rome to infide¬ 
 lity, from a conviction in both courses that there is 
 
 > tangible intellect 
 
 ual position between the two. C. 
 
 ProtestantismCvl 
 
 ewed m its more Catholic aspect. 
 
 is do ctrine without principle : viewed in its hereti- 
 cal, it is principle without doctrine. Many of its 
 speakers, for instance, use eloquent and glowing 
 language about the Church and its characteristics : 
 some of them do not realize what they say, but use 
 high words and general statements about “ the 
 faith,” and “ primitive truth,” and “ schism,” and 
 “ heresy,” to which they attach no definite mean¬ 
 ing; while others speak of “unity,” “universality,” 
 and “ Catholicity,” and use the words in their own 
 sense and for their own ideas. The same remark 
 applies to that Anglo-Germanism which has for 
 some time been coming into fashion; its doctrine ^ 
 of the Sacraments is either a “sham” or a “myth.” 
 
 § 5 - 
 
 The Third Test; P ower o f Assimilation . 
 
 In the physical world whatever has life is cha¬ 
 racterized by growth, so that in no respect to grow 
 is jo cease to live. It grows by taking into its own 
 substance external materials; and this absorption 
 
74 
 
 ON THE CORRUPTION 
 
 [Chap. I. 
 
 or assimilation is completed when the materials ap¬ 
 propriated come to belong to it or enter into its 
 unity. Two things cannot become one, except 
 there be a power of assimilation in one or the 
 other. Sometimes assimilation is effected only 
 with an effort; it is possible to die of repletion, and 
 there are animals who lie torpid for a time under 
 the contest between the foreign substance and the 
 assimilating power. And different food is proper 
 for different recipients. 
 
 This analogy may be taken to illustrate certain 
 peculiarities in the growth or development in ideas, 
 which were noticed in the opening Section. It is 
 otherwise with mathematical and other abstract 
 creations, which, like the soul itself, are solitary and 
 self-dependent; but doctrine and views which re¬ 
 late to man are not placed in a void, but in the 
 crowded world, and make way for themselves by 
 interpenetration, and develope by absorption. Facts ) 
 and opinions, which have hitherto been regarded in ) 
 other relations and grouped round other centres, 4 
 henceforth are gradually attracted to a new influ-; 
 ence and subjected to a new sovereign. They are/ 
 modified, laid afresh, thrust aside, as the case may 
 be. A new element of order and composition has 
 come among them; and its life is proved by this 
 capacity of expansion, without disarrangement or 
 dissolution. An eclectic, conservative, assimilating, 
 healing, moulding process, a unitive power, is of the 
 essence, and a third test, of a faithful development..^ 
 
 Thus, a power of development is a proof of life, 
 not only in its essay, but in its success; for a mere 
 formula either does not expand or is shattered in 
 expanding. A living idea becomes many, yet re¬ 
 mains one. 
 
 The attempt at development shows the presence 
 of a principle, and its success the presence of an 
 idea. Principles stimulate thought, and an idea 
 keeps it together. 
 
Sec. III.] 
 
 OF AN IDEA. 
 
 The idea never was that throve and lasted, yet, 
 like mathematical truth, incorporated nothing from 
 external sources. So far from the fact of such] 
 incorporation implying corruption, as is sometimes' 
 supposed, development implies incorporation. Ma¬ 
 hometanism may be in external developments 
 scarcely more than a compound of other theologies, 
 yet no one would deny that there has been a living 
 idea somewhere in that religion, which has been so 
 strong, so wide, so lasting a bond of union in the 
 history of the world. Why it has not continued to 
 develope after its first preaching, if this be the case, 
 as it seems to be, cannot be determined without a 
 greater knowledge of that religion, and how far it 
 is merely political, how far theological, than we 
 commonly possess. 
 
 In Christianity, opinion, while a raw material, is 
 called philosophy or scholasticism • when a rejected 
 refuse, it is called heresy. 
 
 Ideas are more open to an external bias in their 
 commencement than afterwards; hence the great 
 majority of writers who consider the Medieval 
 Church corrupt, trace its corruption to the first four 
 centuries, not to what are called the dark ages. 
 
 That an idea more readily coalesces with certain 
 ideas than with others does not show that it has 
 been unduly influenced, that is, corrupted by them, 
 but that it has an antecedent affinity to them. At 
 least it shall be assumed here that, when the Gospels 
 speak of virtue going out of our Lord, and of His 
 healing with the clay which He had moistened, they 
 afford instances, not of a perversion of Christianity, 
 but of affinity to notions which were external to it; 
 and that St. Paul was not biassed by Orientalism, 
 though he said that it was u excellent not to touch 
 a woman.” 
 
 Thus in politics, too, ideas are sometimes pro¬ 
 posed, discussed, rejected, or adopted, as it may 
 happen. Sometimes they are shown to be unmean- 
 
76 
 
 ON THE COKRUPTION 
 
 [Chap. I. 
 
 ing and impossible; sometimes they are true, but 
 partially so, or in subordination to other ideas, with 
 which, in consequence, they are as wholes or in part 
 incorporated, as far as these have affinities to them. 
 Mr. Bent-ham’s system was an attempt to make the 
 circle of legal and moral truths developments of 
 certain principles of his own;—those principles of 
 his may, if it so happen, prove unequal to the weight 
 of truths which are eternal, and the system founded 
 on them may break into pieces; or again, a State 
 may absorb certain of them, for which it has affinity, 
 that is, it may develope in Benthamism, yet remain 
 in substance what it was before. In the history of 
 the French Revolution we read of many middle 
 parties, who attempted to form theories of consti¬ 
 tutions short of those which they would call ex¬ 
 treme, and successively failed from the want of 
 power or reality in tl^ir characteristic ideas. The 
 Semiarians attempted a middle way between ortho¬ 
 doxy and heresy, but could not stand their ground; 
 at length part fell into Macedonianism, and part 
 joined the Church. 
 
 The stronger and more living is an idea, that is, 
 the more powerful hold it exercises on the minds of 
 men, the more able is it to dispense with safeguards, 
 and trust to itself against the danger of corruption. 
 As strong frames exult in their agility, and healthy 
 constitutions throw off ailments, so parties or schools 
 that live can afford to be rash, and will sometimes 
 be betrayed into extravagances, yet are brought 
 right by their inherent vigour. On the other hand, 
 unreal systems are commonly decent externally.,. 
 Forms, subscriptions, or Articles of religion are in¬ 
 dispensable when the principle of life is weakly. 
 Thus Presbyterianism has maintained its original 
 theology in Scotland where legal subscriptions are 
 enforced, while it has run into Arianism or Unitari¬ 
 an ism where that protection is away. We have yet 
 to see whether the Free Kirk can keep its present 
 
OF AN IDEA. 
 
 77 
 
 Sec. III.] 
 
 theological ground. The Church of Rome can con¬ 
 sult expedience more freely than other bodies, as 
 trusting to her living tradition, and is sometimes 
 thought to disregard principle and scruple when she 
 is but dispensing with forms. Thus Saints are often 
 characterized by acts which are no patterns for 
 others; and the most gifted men are, by reason of 
 their very gifts, sometimes led into fatal inadver¬ 
 tences. Hence vows are the wise defence of un¬ 
 stable virtue, and general rules the refuge of feeble 
 authority. 
 
 And so much may suffice on the unitive power of 
 faithful developments, which constitutes their third 
 characteristic. 
 
 § 6 . 
 
 The Fourth Test: Early Anticipation . 
 
 Since, when an idea is living, that is, influential 
 and operative in the minds' of recipients, it is sure 
 to develope according to* the jwinciples on which 
 they are formed; instances of such a process, though 
 vague and isolated, may occur from the very first, 
 though a lapse of time be necessary to bring it to 
 perfection. And since developments are in great 
 measure only aspect^ of the idea from which they 
 come, and all of them are natural consequences of 
 it, it is often a matter of accident in what order 
 they are carried out in individual minds; and it is 
 in no wise strange that here and there definite spe¬ 
 cimens should very early occur, which in the his¬ 
 torical course are not found till a late day. The 
 fact, then, of such early or recurring intimations of 
 tendencies, which afterwards are fully realized, is a 
 sort of evidence that those later and more systematic 
 fulfilments are but in accordance with the original 
 idea. 
 
 Nothing is more common, for instance, than ac¬ 
 counts or legends of the anticipations, which great 
 
78 
 
 ON THE CORRUPTION 
 
 [Chap. I. 
 
 men have given in boyhood of the bent of their 
 minds, as afterwards displayed in their history; so 
 much so that the popular expectation has some¬ 
 times led to the invention of them. The child 
 Cyrus mimics a despot’s power, and St. Athanasius 
 is elected Bishop by his playfellows. In the Book 
 of Job, we find a special doctrine of the Gospel 
 anticipated at so early a date that Warburton even 
 considers it a difficulty in his particular theory, and 
 is led in consequence to make Ezra the writer. 
 
 To turn to profane history. It is observable that 
 in the eleventh century, when the Russians were 
 but pirates upon the Black Sea, Constantinople was 
 their aim; and that a prophecy was in circulation in 
 that city that they should one day gain possession 
 of it. 
 
 In the reign of James the First, we have a curious 
 anticipation of the system of influence in the manage¬ 
 ment of political parties, which was developed by 
 Sir R. Walpole a century afterwards. This at¬ 
 tempt is traced by a living writer to the ingenuity 
 of Lord Bacon. u He submitted to the King that 
 there were expedients for more judiciously manag¬ 
 ing a House of Commons; . . . that much might 
 be done by forethought towards filling the House 
 with well-affected persons, winning or blinding the 
 lawyers . . . and drawing the chief constituent 
 bodies of the assembly, the country gentlemen, the 
 merchants, the courtiers, to act for the King’s advan¬ 
 tage; that it would be expedient to tender volun¬ 
 tarily certain graces and modifications of the King’s 
 prerogative,” &C . 1 The writer adds, “This circum¬ 
 stance, like several others in the present reign, is 
 curious, as it shows the rise of a systematic parlia¬ 
 mentary influence, which was one day to become 
 the mainspring of government.” 
 
 Arcesilas and Carneades, the founders of the later 
 Academy, are known to have innovated on the Pla- 
 1 Hallam’s Const. Hist. ch. vi. p. 461. 
 
Sec. III.] 
 
 OF AN IDEA. 
 
 79 
 
 tonic doctrine by inculcating a universal scepticism; 
 and they did this, as if on the authority of Socrates, 
 who had adopted the method of ironia against the 
 Sophists, on their professing to know everything. 
 This, of course, was an insufficient plea. However, 
 could it be shown that Socrates did on one or two 
 occasions evidence deliberate doubts on the great 
 principles of theism or morals, would any one deny 
 that the innovation in question had grounds for being 
 considered a true development, not a corruption ? 
 
 It is certain that, in the idea of Monacliism, pre¬ 
 valent in ancient times, manual labour had a more 
 prominent place than study; so much so that De 
 Ranee, the celebrated Abbot of La Trappe, in con¬ 
 troversy with Mabillon, maintained his ground with 
 great plausibility against the latter’s apology for 
 the literary occupations for which the Benedictines 
 of France are so famous. Nor can it be denied 
 that the labours of such as Mabillon and Mont- 
 faucon are at least a development upon the simpli¬ 
 city of the primitive institution. And yet it is 
 remarkable that St. Pacliomius, the first author of 
 a monastic rule, enjoined a library in each of his 
 houses, and appointed conferences and disputations 
 three times a week on religious subjects, interpre¬ 
 tation of Scripture, or points of theology. St. Basil, 
 the founder of Monachism in Pontus, one of the 
 most learned of the Greek Fathers, wrote his theo¬ 
 logical treatises in the intervals of agricultural 
 labour. St. Jerome, the author of the Latin ver¬ 
 sion of Scripture, lived as a poor monk in a cell at 
 Bethlehem. These, indeed, were but exceptions in 
 the character of early Monachism; but they suggest 
 its capabilities and anticipate its history. Litera¬ 
 ture is certainly not inconsistent with its idea. 
 
 In the controversies with the Gnostics, in the 
 second century, striking anticipations occasionally 
 occur, in the works of their opponents, of the formal 
 dogmatic teaching developed in the Church in the 
 
80 
 
 ON THE CORRUPTION 
 
 [Chap. I. 
 
 i 
 
 
 course of the Nestorian and Monophysite controver¬ 
 sies in the fifth. Paul of Samosata, one of the first 
 disciples of the Syrian school of theology, taught a 
 heresy sufficiently like Nestorianism, in which that 
 school terminated, to be mistaken for it in later 
 times; yet for a long while after him the characteris¬ 
 tic of the school was Arianism, an opposite heresy. 
 
 Lutheranism, as is well known, has by this time 
 become almost simple heresy or infidelity ; it has 
 terminated, if it has even yet reached its limit, in a 
 denial both of the Canon and the Creed, nay, of 
 many principles of morals. Accordingly the ques¬ 
 tion arises, whether these conclusions are in fair¬ 
 ness to be connected with its original teaching or 
 are a corruption. And it is no little aid towards 
 its resolution to find that Luther himself at one 
 time rejected the Apocalypse, called the Epistle of 
 St. James “ straminea,” condemned the word u Tri¬ 
 nity,” fell into a kind of Eutychianism as holding 
 the omnipresence of our Lord’s Manhood, and in 
 a particular case sanctioned bigamy. Calvinism, 
 again, in various distinct countries, has become Soci- 
 nianism, and Calvin seems to have denied our Lord’s 
 Eternal Sonship and ridiculed the Xicene Creed. 
 
 Another evidence, then, of the faithfulness of an 
 ultimate development is its definite anticipation at 
 an early period in the history of the idea to which 
 it belongs. 
 
 The Fifth Test; Logical Sequence. 
 
 Though it is a matter of accident in what order 
 or degree developments of a common idea will show 
 themselves in this or that place, particular minds or 
 communities taking different courses, yet on a large 
 field they will on the whole be gradual and orderly, 
 nay, in logical sequence. It may be asked whether 
 a development is itself a logical process; and if by 
 
Sec. III.] 
 
 OF AN IDEA. 
 
 81 
 
 this is meant a conscious reasoning from premisses 
 to conclusion, of course the answer must be in the 
 negative. An idea grows in the mind by remain- 
 ing there; it becomes familiar and distinct, and is 
 viewed in its relations; it suggests other ideas, and 
 these again others, subtle, recondite, original, accord¬ 
 ing to the character, intellectual and moral, of the 
 recipient; and thus a body of thought is gradually 
 formed without his recognising what is going 
 on within him. And all this while, or at least 
 from time to time, external circumstances elicit 
 into formal statement the thoughts which are 
 coming into being in the depths of his mind; and 
 soon he has to begin to defend them; and then 
 again a further process must take place, of analys¬ 
 ing his statements and ascertaining their depend¬ 
 ence one on another. And thus he is led to regard 
 as consequences, and to trace to principles, what 
 hitherto he has discerned by a moral perception, 
 and adopted on sympathy; and logic is brought in 
 to arrange and inculcate what no science was em¬ 
 ployed in gaining. 
 
 And so in the same way, such intellectual pro¬ 
 cesses, as are carried on silently and spontaneously 
 in the mind of a party or school, of necessity come 
 to light at a later date, and then present themselves 
 not without an intelligible order. Then logic has ^ 
 its function, not of discovery, but of propagation; 
 
 _-- r -2.. - - J 1 ■ P X ° . 
 
 analogy, the nature oi the case, antecedent probabi¬ 
 lity, application of principles, congruity, expedience, 
 are some of the methods of proof on which the de¬ 
 velopment is continued from mind to mind and 
 established in the faith of the community. 
 
 Yet even then the analysis is not made on a 
 principle, or with any view to its whole course and 
 finished results. Each argument is brought for an 
 immediate purpose; minds develope step by step, 
 without looking behind them or anticipating their 
 goal, and without either intention or promise of 
 
 G 
 
82 ON THE CORRUPTION [Chap. I. 
 
 forming a system. Afterwards, however, this logi¬ 
 cal character which the whole wears becomes a 
 
 * 
 
 test that the process has been a true development, 
 not a perversion or corruption, from its evident 
 naturalness ; and in some cases from the gravity, 
 distinctness, precision, and majesty of its advance, 
 and the harmony of its proportions, like the tall 
 growth, and graceful branching, and rich foliage, 
 of some vegetable production. 
 
 The process of development, thus capable of a 
 logical expression, has sometimes been invidiously 
 spoken of as rationalism and contrasted with faith. 
 But, though a particular doctrine or opinion which 
 is subjected to development may happen to be 
 rationalistic, and, as is the original, such are its 
 results; and though we may develope erroneously, 
 that is, reason incorrectly, yet the developing itself 
 as little deserves that imputation in any case, as an 
 inquiry into an historical fact, which w r e do not 
 thereby make but ascertain,—for instance, whether 
 or not St. Mark wrote his Gospel with St. Matthew 
 before him, or Solomon brought his merchandize 
 from Tartessus or some Indian port. Rationalism 
 is... the _preference of reason to faith; but one does 
 not see how it can be faith to adopt the premisses, 
 and unbelief to accept the conclusion. 
 
 For instance, let us take a definition which some 
 years since was given of rationalism. To ration¬ 
 alize is u to ask improperly how we are to account 
 for certain things, to be unwilling to believe them 
 unless they can be accounted for, that is, referred 
 to something else as a cause, to some existing sys¬ 
 tem, as harmonizing with them or taking them up 
 into itself. . . . Rationalism is characterised by two 
 peculiarities, its love of systematising, and its bas¬ 
 ing its ’system upon personal experience or the 
 evidence of sense .” 1 If this be rationalism, it is to¬ 
 tally distinct from development ; to develope is to 
 1 Tracts for the Times, No. 73 , § 1, init. 
 
OF AN IDEA. 
 
 83 
 
 Sec. III.] 
 
 receive conclusions from received truth, to ration¬ 
 alize is to receive nothing but conclusions from re¬ 
 ceived truths; to develope is positive, to rationalize 
 is negative; the essence of development is to extend 
 belief, of rationalism to contract it. 
 
 At the same time it may be granted that the 
 spontaneous process which goes on within the\ 
 mind itself is higher and choicer than that which 
 is logical; for the latter, being scientific, is com¬ 
 mon property, and can be taken and made use of 
 by minds who are strangers, in any true sense, both 
 to the ideas in question and to their development. 
 
 Thus, the holy Apostles would know without 
 words all the truths concerning the high doctrines of 
 
 o O 
 
 theology, which controversialists after them have 
 piously and charitably reduced to formulae, and de¬ 
 veloped through argument. Thus, St. Justin or 
 St. Irenaeus might be without any digested ideas of 
 Purgatory or Original Sin, yet have an intense feel¬ 
 ing, which they had not defined or located, both of 
 the fault of our first nature and the liabilities of 
 our nature regenerate. Thus St. Antony said to 
 the philosophers who came to mock him, u He whose 
 mind is in health does not need letters;” and St. 
 Ignatius Lo}mla, while yet an unlearned neophyte, 
 was favoured with transcendent perceptions of the 
 Holy Trinity during his penance at Manresa. Thus 
 St. Athanasius himself is more powerful in state¬ 
 ment and exposition than in proof; while in Bellar- 
 mine we find the whole series of doctrines carefully 
 drawn out, duly adjusted with one another, and 
 exactly analyzed one by one. 
 
 The history of empires and of public men sup¬ 
 plies so many instances of political logic, that it is 
 needless to do more than allude to them. It is 
 illustrated by the words of Jeroboam, u Now shall 
 this kingdom return to the house of David, if this 
 people go up to do sacrifice in the house of the 
 Lord at Jerusalem. . . Wherefore the king took 
 
ON THE CORRUPTION 
 
 84 
 
 [Ciiap. I. 
 
 counsel and made two calves of gold, and said unto 
 them, Behold thy gods, 0 Israel.” 
 
 A specimen of logical development, most interest¬ 
 ing, though most painfully so, is afforded us in the 
 history of Lutheranism as it has of late years been 
 drawn out by various English writers. Luther 
 started on a double basis, his dogmatic princ iple 1 
 being contradicted by his right of private judgment, j 
 and his sacramental by his theory of justification. 1 
 The sacramental element never showed signs of life; 
 but on his death, that which he represented in his 
 own person as a teacher, the dogmatic, gained the 
 ascendancy; and “every expression of his upon con¬ 
 troverted points became a norm for the party, 
 which, at all times the largest, was at last coexten¬ 
 sive with the Church itself. This almost idolatrous 
 veneration was perhaps increased by the selection 
 of declarations of faith, of which the substance on 
 the whole was his, for the symbolical books of his 
 Church.” 1 Next a reaction took place; private judg¬ 
 ment was restored to the supremacy. Calixtus put 
 reason, and Spener the so-called religion of the heart, 
 in the place of dogmatic correctness. Pietism for 
 the present died away; but rationalism developed in 
 Wolf, who professed to prove all the orthodox doc¬ 
 trines, by a process of reasoning, from premisses level 
 with the reason. It was soon found that the instru¬ 
 ment which Wolf had used for orthodoxy, could as 
 plausibly be used against it;—in his hands it had 
 proved the Creed; in the hands of Semler, Ernesti, 
 and others, it disproved the authority of Scrip¬ 
 ture. What was religion to be made to consist in 
 now? A sort of philosophical Pietism followed; or 
 rather Spener’s pietism and the original theory of 
 justification were analyzed more thoroughly, and 
 issued in various theories of Pantheism, which from 
 the first was at the bottom of Luther’s doctrine and 
 personal character. And this appears to be the 
 1 Pusev on German Rationalism, p. 21, note. 
 
Sec. III.] 
 
 OF AN IDEA. 
 
 85 
 
 state of Lutheranism at present, whether we view 
 it in the philosophy of Kant, in the open infidelity 
 of Strauss, or in the religious professions of the new 
 Evangelical Church of Prussia. Applying this in¬ 
 stance to the subject which it has been brought to 
 illustrate, I should say that the equable and orderly 
 march and natural succession of views, by which the 
 creed of Luther has been changed into the infidel 
 or heretical philosophy of his present representa¬ 
 tives, is a proof that that change is no perversion 
 or corruption, but a faithful development of the ori¬ 
 ginal idea. 
 
 This is but one out of many instances with which 
 the history of the Church supplies us. The for¬ 
 tunes of a theological school are made the measure 
 of the teaching of its founder. The great Origen 
 died after his many labours in peace; his immediate 
 pupils were saints and rulers in the Church; he has 
 the praise of St. Athanasius, St. Basil, and St. Gre¬ 
 gory Nazianzen, and furnishes materials to St. Am¬ 
 brose and St. Hilary; yet, as time proceeded, a defi¬ 
 nite heterodoxy was the growing result of his the¬ 
 ology, and at length, three hundred years after his 
 death, he was condemned, and, as has generally been 
 considered, in an Ecumenical Council. 1 u Diodorus 
 of Tarsus,” says Tillemont, u died at an advanced 
 age, in the peace of the Church, honoured by the 
 praises of the greatest saints, and crowned with a 
 glory, which, having ever attended him through life, 
 followed him after his death 1 2 yet St. Cyril of Alex¬ 
 andria considers him and Theodore of Mopsuestia 
 the true authors of Nestorianism, and he was placed 
 in the event by the Nestorians among their saints, 
 Theodore himself was condemned after his death by 
 the same Council which is said to have condemned 
 
 1 Halloix, Valesius, Lequien, Gieseler, Dollinger, &c. say that he 
 was condemned, not in the fifth Council, but in the Council under 
 Hennas. 
 
 2 Mem. Eccl. tom. viii. p. 562. 
 
86 
 
 ON THE CORRUPTION 
 
 [Chap. I. 
 
 Origen, and is justly considered the chief rationaliz¬ 
 ing doctor of antiquity; yet he was in the highest 
 repute in his day, and the eastern synod complains, 
 as quoted by Facundus, that “Blessed Theodore, who 
 died so happily, who was so eminent a teacher for 
 five and forty years, and overthrew every heresy, and 
 in his lifetime experienced no imputation from the 
 orthodox, now after his death so long ago, after his 
 many conflicts, after his ten thousand books com¬ 
 posed in refutation of errors, after his approval in 
 the sight of priests, emperors, and people, runs the 
 risk of receiving the reward of heretics, and of 
 being called their chief.” 1 There is a certain con¬ 
 tinuous advance and determinate path which belong 
 to the history of a doctrine, policy, or institution, 
 and which impress upon the common sense of man¬ 
 kind, that what it ultimately becomes is the issue 
 of what it was at first. This sentiment is expressed 
 in the proverb, not limited to Latin, Exitus acta 
 probat; and is sanctioned by Divine Wisdom, when, 
 warning us against false prophets, It says, “ Ye 
 shall know them by their fruits.” 
 
 Logical sequence , then, is a fifth characteristic of 
 developments, which are faithfully drawn from the 
 ideas to which they profess to belong. 
 
 § 8 . 
 
 The Sixth Text; Preservative Additions. 
 
 As developments which are preceded by definite 
 indications have a fair presumption in their favour, 
 so those which do but contradict and reverse the 
 course of doctrine which has been developed before 
 them, and out of which they spring, are certainly 
 corrupt; for a corruption is a development in that 
 very stage in which it ceases to illustrate, and be¬ 
 gins to prejudice, the acquisitions gained in its pre¬ 
 vious history. 
 
 1 Del'. Tr. Cap. viii. init. 
 
Sec. III.] 
 
 OF AX IDEA. 
 
 87 
 
 
 It is the rule of creation, or rather of the pheno¬ 
 mena which it presents, that life passes on to its 
 termination by a gradual, imperceptible course of 
 change. There is ever a maximum in earthly ex¬ 
 cellence, and the operation of the same causes which 
 made things great makes them small again. Weak¬ 
 ness is but the resulting product of power. Events 
 move in cycles; all things come round, “the sun 
 ariseth and goetli down, and hasteth to his place 
 where he arose.’ 7 Flowers first bloom, and then 
 fade; fruit ripens and decays. The fermenting 
 process, unless stopped at the due point, corrupts 
 the liquor which it has created. The grace of 
 spring, the richness of autumn are but for a 
 moment, and worldly moralists bid us Carpe 
 diem , for we shall have no second opportunity. 
 Virtue seems to lie in a mean, between vice and 
 vice; and, as it grew out of imperfection, so to 
 grow into enormity. There is a limit to human 
 knowledge, and both sacred and profane writers 
 witness that overwisdom is folly. And in the po¬ 
 litical world states rise and fall, the instruments 
 of their aggrandizement becoming the weapons of 
 their destruction. And hence the frequent ethical 
 maxims, such as, u Ne quid nimis ,” “ Medio tutissi- 
 mus ,” “ Vaulting ambition,” which seem to imply 
 that too much of what is good is evil. 
 
 So great a paradox of course cannot be main¬ 
 tained as that truth literally leads to falsehood, 
 or that there can be an excess of virtue; but the 
 appearance of things and the popular language 
 about them will at least serve us in obtaining a 
 test for the discrimination of a development of an 
 idea from its corruption. 
 
 A true development, then, may be described as 
 one which is conservative of the course of develop¬ 
 ment which went before it, which is that develop¬ 
 ment and something besides: it is an addition which 
 illustrates, not obscures, corroborates, not corrects, 
 
88 ON THE CORRUPTION [Chap. I. 
 
 the body of thought from which it proceeds; and 
 this is its characteristic as contrasted with a cor¬ 
 ruption. 
 
 For instance, a gradual conversion from a false to 
 a true religion, plainly, has much of the character of 
 a continuous process, ora development, in the mind 
 itself, even when the two religions, which are the 
 limits of its course, are antagonist. Now let it be 
 observed, that such a change consists in addition 
 and increase chiefly, not in destruction. “True re¬ 
 ligion is the summit and perfection of false re¬ 
 ligions; it combines in one whatever there is of 
 good and true separately remaining in each. And 
 in like manner the Catholic Creed is for the most 
 part the combination of separate truths, which 
 heretics have divided among themselves, and err 
 in dividing. So that, in matter of fact, if a re¬ 
 ligious mind Avere educated in, and sincerely at¬ 
 tached to some form of heathenism or heresy, and 
 then Avere brought under the light of truth, it 
 Avould be draAvn off from error into the truth, not 
 by losing what it had, but by gaining Avhat it had 
 not, not by being unclothed, but by being c clothed 
 upon,’ “that mortality may be swallowed up of life.’ 
 That same principle of faith Avhich attaches it to 
 its original Avrong doctrine Avould attach it to the 
 truth ; and that portion of its original doctrine, 
 which Avas to be cast off as absolutely false, would 
 not be directly rejected, but indirectly, in the recep¬ 
 tion of the truth Avhich is its opposite. True con¬ 
 version is ever of a positive, not a negative cha¬ 
 racter.” 1 
 
 Such too is the theory of the Fathers as regards 
 the doctrines fixed by Councils, as is instanced in 
 the language of St. Leo. u To be seeking for Avhat 
 has been disclosed, to reconsider AA r hat has been 
 
 1 Tracts for the Times, No. 85, p. 73. A remark follows about 
 Roman Catholics and the primitive faith, which may be better 
 applied to the Roman faith and those who oppose it. 
 
OF AN IDEA. 
 
 89 
 
 Sec. III.] 
 
 finished, to tear up what has been laid down, what 
 is this but to be unthankful for what is gained?’ 71 
 Vincentius of Lerins, in like manner, speaks of the 
 development of Christian doctrine, as profectus 
 jiclei non permutatiod And so as regards the 
 Jewish Law, our Lord said that He came u not to 
 destroy, but to fulfil.” 
 
 Mahomet is accused of contradicting his earlier 
 revelations by his later, “ which is a thing so well 
 known to those of his sect that they all acknow¬ 
 ledge it; and therefore when the contradictions 
 are such as they cannot solve them, then they will 
 have one of the contradictory places to be revoked. 
 And they reckon in the whole Alcoran about a 
 hundred and fifty verses which are thus revoked.” 3 
 
 Schelling, says Mr. Dewar, considers u that \ the 
 time has arrived when an esoteric speculative Chris¬ 
 tianity ought to take the place of the exoteric em¬ 
 piricism which has hitherto prevailed.” This Ger¬ 
 man philosopher u acknowledges that such a project 
 is opposed to the evident design of the Church, and 
 of her earliest teachers.” 4 
 
 When Roman Catholics are accused of substitut¬ 
 ing another Gospel for the primitive Creed, they 
 answer that they hold, and can show that they 
 hold, the doctrines of the Incarnation and Atone¬ 
 ment, as firmly as any Protestant can state them. 
 To this it is replied that they do certainly profess 
 them, but that they obscure and virtually annul 
 them by their additions; that the cultus of St. Mary 
 and the Saints is no development of the truth, but a 
 corruption, because it draws away the mind and 
 heart from Christ. They answer that, so far from 
 this, it subserves, illustrates, protects the doctrine of 
 our Lord’s condescension and mediation. Thus the 
 parties in controversy join issue on the common 
 ground, that a developed doctrine which reverses 
 
 1 Ep. 162. 2 lb. p. 309. 3 Prideaux, Life of Mahomet, p. 90. 
 
 4 German Protestantism, p. 176. 
 
90 ON THE CORRUPTION [Chap. I. 
 
 the course of development which has preceded it, is 
 no true development but a corruption. This sub¬ 
 ject, however, will come before us by and bye. 
 
 Blackstone supplies us with an instance in another 
 subject-matter, when he observes that u when so¬ 
 ciety is once formed, government results of course, 
 as necessary to preserve and to keep that society in 
 order. 7 ’ 1 
 
 When the Long Parliament proceeded to usurp 
 the executive, they impaired the popular liberties 
 which they seemed to be advancing; for the secu¬ 
 rity of those liberties depends on the separation of 
 the executive and legislative powers, or on the en¬ 
 actors being subjects, not executors of the laws. 
 
 And in the history of ancient Rome, from the 
 time that the privileges gained by the tribunes in 
 behalf of the people became an object of ambition 
 to themselves, the development had changed into a 
 corruption. Thus, too, the Greek demagogue be¬ 
 came the tyrant. 
 
 And thus a sixth test of a true development is 
 its being an aciditio7i which is conservative of what 
 has gone before it. 
 
 * 
 
 § 9 . 
 
 The Seventh Test; Chronic Continuance. 
 
 Since the corruption of an idea, as far as the ap¬ 
 pearance goes, is a sort of accident or affection of 
 its development, being the end of a course, and a 
 transition-state leading to a crisis, it is, as has 
 been observed, a brief and rapid process. While 
 ideas live in men’s minds, they are ever enlarging 
 into fuller development; they will not be station¬ 
 ary in their corruption any more than before it; 
 and dissolution is that further state to which cor¬ 
 ruption tends. Corruption cannot, therefore, be of 
 
 1 Vol. i. p. 118. 
 
Sec. III.] 
 
 OF AN IDEA, 
 
 91 
 
 long standing; and thus duration is another test 
 of a faithful development. 
 
 Si gravis , brevis; si longus , levis; is the Stoical 
 topic of consolation under pain; and of a number 
 of disorders it can even be said, The worse, the 
 shorter. 
 
 Sober men are indisposed to change in civil mat¬ 
 ters, and fear reforms and innovations, lest, if they 
 go a little too far, they should at once run to some 
 great calamities before a remedy can be applied. 
 The chance of a slow corruption does not strike 
 them. Revolutions are generally violent and swift; 
 now, in fact, they are the course of a corruption. 
 
 The course of heresies is always short: it is an 
 intermediate state between life and death, or what 
 is like death; or, if it does not result in death, it is 
 resolved into some new, perhaps opposite, course of 
 error, which lays no claim to be connected with it. 
 And in this way indeed an heretical principle will 
 continue in life many years, first running one way, 
 then another. 
 
 The abounding of iniquity is the token of the 
 end approaching; the faithful in consequence cry 
 out, How long? as if delay opposed reason as well 
 as patience. Three years and a half are to com¬ 
 plete the reign of Antichrist. 
 
 Nor is it any real objection that the world is ever 
 corrupt, and yet, in spite of this, evil does not fill 
 up its measure and overflow; for this arises from 
 the external counteractions of truth and virtue, 
 which bear it back; let the Church be removed, 
 and the world will soon come to its end. 
 
 And so again, if the chosen people age after age 
 became worse and worse, till there was no recovery, 
 still their course of evil was continually broken by 
 reformations, and was thrown back upon a less 
 advanced stage of declension. 
 
 It is true that decay, which is one form of cor¬ 
 ruption, is slow; but decay is a state in which there 
 
 _ ----- ■ *' 
 
92 
 
 ON THE CORRUPTION 
 
 [Chap. I. 
 
 is no violent or vigorous action at all, whether of a 
 conservative or a destructive character, the hostile 
 influence being powerful enough to enfeeble the 
 functions of life, but not to quicken its own process. 
 And thus we see opinions, usages, and systems, 
 which are of venerable and imposing aspect, but 
 which have no soundness within them, and keep 
 together from a habit of consistence, or from de¬ 
 pendence on political institutions; or they become 
 almost peculiarities of a country, or the habits of a 
 race, or the fashions of society. And then, at 
 length, perhaps, they go off suddenly and die out 
 under the first rough influence from without. Such 
 are the superstitions which pervade a population, 
 like some ingrained die or inveterate odour, and 
 which at length come to an end, because nothing 
 lasts for ever, but which run no course, and have no 
 history; such was the established paganism of clas¬ 
 sical times, which was the fit subject of persecution, 
 for its first breath made it crumble and disappear. 
 Such apparently is the state of the Nestorian and 
 Monophysite communions; such might have been 
 the condition of Christianity had it been absorbed 
 by the feudalism of the middle ages; such too is 
 that Protestantism, or (as it sometimes calls itself) 
 attachment to the Establishment, which is not un- 
 frequently the boast of the respectable and wealthy 
 among ourselves. 
 
 Whether Mahometanism external to Christendom, 
 and the Greek Church within it, fall under this de¬ 
 scription is yet to be seen. Circumstances can be 
 imagined which would even now rouse the fanaticism 
 of the Moslem; and the Russian despotism does 
 not venture upon the usages, though it may domi¬ 
 neer over the priesthood, of the national religion. 
 
 Thus, while a corruption is distinguished from 
 decay by its energetic action, it is distinguished 
 from a development by its transitory character. 
 
 LA. 
 
 h 
 
 
Sec. ILL] OF AN IDEA. 93 
 
 And thus we have a seventh and final test of a 
 development. 
 
 This is all that need here be said on the criteria 
 between a development and a corruption. We 
 shall have occasion for them hereafter. Meanwhile 
 it is plain that they are only of a practical charac¬ 
 ter, and not determined on any logical principle of 
 division; and the instances which have been ar¬ 
 ranged under one head might in some cases have 
 been referred to another. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN IDEAS 
 ANTECEDENTLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 ON THE PROBABILITY OF DEVELOPMENTS IN 
 
 CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 1. If Christianity is a fact, and can be made 
 subject-matter of exercises of the reason, and im¬ 
 presses an idea of itself on our minds, that idea 
 will in course of time develope in a series of ideas 
 connected and harmonious with one another, and 
 unchangeable and complete, as is the external fact 
 itself which is thus represented. It is the peculi¬ 
 arity of the human mind, that it cannot take an 
 object in, which is submitted to it, simply and in¬ 
 tegrally. It conceives by means of definition or 
 description; whole objects do not create in the 
 intellect whole ideas, but are, to use a mathematical 
 phrase, thrown into series, into a number of state¬ 
 ments, strengthening, interpreting, correcting each 
 other, and with more or less exactness approxi¬ 
 mating, as they accumulate, to a perfect image. 
 There is no other way of learning or of teaching. 
 We cannot teach except by aspects or views, which 
 are not identical with the thing itself which we are 
 teaching. Two persons will convey the same truth 
 to another, yet by methods and through representa¬ 
 tions altogether different. The same person will 
 treat, the same argument differently in an essay or 
 
Sec. I.] 
 
 DEVELOPMENTS IN CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 95 
 
 speech, according to the accident of the day of 
 writing, or of the audience, yet it will be the same. 
 
 And the more claim an idea has to be considered 
 living, the more various will be its aspects; and the 
 more social and political is its nature, the more 
 complicated and subtle will be its developments, 
 and the longer and more eventful will be its course. 
 Such is Christianity; and whatever has been said 
 in the last Chapter about the development of ideas 
 generally, becomes of course an antecedent argu¬ 
 ment for its progressive development. 
 
 It may be objected that inspired documents, such 
 as the Holy Scriptures, at once determine its doc¬ 
 trine without further trouble. But thev were in- 
 tended to create an idea, and that idea is not in the 
 sacred text, but in the mind of the reader; and the 
 question is, whether that idea is communicated to 
 him, in its completeness and minute accuracy, on its 
 first apprehension, or expands in his heart and in¬ 
 tellect, and comes to perfection in the course of 
 time. Nor could it be maintained without extrava- \ 
 gance that the letter of the New Testament, or of 
 any assignable number of books, comprises a deli¬ 
 neation of all possible forms which a divine mes¬ 
 sage will assume when submitted to a multitude of. 
 
 o 
 
 minds. 
 
 Nor is the case altered by supposing that inspi¬ 
 ration did for the first recipients of the Bevelation 
 what the Divine Fiat did for herbs and plants in 
 the beginning, which were created in maturity. 
 Still, the time at length came, when its recipients 
 ceased to be inspired; and on these recipients the 
 revealed truths would fall, as in other cases, at 
 first vaguely and generally, and would afterwards 
 be completed by developments. 
 
 Nor can it fairly be made a difficulty that thus 
 to treat of Christianity is to level it in some sort to 
 sects and doctrines of the world, and to impute to 
 it the imperfections which characterize the produc- 
 
96 
 
 ON THE PROBABILITY OE 
 
 [Chap. II. 
 
 tions of man. Certainly it is a degradation of a 
 divine work to consider it under an earthly form; 
 but it is no irreverence, since the Lord Himself, its 
 Author and Owner, bore one also. Christianity 
 differs from other religions and philosophies, in what 
 it has in addition to them; not in kind, but in 
 origin; not in its nature, but in its personal cha¬ 
 racteristics ; being informed and quickened by what 
 is more than intellect, by a Divine Spirit. It is ex¬ 
 ternally what the Apostle calls an u earthen vessel,” 
 being the religion of men. And, considered as such, 
 it grows u in wisdom and stature;” but the powers 
 which it wields, and the words which proceed out of 
 its mouth, attest its miraculous nativity. 
 
 Unless then some special ground of exception can 
 be assigned, it is as evident that Christianity, as a 
 doctrine and worship, will develope in the minds of 
 recipients, as that it conforms in other respects, in 
 its external propagation or its political framework, 
 to the general methods by which the course of 
 things is carried forward. 
 
 2. Again, if Christianity be an universal religion, 
 suited not to one locality or period, but to all times 
 and places, it cannot but vary in its relations and 
 dealings towards the world around it, that is, it will 
 / develope. Principles require a very various applica¬ 
 tion according to persons and circumstances, and 
 must be thrown into new shapes according to the 
 form of society which they are to influence. Hence 
 all bodies of Christians develope the doctrines of 
 Scripture. Few but will grant that Luther’s view 
 of justification had never been stated in words 
 before his time; that his phraseology and his posi¬ 
 tions were novel, whether called for by circum¬ 
 stances or not. It is equally certain that the doc- • 
 S trine of justification defined at Trent was, in some 
 f sense, new also. The refutation and remedy of 
 | errors cannot precede their rise; and thus the fact 
 iof false developments or corruptions involves the 
 
Sec. I.] DEVELOPMENTS IN CHRISTIANITY. 97 
 
 correspondent manifestation of true ones. More¬ 
 over, all parties appeal to Scripture, that is, argue 
 from Scripture; but argument implies deduction,\ 
 that is, development. Here there is no difference] 
 between early times and late, between a Pope ex 
 cathedra and an individual Protestant, except that 
 their authority is not on a par. On either side the 
 claim of authority is the same, and the process of 
 development. 1 
 
 Accordingly, the common complaint of Protes¬ 
 tants against the Church of Pome is, not simply 
 that she has added to the primitive or the Scriptural 
 doctrine, but that she contradicts it, and moreover 
 imposes her additions as fundamental truths under 
 sanction of an anathema. For themselves they 
 deduce by quite as subtle a method, and act upon 
 doctrines as implicit and on reasons as little analyzed 
 ^ in time past, as Catholic schoolmen. What small \ 
 prominence has the Poyal Supremacy in the New J 
 Testament, or the lawfulness of bearing arms, or j 
 the duty of public worship, or the substitution of 
 the first day of the week for the seventh, or infant 
 baptism, to say nothing of the fundamental princi- l 
 \ pie that the Bible and the Bible only is the religion 
 of Protestants! These doctrines and usages, true 
 or not, which is not the question here, are surely 
 gained, not by a mere exercise of argument upon 
 words and sentences placed before the eyes, but by 
 the unconscious growth of ideas habitual to the 
 mind. 
 
 3. And, indeed, when we turn to the considera¬ 
 tion of particular doctrines on which Scripture lays 
 the greatest stress, we shall see that it is absolutely 
 impossible for them to remain in the mere letter of 
 Scripture, if they are to be more than mere words, 
 or to convey a definite idea to the recipient. When 
 it is declared that “the Word became flesh,” three 
 
 1 Vid. Proph. Office, vii. where this parallel is insisted on, though 
 with a different object. 
 
 H 
 
98 
 
 ON THE PROBABILITY OF 
 
 [Chap. II. 
 
 wide questions open upon us on the very announce¬ 
 ment. What is meant by “the Word,” what by 
 “flesh,” what by “became?” The answers to these 
 involve a process of investigation, and are develop¬ 
 ments. Moreover, when they have been made, they 
 will suggest a series of secondary questions; and 
 thus at length a multitude of propositions is the 
 result, which gather round the inspired sentence of 
 which they come, giving it externally the form of a 
 doctrine, and creating or deepening the idea of it in 
 the mind. 
 
 It is true that, so far as such statements of Scrip¬ 
 ture are mysteries, they are relatively to us but 
 , words, and cannot be developed. But as a mystery 
 implies in part what is incomprehensible, so does it 
 in part imply what is not so; it implies a partial 
 i manifestation, or a representation by economy. 
 
 \ Because then it is in a measure understood, it can 
 l ' so far be developed, though each result in the pro¬ 
 cess will partake of the dimness and confusion of 
 the original impression. 
 
 4. This moreover should be considered, that great 
 questions exist in the subject-matter of which 
 Scripture treats, which Scripture does not solve; 
 questions too so real, so practical, that they must i 
 be answered, and answered, unless we suppose a 
 new revelation, from the revelation which we have, 
 that is, by development. Such is the question of 1 
 the Canon of Scripture and its inspiration: whether 
 Christianity depends upon a written document as j 
 Judaism, if so, on what writings and how many;— 1 
 whether that document is self-interpreting, or re¬ 
 quires a comment, and whether any authoritative 
 comment or commentator is provided;—whether 
 the revelation and the document are commensurate, 
 or the one outruns the other, that is, whether or 
 not the revelation is partly documentary and partly 
 traditional, and whether or not the document is but 
 partially the revelation, the revelation in an unin- 
 
Sec. L] DEVELOPMENTS IN CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 99 
 
 spired organ, or the revelation with additions;—all 
 these questions surely find no solution on the sur¬ 
 face of Scripture, nor indeed under the surface in 
 the case of most men, however long and diligent 
 might be their study of it. Nor were these diffi¬ 
 culties settled by authority, as far as we know, at 
 the commencement of the religion; yet surely it is 
 quite conceivable that an Apostle might have dis¬ 
 sipated them all in a few words, had Divine 
 Wisdom thought fit. But in matter of fact the 
 decision has been left to time, to the slow process of 
 thought, the influence of mind upon mind, the issues 
 of controversy, and the growth of opinion. 
 
 To take another instance :—if there was a pointj 
 on which a rule was desirable from the first, it \ 
 was concerning the course which Christian parents 
 were bound to pursue towards their children. It 
 would be natural indeed in any Christian father, in 
 the absence of express direction, to bring his chil¬ 
 dren for baptism; such in this instance would be 
 the practical development of liis faith in Christ and \ 
 love for his offspring; still a development it is,— i 
 necessarily required, yet, as far as we know, not j 
 provided for his need by the Revelation as originally 
 given. 
 
 Another very large field of thought, full of prac¬ 
 tical considerations, yet, as far as our knowledge 
 goes, but partially occupied by any apostolical 
 judgment, is that which the question of the effects 
 of Baptism opens upon us. That they who came 
 in repentance and faith to that Holy Sacrament re¬ 
 ceived remission of sins, is undoubtedly the doctrine 
 of the Apostles; but is there any means of a second 
 remission for sins committed after it? St. Paul’s 
 Epistles, where we might expect an answer to our 
 inquiry, contain no explicit statement on the sub¬ 
 ject; what they do plainly say does not diminish 
 the difficulty;—viz., first, that Baptism is intended 
 for the pardon of sins before it, not in prospect; 
 
 h 2 
 
100 
 
 ON THE PROBABILITY OF 
 
 [Chap. II. 
 
 next, that those who have received the gift of 
 Baptism live in a state of holiness, not of sin. How 
 does doctrine like this meet the actual state of the 
 Church as we see it at this day? 
 
 Considering that it was expressly predicted that 
 the Kingdom of Heaven, like tlie fisher’s net, should 
 gather of every kind, and that the tares should grow 
 with the wheat until the harvest, a graver and more 
 practical question cannot be imagined than that 
 which it has pleased the Divine Author of the Re¬ 
 velation to leave undecided, unless indeed there be 
 means in that Revelation for its own growth or de¬ 
 velopment. As far as the letter goes of the inspired 
 message, “there is not one of us but has exceeded 
 by transgression its revealed provisions, and finds 
 himself in consequence thrown upon those infinite 
 resources of Divine Love which are stored in Christ, 
 but have not been drawn out into form in its ap¬ 
 pointments.” 1 Since then Scripture needs comple¬ 
 tion, the question is brought to this issue, whether 
 defect or inchoateness in its doctrines be or be not 
 an antecedent probability in favour of a de velopmen t 
 of them. 
 
 There is another subject, though not so imme¬ 
 diately practical, on which Scripture does not, 
 strictly speaking, keep silence, for then there would 
 be no basis for development, but says so Tittle as to 
 require, and so much as to suggest, information 
 beyond its letter,—the intermediate state between 
 death and the Resurrection. Considering the length 
 of time which separates Christ’s first and second 
 coming, the millions of faithful souls who are 
 exhausting it, and the intimate concern which every 
 Christian has in the determination of its character, 
 it might have been expected that Scripture would 
 have spoken explicitly concerning it, whereas in fact 
 its notices are but brief and obscure. We might 
 indeed have argued that this silence was inten- 
 
 1 Justification, lect. xiii. 
 
Sec. I.] 
 
 DEVELOPMENTS IN CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 101 
 
 tional, with a view of discouraging speculations 
 upon the subject, except for the circumstance that, 
 as in the question of our post-baptismal state, its 
 teaching seems to proceed upon an hypothesis 
 inapplicable to the state of the Church since the 
 time it was delivered. As Scripture contemplates \ 
 Christians, not as backsliders, but as saints, so does 
 it apparently represent the Day of Judgment as 
 immediate, and the interval of expectation as 
 evanescent. It leaves on our minds the general 
 impression that Christ was returning on earth at 
 once, u the time short,” worldly engagements super¬ 
 seded by “the present distress,” persecutors urgent, 
 Christians sinless and expectant, without home, 
 without plan for the future, looking up to heaven. 
 But outward circumstances have changed, and with 
 the change, of necessity, a different application of » 
 the revealed word became necessary, that is, a de- ) 
 velopment. When the nations were converted and / 
 offences abounded, then the Church came out to 
 view, on the one hand as an establishment^ on the 
 other as a remedial system, and passages of Scrip¬ 
 ture aided and directed the development which be¬ 
 fore were of inferior account. Hence the doctrine 
 of Penance as the complement of Baptism, and of 
 Purgatory as the explanation of the Intermediate 
 State. So reasonable is this development of the 
 original creed, that, when Baptism was lately ex¬ 
 pounded without the doctrine of Penance, it was 
 accused by English Churchmen of Novatianism, 
 while heterodox thinkers have before now urged the 
 doctrine of the sleep of the soul as the only success¬ 
 ful preventive of belief in Purgatory. 
 
 Thus developments of Christianity are proved to 
 have been in the contemplation of its Divine Author, 
 by an argument parallel to that by which we infer 
 intelligence in the system of the physical world. In 
 whatever sense the need and its supply are a proof of 
 design in the visible creation, in the same do the 
 
102 
 
 OiST THE PROBABILITY OF 
 
 [Chap. II. 
 
 gaps, if the word may be used, which occur in the 
 structure of the original creed of the Church, make 
 it probable that those developments, which grow 
 out of the truths which lie around them, were in¬ 
 tended to complete it. 
 
 Nor can it be fairly objected that in thus arguing 
 we are contradicting the great philosopher, who tells 
 us, that “upon supposition of God affording us light 
 and instruction by revelation, additional to what He 
 has afforded us by reason and experience, we are in no 
 sort judges by what methods, and in what proportion, 
 it were to be expected that this supernatural light 
 and instruction would be afforded us,” 1 because he 
 is speaking of our judging before a revelation is given. 
 He observes that “ we have no principles of reason 
 upon which to judge beforehand, how it were to be 
 expected Revelation should have been left, or what 
 was most suitable to the divine plan of government,” 
 in various respects; but the case is altogether altered 
 when a Revelation is vouchsafed, for then a new pre¬ 
 cedent, or what he calls “principle of reason,” is in¬ 
 troduced, and from what is actually put into our 
 hands we can form a judgment whether more is to 
 be expected. Butler, indeed, as a well-known passage 
 of Iris work shows, is far from denying the principle 
 of progressive development. 
 
 5. The method of revelation observed in Scripture 
 abundantly confirms this anticipation. For instance, 
 Prophecy, if it had so happened, need not have af¬ 
 forded a specimen of development; separate predic¬ 
 tions might have been made to accumulate as time 
 went on, prospects might have opened, definite know¬ 
 ledge might have been given, by communications in¬ 
 dependent of each other, as St. John’s Gospel or the 
 1 Epistles of St. Paul are unconnected with the first 
 three Gospels, though the doctrine of each Apostle is 
 a development of their matter. But the Revelation 
 is, in matter of fact, not of this nature, but a process 
 of development: the earlier prophecies are pregnant 
 
 1 Butler’s Anal. ii. 3. 
 
Sec. I.] DEVELOPMENTS IN CHRISTIANITY. 103 
 
 texts out of which, the succeeding announcements 
 grow; they are types. It is not that first one truth 
 is told, then another; but the whole truth or large 
 portions of it are told at once, yet only in their rudi¬ 
 ments, or in miniature, and they are expanded and 
 finished in their parts, as the course of revelation 
 proceeds. The Seed of the woman was to bruise 
 the serpent’s head; the sceptre was not to depart 
 from Judah till Shiloh came, to whom was the 
 gathering of the people. He was to be Wonderful, 
 Counsellor, the Prince of Peace. The question of 
 the Ethiopian rises in the reader’s mind, “Of whom 
 speaketh the Prophet this?” Every word requires 
 a comment. Accordingly, it is no uncommon theory 
 with unbelievers, that the Messianic idea, as they 
 call it, was gradually developed in the minds of the 
 Jews by a continuous and traditional habit of con¬ 
 templating it, and grew into its full proportions by 
 a mere human process; and so far seems certain, 
 without trenching on the doctrine of inspiration, 
 that t he book s of Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus are 
 developments of the writings of the Prophets, ex¬ 
 pressed under or elicited by current ideas in the 
 Greek philosophy, and ultimately adopted and rati¬ 
 fied by the Apostle in his Epistle to the Hebrews. 
 
 But the whole Bible, not its prophetical portions 
 only, is written on the principle of development. As 
 the Revelation proceeds, it is ever new, yet ever old. 
 St. John, who completes it, declares that he writes 
 no “ new commandment unto his brethren,” but an 
 old commandment which they “ had from the be¬ 
 ginning.” And then he adds, “ A new command¬ 
 ment I write unto you.” The same test of deve¬ 
 lopment is suggested in our Lord’s words on the 
 Mount, as has already been noticed, “ Think not 
 that I am come to destroy the Law and the Prophets; 
 I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.” He does 
 not reverse, but perfect, what has gone before. Thus 
 with respect to the evangelical view of the rite of 
 
104 
 
 ON THE PROBABILITY OF 
 
 [Chap. II. 
 
 sacrifice, first the rite is enjoined by Moses; next 
 Samuel says, “to obey is better than sacrifice;” then 
 Hosea, “ I will have mercy and not sacrificeIsaiah, 
 “Incense is an abomination unto me;” then Mala- 
 chi, describing the times of the Gospel, speaks of the 
 “pure offering” of wheatflour; and our Lord com¬ 
 pletes the development, when He speaks of worship¬ 
 ping “in spirit and in truth.” If there is anything 
 yet to explain, it will be found in the usage of the 
 Christian Church immediately afterwards, which 
 shows that sacrifice was not removed, but truth and 
 spirit added. 
 
 Nay, the effata of our Lord and His Apostles are 
 of a typical structure, parallel to the prophetic an¬ 
 nouncements above mentioned, and predictions as 
 well as injunctions of doctrine. If then the pro¬ 
 phetic sentences have had that development which 
 has really been given them, first by succeeding reve¬ 
 lations, and then by the event, it is probable ante¬ 
 cedently that those doctrinal, political, ritual, and 
 ethical sentences, which have the same structure, 
 should admit the same expansion. Such are, “This 
 is My Body,” or “Thou art Peter, and upon this 
 Rock I will build My Church,” t or “Suffer little 
 children to come unto Me,” or “The pure in heart 
 shall see God.” 
 
 On this character of our Lord’s teaching, the fol¬ 
 lowing passage may suitably be quoted. “His re¬ 
 corded words and Avorks when on earth . . . come as 
 the declarations of a LaAvgiver. In the Old Cove¬ 
 nant, Almighty God first of all spoke the Ten Com¬ 
 mandments from Mount Sinai, and afterwards Avrote 
 them. So our Lord first spoke his oAvn Gospel, 
 both of promise and of precept, on the Mount, and 
 His Evangelists have recorded it. Further, when 
 He delivered it, He spoke by Avay of parallel to the 
 Ten Commandments. And His style, moreover, 
 corresponds to the authority which He assumes. It 
 is of that solemn, measured, and severe character, 
 
Sec. I.] DEVELOPMENTS IN CHRISTIANITY. 105 
 
 which bears on the face of it tokens of its belonging 
 to One who spake as none other man could speak. 
 The Beatitudes, with which His Sermon opens, are 
 an instance of this incommunicable style, which be¬ 
 fitted, as far as human words could befit, God In¬ 
 carnate. 
 
 u Nor is this style peculiar to the Sermon on the 
 Mount. All through the Gospels it is discernible, 
 distinct from any other part of Scripture, showing 
 itself in solemn declarations, canons, sentences, or 
 sayings, such as legislators propound, and scribes 
 and lawyers comment on. Surely everything our 
 Saviour did and said is characterized by mingled 
 simplicity and mystery. His emblematical actions, 
 His typical miracles, His parables, His replies, His 
 censures, all are evidences of a legislature in germ, 
 afterwards to be developed, a code of divine truth 
 which was ever to be before* men’s eyes, to be the 
 subject of investigation and interpretation, and 
 the guide in controversy. 4 Verily, verily, I say 
 unto you ,’— 4 But, I say unto you,’—are the tokens 
 of a supreme Teacher and Prophet. 
 
 “ And thus the Fathers speak of His teaching. 
 c His sayings,’ observes St. Justin, c were short and 
 concise; for He was no rhetorician, but His word 
 was the power of God.’ And St. Basil, in like 
 manner, c Every deed and every word of our Saviour 
 Jesus Christ is a crown of piety and virtue. When 
 then thou hearest word or deed of His, do not hear 
 it as by the way, or after a simple and carnal 
 manner, but enter into the depth of His contempla¬ 
 tions, become a communicant in truths mystically 
 delivered to thee.’ 
 
 u As instances in point, I would refer, first, to 
 His discourse with Nicodemus. We can hardly 
 conceive but He must have spoken during His visit 
 much more than is told us in St. John’s Gospel; 
 but so much is preserved as bears that peculiar 
 character which became a Divine Lawgiver, and was 
 
106 
 
 ON THE PROBABILITY OF 
 
 [Chap. II. 
 
 intended for perpetual use in the Church. It con¬ 
 sists of concise and pregnant enunciations, on which 
 volumes of instructive comment might be written. 
 Every verse is a canon of Divine Truth. 
 
 44 His discourse to the Jews, in the fifth chapter of 
 St. John’s Gospel, is perhaps a still more striking 
 instance. 
 
 44 Again, observe how the Evangelists heap His 
 words together, though unconnected with each 
 other, as if under a divine intimation, and with the 
 consciousness that they were providing a code of 
 doctrine and precept for the Church. St. Luke, for 
 instance, at the end of his ninth chapter,” &c. 
 
 . . Here are six solemn declarations made one 
 after another, with little or no connexion. 
 
 44 The twenty-second chapter of St. Matthew 
 would supply a similar series of sacred maxims; or, 
 again, the eighteenth, in which the separate verses, 
 though succeeding one the other with somewhat 
 more of connexion, are yet complete each in itself 
 and very momentous. 
 
 “No one can doubt, indeed, that as the narratives 
 of His miracles are brought together in one as divine 
 signs, so His sayings are accumulated as lessons. 
 
 “ Or take, again, the very commencement of His 
 prophetical ministrations, and observe how His words 
 run. He opens His mouth with accents of grace, 
 and still they fall into short and expressive sentences. 
 The first: 4 How is it that ye sought Me ? wist ye 
 not that 1 must be about My Lather’s business?’ 
 The second: 4 Suffer it to be so now, for thus it be- 
 cometh us to fulfil all righteousness.’ The third: 
 4 Woman, what am I to thee? Mine hour is not yet 
 come.’ The fourth: 4 Take these things hence; make 
 not My Father’s house a house of merchandize.’ 
 The fifth: 4 Repent ye, for the Kingdom of Heaven 
 is at hand.’ 
 
 44 The same peculiarity shows itself in His conflict 
 with Satan. He strikes and overthrows him, as 
 
107 
 
 Sec. I.] DEVELOPMENTS IN CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 David slew the Giant, with a sling and with a 
 stone, with three words selected out of the Old Tes¬ 
 tament : c Man shall not live by bread alone, but by 
 every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of 
 God.’ ‘ Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.’ 
 c Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him 
 only shalt thou serve.’ 
 
 “ In like manner, what He uttered from time to 
 time at His crucifixion even goes by the name of 
 His seven last words. 
 
 u Again: His parables, and often His actions, as 
 His washing His disciples’ feet and paying the tri¬ 
 bute, are instances of a similar peculiarity.” 1 
 
 Moreover, while it is certain that developments 
 of Revelation proceeded all through the Old Dispen¬ 
 sation down to the very end of our Lord’s ministry, 
 on the other hand, if we turn our attention to the 
 beginnings of apostolical teaching after His ascen¬ 
 sion, we shall find ourselves unable to fix an his¬ 
 torical point at which the growth of doctrine ceased, 
 and the rule of faith was once for all settled. Not 
 on the day of Pentecost, for St. Peter had still to 
 learn at Joppa about the baptism of Cornelius; not 
 at Joppa and Csesarea, for St. Paul had to write his 
 Epistles; not on the death of the last Apostle, for 
 St. Ignatius had to establish the doctrine of Episco¬ 
 pacy; not then, nor for many years after, for the 
 Canon of the New Testament was still undeter¬ 
 mined. Not in the Creed, which is no collection of 
 definitions, but a summary of certain credenda , an 
 incomplete summary, and, like the Lord’s Prayer or 
 the Decalogue, a mere sample of divine truths, es¬ 
 pecially of the more elerneiitary- No _one doctrine 
 can be named which starts omnibus numeris at first, 
 and gains nothing from the investigations of faith 
 and the attacks of heresy. The Church went forth 
 from the world in haste, as the Israelites from 
 Egypt “with their dough before it was leavened, 
 
 1 Proph. Office, pp. 35G—3G1. 
 
ON THE PROBABILITY OF 
 
 108 
 
 [Chap. II. 
 
 their kneading troughs being bound up in their 
 clothes upon their shoulders.” 
 
 Moreover, the political developments contained 
 in the historical parts of Scripture are as striking as 
 the prophetical and the doctrinal. Can any history 
 wear a more human appearance than that of the 
 rise and growth of the chosen people to which I 
 have just alluded? What had been determined in 
 the counsels of the Lord of heaven and earth from 
 the beginning, what was immutable, what was an¬ 
 nounced to Moses in the burning bush, is after¬ 
 wards represented as the growth of an idea under 
 successive emergences. The Divine Voice in the 
 bush announced the Exodus of the children of Israel 
 from Egypt and their entrance into Canaan; and 
 added, as a token of the certainty of His purpose, 
 u When thou hast brought forth the people out of 
 Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain.” 
 Now this sacrifice or festival, which was but inci¬ 
 dental and secondary in the great deliverance, is for 
 a while the ultimate scope of the demands which 
 Moses makes upon Pharaoh. u Thou shalt come, 
 thou and the elders of Israel, unto the King 1 of 
 Egypt, and you shall say unto hipa, The Lord God 
 of the Hebrews hath met with us, and now let us 
 go, we beseech thee, three days’ journey into the 
 wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the Lord our 
 God.” It was added that Pharaoh would first re¬ 
 fuse their request, but that after miracles he would 
 let them go altogether, nay with “jewels of silver 
 and gold, and raiment.” Accordingly the first re¬ 
 quest of Moses was, “ Let us go, we pray thee, three 
 days’journey into the desert, and sacrifice unto the 
 Lord our God.” Before the plague of frogs the 
 warning is repeated, “ Let My people go that they 
 may serve Me; and after it Pharaoh says, “I will 
 let the people go, that they may do sacrifice unto 
 the Lord.” It occurs again before the plague of 
 flies; and after it Pharaoh offers to let the Israel- 
 
Sec. I.] DEVELOPMENTS IN CHRISTIANITY. 109 
 
 ites sacrifice in Egypt, which Moses refuses on the 
 ground that they will have to “ sacrifice the abomi¬ 
 nation of the Egyptians before their eyes.” “We 
 will go three days’ journey into the wildorness,” 
 he proceeds, “and sacrifice to the Lord our God;” 
 and Pharaoh then concedes their sacrificing in the 
 wilderness, “ only,” he says, “ You shall not go very 
 far away.” The demand is repeated separately be¬ 
 fore the plagues of murrain, hail, and locusts, no 
 mention being yet made of anything beyond a ser¬ 
 vice or sacrifice in the wilderness. On the last of 
 these interviews, Pharaoh asks an explanation, and 
 Moses extends his claim: “We will go with our 
 young and with our old, with our sons and with 
 our daughters, with our flocks and with our herds 
 will we go, for we must hold a feast unto the Lord.” 
 That it was an extension seems plain from Pha¬ 
 raoh’s reply: “ Go now ye that are men and serve 
 the Lord, for that ye did desire.” Upon the plague 
 of darkness Pharaoh concedes the extended demand, 
 excepting the flocks and herds; but Moses reminds 
 him that they were implied, though not expressed 
 in the original wording: “ Thou must give us also 
 sacrifices and burnt offerings, that we may sacrifice 
 unto the Lord our God.” Even to the last, there 
 was no intimation of their leaving Egypt for good; 
 the issue was left to be wrought out by the Egyp¬ 
 tians. “ All these thy servants,” says Moses, “ shall 
 come down unto me, and bow down themselves 
 unto me, saying, Get thee out, and all the people 
 that follow thee, and after that I will go out;” and 
 accordingly, after the judgment on the first-born, 
 they were thrust out at midnight, with their flocks 
 and herds, their kneading troughs and their dough, 
 laden, too, with the spoils of Egypt, as had been 
 fore-ordained, yet apparently by a combination of 
 circumstances, or the complication of a crisis. Yet 
 Moses knew that their departure from Egypt was 
 final, for he took the bones of Joseph with him; and 
 
110 
 
 ON THE PROBABILITY OF 
 
 [Chap. II. 
 
 that conviction broke on Pharaoh soon, when he 
 and his asked themselves, u Why have we done this, 
 that we have let Israel go from serving us ?” But 
 this progress of events, vague and uncertain as it 
 seemed to be, notwithstanding the miracles which 
 attended it, had been directed by Him who works 
 out gradually what He has determined absolutely; 
 and it ended in the parting of the Red Sea, and the 
 destruction of Pharaoh’s host, on his pursuing 
 them. 
 
 Moreover, from what occurred forty years after¬ 
 wards, when they were advancing upon the pro¬ 
 mised land, it would seem that the original grant of 
 territory did not include the country east of Jordan, 
 held in the event by Reuben, Gad, and half the 
 tribe of Manasseh; at least they undertook at first 
 to leave Sihon in undisturbed possession of his 
 country, if he would let them pass through it, and 
 only on his refusing his permission did they invade 
 and appropriate it. 
 
 6. It is in point to notice also the structure and 
 style of Scripture, a structure so unsystematic and 
 various, and a style so figurative and indirect, that 
 no one would presume at first sight to say what is 
 in it and what is not. It cannot, as it were, be 
 mapped, or its contents catalogued; but after all 
 our diligence, to the end of our lives and to the 
 end of the Church, it must be an unexplored and 
 unsubdued land, with heights and valleys, forests 
 and streams, on the right and left of our path and 
 close about us, full of concealed wonders and choice 
 treasures. Of no doctrine whatever, which does 
 not actually contradict what has been delivered, 
 can it be peremptorily asserted that it is not in 
 Scripture; of no reader, whatever be his study of 
 it, can it be said that he has mastered every doc¬ 
 trine which it contains. Butler’s remarks on this 
 subject were just now alluded to. u The more dis¬ 
 tinct and particular knowledge,” he says, u of those 
 
Sec. I.] DEVELOPMENTS IN CHRISTIANITY. Ill 
 
 things, the study of which the Apostle calls 4 going 
 on unto perfection,’ ” that is, of the more recondite 
 doctrines of the gospel, 44 and of the prophetic parts 
 of revelation, like many parts of natural and even 
 civil knowledge, may require very exact thought 
 and careful consideration. The hindrances too of 
 natural and of supernatural light and knowledge 
 have been of the same kind. And as it is owned 
 the whole scheme of Scripture is not yet understood, 
 so, if it ever comes to be understood, before the 
 4 restitution of all things,’ and without miraculous 
 interpositions, it must be in the same way as natu¬ 
 ral knowledge is come at, by the continuance and 
 progress of learning and of liberty, and by parti¬ 
 cular persons attending to, comparing, and pur¬ 
 suing intimations scattered up and down it, which 
 are overlooked and disregarded by the generality of 
 the world. For this is the way in which all im¬ 
 provements are made, by thoughtful men tracing 
 on obscure hints, as it were, dropped us by nature 
 accidentally, or which seem to come into our minds 
 by chance. Nor is it at all incredible that a book, 
 which has been so long in the possession of man¬ 
 kind, should contain many truths as yet undis¬ 
 covered. For all the same phenomena, and the 
 same faculties of investigation, from which such 
 great discoveries in natural knowledge have been 
 made in the present and last age, were equally in 
 the possession of mankind several thousand years 
 before. And possibly it might be intended that 
 events, as they come to pass, should open and as¬ 
 certain the meaning of several parts of Scripture.” 1 
 Butler of course was not contemplating the case of 
 new articles of faith, or developments imperative on 
 our acceptance, but he surely bears witness to the 
 probability of developments in Christian doctrine 
 considered in themselves, which is the point at pre¬ 
 sent in question. 
 
 1 ii. 3; Tide also ii. 4, fin. 
 
112 
 
 ON THE PROBABILITY OF 
 
 [Chap. II. 
 
 It may be added that, in matter of faet, all the 
 definitions or received judgments of the early and 
 medieval Church rest upon definite, even though 
 sometimes obscure sentences of Scripture. Thus 
 Purgatory may appeal to the “ saving by fire,” and 
 “ entering through much tribulation into the king¬ 
 dom of God;” the communication of the merits of the 
 Saints to our “ receiving a prophet’s reward” for 
 “ receiving a prophet in the name of a prophet,” and 
 “a righteous man’s reward” for “receiving a righ¬ 
 teous man in the name of a righteous man;” the 
 Real Presence to “This is My Body;” Absolution 
 to “Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted;” 
 Extreme Unction to “ Anointing him with oil in the 
 Name of the Lord;” Voluntary poverty to “ Sell all 
 that thou hast;” obedience to “ He was in subjection 
 to His parents;” the honour paid to creatures, ani¬ 
 mate or inanimate, to Laudate Dominum in sanctis 
 Ejus , and Adorate scabellum pedum Ejus; and so of 
 the rest. 
 
 7. Lastly, while Scripture no where recognises 
 itself or asserts the inspiration of those passages 
 which are most essential, it distinctly anticipates 
 the development of Christianity, both as a polity and 
 as a doctrine. In one of our Lord’s parables “ the 
 Kingdom of Heaven” is even compared to “ a grain 
 of mustard-seed, which ■ a man took and hid in his 
 field; which indeed is the least of all seeds, but 
 when it is grown it is the greatest among herbs, 
 and becometh a tree,” and, as St. Mark words it, 
 “ shooteth out great branches, so that the birds of 
 the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.” 
 And again, in the same chapter of St. Mark, “ So is 
 the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed 
 into the ground, and should sleep, and rise night 
 and clay, and the seed should spring and grow up, 
 he knoweth not how; for the earth bringeth forth 
 fruit of herself.” Here an internal element of life, 
 whether principle or doctrine, is spoken of rather 
 
Sec. I.] DEVELOPMENTS IN CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 113 
 
 than any mere external manifestation; and it is ob¬ 
 servable that the spontaneous, as well as the gradual, 
 character of the growth is intimated. This descrip¬ 
 tion of the process corresponds to what has been 
 above observed respecting development, viz. that it 
 is not an etfect of wishing and resolving, or of 
 forced enthusiasm, or of any mechanism of reason¬ 
 ing, or of any mere subtlety of intellect; but comes 
 of its own innate power of expansion within the 
 mind in its season, though with the use of reflection 
 and argument and original thought, more or less as 
 it may happen, with a dependence on the ethical 
 growth of the mind itself, and with a reflex influence 
 upon it. Again, the Parable of the Leaven describes 
 the development of doctrine in another respect, in 
 its active, engrossing, and assimilating power. 
 
 From the necessity, then, of the case, from the b 
 history of all sects and parties in religion, and from 
 the analogy and example of Scripture, we may 
 fairly conclude that Christian, doctrine admits of 
 formal, legitimate, and true developments, or of de¬ 
 velopments contemplated by its Divine Author. 
 
 The general analogy of the world, physical and 
 moral, confirms this conclusion, as we are reminded 
 by the great authority who has already been quoted 
 in the course of this Section. “The whole natural 
 world and government of it,” says Butler, “is a 
 scheme or system; not a fixed, but a progressive 
 one; a scheme in which the operation of various 
 means takes up a great length of time before the 
 ends they tend to can be attained. The change of 
 seasons, the ripening of the fruits of the earth, the 
 very history of a flower is an instance of this; and 
 so is human life. Thus vegetable bodies, and those 
 of animals, though possibly formed at once, yet grow 
 up by degrees to a mature state. And thus rational 
 agents, who animate these latter bodies, are naturally 
 directed to form each his own manners and cha- 
 
114 
 
 A DEVELOPING AUTHORITY 
 
 [Chap. II. 
 
 racter by the gradual gaining of knowledge and 
 experience, and by a long course of action. Our 
 existence is not only successive, as it must be of 
 necessity, but one state of our life and being is ap¬ 
 pointed by God to be a preparation for another; and 
 that to be the means of attaining to another suc¬ 
 ceeding one: infancy to childhood, childhood to 
 youth, youth to mature age. Men are impatient, 
 and -for precipitating things; but the Author of 
 Nature appears deliberate throughout His opera¬ 
 tions, accomplishing His natural ends by slow suc¬ 
 cessive steps. And there is a plan of things before¬ 
 hand laid out, which, from the nature of it, requires 
 various systems of means, as well as length of time, 
 in order to the carrying on its several parts into ex¬ 
 ecution. Thus, in the daily course of natural pro¬ 
 vidence, God operates in the very same manner as in 
 the dispensation of Christianity, making one thing 
 subservient to another; this, to somewhat farther; 
 and so on, through a progressive series of means, 
 which extend, both backward and forward, beyond 
 our utmost view. Of this manner of operation, every¬ 
 thing we see in the course of nature is as much an 
 instance as any part of the Christian dispensation.” 1 
 
 SECTION IT. 
 
 ON THE PROBABILITY OF A DEVELOPING AUTHORITY 
 
 IN CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 It has now been made probable that developments 
 of Christianity were but natural, as time went on, 
 and were to be expected; and that these natural and 
 true developments, as being natural and true,were of 
 course contemplated and taken into account by its 
 Author, who in designing the work designed its le¬ 
 gitimate results. These may be called absolutely 
 
 1 Analogy, ii. 4, ad fin. 
 
Sec. II.] 
 
 IN CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 115 
 
 u the developments” of Christianity. That there are 
 such is surely a great step gained in the inquiry; 
 it is a momentous fact. The next question is, What 5 
 are they? and to a theologian, who could take a 
 general view, and also possessed an intimate and 
 minute knowledge, of its history, they would doubt¬ 
 less on the whole be easily distinguishable by their 
 own characters, and require no foreign aid to point 
 them out, no external authority to ratify them. But 
 it is difficult to say who is exactly in this position. 
 Considering that Christians, from the nature of the 
 case, live under the bias of the doctrines, and in the 
 very midst of the facts, and during the process of 
 the controversies, which are to be the subject of 
 criticism, since they are exposed to the prejudices 
 of birth, education, locality, personal attachment, 
 and party, it can hardly be maintained that in mat¬ 
 ter of fact a true development carries with it always 
 its own certainty even to the learned, or that his¬ 
 tory, past or present, is secure from the possibility 
 of a variety of interpretations. 
 
 I have already spoken on this subject in a very 
 different connexion:— 
 
 “Prophets or Doctors are the interpreters of the 
 revelation; they unfold and define its mysteries, 
 they illuminate its documents, they harmonize its 
 contents, they apply its promises. Their teaching 
 is a vast system, not to be comprised in a few sen¬ 
 tences, not to be embodied in one code or treatise, 
 but consisting of a certain body of Truth, pervading 
 the Church like an atmosphere, irregular in its 
 shape from its very profusion and exuberance; at 
 times separable only in idea from Episcopal Tradi¬ 
 tion, yet at times melting away into legend and 
 fable; partly written, partly unwritten, partly the 
 interpretation, partly the supplement of Scripture, 
 partly preserved in intellectual expressions, partly 
 latent in the spirit and temper of Christians; poured 
 to and fro in closets and upon the housetops, in 
 
116 
 
 A DEVELOPING AUTHORITY 
 
 [Chap. II. 
 
 liturgies, in controversial works, in obscure frag¬ 
 ments, in sermons, in popular prejudices, in local 
 customs. This I call Prophetical Tradition, exist¬ 
 ing primarily in the bosom of the Church itself, 
 and recorded in such measure as Providence has 
 determined in the writings of eminent men. Keep 
 that which is committed to thy charge, is St. Paul's 
 injunction to Timothy; and for this reason, because 
 from its vastness and indefiniteness it is especially 
 exposed to corruption, if the Church fails in vigil¬ 
 ance. This is that body of teaching which is offered 
 to all Christians even at the present day, though 
 in various forms and measures of truth, in different 
 parts of Christendom, partly being a comment, 
 partly an addition upon the articles of the Creed.” 1 
 
 If this be true, certainly some rule is necessary 
 for arranging and authenticating these various ex¬ 
 pressions and results of ,Christian doctrine. No 
 one will maintain that all points of belief are of 
 equal importance. “There are what may be called 
 minor points, which we may hold to be true without 
 imposing them as necessary;” “there are greater 
 truths and lesser truths, points which it is neces¬ 
 sary, and points which it is pious to believe.” 1 
 The simple question is, How are we to discriminate 
 the greater from the less, the true from the false. 
 
 This need of an authoritative sanction is increased 
 by considering, after M. Guizot’s suggestion, that 
 Christianity, though represented in prophecy as a 
 kingdom, came into the world as an idea rather 
 than an institution, and has had to wrap itself in 
 clothing and fit itself with armour of its own pro¬ 
 viding, and to form the instruments and methods of 
 its prosperity and warfare. If the developments, 
 which have above been called moral , are to take 
 place to any great extent, and without them it is 
 difficult to see how Christianity can exist at all, if 
 
 1 Propli. Office, pp. 305, 306. 2 Ibid. pp. 301, 310. 
 
Sec. II.] 
 
 IN CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 117 
 
 only its relations towards civil government have to 
 be ascertained, or the qualifications for the profes¬ 
 sion of it have to be defined, surely an authority is ^ 
 necessary to impart decision to what is vague and 
 confidence to what is empirical, to ratify the succes¬ 
 sive steps of so elaborate a process, and to secure 
 the validity of inferences which are to be made the ’ 
 premisses of more remote investigations. 
 
 Tests, it is true, for ascertaining the correctness 
 of developments in general have been drawn out in 
 a former Chapter, and shall presently be used; but 
 they are insufficient for the guidance of individuals 
 in the case of so large and complicated a problem 
 as Christianity, though they may aid our inquiries 
 and support our conclusions in particular points. 
 They are of a scientific and controversial, not of a 
 practical character, and are instruments rather than 
 warrants of right decisions. While, then, on the 
 one hand, it is probable that some means will be 
 granted for ascertaining the legitimate and true 
 •developments of Revelation, it appears, on the other, 
 that these means must of necessity be external to 
 the developments themselves. 
 
 Reasons shall be given in the present Section for 
 asserting that, in proportion to the probability of 
 true developments of doctrine and practice in the 
 Divine Scheme, is the probability also of the ap¬ 
 pointment in that scheme of an external authority 
 to decide upon them, thereby separating them from 
 the mass of mere human speculation, extravagance, 
 corruption, and error, in and out of which they 
 crow. This is the doctrine of the infallibility of 
 t he Ch urc h ; for by infallibility I suppose is meant 
 the power of deciding whether this, that, and a 
 third, and any number of theological or ethical 
 statements are true. 
 
 1. Let the state of the case be carefully con¬ 
 sidered. If the Christian doctrine, as originally 
 taught, admits of true and important developments, 1 
 
 
118 
 
 A DEVELOPING AUTHORITY 
 
 [Chap. II. 
 
 /as was argued in the foregoing Section, this is a 
 / strong antece dent argument in favour of a provision 
 in the Dispensation for putting a seal of authority 
 upon those developments. The probability of their 
 being: known to be true varies with their truth. 
 The two ideas are certainly quite distinct of reveal¬ 
 ing and guaranteeing a truth, and they are often 
 distinct in fact. There are various revelations all 
 over the earth which do not carry with them the 
 evidence of their divinity. Such are the inward 
 suggestions and secret illuminations granted to so 
 many individuals; such are the traditionary doc¬ 
 trines which are found among the heathen, that 
 u vague and unconnected family of religious truths, 
 originally from God, but sojourning, without the 
 sanction of miracle or a definite home, as pilgrims 
 up and down the world, and discernible and separa¬ 
 ble from the corrupt legends with which they are 
 mixed, by the spiritual mind alone.” 1 There is 
 not hing impossible in the notion of a revelation 
 occurring without evidences that it is a revelation 
 just as human sciences are a divine gift, yet are 
 reached by our ordinary powers and have no claim 
 on our faith. But Christianity is not of this nature : 
 it is a revelation which comes to us as a revelation, 
 as a whole, objectively, and with a profession of in¬ 
 fallibility; and the only question to be determined 
 relates to the matter of the revelation. If then 
 there are certain great truths, or proprieties, or 
 observances, naturally and legitimately resulting 
 from the doctrines originally professed, it is but 
 reasonable to include these true results in the idea 
 of the revelation, to consider them parts of it, and 
 if the revelation be not only true, but guaranteed 
 as true, to anticipate that they will be guaranteed 
 inclusively. Christianity, unlike other revelations 
 of GocVs will, except the Jewish, of which it is a 
 continuation, is an objective religion, or a revelation 
 
 1 Arians, ch. v. sect. 3, p. 89. 
 
Sec. II.] IN CHRISTIANITY. 119 
 
 with credentials; it is natural then to view it ^ 
 wholly as such, and not partly sui generis , partly 
 like others. Such as it begins, such let it be con¬ 
 sidered to continue: if certain large developments 
 of it are true, they must surely be accredited as 
 true. 
 
 2. An objection, however, is often made to the 
 doctrine of infallibility in limine , which is too im¬ 
 portant not to be taken into consideration. It is 
 urged that, as all religious knowledge rests on 
 moral evidence, not on demonstration, our belief in 
 the Church’s infallibility must be of this character; 
 but what can be more absurd than a probable infal¬ 
 libility, or a certainty resting on doubt ?—I believe, 
 because I am sure; and I am sure, because I think. 
 Granting then that the gift of infallibility be adapt¬ 
 ed, when believed, to unite all intellects in one 
 common confession, it is as difficult of proof as the 
 developments which it is to prove, and nugatory 
 therefore, and in consequence improbable in a 
 Divine Scheme. u The advocates of Rome,” it has 
 been urged as an argumentum ad hominem , yet it 
 will serve to express the objection as used for its 
 own sake, u insist on the necessity of an infallible 
 guide in religious matters, as an argument that 
 such a guide has really been accorded. Now it is 
 obvious to inquire how individuals are to know 
 with certainty that Rome is infallible . . how any 
 ground can be such as to bring home to the mind 
 infallibly that she is infallible; what conceivable 
 proof amounts to more than a probability of the 
 fact; and what advantage is an infallible guide, if 
 those who are to be guided have, after all, no more 
 than an opinion, as the Romanists call it, that she 
 is infallible?” 1 
 
 This argument, however, except when used, as 
 is intended in this passage, against such persons as 
 would remove all doubt from religion, is certainly a 
 
 1 Proph. Office, p. 148. 
 
120 
 
 A DEVELOPING AUTHORITY 
 
 [Chap. II. 
 
 fallacious one. For since, as all allow, the Apostles 
 were infallible, it tells against their infallibility, or 
 the infallibility of Scripture, as truly as against the 
 infallibility of the Church; for no one will say that 
 the Apostles were made infallible for nothing, yet 
 we are only morally certain that they were infalli¬ 
 ble. Further, if we have but probable grounds for 
 the Church’s infallibility, we have but the like for 
 the impossibility of certain things, the necessity of 
 others, the truth, the certainty of others; and there¬ 
 fore the words infallibility , necessity , truth , and cer¬ 
 tainty ought all of them to be banished from the lan¬ 
 guage. But why is it more inconsistent to speak of 
 an uncertain infallibility than of a doubtful truth or 
 a contingent necessity, phrases which present ideas 
 clear and undeniable? In truth we are playing 
 with words when we use arguments of this sort. 
 When we say that a person is infallible, we mean 
 no more than that what he says is always true, 
 always to be believed, always to be done. The 
 term is resolvable into these phrases as its equiva- 
 j lents; either then the phrases are inadmissible, or 
 the idea of infallibility must be allowed. A proba¬ 
 ble infallibility is a probable gift of never erring; a 
 reception of the doctrine of a probable infallibility 
 is faith and obedience towards a person founded on 
 the probability of his never erring in his declara¬ 
 tions or commands. What is inconsistent in this 
 idea? Whatever then be the particular means of 
 determining infallibility, the abstract objection may 
 be put aside. 
 
 3. Again, it is sometimes argued that such a dis¬ 
 pensation would destroy our. probation, as dissi¬ 
 pating doubt, precluding the exercise of faith, and 
 obliging us to obey whether we wish it or no; and it 
 is urged that a Divine Voice spoke in the first age, 
 and difficulty and darkness rest upon all subsequent 
 ones; as if infallibility and personal judgment were 
 incompatible; but this is to confuse the subject. We 
 
Sec. II.] 
 
 IN CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 121 
 
 must distinguish between a revelation and the re¬ 
 ception of it, not between its earlier and later stages. 
 A revelation, in itself divine, and guaranteed as 
 such, may be received, doubted, argued against, per¬ 
 verted, rejected, by individuals according to the state 
 of mind of each. Ignorance, misapprehension, un¬ 
 belief, and other causes, do not at once cease to ope¬ 
 rate because the revelation is in itself true and in its 
 proofs irrefragable. We have then no warrant at 
 all for saying that an accredited revelation will ex¬ 
 clude doubts and difficulties, or dispense with anxious 
 diligence on our part, though it may in its own 
 nature tend to do so. Infallibility does not inter- j 
 fere with moral probation; the two notions are per¬ 
 fectly distinct. It is no objection then to the idea I 
 of an arbitrary authority, such as I am supposing, 
 that it lessens the task of personal inquiry, unless it 
 be an objection to the authority of Revelation alto¬ 
 gether. A Church, or a Council, or a Pope, or a 
 Conse nt of Doctors, or a Consent of Christendom, 
 limits the inquiries of the individual in no other 
 way than Scripture limits them: it does limit them; 
 but, while it limits their range, it preserves intact 
 their probationary character; we are tried as really, 
 though not on so large a field. To suppose that the 
 doctrine of a permanent authority in matters of faith 
 interferes with our freewill and responsibility is, as 
 before, to forget that there were infallible teachers in 
 the first age, and heretics and schismatics in the 
 ages subsequent. There may have been a supreme 
 authority from first to last, and a moral judgment 
 from first to last. Moreover, those who maintain 
 that Christian truth must be gained solely by per¬ 
 sonal efforts are bound to show that methods, ethical 
 and intellectual, are granted to individuals suffi¬ 
 cient for gaining it; else the mode of probation they 
 advocate is less, not more, perfect than that which 
 proceeds upon external authority. On the whole, 
 then, no argument against continuing the principle 
 
122 
 
 A DEVELOPING AUTHORITY 
 
 [Chap. II. 
 
 of objectiveness into the developments of Revelation 
 is deducible from the conditions of our moral re¬ 
 sponsibility. 
 
 4. Perhaps it will be urged that the Analogy of 
 Nature is against our anticipating the continuance 
 of an external authority which has once been given; 
 because, in the words of the profound thinker who 
 has already been cited, “ We are wholly ignorant 
 what degree of new knowledge it were to be expected 
 God would give mankind by revelation, upon sup¬ 
 position of His affording one; or how far, and in 
 what way, He would interpose miraculously to 
 qualify them to whom He should originally make 
 the revelation for communicating the knowledge 
 given by it, and to secure their doing it to the age 
 in which they should live, and to secure its being 
 transmitted to posterity;” and because “we are 
 not in any sort able to judge whether it were to be 
 expected that the revelation should have been com¬ 
 mitted to writing, or left to be handed down, and 
 consequently corrupted, by verbal tradition, and at 
 length sunk under it.’ u But this reasoning does not 
 here apply, as has already been observed; it con¬ 
 templates only the abstract hypothesis of a revela¬ 
 tion, not the fact of an existing revelation of a par¬ 
 ticular kind, which may of course in various ways 
 modify our state of knowledge, by settling some of 
 those very points on which, before it was given, we 
 had no means of deciding. Nor can it, as I think, 
 be fairly denied that the argument from Analogy in 
 one point of view tells against anticipating a revela¬ 
 tion at all, for an innovation upon the physical order 
 of the world is by the very force of the terms incon¬ 
 sistent with its ordinary course. We cannot then 
 regulate our antecedent view of the character of a 
 revelation by a test which, applied simply, overthrows 
 the very notion of a revelation altogether. Any how, 
 Analogy is in some sort violated by the fact of a re- 
 
 1 Anal. ii. 3. 
 
Sec. II.] IN CHRISTIANITY. 123 
 
 velation, and the question before us only relates to 
 the extent of that violation. 
 
 I will hazard a distinction here between the facts 
 of revelation and its principles;—the argument from 
 Analogy is more concerned with its principles than 
 with its facts. The revealed facts are special and 
 singular, from the nature of the case: but it is other- 
 wise with the revealed principles; they are common 
 to all the works of God: and if the Author of Nature 
 be the Author of Grace, it may be expected that, 
 while the two systems of facts are distinct and inde¬ 
 pendent, the principles displayed in them will be the 
 same, and form a connecting link between them. In 
 this identity of principle lies the Analogy of Natural 
 and Revealed Religion, in Butler’s sense of the word. 
 
 The doctrine of the Incarnation is a fact, and cannot g 
 
 be paralleled by anything in nature; 1 the doctrine of 
 Mediation is a principle, and is abundantly exempli¬ 
 fied in its provisions. Miracles are facts; inspira¬ 
 tion is a fact; divine teaching once for all, and a con¬ 
 tinual teaching, are each a fact; probation by means 
 of intellectual difficulties is a principle both in nature 
 and in grace, and may be carried on in the system 
 of grace either by a standing ordinance of teaching 
 or by one definite act of teaching, and that with 
 an analogy as perfect in either case to the order of 
 nature; nor can we succeed in arguing from the 
 analogy of that order against a standing guardian¬ 
 ship of revelation without arguing also against its 
 original bestowal. Supposing the order of nature 
 once broken by the introduction of a revelation, the 
 continuance of that revelation is but a question of 
 degree; and the circumstance that a work has begun 
 makes it more probable than not that it will pro¬ 
 ceed. We have no reason to suppose that there is so 
 great a distinction of dispensation between ourselves ! 
 and the first generation of Christians, as that they 
 had a living infallible guidance, and we have not. 
 
 1 Univ. Serm. pp. 33, 34. 
 
\ 
 
 124 
 
 A DEVELOPING AUTHORITY 
 
 [Chap. II. 
 
 
 
 . # 
 
 
 
 
 
 Ai* 
 
 
 
 / 
 
 ;>t 
 
 A 
 
 /t 
 
 V * 
 
 t- 
 
 A 
 
 f 0fV , 
 
 «j> K 
 
 % 
 
 A ~ • 
 
 n K ^ 
 
 <s 
 
 aJUtf v - 
 
 /V^-V' 
 
 
 The case then stands thus:—that Revelation has 
 introduced a new law of divine governance over 
 Viand above those laws which appear in the natural 
 course of the world; and henceforth our argument 
 for a standing authority in matters of faith pro¬ 
 ceeds on the analogy of Nature, and from the fact of 
 Christianity. Preservation is involved in the idea 
 of creation. As the Creator rested on the seventh 
 day from the work which He had made, yet He 
 u worketh hithertoso He gave the Creed once for 
 all in the beginning, yet blesses its growth still, and 
 dispenses its increase. His word u shall not return 
 unto Him void, but accomplish” His pleasure. As 
 creation argues continual governance, so are Apos¬ 
 tles harbingers of Popes. 
 
 5. Moreover, it must be borne in mind that, as 
 the essence of all religion is authority and obedi¬ 
 ence, so the distinction between natural religion 
 and revealed lies in this, that the one has a subjec¬ 
 tive authority, and the other an objective. Reve¬ 
 lation consists in the manifestation of the Invisible 
 Divine Power, or in the substitution of the voice of 
 a Lawgiver for the voice of conscience. The supre¬ 
 macy of conscience is the essence of natural reli¬ 
 gion ; the supremacy of Apostle, or Pope, or Church, 
 ~%t Bishop, is the essence of revealed; and when 
 such external authority is taken away, the mind 
 falls back again upon that inward guide 1 which it 
 possessed even before Revelation was vouchsafed. 
 Thus, what conscience is in the system of nature, 
 such is the voice of Scripture, or of the Church, or 
 of the Holy See, as we may determine it, in the 
 system of Revelation. It may be objected, indeed, 
 that conscience is not infallible; it is true, but still 
 it is ever to be obeyed. And this is just the pre¬ 
 rogative which controversialists assign to the See of 
 St. Peter; it is not in all cases infallible, it may err 
 beyond its special province, but it has even in all 
 
 1 Univ. Serin, pp. 34, 35. 
 
 p ^ . /• A % 
 
 ti 
 
 I* C- 
 
 I 
 
 T t-1 
 
 
 
Sec. II.] 
 
 IN CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 125 
 
 cases a claim on our obedience. u All Catholics 
 and heretics,” says Bellarmine, u agree in two 
 things: first, that it is possible for the Pope, even 
 as Pope, and with his own assembly of council¬ 
 lors, or with General Council, to err in particular 
 controversies of fact, which chiefly depend on 
 human information and testimony; secondly, that 
 it is possible for him to err as a private Doctor, 
 even in universal questions of right, whether of 
 faith or of morals, and that from ignorance, as 
 sometimes happens to other doctors. Next, all 
 Catholics agree in other two points, not, however, 
 with heretics, but solely with each other: first, that 
 the Pope with General Council cannot err, either in 
 framing decrees of faith or general precepts of mo¬ 
 rality; secondly, that the Pope when determining 
 anything in a doubtful matter, whether by himself 
 or with his own particular Council, whether it is 
 possible for him to err or not , is to be obeyed by all 
 the faithful.” 1 And as obedience to conscience, 
 
 "v 7 
 
 even supposing conscience ill-informed, tends to the 
 improvement of our moral nature, and ultimately ^) 
 of our knowledge, so obedience to our ecclesiastical / 
 
 \ superior may subserve our growth in illumination 
 • and sanctity, even though he should command what fi 
 ! is extreme or inexpedient, or teach what is external 
 t to his legitimate province. 
 
 6. The common sense of mankind does but sup- 
 
 
 \ % 
 
 vW4.» r ; 4^4 
 
 •fT vrv 
 
 port a conclusion thus forced upon us by analo¬ 
 gical considerations. It feels that the very idea of 
 revelation implies a present informant • and guide, 
 and that an infallible one; not a mere abstract de¬ 
 claration of truths not known before to man, or 
 a record of history, or the result of an antiquarian 
 research, but a message and a lesson speaking to 
 this man and that. This is shown by the popular 
 notion which has prevailed among us since the 
 Reformation, that the Bible itself is such a guide; 
 
 » De Rom. Pont. W. 2. 
 
 
126 
 
 A DEVELOPING AUTHORITY 
 
 [Chap. II. 
 
 and which succeeded in overthrowing the supre¬ 
 macy of Church and Pope, for the very reason that 
 it was a rival authority, not resisting merely, but 
 V supplanting it. In proportion, then, as we hnd, 
 in matter of fact, that the inspired Volume is not 
 calculated or intended to subserve that purpose, 
 are we forced to revert to that living and present 
 guide, which, at the era of her rejection, had been 
 so long recognised as the dispenser of Scripture 
 according to times and circumstances, and the 
 arbiter of all true doctrine and holy practice to 
 her children. We feel a need, and she alone of 
 all things under heaven supplies it. We are told 
 ' jfch at God has spoken. Where? In a book ? We have 
 tried it, and it disappoints; it disappoints, that 
 most holy and blessed gift, not from fault of its 
 own, but because it is used for a purpose for which 
 it was not given. The Ethiopian’s reply, when St. 
 Philip asked him if he understood what he was 
 reading, is the voice of nature : “ How can I, unless 
 some man shall guide me?” The Church under¬ 
 takes that office; she does what fione else can do, 
 and this is the secret of the power. “ The human 
 mind,” it has been said, “wishes to be rid of doubt 
 in religion; and a teacher who claims infallibility 
 is readily believed on his simple word. We see 
 this constantly exemplified in the case of individual 
 pretenders among ourselves. In Romanism the 
 Church pretends to it; she rids herself of compe¬ 
 titors by forestalling them. And probably, in the 
 eyes of her children, this is not the least persuasive 
 argument for her infallibility, that she alone of 
 all Churches dares claim it, * as if a secret instinct 
 j and involuntary misgivings restrained those rival 
 communions which go so far towards affecting it.” 1 
 These sentences, whatever be the errors of their 
 wording, surely express a great truth. The most 
 obvious answer, then, to the question, why we yield 
 
 1 Proph. Office, p. 141. 
 
IN CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 127 
 
 Sec. II.] 
 
 to the authority of the Church in the questions and 
 developments of faith, is, that some authority there 
 must be if there is a revelation, and other autho¬ 
 rity there is none but she. In the words of St. 
 Peter to her Divine Master and Lord, u To whom 
 shall we go?” Nor must it be forgotten in con¬ 
 firmation, that Scripture expressly calls the Church 
 u the pillar and ground of the Truth,” and promises 
 her as by covenant that “the Spirit of the Lord 
 that is upon her, and His words which He has put in 
 her mouth shall not depart out of her mouth, nor 
 out of the mouth of her seed, nor out of the mouth 
 of her seed’s seed, from henceforth and for ever.” 1 
 
 7. And if the very claim to infallible arbitration 
 in religious disputes is of so weighty importance 
 and interest in all ages of the world, much more is 
 it welcome at a time like the present, when the 
 human intellect is so busy, and thought so fertile, 
 and opinion so indefinitely divided. The absolute 
 need of a spiritual supremacy is at present the 
 strongest of arguments in favour of its supply. 
 Surely, either an obiective revelation has not been 
 
 ■! !— ■ . Ii iw i m/ >wpww— ■mmi M i— — iMmii W Mi w M i iiw— 1 " II mmma mmamm m, i iu mw aw » ■ 
 
 given, or it has been provided with means for im¬ 
 pressing its objectiveness on the world. If Chris¬ 
 tianity be a social religion, as it certainly is, and if it 
 be based on certain ideas acknowledged as divine, 
 or a creed, which shall here be assumed, and if 
 these ideas have various aspects, and make distinct 
 impressions on different minds, and issue in conse¬ 
 quence in a multiplicity of developments, true, or 
 false, or mixed, as has been shown, what influence 
 will suffice to meet and to do justice to these conflict¬ 
 ing conditions, but a supreme authority ruling and 
 reconciling individual judgments by a divine right 
 and a recognised wisdom ? In barbarous times the 
 will is reached through the senses; but in an age 
 in which reason, as it is called, is the standard of 
 truth and right, it is abundantly evident to any one, 
 
 1 1 Tim. iii. 1G ; Isaiah lix. 21. 
 
128 
 
 A DEVELOPING AUTHORITY 
 
 [Chap. II. 
 
 who mixes ever so little with the world, that, if 
 things are left to themselves, every individual will 
 have his own view of things, and take his own course; 
 that two or three agree together to-day to part to¬ 
 morrow; that Scripture will be read in contrary 
 ways, and history will be analyzed into subtle but 
 practical differences; that philosophy, taste, preju¬ 
 dice, passion, party, caprice, will find no common 
 measure, unless there be some supreme power to 
 control the mind and to compel agreement. There 
 can be no combination on the basis of truth without 
 an organ of truth. As cultivation brings out the 
 colours of flowers, and domestication the hues of 
 animals, so does education of necessity develope dif¬ 
 ferences of opinion; and while it is impossible.to 
 lay down first principles in which all will unite, it 
 is utterly unreasonable to expect that this man 
 should yield to that, or all to one. I do not say 
 there are no eternal truths, such as the poet speaks 
 of , 1 which all acknowledge in private, but that 
 there are none sufficiently commanding to be the 
 basis of public union and action. The only general 
 persuasive in matters of conduct is authoritv; that 
 is, when truth is in question, a judgment which we 
 \ consider superior to our own. If Christianity is 
 | both social and dogmatic, and intended for all ages, 
 it must, humanly speaking, have an infallible ex- 
 \ pounder. Else you will secure unity of form at 
 the loss of unity of doctrine, or unity of doctrine at 
 the loss of unity of form; you will have to choose be¬ 
 tween a comprehension of opinions and a resolu¬ 
 tion into parties, between latitudinarian and secta¬ 
 
 rian error; you may be tolerant or intolerant of 
 contrarieties of thought, but contrarieties you will 
 have. By the Church of England a hollow uni¬ 
 formity is preferred to an infallible chair; and 
 by the sects of England, an interminable division. 
 Germany and Geneva began with persecution, and 
 
IN CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 129 
 
 Sec. II.] 
 
 have ended in scepticism. The doctrine of infalli- \ 
 bility is a less violent hypothesis than this sacrifice 
 either of faith or of charity. It secures the objects, 
 without, to say the least, violating the letter of the • 
 revelation. 
 
 8. I have called the doctrine of Infallibility an 
 hypothesis: let it be so considered for the sake of 
 argument, that is, let it be considered to be a mere 
 position, supported by no direct evidence, but re¬ 
 quired by the facts of the case, and reconciling them 
 with each other. That hypothesis is indeed, in 
 matter of fact, maintained and acted on in the 
 largest portion of Christendom, and from time im¬ 
 memorial ; but let this coincidence be accounted for 
 by the need. Moreover, it is not a naked or iso¬ 
 lated fact, but the animating principle of a large 
 scheme of doctrine which the need itself could not 
 simply create; but let this system be merely called 
 its development. Yet even as an hypothesis, which 
 has been held by one out of various communions, 
 it may not be lightly put aside. Some hypothesis 
 all parties, all controversialists, all historians must 
 adopt, if they would treat of Christianity at all. 
 Gieseler’s u Text Book” bears the profession of being 
 a dry analysis of Christian history ; yet on inspec¬ 
 tion it will be found to be written on a positive and 
 definite theory, and to bend facts to meet it. An 
 unbeliever, as Gibbon, assumes one hypothesis, and 
 an Ultra-montane, as Baronius, adopts another. 
 The school of Hurd and Newton consider that 
 Christianity slept for centuries upon centuries, ex¬ 
 cept among those whom historians call heretics. 
 Others speak as if the oath of Supremacy or the 
 conge cV clire could be made the measure of St. Am¬ 
 brose, and they fit the Thirty-nine Articles on the 
 fervid Tertullian. The question is, which of all 
 these theories is the simplest, the most natural, the 
 most persuasive. Certainly the notion of develop- 
 
 K 
 
130 A DEVELOPING AUTHORITY. [Chap. II. 
 
 ment under infallible authority is not a less grave, 
 a less winning hypothesis, than the chance and co¬ 
 incidence of events, or the Oriental Philosophy, or 
 the working of Antichrist, to account for the rise 
 of Christianity and the formation of its theology. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 ON THE NATURE OF THE ARGUMENT IN BEHALF OF 
 THE EXISTING DEVELOPMENTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 PRESUMPTIVE CHARACTER OE THE PROOF. 
 
 In proceeding to the consideration of the cha¬ 
 racter of the argument adducible in behalf of the 
 truth of the existing developments of Christianity, 
 we must first direct our attention to the prepon¬ 
 derating force of antecedent probability in all prac¬ 
 tical matters, where it exists. If this probability is 
 great, it almost supersedes evidence altogether. 
 This is instanced in every day’s experience: whe¬ 
 ther the particular conclusion, in this or that case, 
 be true or not is not here the question ; the cor¬ 
 rectness of the process itself is shown by its general 
 adoption. “ Trifles light as air,” the poet tells us, 
 “ are to the jealous, confirmations strong, As proofs 
 of Holy Writ. ” Did a stranger tell us in a crowd 
 to mind our purses, we should believe him, though 
 in the sequel he turned out to be the thief, and 
 gave us warning in order to gain them. A single 
 text is sufficient to prove a doctrine to the well- 
 disposed or the prejudiced. “ Not forsaking the 
 assembling of ourselves together” , is sufficient to 
 lead the Christian mind to observe the duty of 
 social worship; and “Forbidding to marry” is suffi¬ 
 cient proof that Rome is Antichrist to those who 
 
 k 2 
 
132 
 
 PRESUMPTIVE CHARACTER 
 
 [Ciiap. III. 
 
 have been educated in that doctrine. Again, to 
 take an instance in a different matter, when we are 
 fully convinced that an important step which an¬ 
 other proposes is in itself right, we insist but gene¬ 
 rally on self-examination, waiting, and other pre¬ 
 paration in his particular case; but in proportion 
 as we are doubtful of its religiousness and happi¬ 
 ness do we make much of these, lengthening his 
 probation and putting obstacles in the way of his 
 moving. Again, it is plain that a person’s after 
 course for good or bad brings out the passing words 
 or obscure actions of previous years. Then we 
 make the event a presumptive interpretation of the 
 past, of those past indications of his character which 
 were too few and doubtful to bear insisting on at 
 the time, and would have seemed ridiculous had 
 we attempted to do so. And the antecedent pro¬ 
 bability is found to triumph over contrary evidence, 
 as well as to sustain what agrees with it. Every 
 one may know of cases in which a plausible charge 
 against an individual was borne down at once by 
 weight of character, though that character was in¬ 
 commensurate of course with the circumstances 
 which gave rise to suspicion, and had no direct 
 neutralizing force to destroy it. On the other 
 hand, it is sometimes said, and even if not literally 
 true will serve in illustration, that not a few of 
 the culprits in our criminal courts are not legally 
 guilty of the particular crime on which a verdict is 
 found against them, being convicted not so much 
 upon the particular evidence, as on the presump¬ 
 tion arising from their want of character and the 
 memory of former offences. But this presumptive 
 character of belief and conviction, and especially of 
 faith, I have pointed out in other publications. 
 
 “Faith is the reasoning of a religious mind, or 
 of what Scripture calls a right or renewed heart, 
 which acts upon presumptions rather than evidence, 
 which speculates and ventures on the future when 
 
Sec. I.] 
 
 OF THE PROOF. 
 
 133 
 
 it cannot make sure of it. Thus, to take the in¬ 
 stance of St. Paul preaching at Athens: he told his 
 hearers that he came as a messenger from that God 
 whom they worshipped already, though ignorantly, 
 and of whom their poets spoke. He appealed to 
 the conviction that was lodged within them of the 
 spiritual nature and the unity of God; and he ex¬ 
 horted them to turn to Him who had appointed 
 One to judge the whole world hereafter. This was 
 an appeal to the antecedent probability of a Reve¬ 
 lation, which would be estimated variously, accord¬ 
 ing to the desire of it existing in each breast. Now 
 what was the evidence he gave in order to concen¬ 
 trate those various antecedent presumptions, to 
 which he referred in behalf of the message which 
 he brought? Very slight, yet something; not a 
 miracle, but his own word that God had raised 
 Christ from the dead; very like the evidence given 
 to the mass of men now, or rather not so much. 
 No one will say it was strong evidence; yet, aided 
 by the novelty, and what may be called originality, 
 of the claim, its strangeness and improbability con¬ 
 sidered as a mere invention, and the personal bear¬ 
 ing of the Apostle, and supported by the full force 
 of the antecedent probabilities which existed, and 
 which he stirred within them, it was enough.” 1 
 
 Again: “The proofs commonly brought, whether 
 for the truth of Christianity, or for certain doctrines 
 from texts of Scripture, are commonly strong or 
 slight, not in themselves, but according to the cir¬ 
 cumstances under which the doctrine professes to 
 come to us, which they are brought to prove; 
 and they will have a great or small effect upon our 
 minds, according as we admit those circumstances 
 or not. Now the admission of those circumstances 
 involves a variety of antecedent views, presump¬ 
 tions, admitted analogies, and the like, many of 
 which it is very difficult to detect and analyze. 
 
 1 Univ. Serin, pp. 195, 196. 
 
134 
 
 PRESUMPTIVE CHARACTER 
 
 [Chap. III. 
 
 One person, for instance, is convinced by Paley’s 
 argument from the Miracles, another is not; and 
 why? Because the former admits that there is a 
 God, that He governs the world, that He wishes the 
 salvation of man, that the light of nature is not 
 sufficient for man, that there is no other way of 
 introducing a Revelation but miracles, and that 
 men, who were neither enthusiasts nor impostors, 
 could not have acted as the Apostles did, unless 
 they had seen the miracles which they attested; the 
 Other denies some one, or more, of these statements, 
 or does not feel the force of some other principle 
 more recondite and latent still than any of these, 
 which is nevertheless necessary to the validity of 
 the argument.” 1 
 
 The same principle applies in the argument in be¬ 
 half of the ecclesiastical miracles: u The main point 
 to which attention must be paid is the proof of 
 their antecedent probability. If that is established, 
 the task is nearly accomplished. If the miracles 
 alleged are in harmony with the course of Divine 
 Providence in the World, and with the analogy of 
 faith as contained in Scripture, if it is possible to 
 account for them, if they are referrible to a known 
 cause or system, and especially if it can be shown 
 that they are recognised, promised, or predicted in 
 Scripture, very little positive evidence is necessary 
 to induce us to listen to them, or even accept them, 
 if not individually, yet viewed as a collective body. 
 In that case, they are but the natural effects of 
 supernatural agency. ” 2 
 
 And in like manner, in proportion as there is 
 reason for presuming the correctness of the existing 
 developments of Christianity, shall we dispense with 
 a formal historical argument in their favour, and 
 content ourselves with such accidental corroborat¬ 
 ing evidences as the stream of time has washed 
 upon our shores; and it lias been shown above, that 
 
 1 Univ. Serm. pp. 2G9, 270. 2 Essay on Miracles, p. lxxvi. 
 
±5 lit Ills conception OI an was jliulll inai 
 of the romanticists who would withdraw 
 from their fellow-men into an ivory tower 
 to dream of impossible Utopias. For Ver- 
 haeren, the artist is one who “ hails, kindles 
 and fans that holy fire, energy ” in whatever 
 form it presents itself. He would “ chisel the 
 whole world into a lyric”; he would grapple 
 with the myriad energies which our age of 
 iron has produced and forge his Utopia from 
 them. No one form of activity could satisfy 
 him,— hence his refusal to accept any of the 
 professions offered him,— his restless spirit 
 exulted in every new conquest of human 
 effort and his enthusiasm vented itself in 
 pteans to the new Apollo. 
 
 O race humaine anx astres d’or nouee, 
 
 As-tu senti de quel travail formidable et battant, 
 
 Soudainement, depuis cent ans, 
 
4hrP0ttgk* For those who live, the world is 
 not livable except through triumph over the 
 despair of death, and over a religion which 
 is little more than an evasion of that despair. 
 The only consolation permitted is to feel one’s 
 self cooperating with the intelligent forces 
 that are making for the better ordering of 
 the world. To be on the right track, that is 
 salvation in the modern world. Mr. Britling 
 with his maps was sound in instinct and pur¬ 
 pose. His poring put him in the current of 
 the world’s hope. Past religion into creative 
 intelligence, such effort should lead all who 
 will resolutely seek such consolation. Noth¬ 
 ing else is a seeing it through. 
 
 nf / Randolph Bourne. 
 
Sec. I.] 
 
 OF THE PROOF. 
 
 135 
 
 there is very fair or strong reason for presuming 
 them correct, if it be reasonable to expect develop¬ 
 ments of Christianity at all. This then is the next 
 point to insist upon. 
 
 I observe then, that, when we are convinced that 
 the idea of Christianity, as originally revealed, can¬ 
 not but develope, and know, on the other hand, that 
 large developments do exist in matter of fact, 
 professing to be true and legitimate, our first im¬ 
 pression naturally must be that these developments 
 are what they pretend to be. Moreover, the very 
 scale on which they have been made, their high an¬ 
 tiquity yet present promise, their gradual formation 
 yet precision, their harmonious order, dispose the 
 imagination most forcibly towards the belief that 
 a teaching so young and so old, not obsolete after 
 so many centuries, but vigorous and progressive, is 
 the very development contemplated in the Divine 
 Scheme. And then we have to consider that from 
 first to last other developments there are none, 
 except those which have possession of Christendom; 
 none, that is, of prominence and permanence suf¬ 
 ficient to deserve the name. In early times the 
 heretical doctrines were confessedly barren and 
 short-lived, and could not stand their ground 
 against Catholicism. As to the medieval period 
 I am not aware that the Greeks present more than 
 a negative opposition to the Latins. And now in 
 like manner the Tridentine Creed is met by no 
 rival developments; there is no antagonist system. 
 Criticisms there are in plenty, but little of positive 
 teaching anywhere; seldom an attempt on the part 
 of any opposing school to master its own doctrines, 
 to investigate their sense and bearing, to determine 
 their relation to the decrees of Trent and their 
 distance from them. And when at any time this 
 attempt is by chance in any measure made, then an 
 incurable contrariety does but come to view be¬ 
 tween portions of the theology thus developed, and 
 
136 PRESUMPTIVE CHARACTER [Chap. IIL 
 
 a war of principles; an impossibility moreover of 
 reconciling that theology with the general drift of the 
 formularies in which its elements occur, and a conse¬ 
 quent appearance of unfairness and sophistry in ad¬ 
 venturous persons who aim at forcing them into con¬ 
 sistency ; and, further, a prevalent understanding of 
 the truth of this representation, authorities keeping 
 silence, eschewing a hopeless enterprise and discou¬ 
 raging it in others, and the people plainly intimating 
 that they think both doctrine and usage, antiquity 
 and development, of very little matter at all; and, 
 lastly,* the evident despair of even the better sort of 
 men, who, in consequence, when they set great 
 schemes on foot, as for the conversion of the heathen 
 world, are afraid to agitate the question of the doc¬ 
 trines to which it is to be converted, lest through the 
 opened door they should lose what they have, instead 
 of gaining what they have not. To the weight of 
 recommendation which this contrast throws upon 
 the developments commonly called Catholic, must 
 be added the argument which arises from the co¬ 
 incidence of their consistency and permanence, with 
 their claim of an infallible sanction,—a claim, the 
 existence of which, in some quarter or other of the 
 Divine Dispensation, is, as we have already seen, 
 antecedently probable. All these things being con¬ 
 sidered, I think few persons will deny the very 
 strong presumption which exists, that, if there are 
 developments in Christianity, the doctrines pro¬ 
 pounded by successive Popes and Councils, through 
 so many ages, are they. 
 
 A further presumption in behalf of these doc¬ 
 trines arises from the general opinion of the world 
 about them. Christianity being one, all its doc¬ 
 trines are necessarily developments of one, and, if 
 so, are of necessity consistent with each other, or 
 form a whole. Now the world fully enters into 
 this view of those well-known developments which 
 claim the name of Catholic. It allows them that 
 
OF THE PROOF. 
 
 Sec. I.J 
 
 title, it considers them to belong to one family, and 
 refers them to one theological system. It is scarcely 
 necessary to set about proving what is urged by 
 their opponents even more strenuously than by 
 their champions. Their opponents avow that they 
 protest, not against this doctrine or that, but against 
 one and all; and they seem struck with wonder 
 and perplexity, not to say with awe, at a consistency 
 which they feel to be superhuman, though they 
 will not allow it to be divine. The system is con¬ 
 fessed on all hands to bear a character of integrity 
 and indivisibility upon it, both at first view and on 
 inspection. Hence such sayings as the “Totajacet 
 Babylon” of the distich. Luther did but a part of 
 the work, Calvin another portion, Socinus finished 
 it. To take up with Luther, and to reject Calvin 
 and Socinus, would be, according to that epigram, 
 like living in a house without a roof to it. This, I 
 say, is no private judgment of this man or that, but 
 the common opinion and experience of all countries. 
 The two great divisions of religion feel it, Koman 
 Catholic and Protestant, between whom the con¬ 
 troversy lies; sceptics and liberals, who are specta¬ 
 tors of the conflict, feel it; philosophers feel it. A 
 school of divines indeed there is, dear to memory, 
 who have not felt it; and their exception will have 
 its weight,—till we reflect that the particular the¬ 
 ology which they advocate has not the prescription 
 of success, never has been realized in fact, or, if 
 realized for a moment, had no stay; moreover, 
 that, when it has been enacted by human authority, 
 it has scarcely travelled beyond the paper on which 
 it Avas printed, or out of the legal forms in Avhich it 
 Avas embodied. But, putting the Aveight of these 
 revered names at the highest, they do not constitute 
 more than an exception to the general rule, such 
 as is found in every subject that comes into dis¬ 
 cussion. 
 
 And this general testimony to the oneness of 
 
138 PRESUMPTIVE CHARACTER [Chap. III. 
 
 Catholicism extends to its past teaching relatively 
 to its present, as well as to the portions of its pre¬ 
 sent teaching one with another. No one doubts, 
 with such exception as has just been allowed, that 
 the Roman Catholic communion of this day is the 
 successor and representative of the Medieval 
 Church, or that the Medieval Church is the 
 legitimate heir of the Ricene; even allowing that 
 it is a question whether a line cannot be drawn 
 between the Nicene Church and the Church which 
 preceded it. On the whole, all parties will agree 
 that, of all existing systems, the present com¬ 
 munion of Rome is the nearest approximation 
 in fact to the Church of the Fathers, possible though 
 some may think it to be nearer still to that Church 
 on paper. Did St. Athanasius or St. Ambrose 
 come suddenly to life, it cannot be doubted what 
 communion they would mistake for their own. All 
 surely will agree that these Fathers, with whatever 
 differences of opinion, whatever protests, if we will, 
 would find themselves more at home with such men 
 as St. Bernard or St. Ignatius Loyola, or with the 
 lonely priest in his lodging, or the holy sisterhood 
 of mercy, or the unlettered crowd before the altar, 
 than with the rulers or the members of any other 
 religious community. And may we not acid, that 
 were the two Saints, who once sojourned, in exile or 
 on embassage, at Treves, to come more northward 
 still, and to travel until they reached another fair 
 city, seated among groves, green meadows, and 
 calm streams, the holy brothers would turn from 
 many a high aisle and solemn cloister which they 
 found there, and ask the way to some small chapel 
 where mass was said in the populous alley or forlorn 
 suburb ? And, on the other hand, can any one who 
 has but heard his name, and cursorily read his his¬ 
 tory, doubt for one instant how, in turn, the peo¬ 
 ple of England, “we, our princes, our priests, and 
 our prophets,’' Lords and Commons, Universities, 
 
Sec. II.] 
 
 OF THE PROOF. 
 
 139 
 
 Ecclesiastical Courts, marts of commerce, great 
 towns, country parishes, would deal with Atha¬ 
 nasius,—Athanasius who spent his long years in 
 fighting against kings for a theological term? 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 CHARACTER OF THE EVIDENCE. 
 
 There is a well-known remark of Aristotle’s, 
 that “it is much the same to admit the proba¬ 
 bilities of a mathematician and to ask demonstra¬ 
 tion from an orator.” Some things admit of much 
 closer and more careful handling than others; and 
 we must look for proof in every case according to 
 the nature of the subject-matter which is in de¬ 
 bate, and not beyond it. Evidence may have an 
 air of nature even in its deficiencies ; and it re¬ 
 commends itself to us, when it carries with it its 
 explanation why it is such as it is, not fuller or 
 more exact. 
 
 Sometimes, indeed, we cannot discover the law 
 of silence or deficiency, which is then simply unac¬ 
 countable. Thus Lucian, for whatever reason, 
 hardly notices Roman authors or affairs. 1 Maxi¬ 
 mus Tyrius, who wrote several of his works at 
 Rome, nevertheless makes no reference to Roman 
 history. Paterculus, the historian, is mentioned by 
 no ancient writer except Priscian. What is more 
 to our present purpose, Seneca, Pliny the elder, 
 and Plutarch are altogether silent about Chris¬ 
 tianity ; and perhaps Epictetus also, and the 
 Emperor Marcus. The Jewish Mishna, too, com¬ 
 piled about a.d. 180, is silent about Christianity; 
 and the Jerusalem and Babylonish Talmuds almost 
 
 1 Lardner’s Heath. Test. p. 22. 
 
140 
 
 CHARACTER OE 
 
 [Chap. III. 
 
 so, though the one was compiled about a.d. 300, 
 and the other a.d. 500. 1 Eusebius, again, is very 
 uncertain in his notice of facts: he does not speak 
 of St. Methodius, nor of St. Anthony, nor of the 
 martyrdom of St. Perpetua, nor of the miraculous 
 powers of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus; and he 
 mentions Constantine’s luminous cross, not in his 
 Ecclesiastical History, where it would naturally 
 find a place, but in his Life of the Emperor. 
 Moreover, those who receive that wonderful occur¬ 
 rence, which is, as one who rejects it allows, 2 “so 
 inexplicable to the historical inquirer,” have to ex¬ 
 plain the difficulty of the universal silence on the 
 subject of all the Fathers of the fourth and fifth 
 centuries, excepting Eusebius. 
 
 In like manner, Scripture has its unexplained 
 omissions. No religious school finds its own tenets 
 and usages on the surface of it. The remark ap¬ 
 plies also to the very context of Scripture, as in 
 the obscurity which hangs over Nathaniel or the 
 Magdalen. It is a remarkable circumstance that 
 there is no direct intimation all through Scripture 
 that the Serpent mentioned in the temptation of 
 Eve was the evil spirit, till we come to the vision 
 of the woman and child, and their adversary, the 
 Dragon, in the twelfth chapter of the Revelations. 
 
 Omissions, thus absolute and singular, when they 
 occur in the evidence of facts or doctrines, are of 
 course difficulties ; on The other hand, very fre¬ 
 quently they admit of explanation. Silence may 
 arise from the very notoriety of the facts in ques¬ 
 tion, as in the case of the seasons, the iveather, or 
 other natural phenomena; or from their sacredness, 
 as the Athenians did not mention the mythological 
 Furies; or from external constraint, as the omis¬ 
 sion of the statues of Brutus and Cassius in the 
 procession. Or it may proceed from fear or dis- 
 
 1 Raley’s Evict p. i. prop. 1,7. 2 Milman, Christ, vol. ii. p. 352. 
 
Sec. II.] 
 
 THE EVIDENCE. 
 
 141 
 
 gust, as on the arrival of unwelcome news; or from 
 indignation, or hatred, or contempt, or perplexity, as 
 Josephus is silent about Christianity, and Eusebius 
 passes over the death of Crispus in his life of Con¬ 
 stantine; or from other strong feeling, as implied 
 in the poet’s sentiment, “Give sorrow words;” 
 or from policy or other prudential motive, or pro¬ 
 priety, as Queen’s Speeches do not mention indi¬ 
 viduals, however influential in the political world, 
 and newspapers after a time were silent about the 
 cholera. Or, again, from the natural and gradual 
 course which the fact took, as in the instance of in¬ 
 ventions and discoveries, the history of which is on 
 this account often obscure; or from loss of docu¬ 
 ments or other direct testimonies, as we should 
 not look for theological information in a treatise 
 on geology. 
 
 Again, it frequently happens that omissions pro¬ 
 ceed on some law, as the varying influence of an 
 external cause; and then, so far from being a per¬ 
 plexity, they may even confirm such evidence as 
 occurs, by becoming, as it were, its correlative. 
 For instance, an obstacle may be assignable, fact, 
 or principle, or law, which ought, if it really exists, 
 to reduce or distort the indications of its presence 
 to that very point, or in that very direction, and with 
 the variations, and in the order and succession, which 
 occur in its actual history. At first sight it might 
 be a suspicious circumstance that but one or two 
 manuscripts of some celebrated document were forth¬ 
 coming; but if it were known that the sovereign 
 power had exerted itself to suppress and destroy it 
 at the time of its publication, and that the extant 
 manuscripts were found just in those places where 
 history witnessed to the failure of the attempt, the 
 coincidence would be highly corroborative of that 
 evidence which alone remained. 
 
 This is a principle familiar in mixed sciences, as 
 often as an abstract truth has to be extracted from 
 
142 
 
 CHARACTER OF 
 
 [Chap. III. 
 
 physical facts, as they present themselves to the 
 experimentalist. Thus a writer on Mechanics, after 
 treating of the laws of motion, observes, u These 
 laws are the simplest principles to which motion 
 can be reduced, and upon them the whole theory 
 depends. They are not indeed self-evident, nor do 
 they admit of accurate proof by experiment, on ac¬ 
 count of the great nicety required in adjusting the 
 instruments and making the experiments; and on 
 account of the effects of friction, and the air’s resist¬ 
 ance, which cannot entirely be removed. They are, 
 however, constantly, and invariably, suggested to 
 our senses, and they agree with experiment as far 
 as experiment can go; and the more accurately the 
 experiments are made, and the greater care we 
 take to remove all those impediments which tend 
 to render the conclusions erroneous, the more nearly 
 do the experiments coincide with these laws.” 1 
 And thus a converging evidence for facts or doc¬ 
 trines through a certain period may, under circum¬ 
 stances, be as cogent a proof of their presence 
 throughout that period, as the Quod sempeiquod 
 ubique , quod ab omnibus. 
 
 And so with respect both to the Canon and the 
 Creed: a We depend upon the fourth and fifth 
 centuries thus:— As to Scripture, former centuries 
 do not speak distinctly, frequently, or unanimously, 
 except of some chief books, as the Gospels; but we 
 see in them, as we believe, an ever-growing ten¬ 
 dency and approximation to that full agreement 
 which we find in the fifth. The testimony given 
 at the latter date is the limit to which all that has 
 been before said converges. For instance, it is com¬ 
 monly said, Exceptio probat regulam; when we have 
 reason to think that a writer or an age woidd have 
 witnessed so and so, but for this or that, and that 
 this or that were mere accidents of his position, 
 then he or it may be said to tend towards such tes- 
 
 1 Wood’s Meehan, p. 31. 
 
THE EVIDENCE. 
 
 143 
 
 Sec. II.] 
 
 timony. In this way the first centuries tend to¬ 
 wards the fifth. Viewing the matter as one of 
 moral evidence, we seem to see in the testimony of 
 the fifth the very testimony which every preceding 
 century gave, accidents excepted, such as the present 
 loss of documents once extant, or the then existing 
 misconceptions which want of intercourse between 
 the Churches occasioned. The fifth century acts 
 as a comment on the obscure text of the centuries 
 before it, and brings out a meaning, which with 
 the help of the comment any candid person sees 
 really to be theirs. And in the same way as re¬ 
 gards the Catholic creed, though there is not so 
 much to explain and account for. Not so much; 
 for no one, I suppose, will deny that in the Fathers 
 of the fourth century it is as fully developed, and as 
 unanimously adopted, as it can be in the fifth. And, 
 again, there had been no considerable doubts about 
 any of its doctrines previously, as there were doubts 
 about the Epistle to the Hebrews or the Apoca¬ 
 lypse ; or, if any, they were started by individuals, 
 as Origen’s about eternal punishment, not by 
 Churches, or at once condemned by the general 
 Church, as in the case of heresies, or not about 
 any primary doctrine, such as the Incarnation or 
 Atonement: and all this in spite of that want of 
 free intercourse which occasioned doubts about 
 portions of the Canon. Yet, in both cases, we have 
 at first an inequality in the evidence, for what was 
 afterwards universally received as divine;—the 
 doctrines of the Holy Trinity and of Episcopacy, 
 and, again, the four Gospels, being generally wit¬ 
 nessed from the first; but certain other doctrines, 
 being at first rather practised and assumed than 
 insisted on, as the necessity of infant baptism; and 
 certain books, as the Epistle to the Hebrews and 
 the Apocalypse, doubted or not admitted in par¬ 
 ticular countries. And as the unanimity of the 
 fifth century as regards the Canon clears up and 
 
144 
 
 CHARACTER OF 
 
 [Ciiap. III. 
 
 overcomes all previous differences, so the abund¬ 
 ance of the fourth as to the Creed interprets, de¬ 
 velops, and combines all that is recondite or partial 
 in previous centuries as to doctrine, acting simi¬ 
 larly as a comment, not indeed, as in the case of 
 the Canon, upon a perplexed and disordered, but 
 upon a concise text. In both cases, the after cen¬ 
 turies contain but the termination of the testimony 
 of the foregoing.” 1 
 
 And if this be true in a case in which develop¬ 
 ment of doctrine is not supposed, much more will it 
 hold when the doctrine itself in question is growing, 
 and an increase in the evidence does but faithfully 
 represent the condition of the original on which it 
 depends. 
 
 Thus it is possible to have too much evidence; 
 that is, evidence so full or exact as to throw suspi¬ 
 cion over the case for which it is adduced. The 
 genuine Epistles of St. Ignatius contain none of those 
 ecclesiastical terms, such as u Priest” or u See,” 
 which are so frequent afterwards; and they quote 
 Scripture sparingly. The interpolated Epistles quote 
 it largely; that is, they are too Scriptural to be 
 Apostolic. Few persons, again, who are acquainted 
 with the primitive theology, but will be sceptical at 
 first reading of the authenticity of such works as 
 the longer Creed of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, or 
 St. Hippolytus contra Beronem, from the precision 
 of the theological language. 
 
 The influence of circumstances upon the expres¬ 
 sion of opinion or testimony supplies another form 
 of the same law of omission. “I am ready to admit,” 
 says Paley, u that the ancient Christian advocates did 
 not insist upon the miracles in argument so fre¬ 
 quently as I should have done. It was their lot to 
 contend with notions of magical agency, against 
 which the mere production of the facts was not suffi¬ 
 cient for the convincing of their adversaries; I do 
 1 Tracts for the Times, vol. v. pp. 102—104. 
 
145 
 
 Sec. II.] THE EVIDENCE. 
 
 not know whether they themselves thought it quite 
 decisive of the controversy. But since it is proved, 
 
 I conceive with certainty, that the sparingness with 
 which they appealed to miracles was owing neither 
 to their ignorance nor their doubt of the facts, it is 
 at any rate an objection, not to the truth of the 
 history, but to the judgment of its defenders.” 1 
 And, in like manner, Christians were not likely to 
 entertain the question of the abstract allowableness 
 of images in the Catholic ritual, with the actual 
 superstitions and immoralities of paganism before 
 their eyes. Nor were they likely to determine the 
 place of St. Mary in our reverence, before they had 
 duly secured, in the affections of the faithful, the 
 supreme glory and worship of God Incarnate, her 
 Eternal Lord and Son. Nor would they recognise 
 Purgatory as a part of the Dispensation, till the 
 world had flowed into the Church, and a habit of 
 corruption had been superinduced. Nor could 
 ecclesiastical liberty be asserted, till it had been 
 assailed. Nor would a Pope arise, but in pro¬ 
 portion as the Church was consolidated. Nor 
 would monachism be needed, while martyrdoms were 1 
 in progress. Nor could St. Clement give judgment 
 on the doctrine of Berengarius, nor St. Dionysius 
 refute the Ubiquists, nor St. Irenseus denounce 
 the Protestant view of Justification, nor St. Cyprian 
 draw up a theory of persecution. There is u a time 
 for every purpose under the heaven;” u a time to 
 keep silence and a time to speak.” 
 
 Sometimes when the want of evidence about a 
 series of facts or doctrines is unaccountable, in the 
 course of time an unexpected explanation or addi¬ 
 tion is found as regards a portion of them, which 
 suggests a ground of patience as regards the histo¬ 
 rical obscurity of the rest. Two instances are ob¬ 
 vious to mention, of an accidental silence of clear 
 primitive testimony as to important doctrines, and 
 
 1 Evidences, iii. 5. 
 
 L 
 
146 
 
 METHOD OF 
 
 [Chap. III. 
 
 its removal. In the number of the articles of 
 Catholic belief which the Reformation especially 
 resisted, were the Mass and the sacramental virtue 
 of Ecclesiastical Unity. Since the date of that 
 movement, the shorter Epistles of St. Ignatius have 
 been discovered, and the early Liturgies verified; 
 and this with most men has put an end to the con¬ 
 troversy about those doctrines. What has hap¬ 
 pened to them, may happen to others; and though it 
 does not happen to others, yet that it has happened 
 to them, is to those others a sort of compensation 
 for the obscurity in which their early history con¬ 
 tinues to be involved. 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 METHOD OF CONDUCTING THE INQUIRY. 
 
 It seems, then, that we have to deal with a case_ 
 something like the following: Certain doctrines 
 come to us, professing to be Apostolic, and possessed 
 of such high antiquity that, though we a re abl e to 
 assign the elate of their formal establishment to the 
 fourth, or fifth, or eighth, or thirteenth century, as 
 it may happen, yet their substance may, for what 
 appears, be coeval with the Apostles, and be e x- 
 pressed or implied in texts of Scripture. Further, 
 these existing doctrines are universally considered, 
 without any question, to be the representatives in 
 each age of the doctrines of the times preceding 
 them, and thus are thrown back to a date inde¬ 
 finitely early, even though their ultimate junction 
 with the Apostolic Creed be denied. Moreover, 
 they are confessed to form one body one with an¬ 
 other, so that to reject one is to disparage the rest; 
 and they include in their own unity even those 
 primary articles of faith, such as that of the Incar¬ 
 nation, which many an impugner of the system of 
 
Sec. III.] 
 
 CONDUCTING THE INQUIRY. 
 
 147 
 
 doctrine, as a system, professes to accept, and 
 which, do what he will, he^cannot intelligibly sepa¬ 
 rate, whether in point of evidence or of internal 
 character, from others which he disavows. Further, 
 those doctrines occupy the whole field of theology, 
 and leave nothing to be supplied, except in detail, 
 by any other system; while, in matter of fact, 
 no rival system is forthcoming, so that we have 
 to chose between this theology and none at alb 
 Tffofeover, this theology alone makes provision for 
 that direction of opinion and conduct, which seems 
 externally to be the special aim of Kevelation; and 
 fulfils the promises of Scripture, by adapting itself to 
 the various problems of thought and practice which 
 meet us in life. And, further, it is the nearest 
 approach, to say the least, to the religion of the early 
 Church, nay, to that of the Apostles and Prophets; 
 for all will agree so far as this, that Elijah, Jere¬ 
 miah, the Baptist, and St. Paul are in their history and 
 mode of life (I do not 'speak' of measures of grace, no, 
 nor of doctrine and conduct, for these are the points 
 in dispute, but) in what is external and meets the 
 eye (and this is no slight resemblance when things 
 are viewed as a whole and from a distance),—these 
 saintly and heroic persons, I say, are more like a 
 Dominican preacher, or a Jesuit missionary, or a 
 Carmelite friar, more like St. Toribio, or St.Vincent 
 Ferrer, or St. Francis Xavier, or St. Alphonso 
 Liguori, than to any individuals, or to any classes 
 of men that can be found in other communions. 
 And then, in addition, is the high antecedent pro¬ 
 bability that Providence would watch over His 
 own work, and would direct and ratify those de¬ 
 velopments of doctrine which were inevitable. 
 
 Last of all, it has appeared, that in practical 
 questions we are intended to guide our course 
 chiefly by presumptions, such as the foregoing, and 
 only secondarily by inquiries into evidence and by 
 direct proof; and that in the case of developments 
 
148 
 
 METHOD OF 
 
 [Chap. III. 
 
 a growth, a scantiness, a variation, an interruption 
 of evidence, nay, even silence, are to be expected, 
 and are sometimes even necessary, and that exact¬ 
 ness and fulness of evidence may even prejudice 
 the doctrine for which it is adduced, because they 
 are improbable. 
 
 If this is, on the whole, a true view of the general 
 shape under which the existing body of develop¬ 
 ments commonly called Catholic present them¬ 
 selves before us, antecedently to our looking into 
 the particular evidence on which they stand, I 
 think we shall be at no loss to determine what both 
 logical truth and duty prescribe to us as to our 
 reception of them. It is very little to say that we 
 should treat them as we are accustomed to treat 
 other alleged facts and truths, and the evidence for 
 them, which bring with them a fair presumption of 
 evidence in their favour. Such are of every day’s 
 occurrence; and what is our behaviour towards 
 them? We meet them, not with suspicion and cri¬ 
 ticism, but with a frank confidence. We do not in 
 the first instance exercise our reason upon opinions 
 which are received, but our faith. We do not 
 begin with doubting; we take them on trust, and we 
 put them on trial, and that, not of set purpose, but 
 spontaneously. We prove them by using them, by 
 applying them to the subject-matter, or the evidence, 
 or the body of circumstances, to which they belong, 
 as if they gave it its interpretation or its colour as 
 a matter of course; and only when they fail, in the 
 event, in illustrating phenomena or harmonizing 
 facts, do we discover that we must reject the doc¬ 
 trines or the statements which we had. in the first 
 instances tken for granted. Again, we take the 
 evidence for them, whatever it be, as a whole, as 
 forming a combined proof; and we interpret what 
 is obscure in it by such portions as are clear. More¬ 
 over, we bear with them in proportion to the 
 strength of the antecedent probability in their fa¬ 
 vour, we are patient with difficulties in their appli- 
 
Sec. III.] 
 
 CONDUCTING THE INQUIRY. 
 
 149 
 
 cation, with apparent objections to them drawn from 
 matters of fact, deficiency in their comprehensive¬ 
 ness, or want of neatness in their working, if their 
 claims on our attention are considerable. 
 
 Thus the whole school of physical philosophers 
 take Newton’s theory of gravitation for granted, 
 because it is generally received, and use it without 
 rigidly testing it first, each for himself, by pheno¬ 
 mena; and if phenomena are found which it does 
 not satisfactorily solve, this does not trouble them, 
 for they are sure that a way must exist of explain¬ 
 ing them, consistently with that theory, though it 
 does not occur to themselves. 
 
 Again, if we found a concise or obscure passage 
 in one of Cicero’s letters to Atticus, we should not 
 scruple to admit as its true explanation a more ex¬ 
 plicit statement in his Ad Familiares. iEschylus is 
 illustrated by Sophocles in point of language, and 
 Thucydides by Aristophanes in point of history, 
 Horace, Persius, Suetonius, Tacitus, and Juvenal 
 may be made to throw light upon each other. 
 Even Plato may s gain a commentator in Plotinus, 
 and St. Anselm is interpreted by St. Thomas. Two 
 writers, indeed, may be known to differ, and then 
 we do not join them together as fellow-witnesses to 
 common truths; Luther has taken on himself to 
 explain St. Augustine, and Yoltaire, Pascal, with¬ 
 out persuading the world that they have a claim to 
 do so; but in no case do we begin with doubting 
 that a comment disagrees with its text, when there 
 is a primd facie congruity between them. We 
 elucidate the one by the other, though, or rather 
 because, the former is fuller and clearer than the 
 latter. 
 
 Thus too we deal with Scripture, when we have 
 to interpret the prophetical text and the types of 
 the Old Testament. The event which is the deve¬ 
 lopment is also the interpretation of the prediction; 
 it provides a fulfilment by imposing a meaning. 
 And we accept certain events as the fulfilment of 
 
150 
 
 METHOD OF 
 
 [Chap. III. 
 
 prophecy from the broad correspondence of the one 
 with the other, in spite of many incidental difficul¬ 
 ties. The difficulty, for instance, in accounting for 
 the fact that the dispersion of the Jews followed 
 upon their keeping, not their departing from their 
 Law, does not hinder us from insisting on their 
 present state as an argument against the infidel. 
 Again, we readily submit our reason on competent 
 authority, and accept certain events as an accom¬ 
 plishment of predictions, which seem very far re¬ 
 moved from them; as the passage, u Out of Egypt 
 have I called My Son.” Nor do we find a difficulty, 
 when St. Paul appeals to a text of the Old Testa¬ 
 ment, which stands otherwise in our Hebrew copies; 
 as the words, u A body hast Thou prepared Me.” 
 We receive such difficulties on faith, and leave them 
 to take care of themselves. Much less do we con¬ 
 sider mere fulness in the interpretation, or definite¬ 
 ness, or again strangeness, as a sufficient reason for 
 depriving the text, or the action to which it is applied, 
 of the advantage of it. We make it no objection 
 that the words themselves come short of it, or that 
 the sacred writer did not contemplate it, or that a 
 previous fulfilment satisfies it. A reader who came 
 to the inspired text by himself, beyond the influence 
 of that traditional acceptation which happily encom¬ 
 passes it, would be surprised to be told that the 
 Prophet’s words, u A Virgin shall conceive,” &c., 
 and u Let all the Angels of God worship Him,” refer 
 to our Lord; but assuming the intimate connexion 
 between Judaism and Christianity, and the inspira¬ 
 tion of the New Testament, we do not scruple to 
 believe it. We rightly feel that it is no prejudice 
 to our receiving the prophecy of Balaam in its 
 Christian meaning, that it is adequately fulfilled 
 in David; or the history of Jonah, that it has a 
 moral in itself; or the meeting of Abraham and 
 Melchizedek, that it is too brief and simple to mean 
 any great thing. 
 
Sec. III.] 
 
 CONDUCTING THE INQUIRY. 
 
 151 
 
 Butler corroborates these remarks, when speak¬ 
 ing of the particular evidence for Christianity. 
 
 44 The obscurity or unintelligibleness,” he says, 
 
 44 of one part of a prophecy does not in any degree 
 invalidate the proof of foresight arising from the 
 appearing completion of those other parts which 
 are understood. For the case is evidently the 
 same as if those parts, which are not understood, 
 were lost, or not written at all, or written in an 
 unknown tongue. Whether this observation be 
 commonly attended to or not, it is so evident that 
 one can scarce bring one’s self to set down an in¬ 
 stance in common matters to exemplify it .” 1 He 
 continues, u Though a man should be incapable, 
 for want of learning, or opportunities of inquiry, 
 or from not having turned his studies this way, 
 even so much as to judge whether particular pro¬ 
 phecies have been throughout completely fulfilled; 
 yet he may see, in general, that they have been 
 fulfilled to such a degree, as, upon very good 
 ground, to be convinced of foresight more than 
 human in such prophecies, and of such events being 
 intended by them. For the same reason also, 
 though, by means of the deficiencies in civil his¬ 
 tory, and the different accounts of historians, the 
 most learned should not be able to make out to 
 satisfaction that such parts of the prophetic history 
 have been minutely and throughout fulfilled; yet a 
 very strong proof of foresight may arise from that 
 general completion of them which is made out; as 
 much proof of foresight, perhaps, as the Giver of 
 prophecy intended should ever be afforded by such 
 parts of prophecy.” 
 
 He illustrates this by the parallel instance of 
 fable and concealed satire. 44 A man might be 
 assured that he understood what an author intend¬ 
 ed by a fable or parable, related without any applica¬ 
 tion or moral, merely from seeing it to be easily 
 
 1 Anal. ii. 7. 
 
152 
 
 METHOD OF 
 
 [Chap. III. 
 
 capable of such application, and that such a moral 
 might naturally be deduced from it. And he 
 might be fully assured that such persons and 
 events were intended in a satirical writing, merely 
 from its being applicable to them. And, agreeably 
 to the last observation, he might be in a good 
 measure satisfied of it, though he were not enough 
 informed in affairs, or in the story of such persons, 
 to understand half the satire. For his satisfaction, 
 that he understood the meaning, the intended 
 meaning, of these writings, would be greater or 
 less, in proportion as he saw the general turn of 
 them to be capable of such application, and in pro¬ 
 portion to the number of particular things capable 
 of it.” And he infers hence, that if a known 
 course of events, or the history of a person as our 
 Lord, is found to answer on the whole to the pro¬ 
 phetical text, it becomes at once the right interpreta¬ 
 tion of that text, in spite of difficulties in detail. 
 And this rule of interpretation may obviously be 
 applied to the parallel case of doctrinal passages, 
 when a certain creed, which professes to have been 
 derived from Revelation, comes recommended to us 
 on strong antecedent grounds, and presents no 
 striking opposition to the sacred text. 
 
 The same author observes that the first fulfilment 
 of a prophecy is no valid objection to a second, 
 when what seems like a second has once taken 
 place; and, in like manner, an interpretation of 
 doctrinal texts may be literal, exact, and sufficient, 
 yet in spite of all this may not embrace the full 
 scope of their meaning; and that fuller scope, if it 
 so happen, may be less satisfactory and precise, as 
 an interpretation, than their primary and narrow 
 sense. In such cases the justification of the larger 
 interpretation lies in some antecedent probability, 
 such as Catholic consent; and the ground of the 
 narrow is the context, and the rules of grammar; 
 and, whereas the argument of the critical commen- 
 
CONDUCTING THE INQUIRY. 
 
 153 
 
 Sec. III.] 
 
 tator is that the sacred text need not mean more 
 than the letter, those who adopt a deeper view of it 
 maintain, as Butler in the case of prophecy, that we 
 have no warrant for putting a limit to the sense of 
 words which are not human but divine. 
 
 Now it is but a parallel exercise of reasoning to 
 interpret the previous steps of a development by 
 the later; and the same grudging and jealous tem¬ 
 per, which refuses to enlarge the sacred text for 
 teaching and prophecy, will occupy itself in carping 
 at the Ante-nicene testimonies for Nicene or Me¬ 
 dieval doctrines and usages. When u I and My 
 Father are One” is urged in proof of our Lord’s 
 unity with the Father, heretical disputants do not 
 see why the words must be taken to denote more 
 than a unity of will. When u This is My Body” 
 is alleged as a warrant for the change of the Bread 
 into the Body of Christ, they explain away the 
 words into a figure, because such is their most 
 obvious interpretation. And, in like manner, when 
 Roman Catholics urge St. Gregory’s invocations, 
 they are told that these are but rhetorical; or St. 
 Clement’s allusion to Purgatory, that perhaps it 
 was Platonism; or Origen’s language about praying 
 to Angels and the merits of Martyrs, that it is but 
 an instance of his heterodoxy; or St. Cyprian’s ex¬ 
 altation of the Cathedra Petri , that he need not be 
 contemplating more than a figurative or abstract 
 see; or the general testimony to the spiritual au¬ 
 thority of Rome in primitive times, that it arose 
 from its temporal greatness; or Tertullian’s lan¬ 
 guage about Tradition and the Church, that he took 
 a lawyer’s view of those subjects; whereas the 
 early condition, and the evidence, of each doctrine 
 respectively, ought consistently to be interpreted 
 by means of the doctrine itself which was ultimately 
 attained. 
 
 Those who will not view the beginning in the 
 light of the result, are equally unwilling to let 
 
154 
 
 METHOD OF 
 
 [Chap. III. 
 
 the whole elucidate the parts. The Catholic doc¬ 
 trines, as I have already had occasion to observe, 
 are members of one family, and suggestive, or cor¬ 
 relative, or confirmatory, or illustrative of each other. 
 In other words, one furnishes evidence to another, 
 and all to each of them; if this is proved, that be¬ 
 comes probable; if this and that are both probable, 
 but for different reasons, each adds to the other its 
 own probability. The Incarnation is the antecedent 
 of the doctrine of Mediation, and the archetype 
 both of the Sacramental principle and of the merits 
 of Saints. From the doctrine of Mediation follow the 
 Atonement, the Mass, the merits of Martyrs and 
 Saints, their invocation and cultus. From the Sa¬ 
 cramental principle come the Sacraments properly 
 so called; the unity of the Church, and the Holy 
 See as its type and centre; the authority of Coun¬ 
 cils; the sanctity of rites; the veneration of holy 
 places, shrines, images, vessels, furniture, and vest¬ 
 ments. Of the Sacraments, Baptism is developed 
 into Confirmation on the one hand ; into Penance, 
 Purgatory, and Indulgences on the other; and the 
 Eucharist into the Real Presence, adoration of the 
 Host, Resurrection of the body, and the virtue of 
 relics. Again, the doctrine of the Sacraments leads 
 to the doctrine of Justification; Justification to that 
 of Original Sin; Original Sin to the merit of Celibacy. 
 Nor do these separate developments stand independ¬ 
 ent of each other, but by cross relations they are 
 connected, and grow together while they grow from 
 one. The Mass and Real Presence are parts of one; 
 the veneration of Saints and their relics are parts of 
 one ; their intercessory power, and the Purgatorial 
 State, and again the Mass and that State are corre¬ 
 lative ; Celibacy is the characteristic mark of Mona- 
 chism and the Priesthood. You must accept the 
 whole or reject the whole; reduction does but ere. 
 feeble, arid amputation mutilate. It is trifling to 
 receive all but something which is as integral as any 
 
CONDUCTING THE INQUIRY. 
 
 155 
 
 Sec. III.] 
 
 other portion; and, on the other hand, it is a solemn 
 thing to receive any part, for, before you know 
 where you are, you may be carried on by a stern 
 logical necessity to accept the whole. 
 
 Moreover, since the doctrines all together make up 
 one integral religion, it follows that the several evi¬ 
 dences which respectively support those doctrines 
 belong to a whole, and must be thrown into a com¬ 
 mon stock, and all are available in the defence of 
 any. A collection of weak evidences makes up a 
 strong evidence; again, one strong argument imparts 
 cogency to collateral arguments which are in them¬ 
 selves weak. For instance, as to the miracles, whether 
 of Scripture or the Church, u the number of those 
 which carry with them their own proof now, and 
 are believed for their own sake, is small, and they 
 furnish the grounds on which we receive the rest .” 1 
 Again, no one would fancy it necessary, before re¬ 
 ceiving St. Matthew’s Gospel, to find primitive tes¬ 
 timony in behalf of every chapter and verse: when 
 only part is proved to have been in existence in an¬ 
 cient times, the whole is proved, because that part 
 is but part of a whole; and when the whole is proved, 
 it shelters such parts as for some incidental reason 
 have no evidence of their antiquity. Again, it would 
 be enough to show that St. Augustine knew the 
 Italic version of the Scriptures, if he quoted it once 
 or twice. And, in like manner, it will be generally 
 admitted that the proof of the Being of the Second 
 Person in the Godhead lightens indefinitely the 
 burden of proof necessary for belief in a Third 
 Person; and that, the Atonement being in some 
 sort a correlative of eternal punishment, the evidence 
 for the former doctrine virtually increases the evi¬ 
 dence for the latter. And so, Protestants would 
 feel that it told little, except as an omen of victory, 
 to reduce an opponent to a denial of Transubstan- 
 tiation, if he still adhered firmly to the Invocation 
 of Saints, Purgatory, the Seven Sacraments, and 
 
 1 Essay on Miracles, p ci. 
 
156 
 
 METHOD OF 
 
 [Chap. III. 
 
 the doctrine of merit; and little too for one of their 
 own party to condemn the adoration of the Host, 
 the supremacy of Rome, the acceptableness of celi¬ 
 bacy, auricular confession, communion under one 
 kind, and tradition, if he was zealous for the doc¬ 
 trine of the Immaculate Conception. 
 
 The principle on which these remarks are made 
 has the sanction of some of the deepest of English 
 Divines. Bishop Butler, for instance, who has so 
 often been quoted, thus argues in behalf of Christian¬ 
 ity itself, though confessing at the same time the dis¬ 
 advantage which in consequence the revealed system 
 lies under. “ Probable proofs,” he observes, “ by 
 being added, not only increase the evidence, but 
 multiply it. Nor should I dissuade any one from 
 setting down what he thought made for the con¬ 
 trary side. ... The truth of our religion, like the 
 truth of common matters, is to be judged by all the 
 evidence taken together. And unless the whole 
 series of things which may be alleged in this argu¬ 
 ment, and every particular thing in it, can reason¬ 
 ably be supposed to have been by accident (for here 
 the stress of the argument for Christianity lies), then 
 is the truth of it proved; in like manner, as if, 
 in any common case, numerous events acknow¬ 
 ledged were to be alleged in proof of any other 
 event disputed, the truth of the disputed event 
 would be proved, not only if any one of the ac¬ 
 knowledged ones did of itself clearly imply it, but 
 though no one of them, singly, did so, if the whole 
 of the acknowledged events, taken together, could 
 not in reason be supposed to have happened, unless 
 the disputed one were true. 
 
 “It is obvious how much advantage the nature 
 of this evidence gives to those persons who attack 
 Christianity, especially in conversation. For it is 
 easy to show, in a short and lively manner, that 
 such and such things are Table to objection, that 
 this and another thing is of little weight in itself; 
 
Sec. III.] CONDUCTING THE INQUIRY. 157 
 
 but impossible to show, in like manner, the united 
 force of the whole argument in one view .” 1 
 
 In like manner, Mr. Davison condemns that “vi¬ 
 cious manner of reasoning,” which represents “ any 
 insufficiency of the proof, in its several branches, as 
 so much objection;” which manages “the inquiry so 
 as to make it appear that, if the divided arguments be 
 inconclusive one by one, we have a series of excep¬ 
 tions to the truths of religion instead of a train of 
 favourable presumptions, growing stronger at every 
 step. The disciple of Scepticism is taught that he 
 cannot fully rely on this or that motive of belief, 
 that each of them is insecure, and the conclusion is 
 put upon him that they ought to be discarded one 
 after another, instead of being connected and com¬ 
 bined .” 2 No work perhaps affords more specimens 
 in a short compass of the breach of the principle of 
 reasoning inculcated in these passages, than Barrow’s 
 Treatise on the Pope’s Supremacy. 
 
 The remarks of these two writers relate to The 
 duty of combining doctrines which belong to one 
 body, and evidences which relate to one subject; 
 and few persons would dispute it in the abstract. 
 The application which has been here made of the 
 principle is this,—that where a doctrine comes re¬ 
 commended to us by strong presumptions of its 
 truth, we are bound to receive it unsuspiciously, 
 and use it as a key to the evidences to which it 
 appeals, or the facts which it professes to systema¬ 
 tize, whatever may be our ultimate judgment about 
 it. Nor is it enough to answer, that the voice of 
 our particular Church, denying this so-called Catho¬ 
 licism, is an antecedent probability which outweighs 
 all others and claims our prior obedience, loyally 
 and without reasoning, to its own interpretation. 
 This may excuse individuals certainly, in begin¬ 
 ning with doubt and distrust of the Catholic deve¬ 
 lopments, but it only shifts the blame. 
 
 1 Anal. ii. 7. 2 On Prophecy, i. p. 28. 
 
158 
 
 INSTANCES IN ILLUSTRATION. [Chap. III. 
 
 SECTION IV. 
 
 INSTANCES IN ILLUSTRATION. 
 
 The rule of interpretation which has been above 
 insisted on must now be applied in illustration, to 
 several of the developments which go by the name 
 of Catholic. Properly speaking, the consideration 
 of particular cases belongs to the later chapters of 
 this Essay; but sufficient will remain for the subject- 
 matter of those chapters, though these instances are 
 turned to our present purpose. 
 
 1. In the question raised by various learned men 
 in the seventeenth and following century, concern¬ 
 ing the views of the early Fathers on the subject 
 of our Lord’s Divinity, the one party estimate their 
 theology by the literal force of their separate ex¬ 
 pressions or phrases, or by the philosophical opinions 
 of the day; the other, by the doctrine of the Catho¬ 
 lic Church, as afterwards authoritatively declared. 
 The one party argues that those Fathers need not 
 have meant more than what was afterwards con¬ 
 sidered heresy ; the other answers that there is 
 nothing to prevent their meaning more. Thus the 
 position which Bull maintains seems to be nothing 
 beyond this, that the Nicene Creed is a natural key 
 for interpreting the body of Ante-nicene theology. 
 His very aim is to explain difficulties ; now the 
 notion of difficulties and their explanation im¬ 
 plies a rule to which they are apparent exceptions, 
 and in accordance with which they are to be ex¬ 
 plained. Nay, the title of his work, which is a 
 “Defence of the Creed of Nica3a,” shows that he is 
 not seeking a conclusion, but imposing a view. 
 And he proceeds both to defend the Creed by means 
 of the Fathers against Sandius, and to defend the 
 Fathers by means of the Creed against Petavius. 
 
159 
 
 Sec. IV.] INSTANCES IN ILLUSTRATION. 
 
 He defends Creed and Fathers by reconciling one 
 with the other. He allows that their language is 
 not such as they would have used after the Creed 
 had been imposed; but he says in effect that, if we 
 will but take it in our hands and apply it to their 
 writings, we shall bring out and harmonize their 
 teaching, clear their ambiguities, and discover their 
 anomalous statements to be few and insignificant. 
 I n ot her words, he begins with a presumption, and 
 shows how naturally facts close round if and fall in 
 with it, if we will but let them. Fie does this 
 triumphantly, yet he has an arduous work; out of 
 about thirty writers whom he reviews, he has, for 
 one cause or other, to explain nearly twenty. 
 
 2. The Canonicity, that is, the divine authority, 
 of the books of the New Testament, is a subject to 
 which allusion has been already made, and which 
 furnishes a second illustration of the logic by which 
 the facts and doctrines of Christianity are estab¬ 
 lished. There are particular books, to which the 
 Test of Yincentius, Quod semper , c fc., cannot be ap¬ 
 plied. The state of the argument is thus presented 
 to us by Less: u All the Scriptures of our New Tes¬ 
 tament, it is confessed, have not been received with 
 universal consent as genuine works of the Evan¬ 
 gelists and Apostles. But that man must have 
 predetermined to oppose the most palpable truths, 
 and must reject all history, who will not confess 
 that the greater part of the New Testament has 
 been universally received as authentic, and that the 
 remaining books have been acknowledged as such 
 by the majority of the ancients.” 1 
 
 For instance, as to the Epistle of St. James. It 
 is true, it is contained in the old Syriac version in 
 the second century; but Origen, in the third cen¬ 
 tury, is the first writer who distinctly mentions it 
 among the Greeks; and it is not quoted by name 
 by any Latin till the fourth. St. Jerome speaks of 
 
 1 Authent. N. T. p. 237. 
 
160 
 
 INSTANCES IN ILLUSTRATION. [Chap. III. 
 
 its gaining credit u by degrees, in process of time.” 
 Eusebius says no more than that it bad been, up to 
 bis time, acknowledged by tbe majority; and be 
 classes it with tbe Shepherd of St. Hermas and the 
 Epistle of St. Barnabas. 1 
 
 Again: “The Epistle to the Hebrews, though 
 received in the East, was not received in the 
 Latin Churches till St. Jerome’s time. St. Irenteus 
 either does not affirm, or denies that it is St. Paul’s. 
 Tertullian ascribes it to St. Barnabas. Caius ex¬ 
 cludes it from his list. St. Hippolytus does not 
 receive it. St. Cyprian is silent about it. It is 
 doubtful whether St. Optatus received it.” 2 
 
 Again, St. Jerome tells us, that in his day, 
 towards a.d. 400, the Greek Church rejected the 
 Apocalypse, but the Latin received it. 
 
 Again: u The New Testament consists of twenty- 
 seven books in all, though of varying importance. 
 Of these, fourteen are not mentioned at all till from 
 eighty to one hundred years after St. John’s death, 
 in which number are the Acts, the Second to the 
 Corinthians, the Galatians, the Colossians, the Two 
 to the Thessalonians, and St. James. Of the other 
 thirteen, five, viz. St. John’s Gospel, the Philip- 
 pians, the First of Timothy, the Hebrews, and the 
 First of St. John are quoted but by one writer 
 during the same period.” 3 
 
 On what ground, then, do we receive the Canon 
 as it comes to us, but on the authority of the 
 Church of the fourth and fifth centuries ? The 
 Church at that era decided,—not merely bore testi¬ 
 mony, but passed a judgment on former testimony,— 
 decided that certain books were of authority. We 
 receive that decision as true; that is, we virtually 
 apply to a particular case the doctrine of her infal¬ 
 libility. And in proportion as the cases multiply 
 in which we are obliged to trust her decision, do 
 
 2 Tracts for the Times, No. 85, p. 78. 
 
 3 Ibid. p. 80. 
 
 1 According to Less. 
 
Sec. IV.] 
 
 INSTANCES IN ILLUSTRATION. 
 
 161 
 
 we approach, in fact, to the belief that she is 
 i nfallible. 
 
 3. In the beginning of the fifteenth century, 
 the Council of Constance decreed, that, “ though in 
 the primitive Church the Sacrament” of the Eucha¬ 
 rist “ was received by the faithful under each kind, 
 yet the custom has been reasonably introduced, for 
 the avoiding of certain dangers and scandals, that 
 it should be received by the consecrators under 
 each kind, and by the laity only under the kind of 
 Bread; since it is most firmly to be believed, and in 
 no wise doubted, that the whole Body and Blood of 
 Christ is truly contained as well under the kind of 
 Bread as under the kind of Wine.” 
 
 Now the question is, whether the doctrine here 
 laid down, and carried into effect in the usage here 
 sanctioned, was entertained by the early Church, 
 and may be considered a just development of its 
 principles and practices. I answer that, starting 
 with the presumption that the Council is right, which 
 is the point here to be assumed, we shall find quite 
 enough for its defence, and shall be satisfied to de¬ 
 cide in the affirmative; we shall readily come to 
 the conclusion that the Communion under either 
 kind is lawful, each kind conveying the full gift of 
 the Sacrament. 
 
 For instance, Scripture affords us two instances 
 of what may reasonably be considered the adminis¬ 
 tration of the Bread without the Wine; viz. our 
 Lord’s own example towards the two disciples at 
 Emmaus, and St. Paul’s conduct at sea during the 
 tempest. Moreover, St. Luke speaks of the first 
 Christians as continuing in the Apostles’ doctrine 
 and fellowship, and u in breaking of bread , and in 
 prayer,” not mentioning the Cup. 
 
 Again, St. Paul says that “whosoever shall eat this 
 Bread or drink this Cup of the Lord unworthily, shall 
 be guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord.” And 
 while he does but say “the Cup of blessing which 
 
 M 
 
162 INSTANCES IN ILLUSTRATION. [Chap. III. 
 
 we bless” without speaking of the communication, 
 he says of the Bread, “which we break;” and pro¬ 
 ceeds, “We, being many, are one bread and one 
 body, for we are all partakers of that one Bread,” 
 without mentioning the Cup. And our Lord, in 
 like manner, says absolutely, “ He that eatetli Me, 
 even he shall live by Me.” 
 
 Many of the types of the Holy Eucharist, as far 
 as they go, tend to the same conclusion; such 
 as the Paschal Lamb, the Manna, the Shewbread, 
 the sacrifices from which the blood was poured 
 out, and the miracle of the loaves, which are figures 
 of the bread alone; while the water from the rock, 
 and the Blood from our Lord’s side correspond to 
 the Wine without the Bread. Others are represen¬ 
 tations of both kinds; as Melchizedek’s feast, and 
 Elijah’s miracle of the meal and oil. 
 
 And, further, it certainly was the custom in the 
 early Church, under circumstances, to communicate 
 in one kind, as we learn from St. Cyprian, St. Dio¬ 
 nysius, St. Basil, St. Jerome, and others. For in¬ 
 stance, St. Cyprian speaks of the communion of an 
 infant under Wine, and of a woman under Bread; 
 and St. Ambrose speaks of his brother in shipwreck 
 folding the Bread in a handkerchief, and placing it 
 round his neck; and the monks and hermits in the 
 desert can hardly be supposed to have been ordina¬ 
 rily in possession of consecrated Wine as well as 
 Bread. From the following Letter of St. Basil, it ap¬ 
 pears that, not only the monks, but the whole laity 
 of Egypt ordinarily communicated in Bread only. 
 He seems to have been asked by his correspondent, 
 whether in time of persecution it was lawful, in the 
 absence of priest or deacon, to take the communion 
 “in our own hand” that is, of course, the Bread; he 
 answers that it may be justified by the following 
 parallel cases, in mentioning which he is altogether 
 silent about the Cup. “It is plainly no fault,” he 
 says, “ for long custom affords instances which sane- 
 
Sec. IV.] 
 
 INSTANCES IN ILLUSTRATION. 
 
 1G3 
 
 tion it. For all the monks in the desert, where there 
 is no priest, keep the communion at home, and re¬ 
 ceive (partake) it from themselves (h<f £Cl VTO)V ). Ill 
 Alexandria too, and in Egypt, each of the laity, for 
 the most part, has the Communion in his house, and, 
 when he will, he receives it from himself. For 
 when once the priest has celebrated the Sacrifice 
 and given it, he who has taken it [away] as a whole 
 together, and then partakes of it daily, reasonably 
 ought to think that he partakes and receives from 
 him who [once] gave it.” 1 It should be added, 
 that in the beginning of the Letter he had been led 
 to speak of the communion in both kinds, and says 
 that it is “good and profitable.” 
 
 Here we have the usage of Pontus, Egypt, Africa, 
 and Milan. Spain may be added, if a late author 
 is right in his view of the meaning of a Spanish 
 Canon; 2 and Syria, as well as Egypt, at least at a 
 later date, since Mcephorus 3 tells us that the Ace- 
 phali, having no Bishops, kept the Bread which 
 their last priests had consecrated, and dispensed 
 crumbs of it every year at Easter for the purposes 
 of Communion. 
 
 But it may be said, that “after all it is so very 
 
 1 Ep. 93. 
 
 2 Vid. Concil. Bracar. ap. Aguirr. Cone. Hisp. t. ii. p. 676. “That 
 the cup was not administered at the same time is not so clear; but 
 from the tenor of this first Canon in the Acts of the Third Council 
 of Braga, which condemns the notion that the Host should be steeped 
 in the chalice, we have no doubt that the wine was withheld from the 
 laity. Whether certain points of doctrine are or are not found in 
 the Scriptures is no concern of the historian; all that he has to do 
 is religiously to follow his guides, to suppress or distrust nothing 
 through partiality.”— Dunliam , Hist, of Spain and Port. vol. i. p. 204. 
 If pro complement communionis in the Canon merely means “ for 
 the Cup,” at least the Cup is spoken of as a complement ; the same 
 view is contained in the “confirmation of the Eucharist,” as spoken 
 of in St. German’s Life. Vid. Lives of Saints, No. 9, p. 28. 
 
 3 Niceph. Hist, xviii. 45. Renaudot, however, tells us of two 
 Bishops at the time when the schism was at length healed. Patr. 
 Al. Jac. p. 248. However, these had been consecrated by priests, 
 p. 145. 
 
1G4 
 
 INSTANCES IN ILLUSTRATION. 
 
 [Chap. III. 
 
 hazardous and fearful a measure actually to with¬ 
 draw from Christians one-half of the Sacrament, that, 
 in spite of these precedents, some direct warrant is 
 needed to reconcile the mind to it. There might 
 have been circumstances which led St. Cyprian, or 
 St. Basil, or the Apostolical Christians before them 
 to curtail it, about which we know nothing. It is 
 not therefore safe in us, because it was safe in 
 them.” Certainly a warrant is necessary; and just 
 such a warrant is the infallibility of the Church. 
 If we can trust her implicitly, there is nothing in 
 the state of the evidence to form an objection to her 
 decision in this instance, and in proportion as we 
 find we can trust her does our difficulty lessen. 
 Moreover, children, not to say infants, were at one 
 time admitted to the Eucharist, at least to the Cup; 
 on what authority are they now excluded from Cup 
 and Bread also ? St. Augustine considered the usage 
 to be of Apostolical origin; and it continued in the 
 West down to the twelfth century; it continues in 
 the East among Greeks, Busso-Greeks, and the va¬ 
 rious Mon ophysite Churches to this day, and that 
 on the ground of its almost universality in the pri¬ 
 mitive Ctiurch. 1 Is it a less innovation to suspend 
 the Cup, than to cut off children from Communion 
 altogether ? Yet we acquiesce in the latter depri¬ 
 vation without a scruple. It is safer to acquiesce 
 with, than without, an authority; safer with the 
 belief that the Church is infallible, than with the 
 belief that she may err. 
 
 4. The chief tokens extant of the existence of the 
 Papal authority, in the first three centuries, were 
 cursorily mentioned in the Introductory Chapter. 
 Here, as in other cases, the plan of the work has 
 obliged us to lay down what afterwards we have 
 to take up, and to break into parts what ought 
 to be viewed as a whole. 
 
 With a view, then, of furnishing another illustra- 
 1 Vid. Bingli. Ant. xv. 4, § 7 ; and Fleury, Hist. xxvi. 50, note g. 
 
Sec. IV.] INSTANCES IN ILLUSTRATION. 165 
 
 tion of the peculiar logical method on which I have 
 been insisting, let us proceed to consider the dispo¬ 
 sition, or lie , of the evidence which is adducible in 
 the first five centuries in behalf of the supremacy 
 of the Holy See; not, indeed, minutely going 
 through it, and establishing it, but saying enough 
 to point out how the Ante-nicene centuries may be 
 viewed in the light of the Post-nicene, whereas 
 Protestants resolve the latter into the dimness and 
 indistinctness of the former. 
 
 The question is this, whether there was not from 
 the first a certain element at work, or in existence, 
 which, for some reason or other, did not at once 
 show itself upon the surface of ecclesiastical affairs, 
 and of which events in the fourth century are the 
 development; and whether the evidence of its ex¬ 
 istence and operation, which does occur in the 
 earlier centuries, be it much or little, is not just 
 such as ought to occur upon such an hypothesis. 
 
 For instance, it is true, St. Ignatius is silent in 
 his Epistles on the subject of the Pope’s authority: 
 but if that authority was not, and could not be 
 in active operation then, such silence is not so dif¬ 
 ficult to account for as the silence of Seneca or Plu¬ 
 tarch about Christianity itself, or of Lucian about 
 the Roman people. St. Ignatius directed his doc¬ 
 trine according to the need. While Apostles were 
 on earth, there was the display neither of Bishop 
 nor Pope; their power had no prominence, as 
 being exercised by Apostles. In course of time, 
 first the power of the Bishop displayed itself, 
 and then the power of the Pope. When the Apos¬ 
 tles were taken away, Christianity did not at once 
 break into portions; yet separate localities might 
 begin to be the scene of internal dissensions, and a 
 local arbiter in consequence would be wanted. Chris¬ 
 tians at home did not yet quarrel with Christians 
 abroad; they quarrelled at home among themselves. 
 St. Ignatius applied the fitting remedy. The Sacra - 
 
166 
 
 INSTANCES IN ILLUSTRATION. [Chap. III. 
 
 mentum Unitatis was acknowledged on all hands; 
 the mode of fulfilling and the means of securing it 
 would vary with the occasion; and the determination 
 of its essence, its seat, and its laws would be a 
 gradual consequence of a gradual necessity. 
 
 This is but natural, and is parallel to instances 
 which happen daily. It is a common occurrence for 
 a quarrel and a lawsuit to bring out the state of the 
 law, and the most unexpected results often follow. 
 St. Peter’s prerogative would remain a mere letter, 
 till the complication of ecclesiastical matters became 
 the cause of ascertaining it. While Christians were 
 “of one heart and one soul,” it would be suspended; 
 love dispenses with laws. Christians knew that they 
 must live in unity, and they were in unity; in what 
 that unity consisted, how far they could proceed, as 
 it were, in bending it, and what at length was the 
 point at which it broke, was an irrelevant as well as 
 unwelcome inquiry. Relations often live together in 
 happy ignorance of their respective rights and pro¬ 
 perties, till a father or a husband dies; and then 
 they find themselves against their will in separate 
 interests, and on divergent courses, and dare not 
 move without legal advisers. Again, the case is con¬ 
 ceivable of a corporation, or an Academical body, 
 going on for centuries in the performance of the 
 routine-business which came in its way, and pre¬ 
 serving a good understanding between its members, 
 with statutes almost a dead letter and no precedents 
 to explain them, and the rights of its various classes 
 and functions undefined,—then, suddenly thrown 
 back by the force of circumstances upon the question 
 of its formal character as a body politic, and in con¬ 
 sequence developing in the relation of governors and 
 governed. The regalia Petri might sleep, as the power 
 of a Chancellor has slept; not as an obsolete, for they 
 never had been carried into effect, but as a mysterious 
 privilege, which was not understood; as an unful¬ 
 filled prophecy. For St. Ignatius to speak of Popes, 
 when it was a matter of Bishops, would have been 
 
Sec. IV.] 
 
 INSTANCES IN ILLUSTRATION. 
 
 167 
 
 like sending an army to arrest a housebreaker. The 
 Bishop’s power indeed was from God, and the Pope’s 
 could be no more; he was our Lord’s representa¬ 
 tive, and had a sacramental office: but I am speak¬ 
 ing, not of its intrinsic sanctity, but of its duties. 
 
 When the Church, then, was thrown upon her own 
 resources, first loc al dis turbances gave exe rcise to 
 Bishops, and next ecumenical disturbances gave exer¬ 
 cise to Popes; and whether communion with the Pope 
 was necessary for Catholicity would not and could not 
 be debated till a suspension of that communion had 
 actually occurred. It is not a greater difficulty that 
 St. Ignatius does not write to the Asian Greeks about 
 Popes, than that St. Paul does not write to the Co¬ 
 rinthians about Bishops. And it is a less difficulty 
 that the Papal supremacy was not formally acknow¬ 
 ledged in the second century, than that there was 
 no formal acknowledgment of the doctrine of the 
 Holy Trinity till the fourth. No doctrine is defined 
 till it is violated. 
 
 And, in like manner, it was natural for Christians 
 to direct their course in matters of doctrine by the 
 guidance of mere floating, and, as it were, endemic 
 tradition, while it was fresh and strong; but in pro¬ 
 portion as it languished, or was broken in particular 
 places, did it become necessary to fall back upon its 
 special homes, first the Apostolic Sees, and then the 
 See of St. Peter. 
 
 Moreover, an international bond and a common 
 authority could not be consolidated, were it ever so 
 certainly provided, while persecutions lasted. If the 
 Imperial Power checked the development of Coun¬ 
 cils, it availed also for keeping back the power of the 
 Papacy. The Creed, the Canon, in like manner, both 
 remained undefined. The Creed, the Canon, the Pa¬ 
 pacy, Ecumenical Councils, all began to form, as soon 
 as the Empire relaxed its tyrannous oppression of the 
 Church. And as it was natural that her monarchical 
 power should display itself when the Empire became 
 Christian, so was it natural also that further develop- 
 
168 INSTANCES IN ILLUSTRATION. [Chap. III. 
 
 merits of that power should take place when that Em¬ 
 pire fell. Moreover, when the power of the Holy See 
 began to exert itself, disturbance and collision would 
 be the necessary consequence. Of the Temple of 
 Solomon, it was said that “ neither hammer, nor axe, 
 nor any tool of iron was heard in the house, while it 
 was in building.” This is a type of the Church 
 above; it was otherwise with the Church below, 
 whether in the instance of Popes or Apostles. In 
 either case, a new power had to be defined; as St. Paul 
 had to plead, nay, to strive for his Apostolic autho¬ 
 rity, and enjoined St. Timothy, as Bishop of Ephesus, 
 to let no man despise him: so Popes too have not 
 therefore been ambitious because they did not estab¬ 
 lish their authority without a struggle. It was 
 natural that Poly crates should oppose St. Victor; and 
 natural too that St. Cyprian should both extol the 
 See of St. Peter, yet resist it when he thought it 
 went beyond its province. And at a later day it 
 was natural that Emperors should rise in indignation 
 against it; and natural, on the other hand, that it 
 should take higher ground with a younger power 
 than it had taken with an elder and time-honoured. 
 
 We may follow Barrow here without reluctance, 
 except in his imputation of motives. 
 
 u In the first times,” he says, “ while the Em¬ 
 perors were pagans, their [the Popes’] pretences 
 were suited to their condition, and could not soar 
 high; they were not then so mad as to pretend to 
 any temporal power, and a pittance of spiritual 
 eminency did content them.” 
 
 Again: “The state of the most primitive Church 
 did not well admit such an universal sovereignty. 
 For that did consist of small bodies incoherently 
 situated, and scattered about in very distant places, 
 and consequently unfit to be modelled into one 
 political society, or to be governed by one head 
 especially considering their condition under per¬ 
 secution and poverty. What convenient resort for 
 
Sec. IV.] INSTANCES IN ILLUSTRATION. 169 
 
 direction on justice could a few distressed Christians 
 in Egypt, Ethiopia, Parthia, India, Mesopotamia, 
 Syria, Armenia, Cappadocia, and other parts, have 
 to Rome!” 
 
 Again : “Whereas no point avowed by Christians 
 could be so apt to raise offence and jealousy in 
 pagans against our religion as this, which setteth 
 up a power of so vast extent and huge influence; 
 whereas no novelty could be more surprising or 
 startling than the creation of an universal empire 
 over the consciences and religious practices of men; 
 whereas also this doctrine could not be but very con¬ 
 spicuous and glaring in ordinary practice, it is pro¬ 
 digious that all pagans should not loudly exclaim 
 against it,” that is if it had then been in operation. 
 
 And again: “It is most prodigious that, in the 
 disputes managed by the Fathers against heretics, 
 the Gnostics, Valentinians, &c., they should not, 
 even in the first place, allege and urge the sentence 
 of the universal pastor and judge, as a most evident¬ 
 ly conclusive argument, as the most efficacious and 
 compendious method of convincing and silencing 
 them.” 
 
 Once more: “Even Popes themselves have shifted 
 their pretences, and varied in style, according to the 
 different circumstances of time, and their variety of 
 humours, designs, interests. In time of prosperity, 
 and upon advantage, when they might safely do it, 
 the Pope almost would talk high and assume much 
 to himself; but when they were low, or stood in 
 fear of powerful contradiction, even the boldest 
 Popes would speak submissly or moderately.” 1 
 
 On the whole, supposing the power to be divinely 
 bestowed, yet in the first instance more or less dor¬ 
 mant, a history could not be traced out more 
 probable, more suitable to that hypothesis, than the 
 actual course of the controversy which took place 
 age after age upon the Papal Supremacy. 
 
 1 Pope’s Suprem. ed. 1836, pp. 26, 27, 157, 171, 222. 
 
170 
 
 INSTANCES IN ILLUSTRATION. [Chap. III. 
 
 It will be said that all tbis is a theory. Certainly 
 it is: it is a theory to account for facts as they lie 
 in the history, to account for so much being told 
 us about the Papal authority in early times, and 
 not more; a theory to reconcile which is, and what is 
 not recorded about it; and, which is the principal 
 point, a theory to connect the words and acts of 
 the Ante-nicene Church with that antecedent pro¬ 
 bability of a monarchical principle in the Divine 
 Scheme, and that actual exemplification of it in the 
 fourth century, which forms their presumptive inter¬ 
 pretation. All depends on the strength of that 
 presumption. Supposing there be otherwise good 
 reason for saying that the Papal Supremacy is part 
 of Christianity, there is nothing in the early history 
 of the Church to contradict it. 
 
 It follows to inquire in what this presumption 
 consists? It has, as I have said, two parts, the an¬ 
 tecedent probability of the Popedom, and the actual 
 state of the Post-nicene Church. The former of 
 these reasons has unavoidably been touched upon 
 in what has preceded. It is the absolute need of a 
 monarchical power in the Church which is our 
 ground for anticipating it. Blackstone has express¬ 
 ed the principle in a sentence, quoted in an earlier 
 page, as it relates to kingly power. A political 
 body cannot exist without government, and the 
 larger is the body the more concentrated must 
 the government be. If the whole of Christendom 
 is to form one Kingdom, one head is essential; 
 at least this is the experience of eighteen hun¬ 
 dred years. As the Church grew into form, so did 
 the power of the Pope develope; and wherever the 
 Pope has been renounced, decay and division have 
 been the consequence. We know of no other way of 
 preserving the Sacramentum Unitatis , but a centre of 
 unity. The Nestorians have had their u Catholicus; ” 
 the Lutherans of Prussia have their general super- 
 intendant; even the Independents, I believe, have 
 
Sec. IV.] 
 
 INSTANCES IN ILLUSTRATION. 
 
 171 
 
 had an overseer in their Missions. The English 
 Church affords an observable illustration of this 
 doctrine. As her prospects have opened, and her 
 communion extended, the Sec of Canterbury has 
 become the natural centre of her operations. It 
 has at the present time jurisdiction in the Me¬ 
 diterranean, at Jerusalem, in Hindostan, in North 
 America, at the Antipodes. It has been the organ 
 of communication, when a Prime Minister would 
 force the Church to a re-distribution of her proper¬ 
 ty, or a Protestant Sovereign would bring her into 
 friendly relations with his own communion. Eyes 
 have been lifted up thither in times of perplexity; 
 thither have addresses been directed and deputa¬ 
 tions sent. Thence issue the legal decisions, or the 
 declarations in Parliament, or the letters, or the 
 private interpositions, which shape the fortunes of 
 the Church, and are the moving influence within 
 her separate dioceses. It must be so; no Church 
 can do without its Pope. We see before our eyes 
 the centralising process by which the See of St. 
 Peter became the Sovereign Head of Christendom. 
 
 If such be the nature of the case, it is impossible, 
 if we may so speak reverently, that an Infinite Wis¬ 
 dom, which sees the end from the beginning, in 
 decreeing the rise of an universal Empire, should 
 not have decreed the development of a ruler. 
 
 To this must be added the general probability, 
 which has been shown in the foregoing Chapter, that 
 all true developments of doctrine and usage which 
 have been permitted, and this in the number, have 
 been divinely approved; and, again, the probability 
 in particular in favour of the existence, in some 
 quarter, of an infallible authority in matters of 
 faith. 
 
 And, on the other hand, as the counterpart of these 
 anticipations, we are met by certain announcements 
 in Scripture, more or less obscure and needing a 
 comment, and claimed by the Papal See as liav- 
 
172 INSTANCES IN ILLUSTRATION. [Chap. III. 
 
 mg their fulfilment in itself. Such are the words, 
 “ Thou art Peter, and upon this 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.” Again: “Feed My lambs, 
 feed My sheep.” And “Satan hath desired to have 
 you; I have prayed for thee, and when thou art 
 converted, strengthen thy brethren.” Such, too, 
 are various other indications of the Divine purpose 
 as regards St. Peter, too weak in themselves to be 
 insisted on separately, but not without a confirma¬ 
 tory poAver ; such as his neAV name, his walking on 
 the sea, his miraculous draught of fishes on tAVO 
 occasions, our Lord’s preaching out of his boat, and 
 Plis appearing first to him after His resurrection. 
 
 It should be observed, moreover, that a similar 
 promise Avas made by the patriarch Jacob to Judah: 
 “ Thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise: the 
 sceptre shall not depart from Judah till Shiloh come;” 
 yet it Avas not fulfilled for perhaps eight hundred 
 years, during Avhich long period Ave hear little or 
 nothing of the tribe descended from him. In like 
 manner, “On this rock I Avill build My Church,” 
 “I give unto thee the Keys,” “Feed My sheep,” are, 
 not precepts merely, but prophecies and promises, 
 promises to be accomplished by Him avIio made 
 them, prophecies to be interpreted by the event,— 
 by the history, that is, of the fourth and fifth cen¬ 
 turies, though they had a partial fulfilment even 
 in the preceding period, and a still more noble 
 development in the middle ages. 
 
 For instance, Ave have seen in an earlier Chapter 
 that St. Cyprian alloAvs to the Roman See the name 
 of the Cathedra Petri; and even Firmilian is a Avit- 
 ness that the See of Rome claimed it. Noav in the 
 fourth and fifth centuries this title and its logical 
 results became prominent. Thus, St. Julius, avIio 
 Avas Pope during the persecution of St. Athanasius 
 (a.d. 342), remonstrated by letter Avith the Fuse- 
 
Sec. IV.] INSTANCES IN ILLUSTRATION. 173 
 
 bian party for “ proceeding on their own autho¬ 
 rity as they pleased,” and then, as he says, “ de¬ 
 siring to obtain our concurrence in their deci¬ 
 sions, though we never condemned him. Not so 
 have the constitutions of Paul, not so have the 
 traditions of the Fathers directed; this is another 
 form of procedure, a novel practice... For what we 
 have received from the blessed Apostle Peter, that I 
 signify to you; and I should not have written this, 
 as deeming that these things are manifest unto all 
 men, had not these proceedings so disturbed us.” 1 
 St. Athanasius, by preserving this protest, has given 
 it his sanction. Moreover, it is alluded to by So¬ 
 crates; and his account of it has the more force, 
 because he happens to be incorrect in the details, and 
 therefore did not borrow it from St. Athanasius:— 
 “ Julius wrote back,” he says, “ that they acted 
 against the Canons, because they had not called him 
 to a Council, the Ecclesiastical Canon commanding 
 that the Churches ought not to make Canons beside 
 the will of the Bishop of Pome.” 2 And Sozomen: 
 “ It was a sacerdotal law, to declare invalid what¬ 
 ever was transacted beside the will of the Bishop of 
 the Romans.” 3 On the other hand, the heretics them¬ 
 selves, whom St. Julius withstands, are obliged to 
 acknowledge that Rome was “the School of the 
 Apostles and the Metropolis of orthodoxy from the 
 beginning;” and two of their leaders, (Western 
 Bishops,) some years afterwards recanted their he¬ 
 resy before the Pope in terms of humble confession. 
 
 Another Pope, St. Damasus, in his letter addressed 
 to the Eastern Bishops against Apollinaris (a. d. 
 382), calls those Bishops his sons. “In that your 
 charity pays the due reverence to the Apostolical 
 See, ye profit the most yourselves, most honoured 
 sons. For if, placed as we are in that Holy Church, 
 in which the Holy Apostle sat and taught, how it 
 becometh us to direct the helm to which we have 
 1 Athan. Hist. Tracts. Oxf. tr. p. 5G. 2 Hist. ii. 17. 3 Hist. iii. 10. 
 
174 INSTANCES IN ILLUSTRATION. [Chap. III. 
 
 succeeded, we nevertheless confess ourselves unequal 
 to that honour; yet do we therefore study as we may, 
 if so be we may be able to attain to the glory of his 
 blessedness.” 1 “ I speak,” says St. Jerome to the 
 
 same St. Damasus, “with the successor of the fisher¬ 
 man and the disciple of the Cross. I, following no 
 one as my chief but Christ, am associated in com¬ 
 munion with thy blessedness, that is, with the See 
 of Peter. I know that on that rock the Church is 
 built. Whosoever shall eat the Lamb outside this 
 Plouse is profane; if a man be not in the Ark of 
 Noe, he shall perish when the flood comes in its 
 power.” 2 St. Basil entreats St. Damasus to send 
 persons to arbitrate between the Churches of Asia 
 Minor, or at least to make a report on the authors 
 of their troubles, and the party with which the Pope 
 should hold communion. “We are in no wise ask¬ 
 ing anything new,” he proceeds, “but what was 
 customary with blessed and religious men of former 
 times, and especially with yourself. For we know, 
 by tradition of our fathers of whom we have in¬ 
 quired, and from the information of writings still 
 preserved among us, that Dionysius, that most 
 blessed Bishop, while he was eminent among you 
 for orthodoxy and other virtues, sent letters of visi¬ 
 tation to our Church of Csesarea, and of consolation 
 to our fathers, with ransomers of our brethren from 
 captivity.” In like manner, Ambrosiaster, a Pelagian 
 in his doctrine, which is not to the purpose, speaks 
 of the “Church being God's house, whose ruler at 
 this time is Damasus.” 3 
 
 “We bear,” says St. Siricius, another Pope, (a.d. 
 385,) “the burden of all who are laden; yea, rather 
 the blessed Apostle Peter beareth them in us, who, 
 as we trust, in all things protects and defends us the 
 heirs of his government.” 4 And he in turn is con¬ 
 firmed by St. Optatus. „“ You cannot deny your 
 
 1 TheocL Hist. v. 10. 2 Constant, Epp. Pont. p. 546. 
 
 3 In 1 Tim. iii. 14, 15. 4 Coustant, p. 624. 
 
Sec. IV.] INSTANCES IN ILLUSTRATION. 175 
 
 knowledge,” says the latter to Parmenian, the Dona- 
 tist, “ that, in the city Rome, on Peter first hath an 
 Episcopal See been conferred, in which Peter sat, the 
 head of all the Apostles,... in which one See unity 
 might be preserved by all, lest the other Apostles 
 should support their respective Sees; in order that 
 he might be at once a schismatic and a sinner, who 
 against that one See (singularem) placed a second. 
 Therefore that one See (unicam), which is the first 
 of the Church’s prerogatives, Peter filled first; to 
 whom succeeded Linus; to Linus, Clement; to Cle¬ 
 ment, &c., &c. . . to Damasus, Siricius, who at this 
 day is associated with us, (socius,) together with 
 whom the whole world is in accordance with us, in 
 the one bond of communion, by the intercourse of 
 letters of peace.” 1 
 
 Another Pope: “Diligently and congruously do ye 
 consult the arcana of the Apostolical dignity,” says 
 St. Innocent to the Council of IVlilevis (a.d. 417), 
 “ the dignity of him on whom, beside those things 
 which are without, falls the care of all the Churches; 
 following the form of the ancient rule, which you 
 know, as well as I, has been preserved always by 
 the whole world.” 2 Here the Pope appeals, as it 
 were, to the Rule of Yincentius; while St. Augus¬ 
 tine bears witness that he did not outstep his prero¬ 
 gative, for, giving an account of this and another 
 letter, he says, “He [the Pope] answered us as to 
 all these matters as it was religious and becoming 
 in the Bishop of the Apostolic See.” 3 
 
 Another Pope: “We have especial anxiety about 
 all persons,” says St. Celestine (a.d. 425), to the 
 Illyrian Bishops, “on whom, in the holy Apostle 
 Peter, Christ conferred the necessity of making all 
 persons our concern, when He gave him the Keys 
 of opening and shutting.” St. Prosper, his contem¬ 
 porary, confirms him, when he calls Rome “ the seat 
 of Peter, which, being made to the world the head 
 1 ii. 3. 2 Constant, pp. 896, 1064. 3 Ep. 186, 2. 
 
176 INSTANCES IN ILLUSTRATION. [Ciiap. III. 
 
 of pastoral honour, possesses by religion what it does 
 not possess by arms;” and Vincent of Lerins, when 
 he calls the Pope “the head of the whole world .” 1 
 
 Another Pope: “Blessed Peter,” says St. Leo, 
 (a.d. 440, &c.) “hath not deserted the helm of the 
 Church which he had assumed. . . His power lives 
 and his authority is pre-eminent in his See .” 2 
 “ That immoveableness, which, from the Rock 
 Christ, he, when made a rock, received, has been 
 communicated also to his heirs .” 3 And as St. 
 Athanasius and the Eusebians, by their contem¬ 
 porary testimonies, confirm St. Julius; and St. 
 Jerome, St. Basil, and Ambrosiaster, St. Damasus; 
 and St. Optatus, St. Siricius; and St. Augustine, St. 
 Innocent; and St. Prosper and Vincent, St. Celes- 
 tine; so do St. Peter Chrysologus, and the Council 
 of Chalcedon confirm St. Leo. “ Blessed Peter,” 
 says Chrysologus, “who lives and presides in his 
 own see, supplies truth of faith to those who seek 
 it .” 4 And the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon, 
 addressing St. Leo respecting Dioscorus, Bishop of 
 Alexandria: “He extends his madness even against 
 him to whom the custody of the vineyard has been 
 committed by the Saviour, that is, against thy 
 Apostolical holiness .” 5 But the instance of St. Leo 
 will occur again in a later Chapter. 
 
 The acts of the fourth century speak as strongly 
 as its words. We may content ourselves here with 
 Barrow’s admissions:— 
 
 “ The Pope’s power,” he says, “was much ampli¬ 
 fied by the importunity of persons condemned or 
 extruded from their places, whether upon just ac¬ 
 counts, or wrongfully, and by faction; for they, 
 finding no other more hopeful place of refuge 
 and redress, did often apply to him: for what 
 will not men do, whither will not they go in 
 straits ? Thus did Marcion go to Rome, and sue 
 
 1 De Ingrat. 2. Common. 41. 2 Serm. De Natal, in. 3. 
 
 3 Ibid. v. 4. 4 Ep. ad Eutych. fin. 
 
 5 Concil. Hard. t. ii. p. 656. 
 
Sec. IV.] INSTANCES IN ILLUSTRATION. 177 
 
 for admission to communion there. So Fortu- 
 natus and Felicissimus in St. Cyprian, being con¬ 
 demned in Afric, did fly to Rome for shelter; of 
 which absurdity St. Cyprian doth so complain. So 
 likewise Martianus and Basilides in St. Cyprian, 
 being outed of their Sees for having lapsed from 
 the Christian profession, did fly to Stephen for 
 succour, to be restored. So Maximus, the Cynic, 
 went to Rome, to get a confirmation of his election 
 at Constantinople. So Marcellus, being rejected 
 for heterodoxy, went thither to get attestation to 
 his orthodoxy, of which St. Basil complaineth. So 
 Apiarius, being condemned in Afric for his crimes, 
 did appeal to Rome. And, on the other side, Atha¬ 
 nasius being with great partiality condemned by 
 the Synod of Tyre; Paulus and other bishops being 
 extruded from their sees for orthodoxy; St. Chry¬ 
 sostom being condemned and expelled by Theophi- 
 lus and his complices; Flavianus being deposed by 
 Dioscorus and the Ephesine synod; Theodoret 
 being condemned by the same, did cry out for 
 help to Rome. Chelidonius, Bishop of Besan^n, 
 being deposed by Hilarius of Arles for crimes, did 
 fly to Pope Leo.” 
 
 Again: 44 Our adversaries do oppose some in¬ 
 stances of popes meddling in the constitution of 
 bishops; as, Pope Leo I. saith, that Anatolius did 
 4 by the favour of his assent obtain the bishopric 
 of Constantinople.’ The same pope is alleged 
 as having confirmed Maximus of Antioch. The 
 same doth write to the Bishop of Thessalonica, his 
 vicar, that he should 4 confirm the elections of 
 bishops by his authority.’ He also confirmed Do- 
 natus, an African bishop:— 4 We will that Donatus 
 preside over the Lord’s flock, upon condition that 
 he remember to send us an account of his faith.’ . . 
 Pope Damasus did confirm the ordination of Peter 
 Alexandrinus.” 
 
 And again: 44 The Popes indeed in the fourth 
 
 N 
 
178 INSTANCES IN ILLUSTRATION. [Chap. III. 
 
 century began to practise a fine trick, very service¬ 
 able to the enlargement of their power; which was 
 to confer on certain bishops, as occasion served, 
 or for continuance, the title of their vicar or lieu¬ 
 tenant, thereby pretending to impart authority to 
 them: whereby they were enabled for perform¬ 
 ance of divers things, which otherwise by their own 
 episcopal or metropolitical power they could not 
 perform. By which device they did engage such 
 bishops to such a dependence on them, whereby 
 they did promote the papal authority in provinces, 
 to the oppression of the ancient rights and liberties 
 of bishops and synods, doing what they pleased under 
 pretence of this vast power communicated to them; 
 and for fear of being displaced, or out of affection 
 to their favourer, doing what might serve to ad¬ 
 vance the papacy. Thus did Pope Celestine con¬ 
 stitute Cyril in his room. Pope Leo appointed 
 Anatolius of Constantinople; Pope Felix, Acacius 
 of Constantinople .... Pope Simplicius to Zeno, 
 Bishop of Seville : ‘We thought it convenient that 
 you should be held up by the vicariat authority of 
 our see.’ So did Siricius and his successors con¬ 
 stitute the bishops of Thessalonica to be their 
 vicars in the diocese of Illyricum, wherein being 
 then a member of the western empire they had 
 caught a special jurisdiction; to which Pope Leo 
 did refer in those words, which sometimes are 
 impertinently alleged with reference to all bishops, 
 but concern only Anastasius, Bishop of Thessalonica: 
 ‘We have entrusted thy charity to be in our stead; 
 so that thou art called into part of the solicitude, 
 not into plenitude of the authority.’ So did Pope 
 Zosimus bestow a like pretence of vicarious power 
 upon the Bishop of Arles, which city was the seat of 
 the temporal exarch in Qaul .” 1 
 
 More ample testimony for the Papal Supremacy 
 is scarcely necessary than what is contained in 
 1 Barrow on the Supremacy, ed. 1836, pp. 263, 331, 384. 
 
Sec. V.] 
 
 PARALLEL INSTANCES. 
 
 179 
 
 these passages: the simple question is, whether the 
 clear light of the fourth and fifth centuries may be 
 fairly taken to illuminate the dim notices of the 
 preceding. 
 
 SECTION Y. 
 
 PARALLEL INSTANCES. 
 
 Bacon is celebrated for destroying the credit of a 
 method of reasoning much resembling that which it 
 has been the object of this Chapter to recommend. 
 “Hewho is not practised in doubting,” he says, “ but 
 forward in asserting and laying down such princi¬ 
 ples as he takes to be approved, granted, and mani¬ 
 fest, and, according to the established truth thereof, 
 receives or rejects everything, as squaring with or 
 proving contrary to them, is only fitted to mix and 
 confound things with words, reason with madness, 
 and the world with fable and fiction, but not to 
 interpret the works of nature .” 1 But he was aiming 
 at the application of these modes of reasoning to 
 what should be strict investigation, and that in the 
 province of physics; and this he might well censure, 
 without attempting, what is impossible, to banish 
 them from history, ethics, and religion. Physical 
 facts are present; they are submitted to the senses, 
 and the senses may be satisfactorily tested, cor¬ 
 rected, and verified. To trust to anything but sense 
 in a matter of sense is irrational; why are the senses 
 given us but to supersede less certain, less imme¬ 
 diate informants? We have recourse to reason or 
 authority to determine facts, when the senses fail 
 us; but with the senses we begin. We deduce, we 
 form inductions, we abstract, we theorize from facts; 
 we do not begin with surmise and conjecture, much 
 less do we look to the tradition of past ages, or 
 1 Aphor. 5, vol. iv. p. xi. ed. 1815. 
 
180 
 
 PARALLEL INSTANCES. 
 
 [Chap. III. 
 
 the decree of foreign teachers, to determine matters 
 which are in our hands and under our eyes. 
 
 But it is otherwise with history, the facts of which 
 are not present; it is otherwise with ethics, in which 
 phenomena are more subtle, closer, and more per¬ 
 sonal to individuals than other facts, and not refer - 
 rible to any common standard by which all men can 
 decide upon them. In such sciences, we cannot rest 
 upon mere facts, if we would, because we have not 
 got them. We must do our best with what is given 
 us, and look about for aid from any quarter; and in 
 such circumstances the opinions of others, the tra¬ 
 ditions of ages, the prescriptions of authority, ante¬ 
 cedent auguries, analogies, parallel cases, these and 
 the like, not indeed taken at random, but, like the 
 evidence from the senses, sifted and scrutinized, 
 obviously become of great importance. 
 
 And, further, if we proceed on the hypothesis that 
 a merciful Providence has supplied us with means 
 of gaining such truth as concerns us, in different 
 subject-matters, though with different instruments, 
 then the simple question is, what those instruments 
 are which are proper to a particular case. If they 
 are of the appointment of a Divine Protector, we 
 may be sure that they will lead to the truth, what¬ 
 ever they are. The less exact methods of reasoning 
 may do His work as well as the more perfect, if He 
 blesses them. He may bless antecedent probabili¬ 
 ties in ethical inquiries, who blesses experiment and 
 induction in the art of medicine. 
 
 And if it is reasonable to consider medicine, or 
 architecture, or engineering, in a certain sense, divine 
 arts, as being divinely ordained means of our re¬ 
 ceiving divine benefits, much more may ethics be 
 called divine; while as to religion, it directly pro¬ 
 fesses to be the method of recommending ourselves 
 to Him and learning His will. If then it be Plis 
 gracious purpose that we should learn it, the means 
 He gives for learning it, be they promising or not 
 
Sec. V.] 
 
 PARALLEL INSTANCES. 
 
 181 
 
 to human eyes, are sufficient because they are His. 
 And what they are at this particular time, or to this 
 person, depends on His disposition. He may have 
 imposed simple prayer and obedience on some men 
 as the instrument of their attaining to the myste¬ 
 ries and precepts of Christianity. He may lead 
 others through the written word, at least for some 
 stages of their course; and if the formal basis on 
 which He has rested His revelations be, as it is, of 
 an historical and philosophical character, then ante¬ 
 cedent probabilities, subsequently corroborated by 
 facts, will be sufficient, as in the parallel case of other 
 history, to bring us safely to the matter, or at least 
 to the organ, of those revelations. 
 
 Moreover, in subjects which belong to moral proof, 
 such, I mean, as history, antiquities, political science, 
 ethics, metaphysics, and theology, which are pre¬ 
 eminently such, and especially in theology and 
 / ethics, antecedent probability may have a real weight \ 
 [ and cogency which it cannot have in experimental j 
 \ science; and a mature politician or divine may have 
 v a power of reaching matters of fact in consequence 
 of his peculiar habits of mind, which is never given 
 in the same degree to physical inquirers, who, for 
 the purposes of this particular pursuit, are very 
 much on a level. And this last remark at least is 
 confirmed by Lord Bacon, who confesses u Our 
 method of discovering the sciences does not much 
 depend upon subtlety and strength of genius, but 
 lies level to almost every capacity and understand¬ 
 ing ;” 1 though surely sciences there are, in which 
 genius is everything, and rules all but nothing. 
 
 It will be a great mistake then to suppose that, 
 because this eminent philosopher condemned pre¬ 
 sumption and prescription in inquiries into facts 
 which are external to us, present with us, and com¬ 
 mon to us all, therefore authority, tradition, verisi¬ 
 militude, analogy, and the like, are mere u idols of 
 1 Nov. Org. i. 2, § 26, vol. iv. p. 29. 
 
182 
 
 PARALLEL INSTANCES. 
 
 [Chap. III. 
 
 the den” or “of the theatre” in history or ethics. 
 Here we may oppose to him an author in his own 
 line as great as he is: “Experience,” says Bacon, 
 “is by far the best demonstration, provided it dwell 
 in the experiment; for the transferring of it to 
 other things judged alike is very fallacious, unless 
 done with great exactness and regularity.” 1 But 
 Niebuhr takes the contrary side: “Instances are not 
 arguments,” he grants, when investigating an ob¬ 
 scure question of Roman history,—“instances are 
 not arguments, but in history are scarcely of less 
 force; above all, where the parallel they exhibit is 
 in the progressive development of institutions.” 2 
 Here this sagacious writer recognises the true prin¬ 
 ciple of historical logic, while he exemplifies it. 
 
 1. Nor is this all; it is remarkable that not even 
 in physics can real genius submit to the trammels 
 of that Novum Organum of investigation, which, as 
 Bacon truly says, is so important, so necessary, in 
 the case of the many. “ Sir Isaac Newton,” says 
 Bacon’s editor, “ appears to have had a very extra¬ 
 ordinary method of making discoveries; but as that 
 great philosopher did not think proper to reveal it, 
 philosophers of an inferior rank can only guess at 
 it, and admire what they do not fully understand. 
 Where the business of investigation depended upon 
 experiments, as particularly in his excellent inquiries 
 about light, he seems first to have imagmed in his 
 mind how things were , and afterwards contrived his 
 experiments on purpose to show whether those things 
 were as he had preconceived them or not; and accord¬ 
 ing to the information thus obtained, whether from 
 his own experiments and observations, or those of 
 others, he altered and improved his notions. . . . 
 At other times this great philosopher observed the 
 stricter laws of induction. ... So that he seems to 
 have used all sorts of methods by turns.” 3 
 
 1 Nqv. Org. § 70, p. 44. 2 Hist, of Rome, vol. i. p. 345, ed. 1828. 
 
 3 Vol. v. p. 219. 
 
Sec. V.] 
 
 PARALLEL INSTANCES. 
 
 183 
 
 2. Nay, it is remarkable too that the very profes¬ 
 sors of profane learning, who often show so great a 
 contempt for the use of antecedent processes of rea¬ 
 soning in religious inquiries, do not scruple to apply 
 their own conclusions in science or history as a pre¬ 
 sumptive interpretation of the matter of revelation. 
 The inspired histories, and the doctrines of the 
 Church, are often analyzed on principles, and sub¬ 
 jected to systems, totally alien from Scripture and 
 theology. Some theory of politics, antiquities, lan¬ 
 guage, or geology is forcibly imposed upon the facts 
 of religion, whether those facts are disposed to ad¬ 
 mit it or not. Thus M. Dupuis turned Christianity 
 into a form of Mithraism. Thus Heeren speaks of 
 Samuel's u scheme of making the office of Judge he¬ 
 reditary in his own family," and a his crafty policy 
 in the election which he could not impede,” and de¬ 
 scribes Solomon’s reign as “the brilliant government 
 of a despot from the interior of his seraglio;” by a 
 process similar to that by which men of narrow minds 
 impute their own motives to another, to account for 
 his actions. 
 
 This, however, is but the abuse of a legitimate 
 method, which must not be condemned merely be¬ 
 cause, like other instruments, its success or failure 
 depends upon the hand which applies it. It is of 
 universal use in scientific and literary research, and, 
 whether it ends in a true or false conclusion, the 
 process is ever the same. And this is the point on 
 which I am here insisting, that it is no peculiarity 
 of Catholic and orthodox reasoning, but is equally 
 found in infidel and heretical, and in history or ethics 
 as well as in theology. 
 
 3. For instance: if it be an assumption to inter¬ 
 pret every passage of a primitive author which bears 
 upon doctrine or ritual by the theology of a later 
 age, it surely is an assumption also to argue, if his 
 statement is incomplete, that he held no more than 
 he happened to say, or if it is the most ancient 
 
184 
 
 PARALLEL INSTANCES. 
 
 [Chap. III. 
 
 testimony now extant, that no one held the same 
 before him. The former is the assumption of those 
 who hold that the developments of Christian doc¬ 
 trine are faithful; the latter of those who consider 
 that the existing creed is the accidental result of 
 various natural causes and human elements. Such 
 is the assumption which runs through Gieseler’s most 
 able and useful Text-book of Ecclesiastical History, 
 and which gives to his analysis a reckless and arbi¬ 
 trary tone such as cannot be surpassed by the most 
 dogmatical Schoolman. 
 
 To take the first specimen which occurs:—he men¬ 
 tions the author of the Pastor as an Apostolical 
 Father, 1 adding in the note that the work it self claims 
 to be written by Hennas, the disciple of St. Paul, 
 that it is quoted by St. Irenaeus as “Scripture,” and 
 that it is often.cited by St. Clement and others; 
 moreover, that, though others have given it to Her¬ 
 nias, brother of Pope Pius, “this is only conjec¬ 
 ture.” Thus he begins: however, some pages later 
 it is assumed to be a “spurious writing” of the second 
 century; 2 one of those which taught Chiliasm, as did 
 all the other spurious, writings of the-period. Next, 
 on these spurious writings he grounds the assertion 
 “ that no one can hesitate to consider Chiliasm uni¬ 
 versal” in that age; and he corroborates this con¬ 
 clusion by the hypothesis that “ such notions as 
 it offered were not unnecessary to animate men to 
 suffer for Christianity.” He then traces the doctrine 
 to the Apocalypse, and alludes to several Greek 
 Fathers, St. Justin, and St. Irenaeus, who held it. 
 Then, with this doctrine, which he represents as uni¬ 
 versal, he connects the belief that till the millennium 
 “ the souls of the dead were to be kept in the world 
 below,” referring in the note (that is, in proof of 
 what he considers a Catholic doctrine of the second 
 century) to passages written by Tertullian when a 
 Montanist in the beginning of the third. Lastly, he 
 observes that “ the fancied enjoyments of” this Ca- 
 1 Engl. tr. vol. 1, pp. 67, 68. 2 pp. 99, 100. 
 
PARALLEL INSTANCES. 
 
 185 
 
 Sec. V.] 
 
 tholic Millennium, which were to animate the mar¬ 
 tyrs, “were in a high degree sensual and earthly.” 
 
 In like manner, he implies that a certain Unitarian 
 doctrine was not considered heresy at Rome and in 
 Asia Minor in the beginning of the third century, 
 because Praxeas was not at once condemned or de¬ 
 tected by the Pope, nor the school to which Noetus 
 belonged by the Asian bishops and he suggests in 
 a note that the Yictorinus, who is said in an anony¬ 
 mous work to have supported Praxeas, is really 
 Pope Victor. 
 
 Again, in the instance of Pope Julius in the fourth 
 century, he maintains without hesitation the genuine¬ 
 ness of a letter ascribed to him by the Council of 
 Ephesus, (which he certainly would have rejected, 
 had he acted in the critical or rather sceptical temper 
 usual in his school,) merely, I will say, because that 
 letter is of an Apollinarian character, and, if genuine, 
 in its present form, might be considered to compro¬ 
 mise the infallibility of a Pope. 2 
 
 Again, speaking of Christianity at large in the 
 same century, he tells us that “the populace were 
 disposed to consider every obscure grave as the grave 
 of a martyr,” solely referring to Sulpicius’s life of 
 St. Martin, where we do but read that the barbarous 
 peasants of Gaul had falsely fancied that a certain 
 spot in a monastery, where former Bishops were said 
 to have erected an altar, was a martyr’s grave. 
 
 Such is the looseness of reasoning, and the negli¬ 
 gence of facts, which all writers more or less exhibit, 
 who consider that they are in possession of a sure 
 hypothesis on which to interpret evidence and em¬ 
 ploy argument. 
 
 4. The fault of Gieseler, as it seems to me, is his 
 distorting facts to serve a theory; if Catholic con¬ 
 troversialists have at any time done the like, they 
 have done what their hypothesis did not require. If 
 the Catholic hypothesis is true, it neither needs nor 
 is benefited by unfairness. Adverse facts should 
 
 1 p. 127. 2 p. 228. 
 
186 
 
 PARALLEL INSTANCES. 
 
 [Chap. III. 
 
 be acknowledged; explained if but apparent; ac¬ 
 counted for if real; or let alone and borne patiently 
 as being fewer and lighter than the difficulties of 
 other hypotheses. In illustration I proceed to make 
 use of the following passage from a work already 
 quoted, though I condemn its tone and drift, and 
 think its statements exaggerated. However, mutatis 
 mutandis , I acquiesce in it. After mentioning the 
 Greek doctrine of the judgment-lire, and its differ¬ 
 ence from the Roman doctrine of Purgatory, in time, 
 place, and subjects, the writer observes that certain 
 passages from the Fathers, which contain it, are 
 enumerated by Bellarmine, first as testimonies in his 
 inductive proof in favour of Purgatory, and then 
 as exceptions to the doctrine thereby established. 
 Then he proceeds:— 
 
 “Now, do I mean to accuse so serious and good a 
 man as Bellarmine of wilful unfairness in this pro¬ 
 cedure? No. Yet it is difficult to enter into the 
 state of mind under which he was led into it. How¬ 
 ever we explain it, so much is clear, that the Fathers 
 are only so far of use in the eyes of Romanists as 
 they prove the Roman doctrines, and in no sense 
 are allowed to interfere with the conclusions which 
 their Church has adopted; that they are of authority 
 when they seem to agree with Rome, of none if they 
 differ. But, if I may venture to account in Bellar¬ 
 mine’s own person for what is in controversy con¬ 
 fessedly unfair, I would observe as follows, though 
 what I say may seem to border on refinement. 
 
 u A Romanist, then, cannot really argue in defence 
 of the Roman doctrines; he has too firm a confi¬ 
 dence in their truth, if he is sincere in his profession, 
 to enable him critically to adjust the due weight to 
 be given to this or that evidence. He assumes his 
 Church’s conclusion as true; and the facts or wit¬ 
 nesses he adduces are rather brought to receive an 
 interpretation than to furnish a proof. His highest 
 aim is to show the mere consistency of his theory, 
 
Sec. V.] PARALLEL INSTANCES. 187 
 
 its possible adjustment with the records of Anti¬ 
 quity. I am not here inquiring how much of high 
 but misdirected moral feeling is implied in this 
 state of mind; certainly, as we advance in percep¬ 
 tion of the Truth, we all become less fitted to be 
 controversialists. 
 
 u I consider, then, that when he first adduces 
 the above-mentioned Fathers in proof of Purga¬ 
 tory, he was really but interpreting them; he was 
 teaching what they ought to mean,—what in charity 
 they must be supposed to mean,—what they might 
 mean, as far as the very words went,—probably 
 meant, considering the Church so meant,—and 
 might be taken to mean, even if their authors did 
 not so mean, from the notion that they spoke 
 vaguely, and, as children, that they really meant 
 something else than what they formally said, and 
 that, after all, they were but the spokesmen of the 
 then existing Church, which, though in silence, 
 certainly held, as being the Church, that same 
 doctrine which Pome has since defined and publish¬ 
 ed. So much as to his first use of them; but after¬ 
 wards, in noticing what he considers erroneous 
 opinions on the subject, he treats them, not as 
 organs of the Church Infallible, but as individuals, 
 and interprets their language by its literal sense, 
 or by the context, and in consequence condemns it. 
 The Fathers in question, he seems to say, really 
 held as modern Pome holds; for if they did not, 
 they must have dissented from the Church of their 
 own day; for the Church then held as modern 
 Pome holds. And the Church then held as Pome 
 holds now, because Pome is the Church, and the 
 Church ever holds the same. Flow hopeless then 
 is it to contend with Pomanists, as if they prac¬ 
 tically agreed with us as to the foundation of 
 faith, however much they pretend to it! Ours is 
 Antiquity; theirs the existing Church. Its infal¬ 
 libility is their principle; belief in it is a deep 
 
188 
 
 PARALLEL INSTANCES. 
 
 [Chap. III. 
 
 prejudice quite beyond the reach of anything ex¬ 
 ternal. It is quite clear that the combined tes¬ 
 timonies of all the Fathers, supposing such a 
 case, would not have a feather’s weight against a 
 decision of the Pope in Council, nor would it 
 matter at all, except for the Fathers’ sake who had 
 by anticipation opposed it. They consider that the 
 Fathers ought to mean what Pome has since de¬ 
 creed, and that Pome knows their meaning better 
 than they did themselves. 
 
 u Let us then understand the position of the 
 Pomanists towards us; they do not really argue 
 from the Fathers, though they seem to do so. They 
 may affect to do so in our behalf, happy if by an 
 innocent stratagem they are able to convert us; 
 but all the while in their own feelings they are 
 taking a far higher position. They are teaching, 
 not disputing or proving. They are interpreting 
 what is obscure in Antiquity, purifying what is 
 alloyed, correcting what is amiss, perfecting what 
 is incomplete, harmonizing what is various. They 
 claim and use all its documents as ministers and 
 organs of that one infallible Church, which once 
 forsooth kept silence, but since has spoken; which by 
 a divine gift must ever be consistent with herself, 
 and which bears with her her own evidence of Di¬ 
 vinity.” 1 
 
 5. A partial illustration is afforded us of the 
 point in question in the views taken by various 
 schools of the sense of the formularies of the Eng¬ 
 lish Church; partial, because these views are never 
 proofs of the truth of doctrine, but are mere me¬ 
 thods for interpretation and comment. Opposite 
 parties come with their own creeds, and use them 
 as keys to Prayer-book, Articles, and other authori¬ 
 tative documents. Now the test of an admissible 
 hypothesis will be its incorporating without force 
 the whole circle of statements of which it takes 
 cognizance. Some of these may be prvma facie 
 
 ] Proph. Off. pp. 84—87.- 
 
PARALLEL INSTANCES. 
 
 189 
 
 Sec. V.] 
 
 adverse, and the difficulty may be reasonably 
 solved; some may be at least accounted for, and 
 their objective force suspended; others, it maybe, 
 cannot be explained, and must not be explained 
 away. But when the mind is under the influence 
 of some particular theory, (as, for instance, that the 
 views of the original writers, or that the present 
 understanding of the nation, is their legitimate 
 interpretation,) it will be strongly tempted to evade 
 and distort them, erring, not in arranging them on 
 a general principle, but in forgetting that, though 
 statements often are ambiguous, yet they often are 
 not so, and in that case must be suffered to speak 
 for themselves. 
 
 In the following passage a writer frankly con¬ 
 fesses a difficulty in the way of his theory, and, 
 instead of treating it with violence, leaves it. 
 
 u The Fathers,” says Mr. Scott, writing on the 
 doctrine of regeneration, u soon began to speak on 
 this subject in unscriptural language; and our 
 pious reformers, from an undue regard to them and 
 to the circumstances of the times, have retained a 
 few expressions in the liturgy, which not only are 
 inconsistent with their other doctrine, but also 
 tend to perplex men’s minds, and mislead their 
 judgment on this important subject. It is obvious, 
 however, from the words above cited and many 
 other passages, that they never supposed the mere 
 outward administration of baptism to be regenera¬ 
 tion ,, in the strict sense of the word; nor can any 
 man, without the most palpable absurdity, overlook 
 the difference between the baptism that is ‘outward 
 in the flesh,’ and ‘that of the heart, by the Spirit, 
 whose praise is not of men but of God.’ ” x 
 
 6. It is not intended here to question the substan¬ 
 tial accuracy of Gibbon’s account of the Paulicians, 
 (a.d. 660 ,) which has received the approval of 
 later writers; but still it will afford an instance of 
 the necessity, under which historians lie, of framing 
 
 1 Essays, ch. xii. p. 201. 
 
190 PARALLEL INSTANCES. [Chap. III. 
 
 hypothetical views, if they would present to the 
 reader a distinct and consistent narrative. Photius 
 and Petrus Siculus call the Paulicians a branch of 
 the Manichees, and go through a detail of their 
 doctrine in accordance with this imputation; and 
 in this testimony Gibbon acquiesces, as Neander 
 and others since. There is this difficulty, however, 
 in admitting it:—that (besides the utter absence, 
 I believe, of any testimony to the existence of Ma- 
 nicheeism in their neighbourhood, up to the time 
 of their rise,) these religionists actually disowned 
 the name of Manichee, anathematized Manes, and 
 abjured both his theology and even that of the 
 Gnostic Valentinus. But if we are not to trust 
 Peter and Photius for the origin, how shall we 
 trust them for the doctrine of the Paulicians? 
 especially as a notion about their origin may have 
 biassed those writers in their account of the doc¬ 
 trine. 
 
 Gibbon solves this difficulty by the following 
 hypothesis. He finds that, in the fourth century, 
 Gnostics were congregated in the villages and 
 mountains about the Euphrates, and that a trace 
 of the Marcionites is found, though at some dis¬ 
 tance from the river, in Theodoret’s personal his¬ 
 tory in the fifth. He knows nothing of them later; 
 but he sees that the Paulicians rose at Samosata, 
 near the Euphrates. It suggests itself, therefore, 
 to him, that, though they did not profess themselves 
 Manichees, perhaps they were some remnant of 
 Gnostics popularly called Manichees, in spite of 
 their disowning A r alentinus. For the Gnostics re¬ 
 jected the Old Testament, and held the doctrine of 
 two Principles, Avhich Photius and Petrus Siculus 
 impute to the Paulicians; and are very likely to 
 have had the other Paulician peculiarities, such as 
 contempt of images and relics, neglect of St. Mary, 
 and disbelief in the Eucharistic change, because 
 they separated off from the Church before these 
 
PARALLEL INSTANCES. 
 
 191 
 
 Sec. V.] 
 
 points were formally settled. So far, well; but it 
 appears that the people, out of whom the Paulicians 
 arose, were not well acquainted with the Gospels, 
 which would seem to show they were Catholic lay¬ 
 men; but then he reflects that it is not impossible 
 but the Gnostic laity were forbidden the use of the 
 Scriptures too. This completes his theory; and 
 enables him forthwith to set forward in the vigo¬ 
 rous and flowing passage that follows, his apologies 
 and explanations skilfully falling into their places 
 as he proceeds :— 
 
 u The Gnostics, who had distracted the infancy, 
 were oppressed by the greatness and authority of 
 the Church. Instead of emulating or surpassing 
 the wealth, learning, and numbers of the Catholics, 
 their obscure remnant was driven from the capitals 
 of the east and west, and confined to the villages 
 and mountains along the borders of the Euphrates. 
 Some vestige of the Marcionites may be detected 
 in the fifth century; but the numerous sects were 
 finally lost in the odious name of the Manicheeans; 
 and these heretics, who presumed to reconcile the 
 doctrines of Zoroaster and Christ, were pursued by 
 the two religions with equal and unrelenting hatred. 
 Under the grandson of Heraclius, in the neigh¬ 
 bourhood of Samosata, more famous for the birth 
 of Lucian than for the title of a Syrian kingdom, a 
 reformer arose, esteemed by the Paulicians as the 
 chosen messenger of truth. In his humble dwell¬ 
 ing of Mananalis, Constantine entertained a dea¬ 
 con, who returned from Syrian captivity, and re¬ 
 ceived the inestimable gift of the New Testament, 
 which was already concealed from the vulgar by 
 the prudence of the Greek, and perhaps of the 
 Gnostic, clergy. These books became the measure 
 of his studies, and the rule of his faith; and the 
 Catholics, who dispute his interpretation, acknow¬ 
 ledged that his text was genuine and sincere. 
 
 In the gospel, and the epistles of St. Paul, his 
 
192 
 
 PARALLEL INSTANCES. 
 
 [Chap. III. 
 
 faithful follower investigated the creed of primitive 
 Christianity; and, whatever might be the success, 
 a Protestant reader will applaud the spirit of the 
 inquiry. , 
 
 “ But if the Scriptures of the Paulicians were 
 pure, they were not perfect. Their founders re¬ 
 jected the two epistles of St. Peter, the apostle of 
 the circumcision, whose dispute with their favourite 
 for the observance of the law could not easily be 
 forgiven. They agreed with their Gnostic brethren 
 in the universal contempt for the Old Testament, 
 the books of Moses and the prophets, which have 
 been consecrated by the decrees of the Catholic 
 church. With equal boldness, and doubtless with 
 more reason, Constantine, the new Sylvanus, dis¬ 
 claimed the visions, which, in so many bulky and 
 splendid volumes, had been published by the orien¬ 
 tal sects; the fabulous productions of the Hebrew 
 patriarchs and the sages of the East; the spurious 
 gospels, epistles, and acts, which in the first age 
 had overwhelmed the orthodox code; the theology 
 of Manes, and the authors of the kindred heresies; 
 and the thirty generations, or eons, which had been 
 created by the fruitful fancy of Valentine. The 
 Paulicians sincerely condemned the memory and 
 opinions of the Manicheean sect, and complained of 
 the injustice which impressed that invidious name 
 on the simple votaries of St. Paul and of Christ. 
 
 u Of the ecclesiastical chain, many links had been 
 broken by the Paulician reformers; and their liberty 
 was enlarged as they reduced the number of mas¬ 
 ters, at whose voice profane reason must bow to 
 mystery and miracle. The early separation of the 
 Gnostics had preceded the establishment of the 
 Catholic worship; and against the gradual innova¬ 
 tions of discipline and doctrine, they were as 
 strongly guarded by habit and aversion as by the 
 silence of St. Paul and the Evangelists. The ob¬ 
 jects, which had been transformed by the magic of 
 
Sec. V.] 
 
 PARALLEL INSTANCES. 
 
 193 
 
 superstition, appeared to the eyes of the Paulicians 
 in their genuine and naked colours. An image 
 made without hands was the common workmanship 
 of a mortal artist, &c. The miraculous relics were 
 an heap of bones and ashes, &c.; the true and 
 vivifying cross was, &c.; the Body and Blood 
 of Christ, a loaf of bread, and a cup of wine, 
 the gifts of nature and the symbols of grace; 
 the Mother of God was degraded, &c.; and the 
 Saints and Angels were no longer solicited, &c. 
 
 . . . In the practice, or at least in the theory of the 
 Sacraments, they Paulicians were inclined to abolish 
 all visible objects of worship; and the words of the 
 gospel were, in their judgment, the baptism and 
 communion of the faithful. 
 
 u A creed thus simple and spiritual was not 
 adapted to the genius of the times; and the rational 
 Christian, who might have been contented with the 
 light yoke and easy burden of Jesus and His Apos¬ 
 tles, was justly offended that the Paulicians should 
 dare to violate the Unity of God, the first article 
 of natural and revealed religion. . . . They likewise 
 held the eternity of matter, a stubborn and rebel¬ 
 lious substance, the origin of a second principle, 
 &c. . . . The apostolic labours of Constantine-Syl- 
 vanus soon multiplied the number of his disciples; 
 the secret recompense of spiritual ambition. The 
 remnant of the Gnostic sects, and especially the 
 Manicheeans of Armenia, were united under his 
 standard; many Catholics were converted or seduced 
 by his arguments; and he preached with success in 
 the region of Pontus and Cappadocia, which had 
 long since imbibed the religion of Zoroaster.” . . &c. 
 
 Now I conceive there is nothing in this sketch, 
 though it seems so precarious on an analysis, which 
 is fairly open to objection, except that the author 
 has not mentioned its hypothetical character. 
 
 7. Another writer of history may be mentioned, 
 who uses hypothesis as well as fact, and presump- 
 
 o 
 
 4 — 
 
194 
 
 PARALLEL INSTANCES. 
 
 [Chap. III. 
 
 tion as well as evidence, but is properly careful to 
 discriminate between them. Disquisition cannot be 
 conducted in a more logical tone than it assumes in 
 the present Bishop of St. David’s History of Greece; 
 yet it would not be logical, if, when engaged upon 
 the early portions of it, where evidence is wanting, 
 it did not proceed by means, of general truths, and 
 appeal to common places larger than the particular 
 points on which he has to decide. Thus, when dis¬ 
 cussing the origin of the Grecian mythology, he 
 introduces one or two passages from Herodotus and 
 Homer which bear upon the subject; and then in¬ 
 terprets or modifies them by a view of his own, 
 founded on presumptions. He refers to Agamem¬ 
 non’s oath in the Iliad, addressed not only to Jupi¬ 
 ter, but to the omniscient sun, rivers, and earth, 
 and to the gods of vengeance in the realms below; 
 he refers also to Herodotus’s testimony or opinion, 
 or rather that of the priests of Dodona, that “ the 
 Pelasgians,” that is, the early possessors of the 
 country, “once sacrificed only to nameless deities;” 
 and to the statement of the same author, that the 
 religion underwent two changes, one from the in¬ 
 troduction of Egyptian rites, the other from the 
 poems of Homer and Hesiod, who gave names and 
 histories to the gods. 
 
 These are his four facts; and he submits them to 
 the action of the following antecedent probabilities. 
 He observes that u the Greek was formed to sym¬ 
 pathize strongly with the outward world; nothing 
 was to him absolutely passive and inert; in all the 
 objects around him he found life, or readily im¬ 
 parted it to them out of the fulness of his own 
 imagination. This was not a poetical view, the 
 privilege of extraordinary minds, but the popu¬ 
 lar mode of thinking and feeling, cherished un¬ 
 doubtedly by the bold forms, and abrupt contrasts, 
 and all the natural wonders of a mountainous and 
 sea-broken land. A people so disposed and situate 
 
Sec. V.] PARALLEL INSTANCES. 195 
 
 is not immediately impelled to seek a single univer¬ 
 sal source of being. The teeming earth, the quick¬ 
 ening sun, the restless sea, the rushing stream, the 
 irresistible storm, every display of superhuman 
 might which it beholds, rouses a distinct sentiment 
 of religious awe. Everywhere it finds deities, 
 which however may not for a long time be distin¬ 
 guished by name from the objects in which their 
 presence is manifested.” 1 This is the first stage of 
 the author’s development of Greek religion, viz., the 
 worship of nature; and he at once appropriates to 
 it Agamemnon’s invocation, which he seems to con¬ 
 sider but a specimen of “ all the traces of the pri¬ 
 mitive religion to be found in the later Greek my¬ 
 thology.” He also identifies it with Herodotus’s 
 Pelasgic period, and interprets his u nameless 
 deities” by “invisible powers.” This interpreta¬ 
 tion, he says, “is highly probable in itself;” and 
 he confirms it “by the example of the ancient 
 Persians.” 
 
 Then he proceeds, after the example, but not on 
 the theory of Herodotus, “ to trace the steps by 
 which this simple creed was transformed into the 
 complicated system of Greek mythology.” Hero¬ 
 dotus, as we have seen, had referred to the Egyp¬ 
 tian religion and to the poets. Dr. Thirlwall re- 
 jcts the notion of any direct influence of Egypt in 
 the process: first, on the fair antecedent ground 
 that the information came from the priests of that 
 country, who were neither acquainted with Grecian 
 mythology nor unbiassed witnesses in a question 
 so nearly touching their national pride; and, next, 
 from what certainly is of the nature of evidence, 
 that there is very little of a foreign character in the 
 mythology. Yet, though he considers it of native 
 growth, he will not grant to Herodotus that the 
 poets were its authors, or that its matter and its 
 ritual are allegorical, or philosophy its origin and 
 
 1 Vol. i. p. 184. 
 
 o 2 
 
196 
 
 PARALLEL INSTANCES. 
 
 [Chap. III. 
 
 its latent interpretation. This opinion he considers 
 to be “ repugnant to all analogy, as well as to all 
 internal evidence.” Accordingly, he conjectures 
 that the mythology arose from the gradual develop¬ 
 ment of popular ideas and feelings, brought into 
 shape, as regards the persons, provinces, functions, 
 and mutual relations of the deities, by many gene¬ 
 rations of sacred bards, and especially in the course 
 of the heroic age. And thus the Hellenic period, 
 in which the heroic is included, is contrasted with 
 the Pelasgic. 
 
 Shortly afterwards he debates the question, 
 whether human sacrifices entered into the religion 
 of the Greeks, which has been disputed on account 
 of the silence of Homer on the subject; and he 
 reasonably concludes that such mere silence “ would 
 not in the slightest degree shake the authority of 
 the numerous legends” which record them; that in 
 the Iliad itself twelve Trojans are immolated by 
 Achilles to the shade or memory of Patroclus; 
 moreover, that the notion of propitiating an of¬ 
 fended deity, or that foreign example, might lead to 
 that cruel superstition, and that the bloodless dedi¬ 
 cation of living persons, which was very ancient, 
 might, not inconsistently with the manners of the 
 heroic age, be changed into a dedication of blood. 
 
 Who will deny the fairness of these conclusions? 
 yet how singularly are they independent of definite 
 facts! And if such are allowable where speculation 
 is harmless, why may they not be a duty when 
 action is imperative? 
 
 8. Heeren, who has already been noticed, after 
 an elaborate review of the state, monuments, and 
 commerce of Meroe, ends by observing “that the 
 first seats of commerce were also the first seats of 
 civilization.” 1 When we examine the proofs of 
 this “ great conclusion, which,” he says, “ becomes 
 in a manner forced upon us,” it seems to consist 
 merely in this, that the cities of which he has treated 
 ] Hist. Res. vol. 4, p. 475. Oxf. tr. 
 
PARALLEL INSTANCES. 
 
 197 
 
 Sec. V.] 
 
 were both centres of civilization and marts of com¬ 
 merce. There is no fact adduced to decide for us, 
 by what Lord Bacon would call an experimentum 
 crucis, whether the commerce led to the civilization 
 or the civilization to the commerce. He adopts how¬ 
 ever, as I have said, the former of these two proposi¬ 
 tions ; and he supports it by a purely antecedent ar¬ 
 gument. “Exchange of merchandize,” he observes, 
 “led to the exchange of ideas, and by mutual friction 
 was first kindled the sacred flame of humanity.” 
 
 Whether this antecedent reasoning be correct 
 need not here be determined. So much may plausi¬ 
 bly be advanced in its favour, that, of the needs 
 respectively supplied by commerce and civilization, 
 those supplied by commerce are far the most urgent, 
 and are likely to have engaged the earlier attention; 
 food has a prior claim on us to books. Yet it is 
 remarkable that Heeren, instead of troubling him¬ 
 self with any closer proof than is contained in the 
 words which have been quoted from him, had al¬ 
 ready suggested to us a previous hypothesis, which 
 supersedes the question of this alternative altoge¬ 
 ther, viz., that religion led both to commerce and 
 civilization. He insists, as one of the three great 
 facts which he has proved, that the chief marts 
 were also “establishments of a priest caste, who as a 
 dominant race had their principal seat at Meroe,” 1 
 whence they sent out colonies, which in their turn 
 became builders of cities and temples, and likewise 
 the founders of states; “a caste whose civilization 
 was bound to their religion,” 2 the fame of whose 
 piety and justice spread even to the Greeks, 3 “whose 
 progress in architecture, and in a certain degree in 
 the pictorial arts, is still one of the greatest pro¬ 
 blems, though one of the greatest certainties;” and, 
 on the other hand, “ who, by sending out colonies, 
 guided the course of trade.” 
 
 And here, again, to prove the dependence of com¬ 
 merce on religion, ingenious and satisfactory as lie 
 1 p. 471. . 2 p. 475. 3 p. 477. 
 
198 
 
 PARALLEL INSTANCES. 
 
 [Chap. III. 
 
 is, lie is equally antecedent in his arguments, as 
 when he would prove the dependence of civilization 
 on commerce. His proof mainly consists of certain 
 powerful presumptions, that trade in the East must 
 extend under the shadow of religion, confirmed by 
 instances, not of ancient, but modern times. Those 
 countries, 1 he says, are desert wilds, inhabited by no¬ 
 madic tribes; there is no security for the merchant 
 but in sacred places. Besides, religion is a festive 
 principle, and requires the goods of this worhLfor^ 
 its due exercise; fairs are naturally both devotional 
 and commercial assemblages. Caravans of pilgrims 
 are trading caravans. Mecca is still the seat of 
 religion and commerce. “The rapidity with which 
 a place rises in the East, when once it has obtained 
 a sanctuary that becomes the object of pilgrimage, 
 and by that means becomes a place of trade, almost 
 surpasses belief/’ 2 as Tenta, a city of the Delta, has 
 risen in our own day. Burkhardt 3 found a priestly 
 establishment at Darner, in the isle of Meroe, of five 
 hundred houses, which was also a trading state. 
 These sacred characters are much reverenced by 
 their wild neighbours, and two of them accompa¬ 
 nied his caravan as guards. “It would require an 
 armed force,” he adds, “to pass here without the 
 aid of some of these religious men.” Antecedent 
 or collateral considerations such as these, he thinks 
 he brings home with sufficient cogency to the im¬ 
 mediate proposition to which he has committed 
 himself, if he can produce just one or two distinct 
 facts in evidence, such as the probable fact that the 
 celebrated Temple of Ammon was also the halt of 
 a caravan. And, doubtless, he proceeds in this 
 method of reasoning, on the latent but very rea¬ 
 sonable principle, that it is impertinent to ask for 
 what it is hopeless to obtain. 
 
 9. One more instance of the same method shall 
 be supplied from Mosheim. He prefaces his Dis¬ 
 sertation, “ Be turbatd per recentiores Platonicos 
 1 p. 448. 2 p. 449. 3 p. 425. 
 
Sec. V.] 
 
 PARALLEL INSTANCES. 
 
 199 
 
 Ecclesia ,” by a caution that he is giving but a sketch 
 of the alleged corruption, and of the grounds on 
 which it is to be proved; yet as much as a sketch he 
 certainly means to give. Now what he has under¬ 
 taken to show is a fact, the fact of an extensive 
 effect wrought on the Church by the Neo-platonic 
 philosophy;—whether he shows it by means of 
 direct evidence, instances or testimony, or of exist¬ 
 ing causes which involve it, or of results which pre¬ 
 suppose it, or of circumstances which presume and 
 betoken it. We want actual proof, if it be possible, 
 of a definite process; of certain wrong principles, 
 first, in Neo-platonism, and then, in matter of 
 fact, passing from Neo-platonism into the Church, 
 and corrupting it. Now let us see how far he 
 answers our reasonable demand. 
 
 On the face of the history, we find that Eclecticism 
 existed in the Church before the Eclectic sect was 
 heard of. Athenagoras’s extant works, as Mosheim 
 refers to them, show that he was an Eclectic, that 
 is, chose out the best opinions from all philosophies, 
 when he was a Christian. St. Clement, again, ex¬ 
 pressly gives the name of philosophy par excellence , 
 “not to the Stoic, Platonic, Epicurean, or Aristo- 
 telic,” but “to whatever is good in each collected 
 together,” or “to an Eclectic system,” using the 
 very word; and whereas some Christians spoke 
 against philosophy, he, on the contrary, considered 
 it as a preparation for Christianity. Moreover, 
 Ammonius, the founder of the Neo-platonic, or 
 Eclectic sect, who was a contemporary of St. 
 Clement, was a Christian, and had been educated 
 at the Catechetical School of Alexandria. And, 
 indeed, from the nature of the case, the principle of 
 Eclecticism must have been exercised by the Church 
 from the first, and except upon that principle no 
 Christian could be a philosopher at all; for Chris¬ 
 tianity, treating of the same subject-matter as hea¬ 
 then philosophy had undertaken, could not avoid 
 
200 
 
 PARALLEL INSTANCES. 
 
 [Chap. 111. 
 
 giving judgment on the attempts of its several 
 sects, and pronouncing how far each was right and 
 where wrong. 
 
 This is a primd facie view of the case, which 
 Moslieim has to meet; and he attempts to do so 
 by maintaining that one Potamo, an Eclectic philo¬ 
 sopher, who lived at the end of the second century, 
 was really of the date of Augustus, and preceded 
 Christianity,—a supposition which Brucker and 
 others disprove. He observes, too, that Athena- 
 goras, as we have seen, was an Eclectic after he 
 joined the Church, apparently with the view of 
 suggesting that he was an Eclectic before it; and 
 that St. Clement pronounced that true philosophy 
 was Eclectic, as if this avowal implied the presence 
 of a heathen Eclectic school; and that Pantsenus, 
 being called by one author a Stoic, and by another 
 a Pythagorean, before he was a Christian, probably 
 was neither, but professed the Eclectic principle; 
 and that since Christian philosophers were in the 
 practice of following the Stoics in ethics, Aristotle 
 in dialectics, Plato in theology, therefore they were 
 corrupted by heathen Eclecticism; moreover, that 
 St. Augustine certainly confesses that philosophers 
 joined the Church without giving up their pagan¬ 
 ism, because he speaks of Platonists, who, with only 
 the change of a few words and sentiments, had 
 become Christians; lastly, that Origen’s Platonic 
 opinions are well known, and that his pupils were 
 raised to the highest dignities in the Eastern 
 Church. 
 
 What we have a right to demand is some antece¬ 
 dent probability, or specimen of evidence, to show 
 that any one doctrine or principle was in the Neo¬ 
 platonic sect before it was in the Catholic Church, 
 and that it passed from the former into the latter; 
 yet even assuming that there were certain anticipa¬ 
 tions of that sect in the two centuries preceding its 
 rise, which is far from being proved, no proof does 
 
Sec. V.] 
 
 PAKALLEL INSTANCES. 
 
 201 
 
 Mosheim bring of such a communication or corrup¬ 
 tion as is in question. 
 
 He proceeds to speak in detail of the external 
 and internal evils which Neo-platonism inflicted 
 on the Church; with the external we are not con¬ 
 cerned. 
 
 Under the latter head, he mentions the history of 
 Synesius, in the fifth century, who, being a Platonic 
 philosopher, was consecrated a Bishop without re¬ 
 nouncing his opinions; and next he refers to the 
 heretical author of the Clementines, to show u what 
 mischief to Christian interests had been caused by 
 that wisdom of the Alexandrians.” 
 
 Then he compares the frauds and falsehoods of 
 heathens and heretics; the doctrine of pious frauds 
 countenanced by the Judaic writer last mentioned, 
 by the ancient priests of Egypt, and by Pythago¬ 
 ras and Plato; moreover, the numerous spurious 
 writings of the first ages, and false accounts of mi¬ 
 racles, with the principle of economy sanctioned by 
 Origen, St. Chrysostom, and Synesius, down to the 
 time of St. Augustine; by way of proving that 
 the principle of the economy came from the philo¬ 
 sophical extravagances. 
 
 Lastly, he proceeds to assert that Platonism has 
 introduced into the Church wrong opinions about 
 human liberty, the state of the dead, the human 
 soul, the Holy Trinity and kindred doctrines, reli¬ 
 gious contemplation, and the interpretation of 
 Scripture; and wrong practices in rites and usages, 
 as fasting, abstinence, and continence; but he still 
 does not offer any proof of these assertions. 
 
 It is plain that, in the whole of this elaborate 
 Essay, there are but two of his statements which 
 are at all of the nature of an argument in behalf of 
 the matter of fact which he proposes to prove: the 
 one, that Origen is said to have introduced Platonic 
 doctrine into his writings; the other, that Synesius 
 is charged with not renouncing his Platonism on 
 
202 
 
 PARALLEL INSTANCES. 
 
 [Chap. III. 
 
 becoming a Bishop. Of these, the instance of Syne- 
 sius is an isolated one; while Origen was never 
 countenanced by the Church even in his day, and 
 has no distinct connexion with the Neo-platonists. 
 
 If it be asked how a clear and sensible mind, 
 such as the writings of Mosheim evince, could rea¬ 
 son so loosely, the answer is ready. He took it for 
 granted that the Catholic doctrines and usages were 
 wrong; and in that case, since there is a resemblance 
 between the philosophical and the Catholic, there is 
 certainly a very strong presumption that the Catho¬ 
 lic were actually derived from the philosophical. 
 Accordingly, throughout his dissertation, he is but 
 arranging and interpreting the facts of the history 
 by his thesis, and not proving his thesis by the 
 facts. 
 
 These instances may suffice in illustration of a 
 method of reasoning, ordinary and necessary when 
 facts are scarce; often easy to handle aright, but 
 very frequently difficult and dangerous; open to 
 great abuse, and depending for its success or failure 
 far more on the individual exercising it than on 
 rules which can be laid down; a method, which, if 
 delicate and doubtful when used in proof of the 
 Catholic Creed, is far less certain and far less satis¬ 
 factory in the many instances in which it is applied 
 to scientific and historical investigations. 
 
/ 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE ARGUMENT IN BEHALF OF 
 
 THE EXISTING DEVELOPMENTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 No one will be disposed to deny that the body 
 of doctrine which at this day goes by the name of 
 Catholic is at once the historical and the logical 
 continuation of the body of doctrine so called in 
 the eighteenth, in the seventeenth, in the sixteenth, 
 and so back in every preceding century succes¬ 
 sively till we come to the first. Whether it be a 
 corrupt development or a legitimate, conducted on 
 sound logic or fallacious, the present so-called 
 Catholic religion is the successor, the representa¬ 
 tive, and the heir of the religion of the so-called 
 Catholic Church of primitive times. 
 
 Neither can any one, I think, deny, after follow¬ 
 ing the line of thought which has just been brought 
 to a conclusion, that the doctrines of which the pre¬ 
 sent Catholic religion consists are prima facie the 
 correct, true, faithful, legitimate developments of 
 the doctrines which preceded them, and not their 
 corruptions; that a very strong case ought to be 
 made out against that religion, to prove that it is 
 materially corrupt, and not in its substance Apos¬ 
 tolic. 
 
 We have now to proceed a step further,—to 
 apply to these so-called Catholic doctrines, thus 
 favourably recommended to our notice, the tests 
 which have already been framed to distinguish 
 between development and corruption; that is, in 
 the fair and reasonable temper which is demanded 
 
204 
 
 APPLICATION OF THE FIRST TEST. [Chap. IV. 
 
 of us by this prim a facie likelihood of their fidelity 
 to their originals. I ought rather to say,—to sug¬ 
 gest how those tests may be applied, for this is all 
 that can be expected in an undertaking like the 
 present. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 APPLICATION OF THE FIRST TEST OF FIDELITY 
 
 IN DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 THE CHURCH OF THE FIRST CENTURIES. 
 
 It was said, then, that a true development retains 
 the essential idea of the subject from which it has 
 proceeded, and a corruption loses it. What then 
 is the true idea of Christianity ? and is it preserved 
 in the developments commonly called Catholic, and 
 in the Church which embodies and teaches them ? 
 
 Here, it must be observed, according to a fore¬ 
 going remark, that the forms and types of divine 
 creations are not, strictly speaking, ascertainable; 
 they are facts. No one can define an oak, or an 
 eagle, or a lion, or any other of the objects which 
 arrest us, and which we gaze upon externally. We 
 can but describe them. We multiply properties or 
 qualities which attach to them, and thereby impress 
 upon the mind analytically an image of that which 
 we cannot philosophically express. Let us now 
 pursue the same way with the Church. Let us 
 take it as the world now views it in its age; and 
 let us take it as the world once viewed it in its 
 youth; and let us see whether there be any great 
 difference between the early and the later descrip¬ 
 tion of it. The following statement will show my 
 meaning:— 
 
 There is a religious communion claiming a divine 
 commission, and calling all other religious bodies 
 
Sec. I.] THE CHURCH OE THE FIRST CENTURIES. 205 
 
 around it heretical or infidel; it is a well-organized, 
 well-disciplined body; it is a sort of secret society, 
 binding together its members by influences and by 
 engagements which it is difficult for strangers to as¬ 
 certain, It is spread oyer the known world; it may 
 be weak or insignificant locally, but it is strong 
 on the whole from its continuity; it may be 
 smaller than other religious bodies together, but 
 larger than each separately. It is a natural enemy 
 to governments external to itself; it is intolerant 
 and engrossing, and tends to a new modelling of 
 society; it breaks laws, it divides families. It is a 
 gross superstition; it is charged with the foulest 
 crimes; it is despised by the intellect of the day; 
 it is frightful to the imagination of the many. And 
 there is but one communion such. 
 
 Place this description before Pliny or Julian; 
 place it before Frederick the Second or Guizot. 
 
 “ Apparent dirse facies.” Each knows at once, with¬ 
 out asking a question, who is meant by it. One 
 object, and only one, absorbs each item of the detail 
 of the delineation. 
 
 The prima facie view of early Christianity, in the \ 
 eyes of witnesses external to it, is presented to us 
 in the brief but vivid descriptions given by Tacitus, 
 Suetonius, and Pliny, the only heathen writers who 
 distinctly mention it for the first hundred and fifty 
 years. 
 
 Tacitus is led to speak of the religion, on occa¬ 
 sion of the conflagration of Rome, which was popu¬ 
 larly imputed to Aero. “ To put an end to the re¬ 
 port,”* he says, “he laid the guilt on others, and vi¬ 
 sited them with the most exquisite punishment those, 
 namely, who, held in abhorrence for their crimes, 
 {per Jlagitia invisos ,) were popularly called Chris¬ 
 tians. The author of that profession ( nominis ) was 
 Christ, who, in the reign of Tiberius, was capitally 
 punished by the Procurator, Pontius Pilate. The 
 deadly superstition (exitiabilis superstitio ), though 
 
206 APPLICATION OF THE FIRST TEST. [Chap. IV. 
 
 checked for a while, broke out afresh; and that, not 
 only throughout Judaea, the original seat of the 
 evil, but through the City also, whither all things 
 atrocious or shocking ( atrocia aut pudenda ) flow 
 together from every quarter and thrive. At first, 
 certain were seized who avowed it; then, on their 
 report, a vast multitude were convicted, not so much 
 of firing the city, as of hatred of mankind (odio 
 humani generis).” After describing their tortures, 
 he continues, u In consequence, though they were 
 guilty, and deserved most signal punishment, they 
 began to be pitied, as if destroyed not for any pub¬ 
 lic object, but from the barbarity of one man.” 
 
 Suetonius relates the same transactions thus:— 
 u Capital punishments were inflicted on the Chris¬ 
 tians, a class of men of a new and magical supersti¬ 
 tion ( superstitionis novae et maleficce) What gives 
 additional character to this statement is its context; 
 for it occurs as one out of various police or sump¬ 
 tuary or domestic regulations, which Nero made; 
 such as u controlling private expenses, forbidding 
 taverns to serve meat, repressing the contests of 
 theatrical parties, and securing the integrity of 
 wills.” 
 
 When Pliny was Governor of Pontus, he wrote 
 his celebrated letter to the Emperor Trajan, to ask 
 advice how he was to deal with the Christians, whom 
 he found there in great numbers. One of his points 
 of hesitation was, whether the very profession of 
 Christianity was not by itself sufficient to justify 
 punishment; u whether the name itself should be 
 visited, though clear of flagitious acts ( flagitia ), or 
 only when connected with them.” He says, he 
 had ordered for execution such as persevered in 
 their profession, after repeated warnings, u as not 
 doubting, whatever it was they professed, at any 
 rate contumacy and inflexible obstinacy ought to 
 be punished.” He required them to invoke the 
 gods, to sacrifice wine and frankincense to the 
 
Sec. I.] THE CIIURCII OF THE FIRST CENTURIES. 207 
 
 images of the Emperor, and to blaspheme Christ; 
 “to which” he adds, “it is said no real Christian 
 can be compelled.” Renegades informed him that 
 “the sum total of their offence or fault was meeting 
 before light on an appointed day, and saying with 
 one another a form of words ( carmen ) to Christ, as 
 if to a god, and binding themselves by oath, not to 
 the commission of any wickedness, but against the 
 commission of theft, robbery, adultery, breach of 
 trust, denial of deposits; that, after this, they were 
 accustomed to separate, and then to meet again for 
 a meal, but eaten all together and harmless; how¬ 
 ever, that they had even left this off after his 
 edicts enforcing the Imperial prohibition of Hetce- 
 rice or Associations.” He proceeded to put two 
 women to the torture, but “discovered nothing 
 beyond a bad and excessive superstition” (supersti- 
 tionem pravam et immodicam ), “the contagion” of 
 which, he continues, “had spread through villages 
 and country, till the temples were emptied of wor¬ 
 shippers.” 
 
 In these testimonies, which will form a natural 
 and convenient text for what is to follow, we have 
 various characteristics brought before us of the re¬ 
 ligion to which they relate. It was a superstition, 
 as all three writers agree; a bad and excessive 
 superstition, according to Pliny; a magical supersti¬ 
 tion, according to Suetonius; a deadly superstition, 
 according to Tacitus. Next, it was embodied in a 
 society, and moreover a secret and unlawful society 
 or lietceria; and it was a proselytizing society; and 
 its very name was connected with “flagitious,” 
 “atrocious,” and “shocking” acts. 
 
 Nov/ these few points, which are not all which 
 might be set down, contain in themselves a distinct 
 and significant description of Christianity; but they 
 have far greater meaning when illustrated by the 
 history of the times, the testimony of later writers, 
 and the acts of the Roman government towards its 
 
208 APPLICATION OF THE FIRST TEST. [Chap. IV. 
 
 professors. It is impossible to mistake the judg¬ 
 ment passed on the religion by these three writers, 
 and still more clearly by other writers and Imperial 
 functionaries. They evidently associated Chris¬ 
 tianity with the oriental superstitions, whether pro¬ 
 pagated by individuals or embodied in a rite, which 
 were in that day traversing the Empire, and which 
 in the event acted so remarkable a part in breaking 
 up the national forms of worship, and so in pre¬ 
 paring the way for Christianity. This, then, is the 
 broad view which the educated heathen took of 
 Christianity; and, if it had been very unlike those 
 rites and curious arts in external appearance, they 
 would not have confused it with them. 
 
 Changes in society are, by a providential appoint¬ 
 ment, commonly preceded and facilitated by the 
 setting in of a certain current in men’s thoughts 
 and feelings in that direction towards which a 
 change is to be made. And, as lighter substances 
 whirl about before the tempest and presage it, 
 so words and deeds, ominous but not effective of 
 the coming revolution, are circulated beforehand 
 through the multitude, or pass across the field of 
 events. This was specially the case with Christi¬ 
 anity, as became its high dignity; it came heralded 
 and attended by a crowd of shadows, shadows of 
 itself, impotent and monstrous as shadows are, but 
 not at first sight distinguishable from it by common 
 spectators. Before the mission of the Apostles, a 
 movement, of which there had been earlier parallels, 
 had begun in Egypt, Syria, and the neighbouring 
 countries, tending to the propagation of new and 
 peculiar forms of worship throughout the Empire. 
 Prophecies were afloat that some new order of things 
 was coming in from the East, which increased the 
 existing unsettlement of the popular mind; pre¬ 
 tenders made attempts to satisfy its wants, and old 
 traditions of the Truth, embodied for ages in local 
 or in national religions, gave to these attempts a 
 
Sec. I.] THE CHURCH OF THE FIRST CENTURIES. 209 
 
 doctrinal and ritual shape, which became an addi¬ 
 tional point of resemblance to that Truth which was 
 soon visibly to appear. 
 
 The distinctive character of the rites in question 
 lay in their appealing to the gloomy rather than to 
 the cheerful and hopeful feelings, and in their in¬ 
 fluencing the mind through fear. The notions of 
 guilt and expiation, of evil and good to come, and of 
 dealings with the invisible world, were in some shape 
 or other pre-eminent in them, and formed a striking 
 contrast to the classical polytheism, which was gay 
 and graceful, as was natural in a civilized age. The 
 new rites, on the other hand, were secret; their doc¬ 
 trine was mysterious; their profession was a disci¬ 
 pline, beginning in a formal initiation, manifested 
 in an association, and exercised in privation and 
 pain. They were from the nature of the case pro¬ 
 selytizing societies, for they were rising into power; 
 nor were they local, but vagrant, restless, intrusive, 
 and encroaching. Their pretensions to supernatural 
 knowledge brought them into easy connexion with 
 magic and astrology, which are as attractive to the 
 wealthy and luxurious as the more vulgar super¬ 
 stitions to the populace. 
 
 Such were the rites of Cybele, Isis, and Mithras; 
 such the Chaldeans, as they were commonly called, 
 and the Magi; they came from one part of the world 
 and during the first and second century spread with 
 busy perseverance to the northern and western ex¬ 
 tremities of the empire . 1 Traces of the mysteries of 
 Cybele, a Syrian deity, if the famous temple at Hie- 
 rapolis was hers, have been found in Spain, in Gaul, 
 and in Britain, as high up as the wall of Severus. 
 The worship of Isis was the most widely spread of 
 all the pagan deities; it was received in Ethiopia 
 and in Germany, and even the name of Paris has 
 
 2 Vid. Muller de Hierarch, et Ascetic. Warburton Div. Leg. ii. 4. 
 Selden de Diis Syr. Acad, des Inscript, t. 3, hist. p. 296, t. 5, mem. 
 p. 63, t. 16, mem. p. 267. Lucian. Pseudomant. Cod. Theod. ix. 16. 
 
 P 
 
210 APPLICATION OP THE FIHST TEST. [Chap. IV. 
 
 been fancifully traced to it. Both worships, as well 
 as the Science of Magic, had their colleges of priests 
 and devotees, which were governed by a president, 
 and in some places were supported by farms. Their 
 processions passed from town to town, begging as 
 they went and attracting proselytes. Apuleius 
 describes one of them as seizing a whip, accusing 
 himself of some offence, and scourging himself in 
 public. These strollers, circulates or agyrtce in 
 classical language, told fortunes, and distributed pro¬ 
 phetical tickets to the ignorant people who con¬ 
 sulted them. Also, they were learned in the doc¬ 
 trine of omens, of lucky and unlucky days, of the 
 rites of expiation and of sacrifices. Such an agyrtes 
 or itinerant was the notorious Alexander of Abo- 
 notichus, till he managed to establish himself in 
 Pontus, where he carried on so successful an im¬ 
 position that his fame reached Rome, and men in 
 office and station intrusted him with their dearest 
 political secrets. Such a wanderer, with a far more 
 religious bearing and a high reputation for virtue, 
 was Apollonius of Tyana, who professed the Py¬ 
 thagorean philosophy, claimed the gift of miracles, 
 and roamed about preaching, teaching, healing, and 
 prophesying from India and Alexandria to Athens 
 and Rome. Another solitary proselytizer, though 
 of an earlier time and an avowed profligacy, had 
 been the Sacrificulus, viewed with such horror by 
 the Roman Senate, as introducing the infamous 
 Bacchic rites into Rome. Such, again, were those 
 degenerate children of a divine religion, who, in the 
 words of their Creator and Judge, “compassed sea 
 and land to make one proselyte/’ and made him 
 “ twofold more the child of hell than themselves.” 
 
 These vagrant religionists for the most part pro¬ 
 fessed a severe rule of life, and sometimes one of fa¬ 
 natical mortification. In the mysteries of Mithras, the 
 initiation 1 was preceded by fasting and abstinence, 
 
 i Acad. t. 16, mem. p. 274. 
 
211 
 
 Sec. I.] THE CHURCH OF THE FIRST CENTURIES. 
 
 and a variety of painful trials; it was made by means 
 of a baptism as a spiritual washing; and it included 
 an offering of bread, and some emblem of a resur¬ 
 rection. In the Samothracian rites it had been a 
 custom to initiate children; confession too of greater 
 crimes seems to have been required, and would na¬ 
 turally be involved elsewhere in the inquisition pro¬ 
 secuted into the past lives of the candidates for 
 initiation. The garments of the converts were 
 white; their calling was considered as a warfare 
 (militia), and was undertaken with a sacramentum, 
 or military oath. The priests shaved their heads 
 and wore linen, and when they were dead were 
 buried in a sacerdotal garment. It is scarcely ne¬ 
 cessary to allude to the mutilation inflicted on the 
 priests of Cybele; one instance of their scourgings 
 has been already mentioned; and Tertullian speaks 
 of their high priest cutting his arms for the life of 
 the Emperor Marcus . 1 The priests of Isis, in la¬ 
 mentation for Osiris, tore their breasts with pine 
 cones. This lamentation was a ritual observance, 
 founded on some religious mystery: Isis lost Osiris, 
 and the initiated wept in memory of her sorrow; 
 the Syrian goddess had wept over dead Thammuz, 
 and her mystics commemorated it by a ceremonial 
 woe; in the rites of Bacchus, an image was laid on 
 a bier at midnight , 2 which was bewailed in metrical 
 hymns; the god was supposed to die, and then to 
 revive. Nor was this the only worship which was 
 continued through the night ; while some of the 
 rites were performed in caves. 
 
 Only a heavenly light can give purity to noctur¬ 
 nal and subterraneous worship. Caves were at that 
 time appropriated to the worship of the infernal 
 gods. It was but natural that these wild religions 
 should be connected with magic and its kindred 
 
 1 Apol. 25. Vid. also Prudent, in lion. Romani, circ. fin. and 
 Lucian de Deo Syr. 50. 
 
 2 Vid. also the scene in Jul. Finn. p. 449. 
 
 P 2 
 
212 APPLICATION OF THE FIRST TEST. [Chap. IV. 
 
 arts; magic has at all times led to cruelty, and licen¬ 
 tiousness would he the inevitable reaction from a 
 temporary strictness. An extraordinary profession, 
 when men are in a state of nature, makes hypocrites 
 or madmen, and will in no long time be discarded ex¬ 
 cept by the few. The world of that day associated 
 together in one company, Isiac, Phrygian, Mithriac, 
 Chaldean, wizard, astrologer, fortune-teller, itinerant, 
 and, as was not unnatural, Jew. Magic was profess¬ 
 ed by the profligate Alexander, and was imputed to 
 the grave Apollonius. The rites of Mithras came 
 from the Magi of Persia; and it is obviously diffi¬ 
 cult to distinguish in principle the ceremonies of the 
 Syrian Taurobolium from those of the Necyomantia 
 in the Odyssey, or of Canidia in Horace. The The- 
 odosian Code calls magic generally a “ supersti¬ 
 tion;” and magic, orgies, mysteries, and u sabbath- 
 izings,” were referred to the same “ barbarous” 
 origin. “ Magical superstitions,” the u rites of the 
 Magi,” the u promises of the Chaldeans,” and the 
 “ Mathematici,” are familiar to the readers of Taci¬ 
 tus. The Emperor Otho, an avowed patron of 
 oriental fashions, took part in the rites of Isis, and 
 consulted the Mathematici. Vespasian, who also 
 consulted them, is heard of in Egypt as performing 
 miracles at the suggestion of Serapis. Tiberius, in 
 an edict, classes together a Egyptian and Jewish 
 rites;” and Tacitus and Suetonius, in recording it, 
 speak of the two religions together as u ea super¬ 
 stition 1 Augustus had already associated them 
 together as superstitions, and as unlawful, and 
 that in contrast to others of a like foreign origin. 
 u As to foreign rites ( peregrines ceremonice ),” says 
 Suetonius, u as he paid more reverence to those 
 which were old and enjoined, so did he hold the 
 rest in contempt .” 2 He goes on to say that, even 
 on the judgment-seat, he had recognised the Eleusi- 
 nian priests, into whose mysteries he had been ini- 
 1 Tac. Ann. ij. 85 ; Sneton. Tiber. 36. 2 August. 93. 
 
Sec. I.] THE CHURCH OF THE FIRST CENTURIES. 213 
 
 tiated at Athens; “whereas, when travelling in 
 Egypt, he had refused to see Apis, and had ap¬ 
 proved of his grandson Caligula’s passing by Judaea 
 without sacrificing at Jerusalem.” Plutarch speaks 
 of magic as connected with the mournful mysteries 
 of Orpheus and Zoroaster, with the Egyptian and 
 the Phrygian; and, in his Treatise on Superstition, 
 
 ’ he puts together in one clause, as specimens of that 
 disease of mind, u mud, filth, sabbathizings, fallings 
 of the face, unseemly postures, foreign adorations .” 1 
 Ovid mentions in consecutive verses the rites of 
 “Adonis lamented by Venus,” “The Sabbath of the 
 Syrian Jew,” and the “Memphitic Temple of Io in 
 her linen dress .” 2 Juvenal speaks of the rites, as 
 well as the language and the music, of the Syrian 
 Orontes having flooded Rome; and, in his descrip¬ 
 tion of the superstition of the Roman women, he 
 places the low Jewish fortune-teller between the 
 pompous priests of Cybele and Isis, and the bloody 
 witchcraft of the Armenian haruspex and the as¬ 
 trology of the Chaldeans . 3 
 
 The Christian, being at first accounted a kind of 
 Jew, was even on this score included in whatever 
 odium, and whatever bad associations, attended on 
 the Jewish name. But in a little time his independ¬ 
 ence of the rejected people was clearly understood, 
 as even the persecutions show; and he stood upon 
 his own ground. Still his character did not change 
 in the eyes of the world; for favour or for reproach, 
 he was still associated with the votaries of secret 
 and magical rites. The Emperor Hadrian, noted 
 as he is for his inquisitive temper, and a partaker 
 in so many mysteries , 4 still believed that the Chris¬ 
 tians of Egypt allowed themselves in the worship of 
 Serapis. They are brought into connexion with 
 the magic of Egypt in the history of what is com¬ 
 monly called the Thundering Legion, so far as this, 
 
 1 De Superst. 3. 2 cle Art. Am. i. init. 3 Sat. iij. vj, 
 
 4 Tertul. Ap. 5. 
 
214 APPLICATION OP THE FIRST TEST. [Chap. IV. 
 
 that the providential rain which relieved the Empe¬ 
 ror’s army, and which the Church ascribed to the 
 prayers of the Christian soldiers, is by Dio Cassius 
 attributed to an Egyptian magician, who obtained 
 it by invoking Mercury and other spirits. This 
 war had been the occasion of one of the first re¬ 
 cognitions which the state had conceded to the 
 Oriental rites, though statesmen and emperors, as 
 private men, had long taken part in them. The 
 Emperor Marcus had been urged by his fears of the 
 Marcomanni to resort to these foreign introductions, 
 and is said to have employed Magi and Chaldeans 
 in averting an unsuccessful issue of the war. It is 
 observable that, in the growing countenance which 
 was extended to these rites in the third century, 
 Christianity came in for a share. The chapel of 
 Alexander Severus contained statues of Abraham, 
 Orpheus, Apollonius, Pythagoras, and our Lord. 
 Here indeed, as in the case of Zenobia’s Judaism, 
 an eclectic philosophy aided the comprehension of 
 religions. But, immediately before Alexander, 
 Heliogabalus, who was no philosopher, while he 
 formally seated his Syrian idol in the Palatine, while 
 he observed the mysteries of Cybele and Adonis, 
 and celebrated his magic rites with human victims, 
 intended also, according to Lampridius, to unite 
 with his horrible superstition u the Jewish and 
 Samaritan religions and the Christian rite, that so 
 the priesthood of Heliogabalus might comprise the 
 mystery of every worship .” 1 Hence, more or less, 
 the stories which occur in ecclesiastical history of 
 the conversion or good-will of the emperors to the 
 Christian faith, of Hadrian, Mammaea, and others, 
 besides Heliogabalus and Alexander. Such stories 
 might often mean little more than that they favoured 
 it among other forms of Oriental superstition. 
 
 What has been said is sufficient to bring before 
 the mind an historical fact, which indeed does not 
 
 1 Yit. Hel. 3. 
 
Sec. I.] THE CHURCH OF THE FIRST CENTURIES. 215 
 
 need evidence. Upon the established religions of 
 Europe the East had renewed her encroachments, 
 and was pouring forth a family of rites which in 
 various ways attracted the attention of the luxuri¬ 
 ous, the political, the ignorant, the restless, and the 
 remorseful. Armenian, Chaldee, Egyptian, Jew, 
 Syrian, Phrygian, as the case might be, was the de¬ 
 signation of the new hierophant; and magic, super¬ 
 stition, barbarism, jugglery, were the names given to 
 his rite by the world. In this company appear¬ 
 ed Christianity. When then three well-informed 
 writers call Christianity a superstition and a ma¬ 
 gical superstition, they were not using words at 
 random, or the language of abuse, but they were 
 describing it in distinct and recognised terms as 
 cognate to those gloomy, secret, odious, disreputable 
 religions which were making so much disturbance 
 up and down the empire. 
 
 The impression made on the world by the cir¬ 
 cumstances of the rise of Christianity receives a sort 
 of confirmation after their time, in the appearance 
 of the Gnostic and kindred heresies, which issued 
 from the Church during the second and third 
 centuries. Their resemblance in ritual and con¬ 
 stitution to the Oriental rites, sometimes their 
 historical relationship, is undeniable; and certainly 
 it is a singular coincidence, that Christianity should 
 be first called a magical superstition by Suetonius, 
 and then should be found in the intimate company, 
 and seemingly the parent, of a multitude of magical 
 superstitions, if there was nothing in the religion 
 itself to give rise to such a charge. 
 
 The Gnostic family 1 suitably traces its origin to 
 a mixed race, which had commenced its history by 
 associating Orientalism with Eevelation. After the 
 captivity of the ten tribes, Samaria was colonized 
 by u men from Babylon and Cushan, and from Ava, 
 and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim,” who 
 1 Vid. Tillemont, Mem. and Lardner’s Hist. Heretics. 
 
216 
 
 APPLICATION OF THE FIRST TEST. [Chap. IV. 
 
 were instructed at their own instance in “ the 
 manner of the God of the land,” by one of the 
 priests of the Church of Jeroboam. The conse¬ 
 quence was, that “they feared the Lord and served 
 their own gods.” Of this country was Simon, the 
 reputed patriarch of the Gnostics; and he is intro¬ 
 duced in the Acts of the Apostles as professing 
 those magical powers which were so principal a 
 characteristic of the Oriental mysteries. His heresy, 
 though broken into a multitude of sects, was poured 
 over the world with a Catholicity not inferior to 
 that of Christianity. St. Peter, who fell in with 
 him originally in Samaria, seems to have encoun¬ 
 tered him again at Pome. At Pome, St. Polycarp 
 met Marcion of Pontus, whose followers spread 
 through Italy, Egypt, Syria, Arabia, and Persia, 
 Valentinus preached his doctrines in Alexandria, 
 Pome, and Cyprus; and we read of his disciples in 
 Crete, Caesarea, Antioch, and other parts of the 
 East. Bardesanes and his followers were found in 
 Mesopotamia. The Carpocratians are spoken of at 
 Alexandria, at Pome, and in Cephallenia; the 
 Basiliclians 'spread through the greater part of 
 Egypt; the Ophites were apparently in Bithynia 
 and Galatia; the Cainites or Caians in Africa, 
 and the Marcosians in Gaul. To these must be 
 added several sects, which, though not strictly of 
 the Gnostic stock, are associated with them in date, 
 character, and origin;—the Ebionites of Palestine, 
 the Cerinthians, who rose in some part of Asia 
 Minor, the Encratites and kindred sects, who 
 spread from Mesopotamia to Syria, Cilicia, and 
 other provinces of Asia Minor, and thence to Pome, 
 Gaul, Aquitaine, and Spain; and the Montanists, 
 who, with a town in Phrygia for their metropolis, 
 reached at length from Constantinople to Carthage. 
 
 “When [the reader of Christian history] comes to 
 the second century,” says Dr. Burton, “he finds that 
 Gnosticism, under some form or other, was professed 
 
Sec. I.] THE CHURCH OF THE FIRST CENTURIES. 217 
 
 in every part of the then civilized world. He finds 
 it divided into schools, as numerously and as zea¬ 
 lously attended as any which Greece or Asia could 
 boast in their happiest days. He meets with names 
 totally unknown to him before, which excited as 
 much sensation as those of Aristotle or Plato. He 
 hears of volumes having been written in support of 
 this new philosophy, not one of which has survived 
 to our own day .” 1 Many of the founders of these 
 sects had been Christians; others were of Jewish 
 parentage; others were more or less connected in 
 fact with the Pagan rites to which their own bore 
 so great a resemblance. Montanus seems even to 
 have been a mutilated priest of Cybele; the follow¬ 
 ers of Prodicus professed to possess the secret 
 books of Zoroaster; and the doctrine of dualism, 
 which so many of the sects held, is to be traced to 
 the same source. Basilides seems to have re¬ 
 cognised Mithras as the Supreme Being, or the 
 Prince of Angels, or the Sun, if Mithras is equiva¬ 
 lent to Abraxas, which was inscribed upon his 
 amulets: on the other hand, he is said to have been 
 taught by an immediate disciple of St. Peter, and 
 Valentinus by an immediate disciple of St. Paul. 
 Marcion was the son of a Bishop of Pontus; Tatian, 
 a disciple of St. Justin Martyr. 
 
 Whatever might be the history of these sects, 
 and though it may be a question whether they can 
 be properly called “ superstitions,” and though 
 many of them numbered educated men among their 
 teachers and followers, at least in ritual and profes¬ 
 sion they closely resembled the vagrant Pagan mys¬ 
 teries which have been above described. Their very 
 name of “Gnostic” implied the possession of a secret, 
 which was to be communicated to their disciples. 
 Ceremonial observances were the preparation, and 
 symbolical rites the instrument, of initiation. Tatian 
 and Montanus, the representatives of very distinct 
 
 1 Bampton Lect. 2. 
 
218 APPLICATION OF THE FIRST TEST. [Chap. IV. 
 
 schools, agreed in making asceticism a rule of life. 
 The followers of each of these sectaries abstained 
 from wine; the Tatianites and Marcionites from 
 flesh; the Montanists kept three Lents in the year. 
 All the Gnostic sects seem to have condemned mar¬ 
 riage on one or other reason . 1 The Marcionites had 
 three baptisms or more; the Marcosians had two 
 rites of what they called redemption; the latter of 
 these was celebrated as a marriage, and the room 
 adorned as la marriage-chamber. A consecration 
 to a priesthood then followed with anointing. An 
 extreme unction was another of their rites, and 
 prayers for the dead one of their observances. 
 Bardesanes and Harmonius were famous for the 
 beauty of their chants. The prophecies of Monta- 
 nus were delivered, like the oracles of the heathen, in 
 a state of enthusiasm or ecstasy. To Epiphanes, the 
 son of Carpocrates, who died at the age of seven¬ 
 teen, a temple was erected in the island of Cephal- 
 lenia, his mother’s birthplace, where he was cele¬ 
 brated with hymns and sacrifices. A similar 
 honour was paid by the Carpocratians to Homer, 
 Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, as well as to the 
 Apostles ; crowns were placed upon their images, 
 and incense burned before them. In one of the 
 inscriptions found at Cyrene, about twenty years 
 since, Zoroaster, Pythagoras, Epicurus, and others, 
 are put together with our Lord, as guides of con¬ 
 duct. These inscriptions also contain the Carpo- 
 cratian tenet of a community of women. I am 
 unwilling to allude to the Agapae and Communions 
 of certain of these sects, which were not surpassed 
 in profligacy by the Pagan rites of which they were 
 an imitation. The very name of Gnostic became 
 an expression for the worst impurities, and no one 
 dared eat bread with them, or use their culinary 
 instruments or plates. 
 
 These profligate excesses are found in connexion 
 1 Burton, Bampton Lect. note 61. 
 
Sec. I.] THE CHURCH OF THE FIRST CENTURIES. 219 
 
 with the exercise of magic and astrology . 1 The 
 amulets of the Basilidians are still extant in great 
 numbers, inscribed with symbols, some Christian, 
 some with figures of Isis, Serapis, and Anubis, re¬ 
 presented according to the gross indecencies of the 
 Egyptian mythology . 2 St. Irenaeus had already 
 connected together the two crimes in speaking of 
 the Simonians: “ Their mystical priests,” he says, 
 u live in lewdness, and practise magic, according to 
 the ability of each. They use exorcisms and incan¬ 
 tations; love-potions too, and seductive spells; the 
 virtue of spirits, and dreams, and alL other curious 
 arts, they diligently observe .” 3 The Marcosians 
 were especially devoted to these curious practices, 
 which are also ascribed to Carpocrates and Apel¬ 
 les. Marcion and others are reported to have used 
 astrology. Tertullian speaks generally of the sects 
 of his day: u Infamous are the dealings of the here¬ 
 tics with sorcerers very many, with mountebanks, 
 with astrologers, with" philosophers, to wit, such as 
 are given to curious questions. They everywhere 
 remember, c Seek, and ye shall find .’” 4 
 
 Such were the Gnostics; and to external and pre- 
 judiced spectators, whether philosophers, as Celsus 
 and Porphyry, or the multitude, they wore an ap¬ 
 pearance sufficiently like the Church to be mistaken 
 for her in the latter part of the Ante-nicene period, 
 as she was confused with the Pagan mysteries in 
 the earlier. 
 
 Of course it may happen that the common esti¬ 
 mate concerning a person or a body is purely ac¬ 
 cidental and unfounded; but in such cases it is 
 not lasting. Such were the calumnies of child¬ 
 eating and impurity in the Christian meetings, 
 which were almost extinct by the time of Origen, 
 and which might arise from the world’s confusing 
 
 1 Burton, Bampton Lect. note 44. 
 
 2 Montfaucon, Antiq. t. ii, part 2, p. 353. 
 
 3 llaer. i. 20. 4 De Praescr. 43. 
 
 9 
 
220 APPLICATION OF THE FIRST TEST. [Chap. IV. 
 
 them with the pagan and heretical rites. But 
 when it continues from age to age, it is certainly 
 an index of a fact, and corresponds to definite 
 qualities in the object to which it relates. In that 
 case, even mistakes carry information; for they 
 are cognate to the truth, and we can allow for 
 them. Often what seems like a mistake is merely 
 the mode in which the informant conveys his testi¬ 
 mony, or the impression which a fact makes on him. 
 Censure is the natural tone of one man, in a case 
 where praise is the natural tone of another; the 
 very same character or action inspires one mind 
 with enthusiasm, and another with contempt. What 
 to one man is magnanimity, to another is romance, 
 and pride to a third, and pretence to a fourth, while 
 to a fifth it is simply unintelligible; and yet there 
 is a certain analogy in their separate testimonies, 
 which conveys to us what the thing is like and 
 what it is not like. When a man’s acknowledged 
 note is superstition, we may be pretty sure we shall 
 not find him an Academic or an Epicurean; and 
 even words which are ambiguous, as u atheist” or 
 u reformer,” admit of a sure interpretation when 
 we are informed of the speaker. In like manner, 
 there is a certain general correspondence between 
 magic and miracle, obstinacy and faith, insubordi¬ 
 nation and zeal for religion, sophistry and argu¬ 
 mentative talent, craft and meekness, as is obvious. 
 Let us proceed then in contemplating this reflexion, 
 as it may be called, of primitive Christianity in the 
 mirror of the world. 
 
 All three writers, Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny, 
 call it a “superstition;” this is no accidental impu¬ 
 tation, but is repeated by a variety of subsequent 
 writers and speakers. The charge of Thyestean 
 banquets scarcely lasts a hundred years; but, while 
 pagan witnesses are to be found, the Church is ac¬ 
 cused of superstition. The heathen disputant in 
 Minucius calls Christianity, u Vana et clemens super - 
 
Sec. I.] THE CHURCH OF THE FIRST CENTURIES. 221 
 
 stitio .” The lawyer Modestinus speaks, with an ap¬ 
 parent allusion to Christianity, of “weak minds being 
 terrified superstitione numinis .” The heathen magis¬ 
 trate asks St. Marcellus, whether he and others have 
 put away “vain superstitions,” and worship the gods 
 whom the emperors worship. The Pagans in Arno- 
 bius speak of Christianity as “an execrable and un¬ 
 lucky religion, full of impiety and sacrilege, conta¬ 
 minating the rites instituted from of old with the 
 superstition of its novelty.” The anonymous oppo¬ 
 nent of Lactantius calls it, u Impia et anilis super¬ 
 stition Dioclesian’s inscription at Clunia was, as it 
 declared, on occasion of “ the total extinction of the 
 superstition of the Christians, and the extension of 
 the worship of the gods.” Maximin, in his Letter 
 upon Constantine’s Edict, still calls it a superstition . 1 
 
 Now what is meant by the word thus attached 
 b y a consensus of heathen authorities to Christianity ? 
 At least, it cannot mean a religion in which a man 
 might think what he pleased, and was set free from 
 all yokes, whether of ignorance, fear, authority, or 
 priestcraft. When heathen winters call the Oriental 
 rites superstitions, they evidently use the word in its 
 modern sense; it cannot surely be'doubted that they 
 apply it in the same sense to Christianity. But Plu¬ 
 tarch explains for us the word at length, in his 
 Treatise which bears the name: “Of all kinds of 
 fear,” he says, “superstition is the most fatal to 
 action and resource. He does not fear the sea who 
 does not sail, nor war who does not serve, nor rob¬ 
 bers who keeps at home, nor the sycophant who is 
 poor, nor envy who is a private man, nor an earth¬ 
 quake who lives in Gaul, nor thunder who lives in 
 Ethiopia; but he who fears the gods fears every¬ 
 thing, earth, seas, air, sky, darkness, light, noises, 
 silence, sleep. Slaves sleep and forget their masters; 
 of the fettered doth sleep lighten the chain; inflamed 
 wounds, ulcers cruel and agonizing, are suspended 
 
 1 Vid. Kortholt, in Plin. et Traj. Epp. p. 152; Comment, in 
 Mimic. F. &c. 
 
222 APPLICATION OF THE FIRST TEST. [Chap. IV. 
 
 to the sleeping. Superstition alone has come to no 
 terms with sleep; but in the sleep of her victims, as 
 though they were in the realms of the impious, she 
 raises horrible spectres, and monstrous phantoms, and 
 various pains, and whirls the miserable soul about, 
 and persecutes it. They rise, and, instead of making 
 light of what is unreal, they fall into the hands of 
 quacks and conjurers, who say, 4 Call the crone to 
 expiate, bathe in the sea, and sit all day on the 
 ground. 7 ” He goes on to speak of the introduction 
 of “uncouth names and barbarous terms 77 into “the 
 divine and national authority of religionobserves 
 that, whereas slaves, when they despair of freedom, 
 may demand to be sold to another master, supersti¬ 
 tion admits of no change of gods, since “the god 
 cannot be found whom he will not fear, who fears 
 the gods of his family and his birth, who shudders at 
 the Saving and the Benignant, who has a trembling 
 and dread at those from whom we ask riches and 
 wealth, concord, peace, success of all good words and 
 deeds. 77 He says, moreover, that, while death is to 
 all men an end of life, it is not so to the supersti¬ 
 tious ; for then “ there are deep gates of hell to yawn, 
 and headlong streams of at once fire and gloom are 
 opened, and darkness with its many phantoms en¬ 
 compasses, ghosts presenting horrid visages and 
 wretched voices, and judges and executioners, and 
 chasms and dens full of innumerable miseries. 77 
 
 Presently, he says, that in misfortune or sickness 
 the superstitious man refuses to see physician or phi¬ 
 losopher, and cries, “Suffer me, 0 man, to undergo 
 punishment, the impious, the cursed, the hated of 
 gods and spirits. The Atheist, 77 with whom all 
 along he is disadvantageous^ contrasting the super¬ 
 stitious, “wipes his tears, trims his hair, doffs his 
 mourning; but how can you address, how help the 
 superstitious? He sits apart in sackcloth or filthy 
 rags; and often he strips himself and rolls in the 
 mud, and tells out his sins and offences, as having 
 
Sec. I.] THE CHURCH OF THE FIRST CENTURIES. 223 
 
 eaten and drunken something, or walked some way 
 
 which the divinity did not allow.And in his 
 
 best mood, and under the influence of a good- 
 humoured superstition, he sits at home, with sa¬ 
 crifice and slaughter all round him, while the old 
 crones hang on him as on a peg, as Bion says, any 
 charm they fall in with. ’ ’ He continues, 41 What men 
 like best are festivals, banquets at the temples, 
 initiations, orgies, votive prayers, and adorations. 
 But the superstitious wishes indeed, but is unable to 
 rejoice. He is crowned and turns pale; he sacri¬ 
 fices and is in fear; he prays with a quivering 
 voice, and burns incense with trembling hands, and 
 altogether belies the saying of Pythagoras, that we 
 are then in best case when we go to the gods; for 
 superstitious men fare most wretchedly and evilly, 
 approaching the houses or shrines of the gods as if 
 they were the dens of bears, or the holes of snakes, 
 or the caves of whales.” 
 
 Here we have a vivid picture of Plutarch’s idea 
 of the essence of Superstition; it was the imagination 
 of th e existence of an unseen ever-present Master; 
 the bondage of a rule of life, of a continual respon¬ 
 sibility; obligation to attend to little things, the 
 impossibility to escape from duty, the inability to 
 choose or change one’s religion, interference with 
 the enjoyment of life, a melancholy view of the 
 world, sense of sin, horror at guilt, apprehension of 
 punishment, dread, self-abasement, depression, anxi¬ 
 ety and endeavour to be at peace with heaven, and 
 error and absurdity in the methods chosen for the 
 purpose. Such too had been the idea of the 
 Epicurean Velleius, when he shrunk with horror 
 from the “ sempiternus dominus ” and u curiosus 
 Deus ” of the Stoics. 1 Such, surely, was the mean- 
 
 1 “Itaque imposuistis in cervicibus nostris sempiternum dominum, 
 quem dies et noctes timeremus; quis enim non timeat omnia pro- 
 videntem et cogitantem et animadvertentem et omnia ad se pertinere 
 putantem, curiosum, et plenum negotii Deum?— Cic. de Nat. Deor. 
 i. 20. 
 
224 
 
 APPLICATION OF THE FIRST TEST. 
 
 [Chap. IV. 
 
 ing of Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny. And hence 
 of course the frequent reproach cast on Christians 
 as credulous, weak-minded, and poor-spirited. The 
 heathen objectors in Minucius and Lactantius speak 
 of their “old-woman’s tales.” 1 Celsus accuses them 
 of “ assenting at random and without reason,” saying, 
 “Do not inquire, but believe.” “They lay it down,” 
 he says elsewhere, “Let no educated man approach, 
 no man of wisdom, no man of sense, but if a man 
 be unlearned, weak in intellect, an infant, let him 
 come with confidence. Confessing that these are 
 worthy of their God, they evidently desire, as they 
 are able, to convert none but fools, and vulgar, and 
 stupid, and slavish, women and boys.” They “take 
 in the simple, and lead him where they will.” They 
 address themselves to “youths, house-servants, and 
 the weak in intellect.” They “hurry away from 
 the educated, as not fit subjects of their imposition, 
 and inveigle the rustic.” 2 “Thou,” says the heathen 
 magistrate to the Martyr Fructuosus, “who as a 
 teacher dost disseminate a new fable, that fickle 
 girls may desert the groves and abandon Jupiter; 
 condemn, if thou art wise, the anile creed.” 3 
 
 Hence the epithets of itinerant, mountebank, 
 conjurer, cheat, sophist, sorcerer, heaped upon the 
 teachers of Christianity; sometimes to account for 
 the report or appearance of their miracles, some¬ 
 times to explain their success. Our Lord was said 
 to have learned His miraculous power in Egypt; 
 “wizard, mediciner, cheat, rogue, conjurer,” were 
 the epithets applied to him by the opponents of 
 Eusebius; 4 .they “worship that crucified sophist,” 
 says Lucian; 5 “Paul, who surpasses all the conjurers 
 and impostors who ever lived,” is Julian’s account 
 of the Apostle. “You have sent through the whole 
 world,” says St. Justin to Trypho, “ to preach that 
 
 1 Min. c. 11, Lact. v. 1, 2, vicl. Arnob. ij. 8, &c. 
 
 2 Origen. contr. Cels. i. 9, iii. 44, 50, vi. 44. 
 
 3 Prudent, in hon. Fruct. 37. 4 Evan. Dem. iii. 3, 4. 
 
Sec. I.] THE CHURCH OF THE FIRST CENTURIES. 225 
 
 a certain atheistic and lawless sect has sprung from 
 one Jesus, a Galilean cheat.” 1 “We know,” says 
 Lucian, speaking of Chaldeans and Magicians, “the 
 Syrian from Palestine, who is the sophist in these 
 matters, how many lunatics, with eyes distorted 
 and mouth in foam, he raises and sends away re¬ 
 stored, ridding them from the evil at a great price.” 2 
 “ If any conjurer came to them, a man of skill and 
 knowing how to manage matters,” says the same 
 writer, “ he made money in no time, with a broad 
 grin at the simple fellows.” 3 The officer who had 
 custody of St. Perpetua feared her escape from 
 prison “by magical incantations.” 4 When St. 
 Tiburtius had walked barefoot on hot coals, his 
 judge cried out that Christ had taught him magic. 
 St. Anastasia was thrown into prison as a medi- 
 ciner; the populace called out against St. Agnes, 
 “ Away with the witch,” Tolle mag am, tolle malefi- 
 cam. When St. Bonosus and St. Maximilian bore 
 the burning pitch without shrinking, Jews and 
 Gentiles cried out, Isti magi et malefici. “ What 
 new delusion,” says the heathen magistrate con¬ 
 cerning St. Romanus, “has brought in these so¬ 
 phists to deny the worship of the gods? How 
 doth this chief sorcerer mock us, skilled by his 
 Thessalian charm ( carmine ) to laugh at punish¬ 
 ment.” 0 
 
 Hence we gather the meaning of the word “ car¬ 
 men” as used by Pliny; when he speaks of the 
 Christians “ saying with one another a carmen to 
 Christ as to a god,” he meant pretty much what 
 Suetonius expresses by the “ malejica superstitio .” 6 
 And the words of the last-mentioned writer and 
 Tacitus are still more exactly, and, I may say, 
 singularly illustrated by clauses which occur in the 
 
 1 c. 108. 2 Philops. 16. 3 De Mort. Pereg. ibid. 
 
 4 Ruin. Mart. pp. 100, 594, &c. 5 Prud. in lion. Rom.vv. 404, 868. 
 
 6 We have specimens of carmina ascribed to Christians in the 
 Philopatris. 
 
 Q 
 
226 APPLICATION OF THE FIRST TEST. [Chap. IV. 
 
 Theodosian code; which seem to show that these 
 historians were using formal terms and phrases 
 to express their notion of Christianity. For in¬ 
 stance, Tacitus says, “ Quos per flagitia invisos , 
 vulgus Christianos appellabat and the Law 
 against the Malefici and Mathematici in the Code 
 speaks of those, “ Quos ob facinorum magnitucli- 
 nem vulgus malejicos appellate 1 Again, Tacitus 
 charges Christians with the u odium humani gene¬ 
 ris this is the very characteristic of a practiser 
 in magic; the Laws call the Malefici, “ humani 
 generis hostes ,” “ liumani generis inimici ,” “ naturae 
 peregrini” u communis salutis hostes ” 2 
 
 Here we see the meaning of words which have 
 created so much surprise to certain moderns;—that 
 a grave well-informed historian like Tacitus should 
 apply to Christians what sounds like abuse. Yet 
 what is the difficulty, supposing that Christians were 
 considered mathematici and magi, and these were 
 the secret intriguers against established govern¬ 
 ment, the resort of desperate politicians, the enemies 
 of the established religion, the disseminators of 
 lying rumours, the perpetrators of poisonings and 
 other crimes? “ Read this, 7 ’ says Paley, after quot¬ 
 ing some of the most beautiful and subduing 
 passages of St. Paul, “ read this, and then think of 
 exitiabilis superstitio ; 77 and he goes on to express a 
 wish “in contending with heathen authorities, to 
 produce our books against theirs , 7 ’ 3 as if it were 
 
 1 Goth, in Cod. Th. t. 5, p. 120, ed. 1665. Again, “Qui male¬ 
 fici vulgi consuetudine nuncupantur.” Leg. 6. So Lactantius, 
 “ Magi et ii quos vere maleficos vulgus appellat.” lust. ij. 17. 
 “ Quos et maleficos vulgus appellat.” August Civ. Dei, x. 19. 
 “ Quos vulgus mathematicos vocat.” Hieron. in Dan. c. ij. Vid. 
 Gothof. in loc. Other laws speak of those who were “maleficiorum 
 labe polluti,” and of the “maleficiorum scabies.” 
 
 2 Tertullian too mentions the charge of “hostes principum Roman - 
 orum, populi, generis humani, Deorum, Imperatorum, legum, morum, 
 naturae totius inimici.” AdoI. 2, 35, 38, ad. Scap. 4, ad. Nat. i. 17. 
 
 3 Evid. part. ij. ch. 4. 
 
Sec. I.] THE CHURCH OF THE FIRST CENTURIES. 227 
 
 a matter of books. Public men care very little for 
 books; fine sentiments, tlie most luminous philo¬ 
 sophy, the deepest theology, inspiration itself, moves 
 them but little; they look at facts, and care only 
 for facts. The question was, What was the worth, 
 what the tendency of the Christian body in the 
 state ? what Christians said, what they thought, was 
 little to the purpose. They might exhort to peace¬ 
 ableness and passive obedience as strongly as words 
 could speak; but what did they do , what was their 
 political position? This is what statesmen thought 
 of then, as they do now. It is little to refer men 
 of the world to abstract truths or first principles; 
 a statesman measures parties, and sects, and writers 
 by their bearing upon him; and he has a practised 
 eye in this sort of judgment, and is not likely to be 
 mistaken. “‘What is Truth?’ said jesting Pilate.” 
 Apologies, however eloquent or true, availed nothing 
 with the Homan magistrate against the sure in¬ 
 stinct which taught him to dread Christianity. It 
 was a dangerous enemy to any power not built 
 upon itself; he felt it, and the event justified his 
 apprehension. 
 
 We must not forget the well-known character of 
 the Homan state in its dealings with its subjects. 
 It had had from the first an extreme jealousy of 
 secret societies; it was prepared to grant a large 
 toleration and a broad comprehension, but, as is 
 the case with modern governments, it wished to 
 have jurisdiction and the ultimate authority in 
 every movement of the body politic and its mem¬ 
 bers ; and its institutions were based, or essentially 
 depended, on its religion. Accordingly, every in¬ 
 novation upon the established paganism, except it 
 was allowed by the law, was rigidly repressed. 
 Hence the professors of low superstitions, of mys¬ 
 teries, of magic, of astrology, were the outlaws 
 of society, and were in a condition analogous, if 
 the comparison may be allowed, to smugglers or 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 APPLICATION OF THE FIRST TEST. [Chap. IV. 
 
 poachers among ourselves, or perhaps to burglars 
 and highwaymen. The modern robber is some¬ 
 times made to ask in novels or essays, why the 
 majority of a people should bind the minority, and 
 why he is amenable to laws which he does not 
 enact; but the magistrate, relying on the power of 
 the sword, wishes all men to gain a living indeed, 
 and to prosper, but only in his own legally 
 sanctioned ways, and he hangs or transports dis¬ 
 senters from his authority. The Romans applied 
 this rule to religion. Gardner protests against 
 Pliny’s application of the words u contumacy and 
 inflexible obstinacy” to the Christians of Pontus. 
 u Indeed, these are hard words,” he says, u very im¬ 
 properly applied to men who were open to convic¬ 
 tion, and willing to satisfy others, if they might 
 have leave to speak .” 1 And he says, u It seems to 
 me that Pliny acted very arbitrarily and unrighte¬ 
 ously, in his treatment of the Christians in his pro¬ 
 vince. What right had Pliny to act in this manner? 
 by what law or laws did he punish [them] with 
 death?”—but the Romans had ever burnt the sor¬ 
 cerer, and banished Ins consulters for life . 2 It was 
 an ancient custom. And at mysteries they looked 
 with especial suspicion, because, since the established 
 religion did not include them in its provisions, they 
 really did supply what may be called a demand of 
 the age. The Greeks of an earlier day had natu¬ 
 ralized among themselves the Eleusinian and other 
 mysteries, which had come from Egypt and Syria, 
 and had little to fear from a fresh invasion from the 
 same quarter; yet even in Greece, as Plutarch tells 
 us, the u carmina” of the itinerants of Cybele and 
 Serapis threw the Pythian verses out of fashion, 
 and henceforth the responses from the temple were 
 given in prose. Soon the oracles altogether ceased. 
 What would cause still greater jealousy in the 
 Roman mind was the general infidelity which pre- 
 1 Heathen Test. 9. 2 Gotliof. in Cod. Th. t. 5, p. 121. 
 
229 
 
 Sec. I.] THE CHURCH OE THE FIRST CENTURIES. 
 
 vailed among all classes about the mythological 
 fables of Charon, Cerberus, and the realms of pun¬ 
 ishment. 1 
 
 We know what opposition had been made in 
 Rome even to the philosophy of Greece; much 
 greater would be the aversion of constitutional 
 statesmen and lawyers to the ritual of barbarians. 
 Religion was the Roman point of honour. “ Span¬ 
 iards might rival them in numbers,” says Cicero, 
 “ Gauls in bodily strength, Carthaginians in address, 
 Greeks in the arts, Italians and Latins in sense, but 
 the Romans surpassed all nations in piety and de¬ 
 votion .” 2 It was one of their laws, “Let no one 
 have gods by himself, nor worship in private new 
 gods nor adventitious, unless added on public au¬ 
 thority .” 3 Lutatius , 4 at the end of the first Punic 
 Avar, Avas forbidden by the senate to consult the 
 Sortes Prsenestime as being “ auspicia alienigena .” 
 Some years afterwards the Consul took axe in 
 hand, and commenced the destruction of the 
 temples of Isis and Serapis. In the second Punic 
 Avar, the senate had commanded the surren¬ 
 der of the libri vaticini or precationes , and any 
 Avritten art of sacrificing. When a secret confra¬ 
 ternity was discovered, at a later date, the Consul 
 spoke of the rule of their ancestors Avhich forbade 
 the forum, circus, and city to Sacrificuli and pro¬ 
 phets, and burnt their books. In the next age 
 banishment Avas inflicted on individuals Avho Avere 
 introducing the worship of the Syrian Sabazius; 
 and in the next the Iseion and Serapeion were des¬ 
 troyed a second time. Maecenas in Dio advises Au¬ 
 gustus to honour the gods according to the national 
 custom, because the contempt of the country’s deities 
 leads to civil insubordination, reception of foreign 
 
 1 Cic. pro Cluent. 61. Gieseler transl. vol. i. p. 21, note 5. 
 Acad. Inscr. t. 34. hist. p. 110. 
 
 2 De Harusp. Resp. 9. 3 De Legg. ii. 8. 
 
 4 Acad. Inscr. ibid. 
 
230 APPLICATION OP THE FIRST TEST. [Chap. IV. 
 
 laws, conspiracies, and secret meetings . 1 a Suffer no 
 one,” lie adds, “to deny the gods or to practise 
 sorcery.” The civilian Julius Paulus lays it down 
 as one of the leading principles of Roman Law, 
 that those who introduce new or untried religions 
 should be degraded, and if in the lower orders put 
 to death . 2 In like manner, it' is enacted in one of 
 Constantine’s Laws that the Haruspices should not 
 exercise their art in private; and there is a law of 
 Yalentinian’s against nocturnal sacrifices or magic. 
 It is more immediately to our purpose that Trajan 
 had been so earnest in his resistance to Hetcerioe or 
 secret societies, that, when a fire had laid waste 
 Nicomedia, and Pliny proposed to him to incorpo¬ 
 rate a body of a hundred and fifty firemen in 
 consequence , 3 he was afraid of the precedent and 
 forbade it. 
 
 What has been said will suggest another point of 
 view in which the Oriental rites were obnoxious to 
 the government, viz., as being vagrant and prose¬ 
 lytizing religions. If it tolerated foreign super¬ 
 stitions, this would Jbe on the ground that districts 
 or countries within its jurisdiction held them; to 
 proselytize to a rite hitherto unknown, to form a 
 new party, and to propagate it through the Empire, 
 —a religion not local but Catholic,—was an offence 
 against both order and reason. The state desired 
 peace everywhere, and no change; “considering,” 
 according to Lactantius, “that they were rightly 
 and deservedly punished who execrated the public 
 religion handed down to them by their ances¬ 
 tors .” 4 
 
 It is impossible surely to deny that, in assembling 
 for religious purposes, the Christians were breaking 
 a solemn law, a vital principle of the Roman consti¬ 
 tution; and this is the light in which their conduct 
 
 Meander, Eccl. Hist. tr. vol. i. p. 81. 
 
 2 Muller, p. 21, 22, 30; Tertull. Ox. tr. p. 12, notejo. 
 
 3 Gibbon. Hist. ch. 16, note 14. 4 Epit. Instit. 55. 
 
Sec. I.] THE CHURCH OF THE FIRST CENTURIES. 231 
 
 was regarded by the historians and philosophers of 
 the Empire. This was a very strong act on the 
 part of the disciples of the great Apostle, who had 
 enjoined obedience to the powers that be. Time 
 after time they resisted the authority of the magis¬ 
 trate; and this is a phenomenon inexplicable on 
 the theory of what is now called the Voluntary 
 Principle. The justification of such disobedience 
 lies simply in the necessity of obeying the higher 
 authority of some divine law; but if Christianity 
 were in its essence only private and personal, as 
 so many now think, there was no necessity of their 
 meeting together at all. If, on the other hand, in as¬ 
 sembling for worship and holy communion, they were 
 fulfilling an indispensable observance, Christianity 
 has imposed a social law on the world, and formally 
 enters the field of politics. Gibbon says that, in 
 consequence of Pliny’s edict, u the prudence of the 
 Christians suspended their Agapas; but it was im¬ 
 possible for them to omit the exercise of public 
 worship .” 1 We can draw no other conclusion. 
 
 At the end of three hundred years, a more re¬ 
 markable violation of law seems to have been ad¬ 
 mitted by the Christians. It shall be given in the 
 words of Dr. Burton; he has been speaking of 
 Maximin’s edict, which provided for the restitution 
 of any of their lands or buildings which had been 
 alienated from them. u It is plain,” he says, u from 
 the terms of this edict, that the Christians had for 
 some time been in possession of property. It 
 speaks of houses and lands which did not belong 
 to individuals, but to the whole body. Their pos¬ 
 session of such property could hardly have escaped 
 the notice of the government; but it seems to have 
 been held in direct violation of a law of Diocletian, 
 which prohibited corporate bodies, or associations 
 
 1 Gibbon, ibid. Origen admits and defends the violation of the 
 laws: ovic aXoyov avv$r]icaQ 7rapa tci revo/iicrfAEra tioieiv, Tag vi rep 
 aXrjSeicig. C. Cels. i. 1. 
 
232 APPLICATION OF THE FIRST TEST. [Chap. IV. 
 
 which were not legally recognised, from acquiring 
 property. The Christians were certainly not a 
 body recognised by law at the beginning of the 
 reign of Diocletian, and it might almost be thought 
 that this enactment was specially directed against 
 them. But, like other laws which are founded 
 upon tyranny, and are at variance with the first 
 principles of justice, it is probable that this law 
 about corporate property was evaded. We must 
 suppose that the Christians had purchased lands and 
 houses before the law was passed; and their disre¬ 
 gard of the prohibition may be taken as another proof 
 that their religion had now taken so firm a footing 
 that the executors of the laws were obliged to con¬ 
 nive at their being broken by so numerous a body .” 1 
 
 No wonder that the magistrate who presided at 
 the martyrdom of St. Romanus calls them in Pru- 
 dentius “a rebel people ;” 2 that Galerius speaks of 
 them as “a nefarious conspiracy;” the heathen in 
 Minucius, as u men of a desperate faction;” that 
 others make them guilty of sacrilege and treason, 
 and call them by those other titles which, more 
 closely resembling the language of Tacitus, have 
 been noticed above. Hence the violent accusations 
 against them as the destruction of the Empire, the 
 authors of physical evils, and the cause of the anger 
 of the gods. 
 
 “ Men cry out,” says Tertullian, u that the state is 
 beset, that the Christians are in their fields, in their 
 forts, in their islands. They mourn as for a loss 
 that every sex, condition, and now even rank, is 
 going over to this sect. And yet they do not by 
 this very means advance their minds to the idea of 
 some good therein hidden; they allow not them¬ 
 selves to conjecture more rightly, they choose not 
 to examine more closely. The generality run upon 
 a hatred of this name, with eyes so closed that in 
 
 1 Hist. p. 418. 
 
 2 In lion. Rom. 62, In Act. S. Cypr. 4, Tert. Apol. 10, &c. 
 
233 
 
 Sec. I.] THE CHURCH OE THE FIRST CENTURIES. 
 
 bearing favourable testimony to any one they 
 mingle with it the reproach of the name. 4 A good 
 man Caius Seius, only he is a Christian.’ So an¬ 
 other, 4 I marvel that that wise man Lucius Titius 
 hath suddenly become a Christian.’ No one reflect- 
 eth whether Caius be not therefore good and Lucius 
 wise because a Christian, or therefore a Christian 
 because wise and good. They praise that which 
 they know, they revile that which they know not. 
 Virtue is not in such account as hatred of the Chris¬ 
 tians. Now, then, if the hatred be of the name, 
 what guilt is there in names ? What charge against 
 words ? Unless it be that any word which is a 
 name have either a barbarous or ill-omened, or a 
 scurrilous or an immodest sound. If the Tiber \ 
 cometh up to the walls, if the Nile cometh not up 
 to the fields, if the heaven hath stood still, if the 
 earth hath been moved, if there be any famine, if 
 any pestilence, c The Christians to the lions ’ is / 
 forthwith the word .” 1 
 
 “ Men of a desperate, lawless, reckless faction,” 
 says the heathen Cascilius, in the passage above re¬ 
 ferred to, “who collect together out of the lowest 
 rabble the thoughtless portion, and credulous women 
 seduced by the weakness of their sex, and form a 
 mob of impure conspirators, of whom nocturnal 
 assemblies, and solemn fastings, and unnatural food, 
 no sacred rite but pollution, is the bond. A tribe 
 lurking and light-hating, dumb for the public, talk¬ 
 ative in corners; they despise our temples as if 
 graves, spit at our gods, deride our religious forms; 
 pitiable themselves, they pity, forsooth, our priests; 
 half-naked themselves, they despise our honours and 
 purple; monstrous folly and incredible impudence ! 
 
 . . . Day after day, their abandoned morals wind 
 their serpentine course: over the whole world are 
 those most hideous rites of an impious association 
 growing into shape: . . . they recognise each other 
 by marks and signs, and love each other almost be- 
 
 1 Apol. i. 3, 39, Oxf. tr. 
 
234 
 
 APPLICATION OF THE FIRST TEST. [Chap. IV. 
 
 fore they recognise; promiscuous lust is their reli¬ 
 gion. Thus does their vain and mad superstition 
 glory in crimes. . . The writer who tells the story of 
 a criminal capitally punished, and of the gibbet 
 (ligna feralia) of the cross being their observance 
 (ceremonias ), assigns to them thereby an altar in 
 keeping with the abandoned and wicked, that they 
 may worship ( colcint ) what they merit. . . . Why 
 their mighty effort to hide and shroud whatever it 
 is they worship ( colunt), since things honest ever like 
 the open day, and crimes are secret ? Why have 
 they no altars, no temples, no images known to us, 
 never speak abroad, never assemble freely, were it 
 not that what they worship and suppress is subject 
 either of punishment or of shame ?. .What monstrous, 
 what portentous notions do they fabricate ! that that 
 God of theirs, whom they can neither show nor see, 
 should be inquiring diligently into the characters, 
 the acts, nay the words and secret thoughts of all 
 men; running to and fro, forsooth, and present every¬ 
 where, troublesome, restless, nay impudently curious 
 they would have him; that is, if he is close at every 
 deed, interferes in all places, while he can neither 
 attend to each as being distracted through the whole, 
 nor suffice for the whole as being engaged about 
 each. Think too of their threatening lire, medita¬ 
 ting destruction to the whole earth, nay the world 
 itself with its stars ! ... Nor content with this mad 
 opinion, they add and append their old wives’ tales 
 about a new birth after death, ashes and cinders, 
 and by some strange confidence believe each other’s 
 lies. Poor creatures! consider what hangs over you 
 after death, while you are still alive. Lo, the greater 
 part of you, the better, as you say, are in want, 
 cold, toil, hunger, and your God suffers it; but I 
 omit common trials. Lo, threats are offered to you, 
 punishments, torments; crosses to be undergone 
 now, not worshipped ( adorandce ); fires too which ye 
 predict and fear; where is that God who can re- 
 
Sec. I.] THE CHURCH OF THE FIRST CENTURIES. 235 
 
 cover, but cannot preserve your life ? The answer 
 of Socrates, when he was asked about heavenly 
 matters, is well known, c What is above us does not 
 concern us.’ My opinion also is, that points which 
 are doubtful, as are the points in question, must be 
 left; nor, when so many and such great men are in 
 controversy on the subject, must judgment be rashly 
 and audaciously given on either side, lest the conse¬ 
 quence be either anile superstition or the overthrow 
 of all religion . 77 
 
 Such was Christianity in the eyes of those who 
 witnessed its rise and propagation;—one of a num¬ 
 ber of wild and barbarous rites which were pouring 
 in upon the empire from the ancient realms of 
 superstition, and the mother of a progeny of sects 
 which were faithful to the original they had derived 
 from Egypt or Syria; a religion unworthy an edu¬ 
 cated person, as appealing, not to the intellect, but 
 to the fears and weaknesses of human nature, and 
 consisting, not in the rational and cheerful enjoy¬ 
 ment, but in a morose rejection of the gifts of Pro¬ 
 vidence ; a horrible religion, as inflicting or enjoining 
 cruel sufferings, and monstrous and loathsome in its 
 very indulgence of the passions; a religion leading 
 by re-action to infidelity; a religion of magic, and 
 of the vulgar arts, real and pretended, with which 
 magic was accompanied; a secret religion which 
 dared not face the day; an itinerant, busy, prosely¬ 
 tizing religion, forming an extended confederacy 
 against the state, resisting its authority and breaking 
 its laws. There may be some exceptions to this 
 general impression, such as Pliny’s discovery of the 
 innocent and virtuous rule of life adopted by the 
 Christians of Pontus; but this only proves that 
 Christianity was not the infamous religion which 
 the heathen thought it; it did not reverse . their 
 general belief to the contrary. 
 
 Now it must be granted that, in some respects, 
 this view of Christianity depended on the times, and 
 
236 APPLICATION OF THE FIRST TEST. [Chap. IV. 
 
 would alter with their alteration. When there was 
 no persecution, Martyrs could not he obstinate; and 
 when the Church was raised aloft in high places, it 
 was no longer in caves. Still, I believe, it continued 
 substantially the same in the judgment of the world 
 external to it, while there was an external world to 
 judge of it. “ They thought it enough,” says Julian 
 in the fourth century, of our Lord and His Apostles, 
 “to deceive women, servants, and slaves, and by their 
 means wives and husbands.” “A human fabrica¬ 
 tion,” says he elsewhere, “ put together by wicked¬ 
 ness, having nothing divine in it, but making a per¬ 
 verted use of the fable-loving, childish, irrational 
 part of the soul, and offering a set of wonders to 
 create belief.” “Miserable men,” he says elsewhere, 
 “ you refuse to worship the ancile, yet you worship 
 the wood of the cross, and sign it on your foreheads, 
 and fix it on your doors. Shall one for this hate 
 the intelligent among you, or pity the less under¬ 
 standing, who in following you have gone to such 
 an excess of perdition as to leave the everlasting 
 gods and go over to a dead Jew?” He speaks of their 
 adding other dead men to Him who died so long ago. 
 “You have filled all places with sepulchres and 
 monuments, though it is nowhere told you in your 
 religion to haunt the tombs and to attend upon 
 them.” Elsewhere he speaks of their “leaving the 
 gods for corpses and relics.” On the other hand, he 
 attributes the growth of Christianity to its human¬ 
 ity towards strangers, care in burying the dead, and 
 pretended religiousness of life. In another place he 
 speaks of their care of the poor . 1 
 
 Libanius, Julian’s preceptor in rhetoric, delivers 
 the same testimony, as far as it goes. He addressed 
 his Oration for the Temples to a Christian Emperor, 
 and would in consequence be guarded in his lan¬ 
 guage ; however it runs in one direction. He speaks 
 
 1 Julian, ap. Cyril, pp. 39,194, 206, 335. Epp. pp.305, 429, 438, 
 eel. Spanh. 
 
Sec. I.] THE CHURCH OF THE FIRST CENTURIES. 237 
 
 of “ those black-habited men,” meaning the monks, 
 “ who eat more than elephants, and by the number 
 of their potations trouble those who send them drink 
 in their chantings, and conceal this by paleness ar¬ 
 tificially acquired.” They “are in good condition 
 out of the misfortunes of others, while they pretend 
 to serve God by hunger.” Those whom they attack 
 “are like bees, they like drones.” I do not quote 
 this passage to prove that there were monks in Liba- 
 nius’s days, which no one doubts, but to show his 
 impression of Christianity, as far as his works be¬ 
 tray it. 
 
 Numantian, in the same century, describes in verse 
 his voyage from Rome to Gaul: one book of the 
 poem is extant; he falls in with Christianity on two 
 of the islands which lie in his course. He thus de- 
 scribes them on one of them : “ The island is in a 
 squalid state, being full of light-haters. They call 
 themselves monks, because they wish to live alone 
 without witness. They dread the gifts, from fear¬ 
 ing the reverses, of fortune. Thus Homer says that 
 melancholy was the cause of Bellerophon’s anxiety; 
 for it is said that after the wounds of grief mankind 
 displeased the offended youth.” He meets on the 
 other island a Christian, whom he had known, of 
 good family and fortune, and happy in his marriage, 
 who “impelled by the Furies had left men and gods, 
 and, credulous exile, was living in base concealment. 
 Is not this herd,” he continues, “worse than Cir- 
 cean poison; then bodies were changed, now minds . 7 7 
 
 In the Philopatris, which is the work of an Author 
 of the fourth century , 1 Critias is introduced pale and 
 wild. His friend asks him if he has seen Cerberus or 
 Hecate; and he answers that he has heard a rigma¬ 
 role from certain “ thrice-cursed sophists;” which he 
 thinks would drive him mad, if he heard it again, 
 and was nearly sending him headlong over some cliff 
 as it was. He retires for relief with his inquirer to 
 
 1 Niebuhr ascribes it to the beginning of the tenth. 
 
238 APPLICATION OP THE FIRST TEST. [Chap. IV. 
 
 a pleasant place, shadowed by planes, where swal¬ 
 lows and nightingales are singing, and a quiet brook 
 is purling. Triephon, his friend, expresses a fear 
 lest he has heard some incantation, and is led by 
 the course of the dialogue, before his friend tells 
 his tale, to give some account of Christianity, being 
 himself a Christian. After speaking of the creation, 
 as described by Moses, he falls at once upon that doc¬ 
 trine of a particular providence which is so distaste¬ 
 ful to Plutarch, Velleius in Cicero, and Cascilius, and 
 generally to unbelievers. “ He is in heaven, ” he 
 says, “looking at just and unjust, and causing ac¬ 
 tions to be entered in books; and he will recom¬ 
 pense all on a day which He has appointed.” Critias 
 objects that he cannot make this consistent with the 
 received doctrine about the Fates, “ even though he 
 has perhaps been carried aloft with his master, and 
 initiated in unspeakable mysteries.” He also asks 
 if the deeds of the Scythians are written in heaven; 
 for if so, there must be many scribes there. After 
 some more words, in course of which, as in the ear¬ 
 lier part of the dialogue, the doctrine of the Holy 
 Trinity is introduced, Critias gives an account of 
 what befel him. He says, he fell in with a crowd 
 in the streets; and, while asking a friend the cause 
 of it, others joined them (Christians or monks), and 
 a conversation ensues, part of it corrupt or obscure, 
 on the subject, as Gesner supposes, of Julian’s op¬ 
 pression of the Christians, especially of the clergy. 
 One of these interlocutors is a wretched old man, 
 whose “phlegm is paler than death;” another has 
 “ a rotten cloke on, and no covering on head or 
 feet,” who says he has been told by some ill-clad 
 person from the mountains, with a shorn crown, 
 that in the theatre was a name hieroglyphically 
 written of one who would flood the highway with 
 gold. On his laughing at the story, his friend Crato, 
 whom he had joined, bids him be silent, using a 
 Pythagorean word; for he has “most excellent mat- 
 
Sec. I.] THE CHURCH OF THE FIRST CENTURIES. 239 
 
 ters to initiate him into, and that the prediction is 
 no dream but true,” and will be fulfilled in August, 
 using the Egyptian name of the month. He attempts 
 to leave them in disgust, but Crato pulls him back 
 u at the instigation of that old demon.” lie is in 
 consequence persuaded to go u to those conjurers,” 
 dg yorjrag avQpd) 7rovc, who, says Crato, would u ini¬ 
 tiate in all mysteries.” He finds, in a building 
 which is described in the language used by Homer 
 of the Palace of Menelaus, u not Helen, no, but men 
 pale and downcast,” who ask, whether there was 
 any bad news; u for they seemed,” he says, “ wish¬ 
 ing the worst; and rejoicing in misfortune, as the 
 Furies in the theatres.” On their asking him how 
 the city and the world went on, and his answering 
 that things went on smoothly and seemed likely to 
 do so still, they frown, and say that u the city is in 
 travail with a bad birth.” “ You, who dwell aloft,” 
 he answers, “ and see everything from on high, 
 doubtless have a keen perception in this matter; but 
 tell me how is the sky? will the Sun be eclipsed? 
 will Mars be in quadrature with Jupiter? &c.;” 
 and he goes on to jest upon their celibacy. On their 
 persisting in prophesying evil to the state, he says, 
 u This evil will fall on your own head, since you are 
 so hard upon your country; for not as high-flyers 
 have ye heard this, nor are ye adepts in the restless 
 astrological art, but if divinations and conjurings 
 have seduced you, double is your stupidity; for they 
 are the discoveries of old women and things to laugh 
 at.” The interview then draws to an end; but more 
 than enough has been quoted already to show the 
 author’s notion of Christianity. 
 
 Such was the language of paganism after Chris¬ 
 tianity had for fifty years been exposed to the pub¬ 
 lic gaze; after it had been before the world for fifty 
 more, St. Augustine had still to defend it against 
 the charge of being the cause of the calamities of 
 the Empire. And for the charge of magic, when 
 
240 
 
 APPLICATION OF THE FIRST TEST. [Chap. IV. 
 
 the Arian bishops were in formal disputations with 
 the Catholic, before Gungebald, Burgundian King 
 of France, at the end of the fifth century, we find 
 that they charged them with being u prcestigiatores” 
 and worshipping a number of gods; and when the 
 Catholics proposed that the king should repair to 
 the shrine of St. Justus, where both parties might- 
 ask him concerning their respective faiths, the 
 Arians cried out that “they would not seek en¬ 
 chantments like Saul, for Scripture was enough for 
 them, which was more powerful than all bewitch- 
 1 ments.” 1 This was said, not against strangers of 
 l whom they knew nothing, as Ethelbert might be 
 suspicious of St. Augustine and his brother mission¬ 
 aries, but against a body of men who lived among 
 them. 
 
 I do not think it can be doubted then that, had 
 Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny, Celsus, Porphyry, 
 and the other opponents of Christianity, lived in 
 the fourth century, their evidence concerning Chris¬ 
 tianity would be very much the same as it has come 
 down to us from the centuries before it. In either 
 case, a man of the world and a philosopher would 
 have been disgusted at the gloom and sadness of its 
 profession, its mysteriousness, its claim of miracles, 
 the want of good sense evident in its rule of life, 
 - and the unsettlement and discord it was introduc¬ 
 ing into the social and political world. 
 
 On theAvhole I conclude as follows:—if there is 
 a form of Christianity now in the world which is 
 
 - 7 1 | "m ITT- — M il—I H ll > l ■ l > ' l I f——~ 1 ~~"- ■■ 1 
 
 accused of gross superstition, of borrowing its rites 
 and customs from the heathen, and of ascribing to 
 forms and ceremonies an occult virtue;—a religion 
 which is considered to burden and enslave the mind 
 by its requisitions, to address itself to the weak- 
 minded and ignorant, to be supported by sophistry 
 and imposture, and to contradict reason and exalt 
 
 1 Sinn. Opp. ii. p. 225, ed. Ven. 
 
4 
 
 Sec. I.] THE CHURCH OF THE FIRST CENTURIES. 241 
 
 mere irrational faith ;—a religion which impresses 
 on the serious mind very distressing views of the 
 guilt and consequences of sin, sets upon the minute 
 acts of the day, one by one, their definite value for 
 praise or blame, and thus casts a grave shadow over 
 the future;—a religion which holds up to admira¬ 
 tion the surrender of wealth, and disables serious 
 persons from enjoying it if they would;—a religion, 
 the doctrines of which, be they good or bad, are to 
 the generality of men unknown; which is con¬ 
 sidered to bear on its very surface signs of folly 
 and falsehood so distinct that a glance suffices to 
 judge of it, and careful examination is preposterous; 
 which is felt to be so simply bad, that it may be 
 calumniated at hazard and at pleasure, it being 
 nothing but absurdity to stand upon the accurate 
 distribution of its guilt among its particular acts, 
 or painfully to determine how far this or that story 
 is literally true, what must be allowed in candour, 
 or what is improbable, or what cuts two ways, or 
 what is not proved, or what may be plausibly de¬ 
 fended;—a religion such, that men look at a con¬ 
 vert to it with a feeling which no other sect raises 
 except Judaism, Socialism, or Mormonism, with cu¬ 
 riosity, suspicion, fear, disgust, as the case may be, 
 as if something strange had befallen him, as if he 
 had had an initiation into a mystery, and had come 
 into communion with dreadful influences, as if he 
 were now one of a confederacy which claimed him, 
 absorbed him, stripped him of his personality, re¬ 
 duced him to a mere organ or instrument of a 
 whole;—a religion which men hate as proselytizing, 
 anti-social, revolutionary, as dividing families, sepa¬ 
 rating chief friends, corrupting the maxims of 
 government, making a mock at law, dissolving the 
 empire, the enemy of human nature, and a “conspi¬ 
 rator against its rights and privileges;” 1 —a religion 
 which they consider the champion and instrument 
 
 1 Proph. Office, p. 132. 
 
 n 
 
242^ APPLICATION OF THE FIRST TEST. [Chap. IV. 
 
 of darkness, and a pollution calling down upon the 
 land the anger of heaven;—a religion which they 
 associate with intrigue and conspiracy, which they 
 speak about in whispers, which they detect by an¬ 
 ticipation in whatever goes wrong, and to which 
 they impute whatever is unaccountable;—a religion, 
 the very name of which they cast out as evil, and 
 use simply as a bad epithet, and which from the im¬ 
 pulse of self-preservation they would persecute if 
 they could;—if there be such a religion now in the 
 world, it is not unlike Christianity as that same 
 world viewed it, when first it came forth from its 
 Divine Author. 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 THE CHURCH OF THE FOURTH CENTURY. 
 
 Till the Imperial Government had become Chris¬ 
 tian, and heresies were put down by the arm of 
 power, the face of Christendom presented much the 
 same appearance all along as on the first propaga¬ 
 tion of the religion. What Gnosticism, Montanism, 
 Judaism and, I may add, the Oriental mysteries 
 were to the nascent Church, as described in the 
 foregoing Section, such were the Manichean, Do- 
 natist, Apollinarian and contemporary sects af¬ 
 terwards. The Church in each place looked at 
 first sight as but one out of a number of religious 
 communions, with little of a very distinctive cha¬ 
 racter except to the careful inquirer. Still there 
 were external indications of essential differences 
 within; and, as we have already compared it in the 
 first centuries, we may now contrast it in the 
 fourth, with the rival religious bodies with which it 
 was encompassed. 
 
 How was the man to guide his course who 
 
Sec. II.] THE CHURCH OF THE FOURTH CENTURY. 243 
 
 wished to join himself to the doctrine and fellow¬ 
 ship of the Apostles in the times of St. Athanasius, 
 St. Basil, and St. Augustine? Few indeed were 
 the districts in the orbis terrarum , which did not 
 then, as in the Ante-nicene era, present a number 
 of creeds and communions for his choice. Gaul is 
 said at that era to have been perfectly free from 
 heresies; at least none are mentioned as belonging 
 to that country in the Theodosian Code. But in 
 Egypt, in the earlier part of the fourth century, 
 the Meletian schism numbered one-third as many 
 bishops as were contained in the whole Patriarch¬ 
 ate. In Africa, towards the end of it, while the 
 Catholic Bishops amounted in all to 466, the I)o- 
 natists almost rivalled them with 400. In Spain 
 Priscillianism was spread from the Pyrenees to the 
 Ocean. It seems to have been the religion of the 
 population in the province of Gallicia, while its 
 author Priscillian, whose death had been contrived 
 by the Ithacians, was honoured as a Martyr. The 
 detestable sect of the Manichees, hiding itself under 
 a variety of names in different localities, was not in 
 the least flourishing condition at Pome. Pome and 
 Italy were the seat of the Marcionites. The Ori- 
 genists, too, are mentioned by St. Jerome as 
 u bringing a cargo of blasphemies into the port of 
 Pome.” And Pome was the seat of a Novatian, a 
 Donatist, and a Luciferian bishop, in addition to the 
 legitimate occupant of the See of St. Peter. The 
 Luciferians, as was natural under the circumstances 
 of their schism, were sprinkled over Christendom 
 from Spain to Palestine, and from Treves to Lybia; 
 while in its parent country Sardinia, as a centre 
 of that extended range, Lucifer seems to have 
 received the honours of a Saint. When St. Gregory 
 Nazianzen began to preach at Constantinople, the 
 Arians were in possession of its hundred churches; 
 they had the populace in their favour, and, after 
 their legal dislodgement, edict after edict was 
 
 r 2 
 
244 APPLICATION OF THE FIKST TEST. [Chap. IY. 
 
 ineffectually issued against them. The Novatians 
 too abounded there; and the Sabbatians, who had se¬ 
 parated from them, had a church, where they pray¬ 
 ed at the tomb of their founder. Moreover, Apolli- 
 narians, Eunomians, and Semi-arians, mustered in 
 great numbers at Constantinople. The Semi-arian 
 bishops were as popular in the neighbouring pro¬ 
 vinces, as the Arian doctrine in the capital. They 
 had possession of the coast of the Hellespont and 
 Bithynia; and were found in Phrygia, Isauria, and 
 the neighbouring parts of Asia Minor. Phrygia 
 was the head-quarters of the Montanists, and was 
 overrun by the Messalians, who had advanced 
 thus far from Mesopotamia, spreading through 
 Syria, Lycaonia, Pamphylia, and Cappadocia in 
 their way. In the lesser Armenia, the same here¬ 
 tics had penetrated into the monasteries. Phrygia, 
 too, and Paphlagonia were the seat of the Novatians, 
 who besides were in force at Nicsea and Nicome- 
 dia, were found in Alexandria, Africa, and Spain, 
 and had a bishop even in Scythia. The whole 
 tract of country from the Hellespont to Cilicia had 
 nearly lapsed into Eunomianism, and the tract 
 from Cilicia as far as Phoenicia to Apollinarianism. 
 The disorders of the Church of Antioch are well 
 known: an Arian succession, two orthodox claim¬ 
 ants, and a bishop of the Apollinarians. Palestine 
 abounded in Origenists, if at that time they may 
 properly be called a sect; Palestine, Egypt, and 
 Arabia were overrun with Marcionites; Osrhoene 
 was occupied by the followers of Bardesanes and 
 Harmonius, whose hymns so nearly took the place 
 of national tunes that St. Ephrem found no better 
 way of resisting the heresy than setting them to 
 fresh words. Theodoret in Comagene speaks in the 
 next century of reclaiming eight villages of Mar¬ 
 cionites, one of Eunomians, and one of Arians. 
 
 These sects were of very various character. 
 Learning, eloquence, and talent were the character- 
 
Sec. II.] THE CHURCH OF THE FOURTH CENTURY. 245 
 
 istics of the Apollin arian s, Manichees, and Pelagians; 
 Tichonius the Donatist was distinguished in bibli¬ 
 cal interpretation; the Semi-arian and Apollinarian 
 leaders were men of grave and correct behaviour; 
 the Yovatians had sided with the Orthodox during 
 the Arian persecution; the Montanists and Messa- 
 lians addressed themselves to an almost heathen 
 population; the atrocious fanaticism of the Priscil- 
 lianists, the fury of the Arian women of Alexandria 
 and Constantinople, and the savage cruelty of the 
 Circumcellions can hardly be exaggerated. They 
 had their orders of clergy, bishops, priests and dea¬ 
 cons; their readers and ministers; their celebrants 
 and altars; their hymns and litanies. They preached 
 to the crowds in public, and their meeting-houses 
 bore the semblance of churches. They had their 
 sacristies and cemeteries; their farms; their pro¬ 
 fessors and doctors; their schools. Miracles were 
 ascribed to the Arian Theophilus, to the Luciferian 
 Gregory of Elvira, to a Macedonian in Cyzicus, and 
 to the Donatists in Africa. 
 
 How was an individual inquirer to find, or a pri¬ 
 vate Christian to keep the Truth, amid so many 
 rival teachers? The misfortunes or perils of holy 
 men and saints show us the difficulty; St. Augustine 
 was nine years a Manichee; St. Basil for a time 
 was in admiration of the Semi-arians; St. Sulpicius 
 / gave a momentary countenance to the Pelagians; 
 St. Paula listened, and Melania assented, to the 
 Origenists. Yet the rule was simple, which would 
 direct every one right; and in that age, at least, no 
 one could be wrong for any long time without his 
 own fault. The Church is everywhere, but it is 
 one; sects are everywhere, but they are many, in¬ 
 dependent, and discordant. Catholicity is the attri¬ 
 bute of the Church, independency of sectaries. It 
 is true that some sects might seem almost Catholic 
 in their diffusion; Novatians or Marcionites were 
 in all quarters of the empire; yet it is hardly more 
 
246 APPLICATION OF THE FIRST TEST. [Chap. IV. 
 
 than the name, or the general doctrine or philosophy, 
 that was universal: the different portions which 
 professed it seem to have been bound together by 
 no strict or definite tie. The Church might be 
 evanescent or lost for a while in particular coun¬ 
 tries, or it might be levelled and buried among 
 sects, when the eye was confined to one spot, or it 
 might be confronted by the one and same heresy 
 in various places; but, on looking round the orbis 
 terrarum , there was no mistaking that body which, 
 and which alone, had possession of it. The Church 
 is a kingdom ; a heresy is a family rather than a 
 kingdom: and as a family continually divides and 
 sends out branches, founding new houses, and propa¬ 
 gating itself in colonies, each of them as indepe nde nt 
 as its original head, so was it with heresy. Simon 
 Magus, the first heretic, had been Patriarch of 
 Menandrians, Basilidians, Yalentinians, and the 
 whole family of Gnostics; Tatian of Encratites, 
 Severians, Aquarians, Apotactites, and Saccophori. 
 The Montanists had been propagated into Tasco- 
 drugites, Pepuzians, Artotyrites, and Quartodeci- 
 mans. Eutyches, in a later time, gave birth to the 
 Dioscorians, Gaianites, Theodosians, Agnoetae, Theo- 
 paschites, Acephali, Semidalitse, Nagranitae, Jaco¬ 
 bites, and others. This is the uniform history of 
 heresy. The patronage of the civil power might 
 for a time counteract the law of its nature, but it 
 showed it as soon as the obstacle was removed. 
 Scarcely was Arianism deprived of the churches of 
 Constantinople, and left to itself, than it split in that 
 very city into the Dorotheans, the Psathyrians, and 
 the Curtians; and the Eunomians into the Theo- 
 phronians and Eutychians. One fourth part of the 
 Donatists speedily became Maximinianists; and be¬ 
 sides these were the Bogatians, the Primianists, the 
 Urbanists, and the Claudianists. If such was the 
 fecundity of the heretical principle in one place, it is 
 not to be supposed that Novatians or Marcionites 
 
Sec. II.] THE CHUBCH OF THE FOURTH CENTURY. 247 
 
 in Africa or the East would feel themselves bound 
 to think or to act with their fellow-sectaries of 
 Rome or Constantinople; and the great varieties 
 or inconsistencies of statement, which have come 
 down to us concerning the tenets of heresies, may 
 thus be explained. This had been the case with 
 the pagan rites, whether indigenous or itinerant, 
 to which heresy succeeded. The established priest¬ 
 hoods were local properties, as independent theo¬ 
 logically as they were geographically of each other; 
 the fanatical companies which spread over the 
 Empire dissolved and formed again as the circum¬ 
 stances of the moment occasioned. So was it with 
 h eresy : it was, by its very nature, its own master, | 
 free to change, self-sufficient; and, having thrown ! 
 off the yoke of the Church, it was little likely to sub- / 
 mit to any usurped and spurious authority. Mon- / 
 tanism and Manicheeism might perhaps in some sort 7 
 furnish an exception to this remark. 
 
 In one point alone the heresies seem universally 
 to have agreed,—in hatred to the Church. This 
 might at that time be considered one of her surest 
 and most obvious signs. She was that body of which 
 all sects, however divided among themselves, spoke 
 ill; according to the prophecy, “ If they have called 
 the Master of the house Beelzebub, how much more 
 them of His household.” They disliked and they 
 feared her; they did their utmost to overcome their [ f 
 mutual differences, in order to unite against her. I f. 
 Their utmost indeed was little, for independency 
 was the law of their being; they could not exert 
 themselves without fresh quarrels, both in the bosom 
 of each, and one with another. “ Bellum liceretico - 
 rum pax est ecclesice ,” had become a proverb; but 
 they felt the great desirableness of union against 
 the only body which was the natural antagonist of 
 all, and various are the instances which occur in 
 ecclesiastical history of attempted coalitions. The 
 Meletians of Africa united with the Arians against 
 
248 
 
 APPLICATION OF THE FIRST TEST. [Chap IV. 
 
 St. Athanasius; the Semi-arians of the Council of 
 Sardica correspond with the Donatists of Africa; 
 Yestorius received and protected the Pelagians; 
 Aspar, the Arian minister of Leo the Emperor, 
 favoured the Monophysites of Egypt; the Jacobites 
 of Egypt sided with the Moslem, who are charged 
 with holding a Nestorian doctrine. It had been so 
 from the beginning: “ They huddle up a peace with 
 all everywhere/’ says Tertullian, “ for it maketh no 
 matter to them, although they hold different doc¬ 
 trines, so long as they conspire together in their 
 siege against the one thing, Truth.” 1 And though 
 active co-operation was impracticable, at least hard 
 words cost nothing, and could express that com¬ 
 mon hatred at all seasons. Accordingly, by Mon- 
 tanists, Catholics were called “the carnal;” by 
 Novatians, “the apostates;” by Valentinians, “ the 
 worldly;” by Manichees, “ the simple;” by Aerians, 
 “the ephemeral;” 2 by Apollinarians, “the man-wor¬ 
 shippers;” by Origenists, “the flesh-lovers,” and “the 
 slimy;” by the Nestorians, “Egyptians;” by Mo¬ 
 nophy sites, “ the Chalcedonians:” by Donatists, 
 “ the traitors,” and “ the sinners,” and “ servants 
 of Antichrist;” and St. Peter’s chair, “the seat 
 of pestilence;” and by the Luciferians, the Church 
 was called “ a brothel,” “ the devil’s harlot,” and 
 “ synagogue of Satanso that it was almost a 
 note of the Church, for the use of the most busy 
 and the most ignorant, that she was on one side 
 and all other bodies on the other. 
 
 Yet, strange as it may appear, there was one title 
 of the Church of a very different character from those 
 which have been enumerated, a title of honour, in 
 which all heretics agreed, which furnished a still 
 more simple direction for the busy and the ignorant 
 where she lay, and was used by the Fathers for that 
 purpose. It was one which the sects could not 
 claim for themselves, and which they could not help 
 giving to its rightful owner, though it seemed to 
 1 De Praescr. liter. 41, Oxf. tr. 2 xporircu. 
 
Sec. II.] THE CHURCH OF THE FOURTH CENTURY. 249 
 
 surrender the whole controversy between the par¬ 
 ties. Balaam could not keep from blessing the an¬ 
 cient people of God; and the whole world, heresies 
 inclusive, were irresistibly constrained to call God’s 
 second election by its prophetical title of the u Ca¬ 
 tholic” Church. St. Paul tells us that the heretic 
 is “condemned by himself;” and no clearer witness 
 against the sects of the earlier centuries was needed 
 by the Church, than their own testimony to the fact 
 of her actual position and their own. Sec ts, s ay 
 the Fathers, are called after the name of their found¬ 
 ers, or from their locality, or from their doctrine. 
 So was it from the beginning: “ I am of Paul, and 
 I of Apollos, and I of Cephas;” but it was pro- 
 mised to the Church that she should have no master 
 upon earth, and that she should “gather together in 
 one the children of God that were scattered abroad.” 
 H er e very-day name, which was understood in the 
 market-place and used in the palace, which the first 
 comer knew, and which state-edicts recognised, was 
 t he “Ca tholic” Church. This was that very de¬ 
 scription of Christianity in those times which we are 
 all along engaged in determining. And it had been 
 recognised as such from the first; the name or the 
 fact is put forth by St. Ignatius, St. Justin, St. Cle¬ 
 ment ; the Church of Smyrna, St. Irenseus, Rhodon 
 or another, Tertullian, Origen, St. Cyprian, St. Cor¬ 
 nelius; the Martyrs, Pionius, Sabina, and Ascle- 
 piades; Lactantius, Eusebius, Adimantius, St. Atha¬ 
 nasius, St. Pacian, St. Optatus, St. Epiphanius, St. 
 Cyril, St. Basil, St. Ambrose, St. Chrysostom, St. 
 Jerome, St. Augustine, andFacundus. St. Clement 
 uses it as an argument against the Gnostics, St. 
 Augustine against the Donatists and Manichees, St. 
 Jerome against the Luciferians, and St. Pacian 
 against the Novatians. 
 
 It was an argument for educated and simple. 
 When St. Ambrose would convert the cultivated 
 Augustine, he bade him study the book of Isaiah, 
 
250 APPLICATION OF THE FIRST TEST. [Chap. IV. 
 
 who is the prophet, as of the Messiah, so of the 
 calling of the Gentiles and of the Imperial power 
 of the Church. And when St. Cyril would give a 
 rule to his crowd of Catechumens, “ If ever thou 
 art sojourning in any city,” he says, “inquire not 
 simply where the Lord’s house is, (for the sects of 
 the profane also make an attempt to call their own 
 dens houses of the Lord,) nor merely where the 
 Church is, hut where is the Catholic Church. For 
 this is the peculiar name of this Holy Body, the 
 Mother of us all, which is the Spouse of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ.” 1 “In the Catholic Church,” says 
 St. Augustine to the Manichees, “ not to speak of 
 that most pure wisdom, to the knowledge of which 
 few spiritual men attain in this life so as to know 
 it even in its least measure,—as men, indeed, yet 
 without any doubt,—(for the multitude of Chris¬ 
 tians are safest, not in understanding with quick¬ 
 ness, but in believing with simplicity,) not to 
 speak of this wisdom, which ye do not believe to be 
 in the Catholic Church, there are many other con¬ 
 siderations which most sufficiently hold me in her 
 bosom. I am held by the consent of people and 
 nations; by that authority which began in miracles, 
 was nourished in hope, was increased by charity, 
 and made steadfast by age; by that succession of 
 priests from the chair of the Apostle Peter, to whose 
 feeding the Lord after His resurrection commended 
 
 His sheep, even to the present episcopate; lastly, by 
 the very title of Catholic, which, not without cause, 
 
 1/ f / - " ' / 
 
 hath this Church alone, amid so many heresies, ob¬ 
 tained in such sort, that, whereas all heretics wish 
 to be called Catholics, nevertheless to any stranger, 
 w ho asked how to find the *Catholic’ Church, no 
 one would dare to point to his own basilica or 
 house. These dearest bonds, then, of the Christian 
 Name, so many and such, rightly hold a man in be¬ 
 lief in the Catholic Church, even though, by reason 
 
 Cat. xviij. 26. 
 
Sec. II.] THE CHURCH OE THE EOURTH CENTURY. 251 
 
 of the slowness of our understanding or our deserts, 
 truth hath not yet shown herself in her clearest 
 tokens. But among you, who have none of these 
 reasons to invite and detain me, I hear but the 
 sound of the promise of the truth; which truth, 
 verily, if it be so manifestly displayed that there 
 can be no mistake about it, is to be preferred to all 
 those things by which I am held in the Catholic 
 Church; but if it is promised alone, and not pro¬ 
 duced, no one shall move me from that faith 
 which by so many and great ties binds my mind to 
 the Christian religion.’ 71 When Adimantius asked 
 his Marcionite opponent, how he was a Christian 
 who did not even bear that name, but was called 
 from Marcion, he retorts, “And you are called 
 from the Catholic Church, therefore ye are not 
 Christians either;” Adimantius answers, “Did we 
 profess man’s name, you would have spoken to the 
 point; but if we are called from being all over the 
 world, what is there bad in this?” 2 
 
 “Whereas there is one God and one Lord,” says St. 
 Clement, “therefore also that which is at the summit 
 of veneration is praised as being sole, being after the 
 pattern of the One Principle. In the nature then 
 of the One, the Church, which is one, hath its por¬ 
 tion, which they would forcibly cut up into many 
 heresies. In substance then, and in idea, and in prin¬ 
 ciple, and in pre-eminence, we call the ancient Catho¬ 
 lic Church sole; in order to the unity of one faith, 
 the faith according to her own covenants, or rather 
 that one covenant in different times, which, by the 
 will of one God and through one Lord, is gathering 
 together those who are already ordained, whom God 
 hath predestined, having known that they would be 
 
 just from the foundation of the world.But 
 
 of heresies, some are called from a name, as Va¬ 
 lentine’s heresy, Marcion’s, and Basilides’ (though 
 they profess to bring the opinion of Matthias, for all 
 1 Contr. Ep. Man. 5. 2 Origen, Opp. t. i. p. 809. 
 
252 
 
 APPLICATION OF THE FIRST TEST. [Ciiap. IV. 
 
 the Apostles had, as one teaching, so one tradition) ; 
 and others from place, as the Peratici; and others 
 from nation, as that of the Phrygians; and others 
 from their actions, as that of their Encratites; and 
 others from their peculiar doctrines, as the Docetrn 
 and Hematites; and others from their hypotheses, 
 and what they have honoured, as Cainists and the 
 Ophites; and others from their wicked purposes 
 and enormities, as those Simonians who are called 
 Eutychites .” 1 “There are, and there have been,” 
 says St. Justin, “many who have taught atheistic 
 and blasphemous words and deeds, coming in the 
 name of Jesus; and they are called by us from the 
 appellation of the man whence each doctrine and 
 opinion began. Some are called Marcians, others 
 Yalentinians, others Basilidians, others Saturni- 
 liansJ ’ 2 “When men are called Phrygians, or No- 
 vatians, or Yalentinians, or Marcionites, or Anthro- 
 pians,” says Lactantius, “or by any other name, 
 they cease to be Christians; for they have lost 
 Christ’s Name, and clothe themselves in human and 
 foreign titles. It is the Catholic Church alone 
 L which retains the true worship .” 3 “We never 
 heard of Petrines, or Paulines, or Bartholomeans, 
 or Thaddeans,” says St. Epiphanius; “but from the 
 first there was one preaching of all the Apostles, 
 not preaching themselves, but Christ Jesus the 
 Lord. Wherefore also they gave one name to the 
 Church, not their own, but that of their Lord Jesus 
 Christ, since they began to be called Christians 
 first at Antioch; which is the Sole Catholic Church, 
 having nought else but Christ’s, being a Church of 
 Christians; not of Christs, but of Christians, He 
 being One, they from that One being called Chris¬ 
 tians. None, but this Church and her preachers, 
 are of this character, as they show by their own epi¬ 
 thets, Manicheans, and Simonians, and Yalentinians, 
 i Strom, vii. 17. 2 c. Tryph. 35. 3 Instit. 4 ? 30. 
 
Sec. II.] THE CHURCH OF THE FOURTH CENTURY. 253 
 
 and Ebionites .” 1 If_you ever hear those who are 
 called Christians,” says St. Jerome, u named, not 
 from the Lord Jesus Christ, but from some other, 
 say Marcionites, Valentinians, Mountaineers, Cam- 
 pest rians, know that it is not Christ’s Church, but 
 the Synagogue of Antichrist .” 2 
 
 St. Pacian’s letters to the Novatian Bishop 
 Sympronian require a more extended notice. The 
 latter had required the Catholic faith to be proved 
 to him, without distinctly stating from what portion 
 of it he dissented; and he boasted that he had 
 never found any one to convince him of its truth. 
 St. Pacian observes that there is one point which 
 Sympronian cannot dispute, and which settles the 
 question, the very name Catholic. He then supposes 
 Sympronian to object that, u under the Apostles no 
 one was called Catholic.” He answers, “ Be it thus ; 3 
 it shall have been so; allow even that. When, after 
 the Apostles, heresies had burst forth, and were 
 striving under various names to tear piecemeal and 
 divide 4 the Dove ’ and 4 the Queen ’ of God, did 
 not the Apostolic people require a name of their 
 own, whereby to mark the unity of the people that 
 was uncorrupted, lest the error of some should rend 
 limb by limb c the undefiled virgin’ of God? Was 
 it not seemly that the chief head should be distin¬ 
 guished by its own peculiar appellation? Suppose 
 this very day I entered a populous city. When I 
 had found Marcionites, Apollinarians, Cataphry- 
 gians, Novatians, and others of the kind, who call 
 themselves Christians, by what name should I 
 recognise the congregation of my own people, un¬ 
 less it were named Catholic ?.Whence was it 
 
 delivered to me? Certainly that which has stood 
 through so many ages was not borrowed from man. 
 This name 1 Catholic’ sounds not of Marcion, nor 
 
 1 Haer> 42, p. 366. 2 In Lucif. fin. 
 
 3 The Oxford translation is used. 
 
254 APPLICATION OF THE FIRST TEST. [Chap. IV. 
 
 of Apelles, nor of Montanus, nor does it take here¬ 
 tics for its authors.” 
 
 In his second letter, he continues, “ Certainly that 
 was no accessory name which endured through so 
 many ages. And, indeed, I am glad for thee, that, 
 although thou mayest have preferred others, that 
 thou agreest that the name attaches to jjs. What, 
 should you deny? nature would cry out. But, and 
 if you still have doubts, let us hold our peace. We 
 will both be that which we shall be named.” After 
 alluding to Sympronian’s remark that, though 
 Cyprian was holy, u his people bear the name of 
 Apostaticum, Capitolinum, or Synedrium,” which 
 were some of the Novatian titles of the Church, 
 St. Pacian replies, “ Ask a century, brother, and 
 all its years in succession, whether this name has 
 adhered to us; whether the people of Cyprian have 
 been called other than Catholic? No one of these 
 names have I ever heard.” It followed that such 
 appellations were u taunts, not names,” and there¬ 
 fore unmannerly. On the other hand, it seems that 
 S ym pronian did not like to be called a Novatian, 
 though he could not call himself a Catholic. “Tell 
 me yourselves,” says St. Pacian, “ what ye are 
 called. Do ye deny that the Novatians are called 
 from Novatian? Impose on them whatever name 
 ye like; that will ever adhere to them. Search, if 
 you please, whole annals, and trust so many ages. 
 You will answer, 4 Christian.’ But if I inquire the 
 genus of the sect, you will not deny that it is Nova¬ 
 tian. . . . Confess it without deceit; there is no 
 wickedness in the name. Why, when so often in¬ 
 quired for, do you hide yourself? Why ashamed 
 of the origin of your name? When you first wrote, 
 I thought you a Cataphrygian. . . . Dost thou 
 grudge me my name, and yet shun thine own? 
 Think what there is of shame in a cause which 
 shrinks from its own name.” 
 
 In a third letter: “‘The Church is the Body of 
 
Sec. II.] THE CHURCH OF THE FOURTH CENTURY. 255 
 
 Christ.’ Truly, the body, not a member; the body 
 composed of many parts and members knit in one, 
 as saith the Apostle, 4 For the Body is not one 
 member, but many.’ Therefore, the Church is the 
 full body, compacted and diffused now throughout 
 the whole world; like a city, I mean, all whose parts 
 are united, not as ye are, 0 Novatians, some small 
 and insolent portion, and a mere swelling that has 
 gathered and separated from the rest of the body. 
 
 . . . Great is the progeny of the Virgin, and with¬ 
 out number her offspring, wherewith the whole 
 world is filled, wherewith the populous swarms ever 
 throng the circumfluous hive.” And he founds this 
 characteristic of the Church upon the prophecies: 
 44 At length, brother Sympronian, be not ashamed 
 to be with the many; at length consent to despise 
 these festering spots of the Novatians, and these 
 parings of yours; at length to look upon the flocks 
 of the Catholics, and the people of the Church ex¬ 
 tending so far and wide. . . . Hear what David 
 saith, 4 1 will sing unto Thy name in the great congre¬ 
 gation ;’ and, again, 4 1 will praise Thee among much 
 people;’ and 4 the Lord, even the most mighty God, 
 hath spoken, and called the world from the rising 
 up of the sun unto the going down thereof.’ What! 
 shall the seed of Abraham, which is as the stars and 
 the sand on the seashore for number, be contented 
 with your poverty ? . . . Recognise now, brother, the 
 Church of God extending her tabernacles and fixing 
 the stakes of her curtains on the right and on the 
 left; understand that 4 the Lord’s name is praised 
 from the rising up of the sun unto the going down 
 thereof.’ ” 
 
 In citing these passages, I am not proving what 
 was the doctrine of the Fathers concerning the Church 
 in those early times, or what were the promises made 
 to it in Scripture; but simply ascertaining what, in 
 matter of fact, was its then condition relatively to 
 the various Christian bodies among which it was 
 
250 APPLICATION OF THE EHRST TEST. [Ciiap. IV. 
 
 found. That the Fathers were able to put forward 
 a certain doctrine, that they were able to appeal to 
 the prophecies, proves that matter of fact; for un¬ 
 less the Church, and the Church alone, had been one 
 body everywhere, they could not have argued on 
 the supposition that it was so. And so as to the 
 word “Catholic;” it is enough that the Church was 
 so called ; that title was a confirmatory proof and 
 symbol of what is otherwise so plain, that she, as 
 St. Pacian explains the word, was everywhere one, 
 while the sects of the day were nowhere one, but 
 everywhere divided. They might, indeed, be every¬ 
 where, but they were in no two places the same; 
 every spot had its own independent communion, or 
 at least to this result they were inevitably and con¬ 
 tinually tending. 
 
 St. Pacian writes in Spain: the same contrast 
 betiveen the Church and sectarianism is presented 
 to us in Africa in the instance of the Donatists; 
 and St. Optatus is a witness both to the fact, and to 
 its notoriety, and to the deep impression which it 
 made on all parties. Whether or not the Donatists 
 identified themselves with the true Church, and cut 
 off the rest of Christendom from it, is not the ques¬ 
 tion here, nor alters the fact which I wish distinctly 
 brought out and recognised, that in those ancient 
 times the Church was that Body which was spread 
 over the orbis terrarum , and sects were those bodies 
 which were local or transitory. 
 
 “ What is that one Church,” says St. Optatus, 
 “ which Christ calls 6 Dove’ and ‘ Spouse?’ ... It 
 cannot be in the multitude of heretics and schis¬ 
 matics. Does it follow that it is in one place? Yet 
 thou, brother Parmenian, hast said that it is with 
 you alone; unless, perhaps, you aim at claiming for 
 yourselves a special sanctity from your pride, so 
 that where you will, there the Church may be, and 
 may not be, where you will not. Must it then be 
 in a small portion of Africa, in the corner of a 
 
Sec. II.] THE CHURCH OF THE FOURTH CENTURY. 257 
 
 small realm, among you, but not among us in 
 another part of Africa ? And not in Spain, in Gaul, 
 in Italy, where you are not ? And, if you will have 
 it only among you, not in the three Pannonian pro¬ 
 vinces, in Dacia, Maesia, Thrace, Achaia, Macedonia, 
 and in all Greece, where you are not ? And that you 
 may keep it among yourselves, not in Pontus, Ga¬ 
 latia, Cappadocia, Pamphylia, Phrygia, Cilicia, in 
 the three Syrias, in the two Armenias, in all Egypt, 
 and in Mesopotamia, where you are not ? Not among 
 such innumerable islands and the other provinces, 
 scarcely numerable, where you are not ? What 
 will become then of the meaning of the word Ca¬ 
 tholic, which is given to the Church, as being accord¬ 
 ing to reason 1 and diffused everywhere ? For if 
 thus at your pleasure you narrow the Church, if 
 you withdraw from her all the nations, where will 
 be the earnings of the Son of God? where will be 
 that which the Father hath so amply accorded to 
 Him, saying in the second Psalm, 6 1 will give Thee 
 the heathen for Thine inheritance and the utter¬ 
 most parts of the earth for Thy possession/ &c. ? . , 
 The whole earth is given Him with the nations; its 
 whole circuit ( orbis ) is Christ’s one possession.” 2 
 
 An African writer contemporary with St. Augus¬ 
 tine, if not St. Augustine himself, enumerates the 
 small portions of the Donatist Sect, in and out of 
 Africa, and asks if they can be imagined to be the 
 fulfilment of the Scripture promise to the Church. 
 u If the holy Scriptures have assigned the Church 
 to Africa alone, or to the scanty Cutzupitans or 
 Mountaineers of Rome, or to the house or patri¬ 
 mony of one Spanish woman, however the argu¬ 
 ment may stand from other writings, let none but 
 the Donatists have possession of the Church. If 
 holy Scripture determines it to the few Moors of 
 
 1 Rationabilis; apparently an allusion to the civil officer called 
 Catholic,us or Rationalis, receiver-general. 
 
 2 Ad Parm. ii. init. 
 
 8 
 
258 APPLICATION OF THE FIRST TEST. [CliAP. IV. 
 
 the Caesarean province, we must go over to the Bo- 
 gatists; if to the few Tripolitans or Byzacenes and 
 Provincials, the Maximianists have attained to it; 
 if in the Orientals only, it is to he sought for among 
 Arians, Eunomians, Macedonians, and others that 
 may be there; for who can enumerate every heresy 
 of every nation? But if Christ’s Church, by the 
 divine and most certain testimonies of Canonical 
 Scriptures, is assigned to all nations, whatever may 
 be adduced, and from whatever quarter cited, by 
 those who say, ‘ Lo, here is Christ and lo there-,’ let 
 us rather hear, if we be His sheep, the voice of our 
 Shepherd saying unto us, ‘ Do not believe.’ For 
 they are not each found in the many nations where 
 she is; but she, who is everywhere, is found where 
 they are.” 1 
 
 Lastly, let us hear St. Augustine himself in the 
 same controversy: u They do not communicate 
 with us, as you say,” he observes to Cresconius, 
 u Novations, Arians, Patripassians, Valentinians, 
 Patricians, Apellites, Marcionites, Ophites, and 
 the rest of those sacrilegious names, as you call 
 them, of nefarious pests rather than sects. Yet, 
 wheresoever they are, there is the Catholic Church; 
 as in Africa it is where you are. On the other 
 hand, neither you, nor any one of those heresies 
 whatever, is to be found wherever is the Catholic 
 Church. Whence it appears, which is that tree 
 whose boughs extend over all the earth by the 
 richness of its fruitfulness, and which be those 
 broken branches which have not the life of the 
 root, but lie each in its own place, drying up.” 2 
 
 It may be possibly suggested that this univer¬ 
 sality which the Fathers ascribe to the Catholic 
 Church lay in its Apostolical descent, or again in 
 its Episcopacy; and that it was one, not as being 
 one kingdom or civitas u at unity with itself,” with 
 
 1 De Unit. Eccles. 6. 
 
 2 Contr. Cresc.-iv. 75; also, iii. 77. 
 
Sec. II.] THE CHURCH OF THE FOURTH CENTURY. 259 
 
 one and the same intelligence in every part, one 
 sympathy, one ruling principle, one organization, 
 one communion, but because, though consisting of 
 a number of independent communities, at variance 
 (if so be) with each other even to a breach of com¬ 
 munion, nevertheless all these were possessed of a 
 legitimate succession of clergy, or all governed by 
 Bishops, Priests, and Deacons. But who will in 
 seriousness maintain that relationship, or that re¬ 
 semblance, makes two bodies one? England and 
 Prussia are both monarchies; are they therefore 
 one kingdom ? England and the United States 
 are from one stock; can they therefore be called 
 one state? England and Ireland are peopled 
 by different races; yet are they not one kingdom 
 still ? If unity lies in the Apost olical succession, "n 
 an act of schism is from the nature of the case 
 
 impossible; for as no one can reverse his parent¬ 
 age, so no Church can undo the fact that its 
 clergy have come by lineal descent from the 
 Apostles. Either there is no such sin as schism , 
 o r unity do es not lie in the Episcopal form or in 
 
 )1SC01 
 
 ordination. And this is felt by the con¬ 
 troversialists alluded to; who in consequence are 
 obliged to invent a sin, and to consider not divi¬ 
 sion of Church from Church, but the interference 
 of Church with Church to be the sin of schism, as 
 if local dioceses and bishops with restraint were 
 more than ecclesiastical arrangements, and by-laws 
 of the Church, however sacred, while schism is a 
 sin against her essence. Thus they strain out a 
 gnat, and swallow a camel. Division is the schism, 
 if schism there be, not interference. If interfer¬ 
 ence is a sin, division which is the cause of it is 
 a greater; but where division is a duty, there can 
 be no sin in interference. 
 
 Fa r d ifferent from such a theory is the picture 
 which the ancient Church presents to us; true, it 
 was governed by Bishops, and those Bishops came 
 
 s 2 
 
260 APPLICATION OF THE FIRST TEST. [Chap. IV. 
 
 from the Apostles, but it was a kingdom besides; 
 and as a kingdom admits of the possibility of rebels, 
 so does such a Church admit of sectaries and schis¬ 
 matics, but not of independent portions . Let us 
 hear Gibbon’s description of it, an external witness 
 suited to our present purpose, whose facts we may 
 accept, while we reject his imputations: “The Ca¬ 
 tholic Church,” 1 he says, “was administered by the 
 spiritual and legal jurisdiction of 1800 bishops; of 
 whom one thousand were seated in the Greek, and 
 eight hundred in the Latin provinces of the Empire. 
 
 . . . Episcopal Churches were closely planted along 
 the banks of the Nile, on the seacoast of Africa, 
 in the pro-consular Asia, and through the Southern 
 provinces of Italy. The bishops of Gaul and Spain, 
 of Thrace and Pontus, reigned over an ample terri¬ 
 tory, and delegated their rural suffragans to execute 
 the subordinate duties of the pastoral office. A 
 Christian diocese might be spread over a province, 
 or reduced to a village; but all the bishops pos¬ 
 sessed an equal and indelible character; they all 
 derived the same powers and privileges from the 
 Apostles, from the people, and from the laws . . . 
 
 “ The whole body of the Catholic clergy, more nu¬ 
 merous perhaps than the legions, was exempted by 
 the Emperors from all service, private or public, all 
 municipal offices, and all personal taxes and contri¬ 
 butions, which pressed on their fellow-citizens with 
 intolerable weight; and the duties of their holy 
 profession were accepted as a full discharge of their 
 obligations, to the republic. Each bishop acquired 
 an absolute and indefeasible right to the perpetual 
 obedience of the clerk whom he ordained; the 
 clergy of each Episcopal Church, with its depend¬ 
 ent parishes, formed a regular and permanent 
 society, and the Cathedrals of Constantinople and 
 Carthage maintained their peculiar establishment 
 of five hundred ecclesiastical ministers. Their 
 ranks and numbers were insensibly multiplied by 
 
 1 Hist. ch. xx. 
 
Sec. II.] THE CHURCH OE THE FOURTH CENTURY. 261 
 
 the superstition of the times, which introduced into 
 the Church the splendid ceremonies of a Jewish or 
 Pagan temple; and a long train of priests, deacons, 
 sub-deacons, acolythes, exorcists, readers, singers, 
 and doorkeepers, contributed, in their respective 
 stations, to swell the pomp and harmony of reli¬ 
 gious worship. The clerical name and privilege 
 were extended to many pious fraternities, who 
 devoutly supported the ecclesiastical throne. Six 
 hundred parabolani , or adventurers, visited the sick 
 at Alexandria; eleven hundred copiatce , or grave¬ 
 diggers, buried the dead at Constantinople; and the 
 swarms of monks, who arose from the Nile, over¬ 
 spread and darkened the face of the Christian 
 world. . . 
 
 u Under a despotic government, the bishops alone 
 enjoyed and asserted the inestimable privilege of 
 being tried only by their peers; and, even in a 
 capital accusation, a synod of their brethren were 
 the sole judges of their guilt or innocence . . . The 
 domestic jurisdiction of the bishops was at once a 
 privilege and restraint of the ecclesiastical order, 
 whose civil causes were decently withdrawn from 
 the cognizance of a secular judge . . . The arbitra¬ 
 tion of the bishops was ratified by a positive law; 
 and the judges were instructed to execute, without 
 appeal or delay, the Episcopal decrees, whose vali¬ 
 dity had hitherto depended on the consent of the 
 parties. The conversion of the magistrates them¬ 
 selves, and of the whole empire, might gradually 
 remove the fears and scruples of the Christians; 
 but they still resorted to the tribunals of the 
 bishops, whose abilities and integrity they esteem¬ 
 ed; and the venerable Austin enjoyed the satisfac¬ 
 tion of complaining that his spiritual functions were 
 perpetually interrupted by the invidious labour of 
 deciding the claim or the possession of silver and 
 gold, of lands and cattle. The ancient privilege of 
 sanctuary Avas transferred to the Christian temples, 
 
262 APPLICATION OF THE FIRST TEST. [Chap. IV. 
 
 . . . and tlie lives or fortunes of the most eminent 
 subjects might be protected by the mediation of the 
 Bishop. 
 
 u The Bishop was the perpetual censor of the 
 morals of his people. The discipline of penance 
 was digested into a system of canonical jurispru¬ 
 dence, which accurately defined the duty of private 
 or public confession, the rules of evidence, the de¬ 
 grees of guilt, and the measure of punishment.... 
 St. Athanasius excommunicated one of the minis¬ 
 ters of Egypt; and the interdict which he pro¬ 
 nounced, of fire and water, was solemnly trans¬ 
 mitted to the Churches of Cappadocia . . . [Synesius 
 of Ptolemais] vanquished the monster of Libya, the 
 president Andronicus, who abused the authority of 
 a venal office, invented new modes of rapine and 
 torture, and aggravated the guilt of oppression by 
 that of sacrilege. After a fruitless attempt to re¬ 
 claim the haughty magistrate by mild and religious 
 admonition, Synesius proceeds to inflict the last 
 sentence of ecclesiastical justice, which devotes 
 Andronicus, with his associates and their families, 
 to the abhorrence of earth and heaven .... The 
 j Church of Ptolemais, obscure and contemptible as 
 she may appear, addresses this declaration to all 
 her sister Churches of the world; and the profane 
 who reject her decrees will be involved in the guilt 
 and punishment of Andronicus and his impious 
 followers .... 
 
 u Every popular government has experienced the 
 effects of rude or artificial eloquence .... The 
 Bishop or some distinguished presbyter, to whom 
 he cautiously delegated the powers of preaching, 
 harangued, without the danger of interruption or 
 reply, a submissive multitude, whose minds had 
 been prepared or subdued by the awful ceremonies 
 of religion. Such was the strict subordination of 
 the Catholic Church, that the same concerted sounds 
 might issue at once from a hundred pulpits of Italy 
 
Sec. II.] THE CHURCH OF THE FOURTH CENTURY. 263 
 
 or Egypt, if they were tuned by the masterhand of 
 the Roman or Alexandrian primate .... The re¬ 
 presentatives of the Christian republic were regu- j 
 larly assembled in the spring and autumn of each j 
 year; and these synods dilfused the spirit of eccle- \ 
 siastical discipline and legislation through the J 
 hundred and twenty provinces of the Roman world. 
 .... At an early period, when Constantine was 
 the protector rather than the proselyte of Christi¬ 
 anity, he referred the African controversy to the 
 Council of Arles, in which the Bishops of York, of 
 Treves, of Milan, and of Carthage met as friends 
 and brethren, to debate in their native tongue on 
 the common interest of the Latin or Western 
 Church. Eleven years afterwards, a more numer¬ 
 ous and celebrated assembly was convened at Nice 
 in Bithynia, to extinguish, by their final sentence, 
 the subtle disputes which had arisen in Egypt on 
 the subject of the Trinity. Three hundred and 
 eighteen Bishops obeyed the summons of their in¬ 
 dulgent master; the ecclesiastics, of every rank, and 
 sect, 1 and denomination, have been computed at 
 2048 persons; the Greeks appeared in person; and 
 the consent of the Latins was expressed by the 
 Legates of the Roman Pontiff.” 
 
 Here is assuredly abundant evidence of the 
 nature of the unity, by which the Church of those 
 ages was distinguished from the sects among which 
 it lay. It was a vast organized association, co¬ 
 extensive with the Roman Empire, or rather over¬ 
 flowing it. Its Bishops were not mere local officers, 
 but possessed a power essentially ecumenical, ex¬ 
 tending wherever a Christian was to be found. 
 
 “ No Christian,” says Bingham, “ would pretend to 
 
 1 This is an apparent allusion to the Emperor’s having called the 
 Novatian Bishop Acesius to the Council. Gibbon argues also that 
 the number 2048 must have included sectaries. As far as this fact 
 or opinion is a deduction from the force of his general description, 
 valecit quantum. 
 
264 
 
 APPLICATION OF THE FIRST TEST. [Chap. IV. 
 
 travel without taking letters of credence with him 
 from his own bishop, if he meant to communicate 
 with the Christian Church in a foreign country. 
 Such was the admirable unity of the Church Ca¬ 
 tholic in those days, and the blessed harmony and 
 consent of her bishops among one another.” 1 St. 
 Gregory Nazianzen calls St. Cyprian an universal 
 Bishop, u presiding,” as the same author presently 
 quotes him, u not only over the Church of Carthage 
 and Africa, but over all the regions of the West, 
 and over the East, and South, and A or t hern parts 
 of the world also.” This is evidence of a unity 
 throughout Christendom, not of mere origin or of 
 Apostolical succession, but of government. He 
 continues “ [Gregory] says the same of Athanasius; 
 that, in being made Bishop of Alexandria, he was 
 made Bishop of the whole world. Chrysostom, in 
 like manner, styles Timothy, Bishop of the uni¬ 
 verse.The great Athanasius, as he returned 
 
 from his exile, made no scruple to ordain in several 
 cities as he went along, though they were not in 
 his own diocese. And the famous Eusebius of 
 Samosata did the like, in the times of the Arian 
 persecution under Aalens. . . Epiphanius made use 
 of the same power and privilege in a like case, or¬ 
 daining Paulinianus, St. Jerome’s brother, first 
 deacon, and then presbyter, in a monastery out 
 of his own diocese in Palestine.” 2 And so in re¬ 
 spect of teaching, before Councils met on any large 
 scale, St. Ignatius of Antioch had addressed letters 
 to the Churches along the coast of Asia Minor, when 
 on his way to martyrdom at Pome. St. Iren am s, 
 when a disciple of the Church of Smyrna, betakes him¬ 
 self to Gaul, and answers in Lyons the heresies of 
 Syria. The see of St. Hippolytus, as if he belonged 
 to all parts of the orbis terrarum , cannot be located, 
 and is variously placed in the neighbourhood of 
 Pome and in Arabia. Iiosius, a Spanish Bishop, 
 
 1 Antiq. ii. 4, § 5. 2 Ibid. 5, § 3. 
 
Sec. II.] TIIE CHURCH OF THE FOURTH CENTURY. 265 
 
 arbitrates in an Alexandrian controversy. St. Atha¬ 
 nasius, driven from his Church, makes all Christen¬ 
 dom his home, from Treves to Ethiopia, and intro¬ 
 duces into the West the discipline of the Egyptian 
 Antony. St. Jerome is born in Dalmatia, studies 
 at Constantinople and Alexandria, is secretary to 
 St. Damasus at Rome, and settles and dies in 
 Palestine. Above all, the See of Rome itself is the 
 centre of teaching as well as of action, is visited by 
 Fathers and heretics as a tribunal in controversy, 
 and by ancient custom sends her alms to the poor 
 Christians of all Churches, to Achaia and Syria, 
 Palestine, Arabia, Egypt, and Cappadocia. 
 
 Moreover, t his universal Church was not only 
 one; it w as exc lusive also. The vehemence with 
 which Christians of the Ante-nicene period had de¬ 
 nounced the idolatries and sins of paganism, and 
 proclaimed the judgments which would be their 
 consequence, in great measure accounts for their 
 being reputed in the heathen world as “ enemies 
 of mankind.” “Worthily doth God exert the lash 
 of His stripes and scourges,” says St. Cyprian to a 
 heathen magistrate; “ and since they avail so little, 
 and convert not men to God by all this dreadfulness 
 of havoc, there abides beyond the prison eternal and 
 
 the ceaseless flame of the everlasting penalty. 
 
 Why humble yourself, and bend to false gods ? Why 
 bow your caj)tive body before helpless images and 
 moulded earth? Why grovel in the prostration of 
 death, like the serpent whom ye worship? Why 
 rush into the downfal of the devil, his fall the 
 cause of yours, and he your companion? .... Re¬ 
 lieve and live; you have been our persecutors in 
 time; in eternity, be companions of our joy.” 1 
 “ These rigid sentiments,” says Gibbon, “ which 
 had been unknown to the ancient world, appear to 
 have infused a spirit of bitterness into a system of 
 love and harmony.” 2 Such, however, was the judg- 
 
 1 Ad Demetr. 4, &c. Oxf. tr. 2 Hist. ch. xv. 
 
266 
 
 APPLICATION OF THE FIRST TEST. [Chap. IV. 
 
 ment passed by the first Christians upon all who 
 did not join their own society; and such was the 
 judgment of their successors on those who lived 
 and died in the sects and heresies which had issued 
 from it. That very father, whose denunciation of 
 the heathen has just been quoted, had declared it in 
 the third century. u He who leaves the Church of 
 Christ,” he says, “attains not to Christ’s reward. 
 He is an alien, an outcast, an enemy. He can no 
 longer have God for a Father, who has not the 
 Church for a Mother. If any man was able to es¬ 
 cape who remained without the Ark of Noah, then 
 will that man escape who is out of doors beyond the 
 Church. What sacrifice do they believe they cele¬ 
 brate who are rivals of the Priests? If such men 
 were even killed for confession of the Christian 
 name, not even by their blood is this stain washed 
 out. Inexplicable and heavy is the sin of discord, 
 and is purged by no suffering. They cannot dwell 
 with God who have refused to be of one mind in 
 God’s Church; a man of such sort may indeed be 
 killed, crowned he cannot be.” 1 And so St. Chry¬ 
 sostom, in the following century, with an allu¬ 
 sion to St. Cyprian’s sentiment: “ Though we 
 
 have achieved ten thousand glorious acts, yet 
 shall we, if we cut to pieces the fulness of the 
 Church, suffer punishment no less sore than they 
 who mangled His body.” 2 In like manner St. 
 Augustine seems to consider that a conversion 
 from idolatry to a schismatical communion is no 
 gain. “ Those whom Donatists baptize, they heal 
 of the wound of idolatry or infidelity, but inflict a 
 more grievous stroke in the wound of schism; for 
 idolaters among God’s people the sword destroy¬ 
 ed, but schismatics the gaping earth devoured.” 3 
 Elsewhere, he speaks of the “ sacrilege of s chism, 
 which surpasses all wickednesses.” 4 St. Optatus, 
 
 1 De Unit. 5, 12. 2 Chrys. in Eph. iv. 3 De Baptism. 10. 
 
 4 c. Ep. Parm. i. 7. 
 
SEC. II.] THE CHURCH OE THE FOURTH CENTURY. 267 
 
 too, marvels at the Donatist Parmenian’s inconsis¬ 
 tency in maintaining, what is true doctrine, that 
 u Schismatics are cut off as branches from the vine, 
 are destined for punishments, and reserved, as dry 
 wood, for hell-fire.” 1 “ Let us hate them who are 
 
 worthy of hatred,” says St. Cyril, “withdraw we 
 from them whom God withdraws from; let us also 
 say unto God with all boldness concerning all 
 heretics, 1 Do not I hate them, 0 Lord, that hate 
 thee ?’ ” 2 u Most firmly hold, and doubt in no wise,” 
 says St. Fulgentius, “that every heretic and schis¬ 
 matic soever, baptized in the name of Father, Son, 
 and Holy Ghost, unless brought into the Catholic 
 Church, how great soever have been his alms, though 
 for Christ’s Name he has even shed his blood, can 
 in no wise be saved.” 3 The Fathers ground this 
 doctrine on St. Paul’s words that, though we have 
 knowledge, and give our goods to the poor, and 
 our body to be burned, we are nothing without 
 love. 
 
 One more remark shall be made: that the Ca¬ 
 tholic teachers, far from recognising any ecclesias¬ 
 tical relation as existing between the Sectarian 
 Bishops and Priests, and their flocks, address the 
 latter immediately, as if those Bishops did not 
 exist, and call on them to come over to the Church 
 individually without respect to any one besides; 
 and that because it is a matter of life and death. 
 To take the instance of the Donatists: it was nothing 
 to the purpose that their Churches in Africa nearly 
 equalled those of the Catholics, or that they had a 
 case to produce in their controversy with the Ca¬ 
 tholic Church; the very fact that they were sepa¬ 
 rated from the orbis terrarum was a public, a ma¬ 
 nifest, a simple, a sufficient argument against them. 
 “ The question is not about your gold and silver,” 
 says St. Augustine to Glorius and others, “ not 
 your lands, or farms, nor even your bodily health 
 
 1 De Schism. Donat, i. 10. 2 Cat. xvi. 10. 
 
 3 De Fid. ad. Petr. 39. 
 
268 
 
 APPLICATION OF THE FIRST TEST. [Chap. IV 
 
 is in peril, but we address your souls about obtain¬ 
 ing eternal life and fleeing eternal death. Rouse 
 yourselves therefore. . . .You see it all, and know 
 it, and groan over it; yet God sees that there is 
 nothing to detain you in so pestiferous and sacri¬ 
 legious a separation, if you will not overcome your 
 carnal affection, for the obtaining the spiritual king¬ 
 dom, and shake off the fear of wounding friendships y 
 which will avail nothing in God’s judgment, in 
 order to escape eternal punishment. Go, think over 
 the matter, consider what can be said in answer. . . 
 No one blots out from heaven the Ordinance of 
 God, no one blots out from earth the Church of 
 God: He hath promised, she hath filled the whole 
 world.” “ Some carnal intimacies,” he says to his 
 kinsman Severinus, “hold you where you are. . . . 
 What avails temporal health or relationship, if with 
 it we neglect Christ’s eternal heritage and our per¬ 
 petual health?” “ I ask,” he says to Celer, a person 
 of influence, u that you would more earnestly urge 
 upon your men Catholic Unity in the region of 
 Hippo.” “ Why,” he says, in the person of the 
 Church, to the whole Donatist population, “Why 
 open your ears to the words of men, who say what 
 they never have been able to prove and close them 
 to the word of God, saying, 4 Ask of Me, and I will 
 give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance ?’” At 
 another time he says to them, “ Some of the pres¬ 
 byters of your party have sent to us to say, 4 Retire 
 from our flocks, unless you would have us kill 
 you.’ How much more justly do we say to them, 
 
 4 Nay, do you, not retire from, but come in peace to, 
 not our flocks, but the flocks of Him whose we are 
 all; or if you will not, and are far from peace, then 
 do you rather retire from flocks, for which Christ 
 shed His Blood.’ ” 44 I call on you for Christ’s sake,” 
 he says to a late pro-consul, “to write me an 
 answer, and to urge gently and kindly all your 
 people in the district of Sinis or Hippo into the 
 
Sec. II.] the CHURCH OF THE FOURTH CENTURY. 269 
 
 communion of the Catholic Church.” He publishes 
 an address to the Donatists at another time to in¬ 
 form them of the defeat of their Bishops in a confer - 
 ! ence: u Whoso,” he says, “ is separated from the 
 Catholic Church, however laudably he thinks he is 
 living, by this crime alone, that he is separated 
 from Christ’s Unity, he shall not have life, but the 
 wrath of God abideth on him.” “ Let them ascribe 
 . to the Catholic Church,” he writes to some converts 
 about their friends who were still in schism, u that 
 is, to the Church diffused over the whole world, 
 rather what the Scriptures say than what human 
 tongues utter in calumny.” The idea of acting upon 
 the Jlonatists only as a body, and through their 
 bisho ps, d oes not appear to have occurred to St. 
 Augustine at all. 1 
 
 On the whole, then, we have reason to say, that 
 if there be a form of Christianity at this day dis¬ 
 tinguished for its careful organization, and its 
 consequent power; if it is spread over the world; 
 if it is conspicuous for zealous maintenance of its 
 own creed; if it is intolerant towards what it con¬ 
 siders error; if it is engaged in ceaseless war with 
 all other bodies called Christian; if it, and it alone, 
 is called “Catholic” by the world, nay, by those very 
 bodies, and if it makes much of the title; if it names 
 them heretics, and warns them of coming woe, and 
 calls on them one by one to come over to itself, over¬ 
 looking every other tie ; and if they, on the other 
 hand, call it seducer, harlot, apostate, Antichrist, 
 devil; if, however they differ one with another, they 
 consider it their common enemy; if they strive to 
 unite together against it, and cannot; if they are 
 but local; if they continually subdivide, and it re¬ 
 mains one; if they fall one after another, and make 
 way for new sects, and it remains the same; such a 
 form of religion is not unlike the Christianity of 
 the Nicene Era. 
 
 1 Epp. 43, 52, 57, 76, 105, 112, 141, 144. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS CONTINUED. 
 
 APPLICATION OF THE FIRST TEST CONTINUED. 
 
 THE CHURCH OF THE FIFTH AND SIXTH CENTURIES. 
 
 The patronage extended by the first Christian 
 Emperors to Arianism, its adoption by the barbarians 
 who succeeded to their power, the subsequent ex¬ 
 pulsion of all heresy beyond the limits of the 
 Empire, and then again the Monophysite tenden¬ 
 cies of Egypt and part of Syria, changed in some 
 measure the aspect of the Church, and claim our 
 further attention. It was still a body in possession, 
 or approximating to the possession, of the orbis 
 terrarum; but it did not altogether lie among the 
 sects, as we have been surveying it in the earlier 
 periods, rather it lay between or over against 
 schisms. That same vast Association, which, and 
 which only, had existed from the first, which had 
 been identified by all parties with Christianity, 
 which had been ever called Catholic by people and 
 by laws, took a different shape; collected itself in 
 far greater strength on some points of her ex¬ 
 tended territory than on others; possessed whole 
 kingdoms with scarcely a rival; lost others par¬ 
 tially or wholly, temporarily or for good; was 
 stemmed in its course here or there by external 
 obstacles; and was confronted by heresy, in a sub¬ 
 stantive shape and in mass, from foreign lands, and 
 with the support of the temporal power. Thus, 
 
271 
 
 Sec. I.] THE FIFTH AND SIXTH CENTURIES. 
 
 not to mention the Arianism of the Eastern Empire 
 in the fourth century, the whole of the West was 
 possessed by the same heresy in the fifth; and 
 nearly the whole of Asia, east of the Euphrates, as 
 far as it was Christian, by the Nestorians, in the cen¬ 
 turies which followed; while the Monophysites had 
 almost the possession of Egypt, and at times of the 
 Avhole Eastern Church. 1 think it no assumption 
 to call Arianism, Nestorianism, and Eutychianism 
 heresies, or to identify the contemporary Catholic 
 Church with Christianity. Now, then, let us con¬ 
 sider the mutual relation of Christianity and heresy 
 under these circumstances. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 THE ARIANS OF THE GOTHIC RACE. 
 
 No heresy has started with greater violence or 
 more sudden success than the Arian; and it pre¬ 
 sents a still more remarkable exhibition of these 
 characteristics among the barbarians than in the 
 civilized world. Even among the Greeks it had 
 shown a missionary spirit. Theophilus in the reign 
 of Constantius had introduced the popular heresy, 
 not without some promising results, to the Sabeans 
 of the Arabian peninsula; but, under Yalens, Ul- 
 philas became the apostle of a whole race. He 
 taught the Arian doctrine, which he had unhappily 
 learned in the Imperial Court, first to the pastoral 
 Maesogoths; who, unlike the other branches of their 
 family, multiplied under the Ma3sian mountains 
 with neither military nor religious triumphs. The 
 Visigoths were next corrupted ; by whom does not 
 appear. It is one of the singular traits in the his¬ 
 tory of this vast family of heathens that they so 
 
272 
 
 APPLICATION OF THE FIRST TEST. [Chap. V. 
 
 
 instinctively caught, and so impetuously communi¬ 
 cated, and so fiercely maintained, a heresy, which 
 had excited in the Empire, except at Constantinople, 
 little interest in the body of the people. The Visi¬ 
 goths are said to have been converted by the influ¬ 
 ence of Valens; but Valens reigned for only four¬ 
 teen years, and the barbarian population which had 
 been admitted to the Empire amounted to nearly 
 a million of persons. It is as difficult to trace how 
 the heresy was conveyed from them to the other 
 barbarian tribes. Gibbon seems to suppose that 
 the Visigoths acted the part of missionaries in their 
 career of predatory warfare from Thrace to the 
 Pyrenees. But such is the fact, however it was 
 brought about, that the success in arms and the 
 conversion to Arianism, of Ostrogoths, Alani, Suevi, 
 Vandals, and Burgundians stand as concurrent 
 events in the history of the times; and by the end 
 of the fifth century the heresy had been established 
 by the Visigoths in France and Spain, in Portugal 
 by the Suevi, in Africa by the Vandals, and by the 
 Ostrogoths in Italy. For a while the title of Catholic 
 as applied to the Church seemed a misnomer; for 
 not only was she buried beneath these populations 
 of heresy, but that heresy was one, and maintained v 
 the same distinctive tenet, whether at Carthage, 
 Seville, Toulouse, or Bavenna. 
 
 It cannot be supposed that these northern war¬ 
 riors had attained to any high degree of mental 
 cultivation; but they understood their own religion 
 enough to hate the Catholics, and their bishops 
 were learned enough to hold disputations for its 
 propagation. They professed to stand upon the 
 faith of Ariminum, administering Baptism under 
 an altered form of words, and re-baptizing Catholics 
 whom they gained over to their sect. It must be 
 added that, whatever was their cruelty or tyranny, 
 both Goths and Vandals were a moral people, and 
 put to shame the Catholics whom they dispossessed. 
 
 
 
 | •• i , 
 
 {-• V t) iCf 
 
 7 " 
 
 ** 
 
Sec. I.] THE FIFTH AND SIXTH CENTURIES. 273 
 
 “ What can the prerogative of a religious name 
 jirotit us,” says Salvian, u that we call ourselves 
 Catholic, boast of being the faithful, taunt Goths 
 and Vandals with the reproach of an heretical ap¬ 
 pellation, while we live in heretical wickedness ?” 1 
 The barbarians were chaste, temperate, just, and 
 devout; the Visigoth Theodoric repaired every 
 morning with his domestic officers to his chapel, 
 where service was performed by the Arian priests; 
 and one singular instance is on record of the defeat 
 of a Visigoth force by the Imperial troops on a 
 Sunday, when instead of preparing for battle they 
 were engaged in the religious services of the day . 2 
 Many of their princes were men of great ability, as 
 the two Theodorics, Euric and Leovigild. 
 
 Successful warriors, animated by a fanatical 
 spirit of religion, were not likely to be content 
 with a mere profession of their own creed ; they 
 proceeded to place their own priests in the religious 
 establishments which they found, and to direct a 
 bitter persecution against the vanquished Catholics. 
 The savage cruelties of the Vandal Hunneric in 
 Africa have often been enlarged upon ; Spain was 
 the scene of repeated persecutions; Sicily, too, had 
 its Martyrs. Compared with these enormities, it 
 was but a little thing to rob the Catholics of their 
 
 1 De Gubern. Dei. vii. p. 142. Elsewhere, “Apud Aquitanicos quai 
 civitas in locupletissima ac nobilissima sui parte non quasi lupanar 
 fxiit ? Quis potentum ac divitum non in luto libidinis vixit ? Haud 
 multum matrona abest a vilitate servarum, nbi paterfamilias ancil- 
 larum maritus est ? Quis autem Aquitanorum divitum non hoc fuit ?” 
 (pp. 134, 135.) “ Offenduntur barbari ipsi impuritatibus nos- 
 
 tris. Esse inter Gothos non licet scortatorem Gothum; soli inter eos 
 prasjudicio nationis ac nominis permittuntur impuri esse Romani.” 
 (p. 137.) “Quid? Hispanias nonne vel eadem vel majora forsitan 
 vitia perdiderunt? . . . Accessit hoc ad manifestandam illic impudicitke 
 damnationem, ut Wandalis potissimum, id est, pudicis barbaris trade - 
 rentur.” (p. 137.) Of Africa and Carthage, “In urbe Christiana, 
 in urbe ecclesiastica, . . viri in semetipsis feminas profitebantur,” &c. 
 (p. 152.) 
 
 2 Dunham, Hist. Spain, vol. i. p. 112. 
 
 T 
 
274 AITLICATION OF THE FIRST TEST. [Chap. V. 
 
 churches, and the shrines of their treasures. Lands, 
 immunities, and jurisdiction, which had been given 
 by the Emperors to the African Church, were made 
 over to the clergy of its conquerors; and by the 
 time of Belisarius, the Catholic Bishops had been 
 reduced to less than a third of their original num¬ 
 ber. In Spain, as in Africa, bishops were driven 
 from their sees, churches were destroyed, cemeteries 
 profaned, martyries rifled. When it was possible, 
 the Catholics concealed the relics in caves, keeping 
 up a perpetual memory of their provisional hiding 
 places . 1 Repeated spoliations were exercised upon 
 the property of the Church. Leovigild applied 2 its 
 treasures partly to increase the splendour of his 
 throne, partly to national works. At other times, 
 the Arian clergy themselves must have been the 
 gainers from the plunder: for when Childebert the 
 Frank had been brought into Spain by the cruelties 
 exercised against the Catholic Queen of the Goths, 
 who was his sister, he carried away with him from 
 the Arian churches, as St. Gregory of Tours in¬ 
 forms us, sixty chalices, fifteen patens, twenty cases 
 in which the gospels were kept, all of pure gold and 
 ornamented with jewels . 3 
 
 In France, and especially in Italy, the rule of 
 the heretical power was much less oppressive; 
 Theodoric, the Ostrogoth, reigned from the Alps 
 to Sicily, and till the close of a long reign he gave 
 an ample toleration to his Catholic subjects. He 
 respected their property, suffered their churches 
 and sacred places to remain in their hands, and 
 had about his court some of their eminent Bishops, 
 since known as Saints, St. CaBsarius of Arles, and 
 St. Epiphanius of Pavia. Still he brought into the 
 country a new population, devoted to Arianism, or, 
 as we now speak, a new Church. His “march,” 
 says Gibbon , 4 “must be considered as the emigra- 
 
 1 Aguirr. Concil. t. 2, p. 191. 2 Dunham, p. 125. 
 
 3 Hist. Franc, iii. 10. 4 Ch. 39. 
 
Sec. I.] 
 
 THE FIFTH AND SIXTH CENTURIES. 
 
 275 
 
 tion of an entire people; the wives and children of 
 the Goths, their aged parents, and most precious 
 effects, were carefully transported; and some idea 
 may be formed of the heavy luggage that now fol¬ 
 lowed the camp by the loss of two thousand wag¬ 
 gons, which had been sustained in a single action 
 in the war of Epirus.” To his soldiers he assigned 
 a third of the soil of Italy, and the barbarian fami¬ 
 lies settled down with their slaves and cattle. The 
 original number of the Yandal conquerors of Africa 
 had only been fifty thousand men, but the military 
 colonists of Italy soon amounted to the number of 
 two hundred thousand; which, according to the 
 calculation adopted by the same author elsewhere, 
 involves a population of a million. The least that 
 could be expected was, that an Arian ascendency 
 established through the extent of Italy would pro¬ 
 vide for the sufficient celebration of the Arian wor¬ 
 ship, and we hear of the Arians having a Church 
 even in Rome. 1 The rule of the Lombards in the 
 north of Italy succeeded to that of the Goths,— 
 Arians, like their predecessors, without their tole¬ 
 ration. The clergy they brought with them seem 
 to have claimed their share in the possession of the 
 Catholic churches ; 2 and though the court was con¬ 
 verted at the end of thirty years, many cities in 
 Italy were for some time afterwards disputed by the 
 heretical bishops. 3 The rule of Arianism in France 
 lasted for eighty years; in Spain for a hundred and 
 eighty; in Africa for a hundred; for about a hun¬ 
 dred in Italy. These periods were not contempo¬ 
 raneous ; but extend altogether from the beginning 
 of the fifth to the end of the sixth century. 
 
 It will be anticipated that the duration of this 
 ascendency of error had not the faintest tendency 
 to deprive the ancient Church of the West of the 
 title of Catholic; and it is needless to produce evi- 
 
 1 Greg. Dial. iii. 30. 2 Ibid. 29. 
 
 3 Gibbon, Hist. Ch. 37. 
 
 T 2 
 
276 APPLICATION OF THE FIRST TEST. [Chap. V. 
 
 dence of a fact which is on the very face of the 
 history. The Arians seem never to have claimed 
 the Catholic name. It is more remarkable that, the 
 Catholics during this period were denoted by the 
 additional title of “ Romans.” Of this there are 
 many proofs in the histories of St. Gregory of 
 Tours, Victor of A 7 ite, and the Spanish Councils. 
 Thus St. Gregory speaks of Theodegisid, a king of 
 Portugal, expressing his incredulity at a miracle, 
 by saying, u It is the temper of the Romans, (for,” 
 interposes the author, “they call men of our re¬ 
 ligion Romans,) and not the power of God .” 1 
 “ Heresy is everywhere an enemy to Catholics,” 
 says the same St. Gregory in a subsequent place, 
 and he proceeds to illustrate it by the story of a 
 u Catholic woman,” who had a heretic husband, to 
 whom, he says, came “ a presbyter of our religion 
 , very Catholic ;” and whom the husband matched at 
 table with his own Arian presbyter, u that there 
 might be the priests of each religion” in their 
 house at once. When they were eating, the husband 
 said to the Arian, “ Let us have some sport with 
 this presbyter of the Romans .” 2 The Arian Count 
 Gomachar seized on the lands of the Church of 
 Adge in France, and was attacked with a fever ; 
 on his recovery, at the prayers of the Bishop, he 
 repented of having asked them, observing, u What 
 will these Romans say now? that my fever came 
 of taking their land .” 3 When the Vandal The- 
 odoric would have killed the Catholic Armogastes, 
 after torturing him to recant in vain, his presby¬ 
 ter dissuaded him, “ lest the Romans should begin 
 to call him a Martyr .” 4 
 
 This appellation had two meanings; one, which 
 will readily suggest itself, is its use in contrast to 
 the word u barbarian,” as denoting the faith of the 
 Empire, as “ Greek” occurs in St. Paul’s Epis- 
 
 1 De Glor. Mart. i. 25. 2 Ibid. 80. 3 Ibid. 79. 
 
 4 Viet. Vit. i. 14. 
 
Sec. I.] THE FIFTH AND SIXTH CENTURIES. 277 
 
 ties. In this sense it would more naturally be 
 used by the Romans themselves than by others. 
 Thus Salvian says, that “nearly all the Romans 
 are greater sinners than the barbarians ;” 1 and he 
 speaks of “ Roman heretics, of which there is an 
 innumerable multitude ,” 2 meaning heretics within 
 the Empire. And so St. Gregory the Great com¬ 
 plains, that he “had become Bishop of the Lom¬ 
 bards rather than of the Romans .” 3 And Evagrius, 
 speaking even of the East, contrasts “ Romans and 
 barbarians ” 4 in his account of St. Simeon; and at 
 a later date, and even to this day, Thrace and part 
 of Asia Minor derive their name from Rome. In 
 like manner, we find Syrian writers sometimes 
 speaking of the religion of the Romans, sometimes 
 of the Greeks , 5 as synonyines. 
 
 But the word certainly contains also an allusion 
 to the faith and communion of the Roman See. In 
 this sense the Emperor Theodosius, in his letter to 
 Acacius of Berrhoea, contrasts it with Nestorianism, 
 which was within the Empire as well as Catholic¬ 
 ism; during the controversy raised by that heresy, 
 he exhorts him and others to show themselves “ap¬ 
 proved priests of the Roman religion .” 6 Again, 
 when the Ligurian nobles were persuading the 
 Arian Ricimer to come to terms with Athemius, 
 the orthodox representative of the Greek Emperor , 7 
 they propose to him to send St. Epiphanius as 
 ambassador, a man “ whose life is venerable to 
 every Catholic and Roman, and at least amiable in 
 the eyes of a Greek ( Grceculus ) if he deserves the 
 sight of him .” 8 It must be recollected, too, that the 
 Spanish and African Churches actually were in the 
 closest communion with the See of Rome at that 
 time, and that that communion was the visible ec- 
 
 1 De Gub. D. iv. p. 73. 2 Ibid. v. p. 88. 3 Epp. i. 31. 
 
 4 Hist. vi. 23. 5 Cf. Assern. t. i. p. 351, not. 4, t. 3, p. 393. 
 
 6 Baron. Ann. 432, 47. ' 7 Gibbon, Hist. Ch. 36. 
 
 8 Baron. Ann. 471, 18. 
 
278 APPLICATION OF THE FIRST TEST. [Chap. V. 
 
 clesiastical distinction between them and their Arian 
 rivals. The chief ground of the Yandal Hunneric’s 
 persecution of the African Catholics seems to have 
 been their connexion with their brethren beyond 
 the sea , 1 which he looked at with jealousy, as intro¬ 
 ducing a foreign power into his territory. Prior 
 to this he had published an edict calling on the 
 “ Homoiisian 77 Bishops, (for on this occasion he did 
 not call them Catholic,) to meet his own bishops 
 and treat concerning the faith, that “ their meetings 
 to the seduction of Christian souls might not be 
 held in the territory of the Vandals . 77 2 Upon this 
 invitation, Eugenius of Carthage replied, that all the 
 transmarine Bishops of the orthodox communion 
 ought to be summoned, “ in particular because it is 
 a matter for the whole world, not special to the 
 African provinces , 77 that “they could not under¬ 
 take a point of faith sine universitatis assensu” 
 Hunneric answered that if Eugenius would make 
 him sovereign of the orbis terrarum , he would com¬ 
 ply with his request. This led Eugenius to say 
 that the orthodox faith was “ the only true faith ; 77 
 that the king ought to write to his allies abroad, 
 if he wished to know it, and that he himself would 
 write to his brethren for foreign bishops, “ who , 77 he 
 says, “ may assist us in setting before you the true 
 faith, common to them and us, and especially the 
 Roman Church, which is the head of all Churches . 77 
 Moreover, the African Bishops in their banishment in 
 Sardinia, to the number of sixty, with St. Fulgentius 
 at their head, quote with approbation the words of 
 Pope ITormisdas, to the effect that they hold, “on the 
 point of freewill and divine grace, what the Roman, 
 that is, the Catholic, Church follows and preserves . 77 3 
 Again, the Spanish Church was under the super¬ 
 intendence of the Pope’s Vicar 4 during the perse¬ 
 cutions, whose duty it was to hinder all encroach- 
 
 1 Viet. Vit. iv. 4. 2 Viet. Yit. ii. 13—15. 
 
 3 Aguirr. Cone. t. 2, p. 262. 4 Aguirr. ibid. p. 232. 
 
Sec. I.] 
 
 TIIE FIFTH AND SIXTH CENTURIES. 
 
 279 
 
 ments upon “ the Apostolical decrees, or the limits 
 of the Holy Fathers,” through the whole of the 
 country. 
 
 Ror was the association of Catholicism with the 
 See of Rome an introduction of that age. The 
 Emperor Gratian, in the fourth century, had ordered 
 that the Churches which the Arians had usurped 
 should be restored, not to those who held “the Catho¬ 
 lic faith,” or “ the Nicene Creed,” or were “ in com¬ 
 munion with the orbis terrarum ,” but u who chose 
 the communion of Damasus ,” 1 the then Pope. It 
 was St. Jerome’s rule, also, in some well-known pas¬ 
 sages :—Writing against Ruffinus, who had spoken 
 of “ our faith,” he says, “What does he mean by ‘his 
 faith?’ that which is the strength of the Roman 
 Church? or that which is contained in the volumes 
 of Origen?’ If he answer, ‘ The Roman,’ then we 
 are Catholics who have borrowed nothing of Origen’s 
 error; but if Origen’s blasphemy be his faith, then, 
 while he is charging me with inconsistency, he 
 proves himself to be an heretic .” 2 The other passage, 
 already quoted, is still more exactly to the point, 
 because it was written on occasion of a schism. The 
 divisions at Antioch had thrown the Catholic Church 
 into a remarkable position; there were two Bishops 
 in the See, one in connexion with the East, the 
 other with Egypt and the West,—with which then 
 was “Catholic Communion?” St. Jerome has no 
 doubt on the subjectWriting to St. Damasus, he 
 says, “ Since the East tears into pieces the Lord’s 
 coat. . . . therefore by me is the chair of Peter to 
 be consulted, and that faith which is praised by the 
 Apostle’s mouth. . . . Though your greatness terrifies 
 me, yet your kindness invites me. From the Priest 
 the sacrifice claims salvation, from the Shepherd the 
 sheep claims protection. Let us speak without 
 offence; I court not the Roman height: I speak with 
 the successor of the Fisherman and the disciple of the 
 1 Theod. Hist. v. 2. 2 c. Ruff. i. 4. 
 
280 APPLICATION OP THE FIRST TEST. [Chap. V. 
 
 Cross. I, who follow none as my chief but Christ, am 
 associated in communion with thy blessedness, that 
 is, with the See of Peter. On that rock the Church 
 is built, I know. Whoso shall eat the Lamb outside 
 that House is profane .... I know not Vitalis” 
 (the Apollinarian), “Meletius I reject, I am ignorant 
 of Paulinus. Whoso gathereth not with thee, 
 scattereth; that is, he who is not of Christ is of 
 Antichrist .” 1 Again, “The ancient authority of 
 the monks, dwelling round about, rises against me; 
 I meanwhile cry out, If any be joined to Peter’s chair, 
 he is mine .” 2 
 
 Here was what may be considered a dignus vin- 
 dice nodus , the Church being divided and an arbi¬ 
 ter wanted. Such a case had also occurred in 
 Africa in the controversy with the Donatists. Four 
 hundred bishops, though but in one region, were a 
 fifth part of the whole Episcopate of Christendom, 
 and might seem too many for a schism, and in 
 themselves too large a body to be cut off from 
 God’s inheritance by a mere majority, even had it 
 been overwhelming. St. Augustine, then, who so 
 often appeals to the orbis terrarum , sometimes adopts 
 a more prompt criterion. He tells certain Donatists 
 to whom he writes, that the Catholic Bishop of Car¬ 
 thage “was able to make light of the thronging 
 multitude of his enemies, when he found himself by 
 letters of credence joined both to the Roman Church, 
 in which ever had flourished the principality of the 
 Apostolical See, and to the other lands whence the 
 gospel came to Africa itself .” 3 
 
 There are good reasons then for explaining the 
 Gothic and Arian use of the word “ Roman,” 
 when applied to the Catholic Church and faith, of 
 something beyond its mere connexion with the Em¬ 
 pire, which the barbarians were assaulting; nor 
 would “Roman” surely be the most obvious word to 
 denote the orthodox faith, in the mouths of a people 
 1 Ep. 15. 2 Ep. 16. 3 Aug-. Epp. 43, 7. 
 
Sec. II.] THE FIFTH AND SIXTH CENTURIES. 281 
 
 who had learned their heresy from a Roman Em¬ 
 peror and Court, and who professed to direct their 
 belief by the great Latin Council of Ariminum. 
 
 As then the fourth century presented to us in 
 its external aspect the Catholic Church lying in the 
 midst of a multitude of sects, all enemies to it, so 
 in the fifth and sixth we see the same Church in the 
 West lying under the oppression of a huge, far- 
 spreading, and schismatical communion. Heresy is 
 no longer a domestic enemy intermingled with the 
 Church, but it occupies its own ground and is ex¬ 
 tended over against her, even though on the same 
 territory, and is more or less organized, and cannot be 
 so promptly refuted by the simple test of Catholicity. 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 THE NESTORIANS. 
 
 The Churches of Syria and Asia Minor were 
 the most intellectual portion of early Christendom. 
 Alexandria was but one metropolis in a large region, 
 and contained the philosophy of the whole Patri¬ 
 archate ; but Syria abounded in wealthy and luxu¬ 
 rious cities, the creation of the Seleueidse, where 
 the arts and the schools of Greece had full oppor¬ 
 tunities of cultivation. For a time too, for the 
 first two hundred years, as some think, Alexandria 
 was the only See as well as the only school of Egypt; 
 Avhile Syria was divided into smaller dioceses, each 
 of which had at first an authority of its own, and 
 which, even after the growth of the Patriarchal 
 power, received their respective bishops, not from 
 the See of Antioch, but from their own metropolitan. 
 In Syria too the schools were private, a circumstance 
 which would tend both to diversity in religious 
 opinion, and incaution in the expression of it; but the 
 
282 APPLICATION OF THE FIRST TEST. [Chap. V. 
 
 sole catechetical school of Egypt was the organ of 
 the Church, and its Bishop could banish Origen for 
 speculations which developed and ripened with im¬ 
 punity in Syria. 
 
 But the immediate source of that fertility in heresy, 
 which is the unhappy characteristic of the Syrian 
 Church, was its celebrated Exegetical School. The 
 causes of the connexion of that school with doctrinal 
 error need not here be discussed, and will be alluded 
 to again in a subsequent place; here only the fact 
 need be stated, on the one hand that it devoted itself 
 to the literal and critical interpretation of Scripture, 
 and on the other that it gave rise first to the Arian 
 and then to the Nestorian heresy. If additional 
 evidence be wanted of the connexion of heterodoxy 
 and biblical criticism in that age, it is found in the 
 fact that, not long after their contemporaneous ap¬ 
 pearance in Syria, they are found combined in the 
 person of Theodore of Heraclea, so called from the 
 place both of his birth and his bishoprick, an able 
 commentator and an active enemy of St. Athana¬ 
 sius, but a Thracian unconnected except by sym¬ 
 pathy with the Patriarchate of Antioch. 
 
 This school appears to have risen in the middle 
 of the third century; but there is no evidence to 
 determine whether it was a local institution, or, as 
 is more probable, a discipline or method charac¬ 
 teristic of the Syrian Church. Dorotheus is one of 
 its earliest teachers; he is known as a Hebrew 
 scholar, as well as, a commentator on the sacred 
 text, and he was the master of Eusebius of Ca?sarea. 
 Lucian, the friend of the notorious Paul of Samo- 
 sata, and for three successive Episcopates after him 
 a seceder from the Church, though afterwards a 
 martyr in it, was the editor of a new edition of the 
 Septuagint, and master of the chief original teachers 
 of Arianism. Eusebius of Csesarea, Asterius called 
 the Sophist, and Eusebius of Emesa, Arians of the 
 Nicene period, and Diodorus, a zealous opponent of 
 
Sec. II.] THE FIFTH AND SIXTH CENTURIES. 283 
 
 Arianism, but the master of Theodore of Mopsues- 
 tia, have all a place in the Exegetical School. St. 
 Chrysostom and Theodoret, both Syrians, and the 
 former the pupil of Diodorus, adopted the literal 
 interpretation, though preserved from its abuse. 
 But the principal doctor of the School was that 
 Theodore, the master of Nestorius, who has just 
 been mentioned, and who with his writings, and 
 with the writings of Theodoret against St. Cyril, 
 and the letter written by Ibas of Edessa to Maris, 
 was condemned by the fifth Ecumenical Council. 
 Ibas was the translator into Syriac, and Maris into 
 Persian, of the books of Theodore and Diodorus ; 1 
 and in so doing they became the immediate instru¬ 
 ments of the formation of the great Nestorian school 
 and Church in farther Asia. 
 
 As many as ten thousand tracts of Theodore are 
 said in this way to have been introduced to the 
 knowledge of the Christians of Mesopotamia, Adia- 
 bene, Babylonia, and the neighbouring countries. 
 He was called by those Churches absolutely “ the 
 Interpreter,” and it eventually became the very pro¬ 
 fession of the Nestorian communion to follow him as 
 such. u The doctrine of all our Eastern Churches,” 
 says the Council under the patriarch Marabas, “ is 
 founded on the Creed of Nicasa; but in the exposi¬ 
 tion of the Scriptures we follow St. Theodore.” u We 
 must by all means remain firm to the commentaries 
 of the great Commentator,” says the Council under 
 Sabarjesus; “whoso shall in any manner oppose 
 them, or think otherwise, be he anathema .” 2 No 
 one since the beginning of Christianity, except 
 Origen and St. Augustine, has had such great influ¬ 
 ence on his brethren as Theodore . 3 
 
 The original Syrian school had possessed very 
 marked characteristics, which it did not lose when 
 it passed into a new country and into strange 
 
 1 Assem. iij. p. 68. 2 Ibid. t. 3, p. 84, note 3. 
 
 3 Wegnern, Proleg. in Thcod. Opp. p. ix. 
 
284 APPLICATION OF THE FIRST TEST. [Chap. V. 
 
 tongues. Its comments on Scripture seem to have 
 been clear, natural, methodical, apposite, and logi¬ 
 cally exact. u In all Western Aramaea,” says 
 Lengerke, that is, in Syria, “there was but one mode 
 of treating whether exegetics or doctrine, the practi¬ 
 cal .’ 71 Thus Eusebius of Caesarea, whether as a dis¬ 
 putant or a commentator, is commonly a writer of 
 sense and judgment; and he is to be referred to 
 the Syrian school, though he does not enter so far 
 into its temper as to exclude the mystical interpre¬ 
 tation or to deny the verbal inspiration of Scrip¬ 
 ture. Again, we see in St. Chrysostom a direct, 
 straightforward treatment of the sacred text, and 
 a pointed application of it to things and persons; 
 and Theodoret abounds in modes of thinking and 
 reasoning which without any great impropriety 
 may be called English. Again, St. Cyril of Jeru¬ 
 salem, though he does not abstain from allegory, 
 shows the character of his school by the great stress 
 he lays upon the study of Scripture, and, I may add, 
 by the peculiar characteristics of his style, which 
 will be appreciated by a modern reader. 
 
 It would have been well, had the genius of the 
 Syrian theology been ever in the safe keeping of 
 men such as St. Cyril, St. Chrysostom, and Theo¬ 
 doret; but in Theodore of Mopsuestia, nay in 
 Diodorus before him, it developed into those errors, 
 of which Paul of Samosata had been the omen 
 on its rise. As its attention was chiefly directed 
 to the examination of the Scriptures, in its inter¬ 
 pretation of the Scriptures was its heretical temper 
 discovered; and though allegory can be made an 
 instrument of evading Scripture doctrine, criticism 
 may more readily be turned to the destruction of 
 doctrine and Scripture together. Bent on ascer¬ 
 taining the literal sense, Theodore was naturally 
 led to the Hebrew text instead of the Septuagint, 
 and thence to Jewish commentators. Jewish com¬ 
 mentators naturally suggested events and objects 
 
 1 De Ephrem Syr. p. 61. 
 
285 
 
 Sec. II.] THE FIFTH AND SIXTH CENTURIES. 
 
 short of evangelical as the fulfilment of the prophe¬ 
 tical announcements, and, when it was possible, an 
 ethical sense instead of a prophetical. The eighth 
 chapter of Proverbs ceased to bear a Christian 
 meaning, because, as Theodore maintained, the writer 
 of the book had received the gift, not of prophecy, 
 but of wisdom. The Canticles must be interpreted 
 literally; and then it was but an easy, or rather a 
 necessary step, to exclude the book from the Canon. 
 The book of Job too professed to be historical; yet 
 what was it really but a Gentile drama? He also 
 gave up the books of Chronicles and Ezra, and, 
 strange to say, the Epistle of St. James, though it 
 was contained in the Peschito Version of his Church. 
 He denied that Psalms xxii. and lxix. applied to 
 our Lord; rather he limited the Messianic passages 
 of the whole book to four; of which the eighth Psalm 
 was one, and the forty-fifth another. The rest he ex¬ 
 plained of Hezekiah and Zerubbabel, without deny¬ 
 ing that they might be accommodated to an evan¬ 
 gelical sense . 1 He explained St. Thomas’s words, 
 “My Lord and my God,” as a joyful exclqpnation; 
 and our Lord’s, “ Receive ye the Holy Ghost,” as 
 an anticipation of the day of Pentecost. As may 
 be expected, he denied the verbal inspiration of 
 Scripture. Also, he held that the deluge did not 
 cover the earth; and, as others before him, he was 
 heterodox on the doctrine of original sin, and denied 
 the eternity of punishment. 
 
 Maintaining that the real sense of Scripture was, 
 not the scope of a Divine Intelligence, but the in¬ 
 tention of the mere human organ of inspiration, 
 Theodore was led to hold, not only that that sense 
 was one in each text, but that it was continuous 
 and single in a context; that what was the subject 
 of the composition in one verse, must be the subject 
 in the next, and that if a Psalm was historical or 
 prophetical in its commencement, it was the one or 
 the other to its termination. Even that fulness of 
 1 Lengerke, de Ephrem Svr. pp. 73—75. 
 
286 APPLICATION OP THE FIRST TEST. [Chap. V. 
 
 meaning, refinement of thought, subtle versatility of 
 feeling, and delicate reserve or reverent suggestive¬ 
 ness, which poets exemplify, seem to have been 
 excluded from his idea of a sacred composition. 
 Accordingly, if a Psalm contained passages which 
 could not be applied to our Lord, it followed that 
 that Psalm did not properly apply to Him at all, 
 except by accommodation. Such at least is the 
 doctrine of Cosmas, a writer of Theodore’s school, 
 who on this ground passes over the twenty- 
 second, sixty-ninth, and other Psalms, and limits the 
 Messianic to the second, the eighth, the forty-fifth, 
 and the hundred and tenth. “David,” he says, “did 
 not make common to the servants what belongs to 
 the Lord 1 Christ, but what was proper to the Lord 
 he spoke of the Lord, and what was proper to the 
 servants, of servants .” 2 Accordingly the twenty- 
 second could not properly belong to Christ, be¬ 
 cause in the beginning it spoke of the “. verba 
 delictorum meorumy A remarkable consequence 
 would follow from this doctrine, that as Christ 
 was divided from His Saints, so the Saints were 
 divided from Christ ; and an opening was made 
 for a denial of the doctrine of their cultus , though 
 this denial in the event has not been developed 
 among the Nestorians. But a more serious con¬ 
 sequence is latently contained in it, and nothing 
 else than the Nestorian heresy, viz. that our Lord’s 
 manhood is not so intimately included in His 
 Divine Personality that His brethren according to 
 the flesh may be associated with the Image of the 
 One Christ. Here St. Chrysostom pointedly con¬ 
 tradicts the doctrine of Theodore, though his fellow- 
 pupil and friend ; 3 as does St. Ephrem, though a 
 Syrian also ; 4 and St. Basil . 5 
 
 1 Sewvorovy vid. La Croze, Thesaur. Ep. t. 3, § 145. 
 
 2 Montf. Coll. Nov. t. 2, p. 227. 
 
 3 Rosenmuller, Hist. Interpr. t. 3, p. 278. 
 
 4 Lengerke, de Ephr. Syr. pp. 165—167. 
 
 5 Ernest, de Propli. Mess. p. 462. 
 
287 
 
 Sec. II.] THE FIFTH AND SIXTH CENTURIES. 
 
 O ne ot her characteristic of the Syrian school, 
 viewed as independent of Nestorius, should he add- 
 ed:—As it tended to the separation of the Divine 
 Person of Christ from His manhood, so did it tend 
 to explain away His Divine Presence in the Sacra¬ 
 mental elements. Ernesti seems to consider the 
 school, in modern language, Sacramentarian: and 
 certainly some of the most cogent passages brought 
 by moderns against the Catholic doctrine of the 
 Eucharist are taken from writers who are con¬ 
 nected with that school; as the author, said to be 
 St. Chrysostom, of the Epistle to Ctesarius, Theodo- 
 ret in his Eranistes, and Facundus. Some counte¬ 
 nance too is given to the same view of the Eucharist, 
 at least in some parts of his works, by Origen, 
 whose language concerning the Incarnation also 
 leans to what was afterwards Nestorianism. To 
 these may be added Eusebius , 1 who, far removed, 
 as he was, from that heresy, was a disciple of 
 the Syrian school. The language of the later Nes- 
 torian writers seems to have been of the same 
 character . 2 Such then on the whole is the charac¬ 
 ter of that theology of Theodore which passed from 
 Cilicia and Antioch to Edessa first, and then to 
 Nisibis. 
 
 Edessa, the metropolis of Mesopotamia, had re¬ 
 mained an Oriental city till the third century, when 
 it was made a Roman colony by Caracalla . 3 Its 
 position on the confines of two empires gave it 
 great ecclesiastical importance, as the channel by 
 which the theology of Rome and Greece was con¬ 
 veyed to a family of Christians, dwelling in con¬ 
 tempt and persecution amid a still heathen world. 
 It was the seat of various schools; apparently of a 
 Greek school, where the classics were studied as well 
 as theology, where Eusebius of Emesa 4 had origi¬ 
 nally been trained, and where perhaps Protogenes 
 
 1 Eccl. Theol. iij. 12. 
 
 2 Professor Lee’s Serm. Oct. 1838, p. 144—152. 
 
 3 Noris. Opp. t. 2, p. 112. 4 August!. Euseb. Em. Opp. 
 
288 APPLICATION OP THE FIRST TEST. [Chap. V. 
 
 taught. 1 There were Syrian schools attended by hea¬ 
 then and Christian youths in common. The cultiva¬ 
 tion of the native language had been an especial ob¬ 
 ject of its masters since the time of Vespasian, so that 
 the pure and refined dialect went by the name of the 
 Edessene. 2 At Edessa too St. Ephrem formed his 
 oivn Syrian school, which lasted long after him; and 
 there too was the celebrated Persian Christian school, 
 over which Maris presided, who has been already 
 mentioned as the translator of Theodore into Per¬ 
 sian. 3 Even in the time of the predecessor of Ibas in 
 the See (before a.d. 435) the Nestorianism of this 
 Persian School was so notorious that Pabbula the 
 Bishop had expelled its masters and scholars; 4 and 
 they, taking refuge in the country with which they 
 were connected, had introduced the heresy to the 
 Churches subject to the Persian King. 
 
 Something ought to be said of these Churches; 
 though little is known except what is revealed by 
 the fact, in itself of no slight value, that they had 
 sustained two persecutions at the hands of the hea¬ 
 then government in the fourth and fifth centuries. 
 One testimony is extant as early as the end of the 
 second century, to the effect that in Parthia, Me¬ 
 dia, Persia, and Bactria there were Christians who 
 “were not overcome by evil laws and customs.” 5 
 In the early part of the fourth century, a bishop 
 of Persia attended the Nicene Council, and about 
 the same time Christianity is said to have pervaded 
 nearly the whole of Assyria. 6 Monachism had been 
 introduced there before the middle of the fourth 
 century, and shortly after commenced that fearful 
 persecution in which sixteen thousand Christians 
 are said to have suffered. It lasted thirty years, 
 
 1 Asseman. p. cmxxv. 2 Hoffman, Gram. Syr. Proleg. § 4. 
 
 3 The educated Persians were also acquainted with Syriac. Assem. 
 
 t. i. p. 351, not. 
 
 4 Asseman. p. lxx. 5 Euseb. Prsep. vi. 10. 
 
 6 Tillemont, Mem. t. 7, p. 77. 
 
Sec. II.] THE FIFTH AND SIXTH CENTURIES. 
 
 289 
 
 and is said to have recommenced at the end of the 
 Century. The second persecution lasted for at least 
 another thirty years of the next, at the very time 
 when the Nestorian troubles were in progress in the 
 Empire. Trials such as these show the populousness 
 as well as the faith of the Churches in those parts; and 
 the number of the Sees, for the names of twenty-seven 
 Bishops are preserved who suffered in the former 
 persecution. One of them was apprehended together 
 with sixteen priests, nine deacons, besides monks 
 and nuns of his diocese; another with twenty-eight 
 companions, ecclesiastics or regulars; another with 
 one hundred ecclesiastics of different orders; another 
 with one hundred and twenty-eight; another with 
 his chorepiscopus and two hundred and fifty of his 
 clergy. Such was the Church, consecrated by the 
 blood of so many martyrs, which immediately after 
 its glorious confession fell a prey to the theology of 
 Theodore; and which through a succession of ages 
 discovered the energy, when it had lost the purity 
 of Saints. 
 
 The members of the Persian school, who had been 
 driven out of Edessa by Rabbula, found a wide field 
 open for their exertions under the pagan government 
 with which they had taken refuge. The Persian 
 monarchs, who had often prohibited by edict 1 the 
 intercommunion of the Church under their sway, 
 with the countries towards the west, readily ex¬ 
 tended their protection to exiles, who professed the 
 means of destroying its Catholicity. Barsumas, the 
 most energetic of them, was placed in the metropoli¬ 
 tan See of Nisibis, where also the fugitive school 
 was settled under the presidency of another of their 
 party; while Maris was promoted to the See of 
 Ardaschir. The primacy of the Church had from 
 an early period belonged to the See of Seleucia in 
 Babylonia. Catholicus was the title appropriated 
 to its occupant, as well as to the Persian Primate, as 
 
 1 Gibbon, ch. 47. 
 
 U 
 
290 APPLICATION OF THE FIEST TEST. [Chap. V. 
 
 being deputies of the Patriarch of Antioch, and was 
 derived apparently from the Imperial dignity so 
 called, denoting their function as Procurators-gene- 
 ral, or officers in chief for the regions in which they 
 were placed. Acacius, another of the Edessene party, 
 was put into this principal See, and suffered, if he 
 did not further, the innovations of Barsumas. The 
 mode by which the latter effected these measures 
 has been left on record by an enemy. “Barsumas ac¬ 
 cused Babuaeus, the Catholicus, before King Pherozes, 
 whispering, c These men hold the faith of the Romans, 
 and are their spies. Give me power against them to 
 arrest them.’ ” 1 It is said that in this way he obtain¬ 
 ed the death of Babuaeus, whom Acacius succeeded. 
 When a minority resisted 2 the process of schism, a 
 persecution followed. The death of seven thousand 
 seven hundred Catholics is said by Monophysite au¬ 
 thorities to have been the price of the severance 
 of the Chaldaic Churches from Christendom. 3 Their 
 loss was compensated in the eyes of the government 
 by the multitude of Nestorian fugitives, who flocked 
 into Persia from the Empire, numbers of them in¬ 
 dustrious artizans, who sought a country where 
 their own religion was in the ascendant. 
 
 The foundation of that religion lay, as we have 
 already seen, in the literal interpretation of Scrip¬ 
 ture, of which Theodore was the principal teacher. 
 The doctrine, in which it formally consisted, is known 
 by the name of Nestorius: it lay in the ascription 
 of a human as well as a Divine Personality to our 
 Lord; and it showed itself in denying the title of 
 “ Mother of God,” or Oeoroicog , to St. Mary. As 
 to our Lord’s Personality, it is to be observed that 
 the question of language came in, which always 
 serves to perplex a subject and make a controversy 
 seem a matter of words. The native Syrians made 
 a distinction between the word “Person,” and “Pro- 
 
 1 Asseman. p. lxxviii. 2 Gibbon, ibid. 
 
 3 Asseman. t. 2, p. 408, t. 8, p. 393. 
 
Sec. II.] THE FIFTH AND SIXTH CENTURIES. 291 
 
 sopon,” which stands for it in Greek; they allowed 
 that there was one Prosopon or Parsopa, as they 
 called it, and they held that there were two Per¬ 
 sons. If it is asked what they meant by parsopa , the 
 answer seems to be, that they took the word merely 
 in the sense of character or aspect , a sense familiar 
 to the Greek prosopon , and quite irrelevant as a 
 guarantee of their orthodoxy. It follows moreover 
 that, since the aspect of a thing is its impression 
 upon the beholder, the personality to which they 
 ascribed unity must have lain in our Lord’s man¬ 
 hood, and not in His Divine Nature. But it is 
 hardly worth while pursuing the heresy to its 
 limits. Next, as to the phrase u Mother of God,” 
 they rejected it as un sc riptural; they maintained 
 that St. Mary was Mother of the humanity of 
 Christ, not of the Word, and they fortified them¬ 
 selves by the Nicene Creed, in which no such title 
 is ascribed to her. 
 
 Whatever might be the obscurity or the plausi¬ 
 bility of their original dogma, there is nothing ob¬ 
 scure or attractive in the developments, whether of 
 doctrine or of practice, in which it issued. The first 
 act of the exiles of Edessa, on their obtaining power 
 in the Chaldean communion, was to abolish the 
 celibacy of the clergy, or, in Gibbon’s forcible words, 
 to allow “the public and reiterated nuptials of the 
 priests, the bishops, and even the patriarch him¬ 
 self.” Barsumas, the great instrument of the 
 change of religion, was the first to set an example 
 of the new usage, and is even said by a Nestorian 
 writer to have married a nun. 1 He passed a Canon 
 at Councils, held at Seleucia and elsewhere, that Bish¬ 
 ops and priests might marry, and might renew their 
 wives as often as they lost them. The Catholicus 
 who followed Acacius went so far as to extend the 
 benefit of the Canon to Monks, that is, to destroy 
 the Monastic order; and his two successors availed 
 
 1 Asseman. t. 3, p. 67. 
 
 u 2 
 
292 APPLICATION OF THE FIRST TEST. [Chap. V. 
 
 themselves of this liberty, and are recorded to have 
 been fathers. A restriction, however, was afterwards 
 placed upon the Catholicus, and upon the Episcopal 
 order. 
 
 Such were the circumstances, and such the prin¬ 
 ciples, under which the See of Seleucia became the 
 Rome of the East. In the course of time the Ca¬ 
 tholicus took on himself the loftier and independent 
 title of Patriarch of Babylon; and though Seleucia 
 was changed for Ctesiphon and for Bagdad, 1 still 
 the name of Babylon was preserved from first 
 to last as a formal or ideal Metropolis. In the 
 time of the Caliphs, it was at the head of as many 
 as twenty-five Archbishops; its Communion ex¬ 
 tended from China to Jerusalem; and its numbers, 
 with those of the Monophysites, are said to have 
 surpassed those of the Greek and Latin Churches 
 together. The Nestorians seem to have been un- 
 willing, like the Novatians, to be called by the name 
 of their founder, 2 though they confessed it had ad¬ 
 hered to them ; one instance may be specified of 
 their assuming the name of Catholic, 3 but there is 
 nothing to show it was given them by others. 
 
 u Erom the conquest of Persia,” says Gibbon, 
 “they carried their spiritual arms to the North, the 
 East, and the South; and the simplicity of the Gos¬ 
 pel was fashioned and painted with the colours of 
 the Syriac theology. In the sixth century, according 
 to the report of a Nestorian traveller, Christianity 
 was successfully preached to the Bactrians, the 
 Huns, the Persians, the Indians, the Persarmenians, 
 the Medes, and the Elamites : the Barbaric Churches 
 from the gulf of Persia to the Caspian Sea were 
 almost infinite; and their recent faith was conspicu¬ 
 ous in the number and sanctity of their monks and 
 martyrs. The pepper coast of Malabar and the 
 isles of the ocean, Socotra and Ceylon, were peo¬ 
 pled with an increasing multitude of Christians, 
 
 1 Gibbon, ibid. 2 Assent, p. Ixxvi. 3 Ibid. t. 3, p. 441. 
 
 
Sec. III.] THE FIFTH AND SIXTH CENTURIES. 293 
 
 and the bishops and clergy of those sequestered 
 regions derived their ordination from the Catholicus 
 of Babylon. In a subsequent age, the zeal of the 
 Nestorians overleaped the limits which had con- 
 lined the ambition and curiosity both of the Greeks 
 and Persians. The missionaries of Batch and 
 Samarcand pursued without fear the footsteps 
 of the roving Tartar, and insinuated themselves 
 into the camps of the valleys of Imaus and the 
 banks of the Selinga.” 1 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 THE MONOPHYSITES. 
 
 Eutyches was Archimandrite, or Abbot, of a 
 Monastery in the suburbs of Constantinople; he 
 was a man of unexceptionable character, and was 
 of the age of seventy years, and had been Abbot for 
 thirty, at the date of his unhappy introduction into 
 ecclesiastical history. He had been the friend and 
 assistant of St. Cyril of Alexandria, and had lately 
 taken part against Ibas, Bishop of Edessa, whose 
 name has occurred in the foregoing Section. For 
 some time he had been engaged in teaching a 
 doctrine concerning the Incarnation, which he 
 maintained indeed to be none other than that of St. 
 Cyril’s in his controversy with Nestorius, but which 
 others denounced as an heresy in the opposite 
 extreme, and substantially a re-assertion of Apol- 
 linarianism. The subject was brought before a 
 Council of Constantinople, under the presidency of 
 Flavian, the Patriarch, in the year 448; and 
 Eutyches was condemned by the assembled Bishops 
 of holding the doctrine of One, instead of Two 
 Natures in Christ. 
 
 It is but indirectly to our present purpose to 
 ascertain accurately what he held, and there has 
 been a great deal of controversy on the subject; 
 
 1 Ch. 47. 
 
294 APPLICATION OF THE FIRST TEST. [Chap. V. 
 
 partly from confusion between him and his suc¬ 
 cessors, partly from the indecision or the ambiguity 
 which commonly attaches to the professions of 
 heretics. If a statement must be made of the 
 doctrine of Eutyches himself, in whom the con¬ 
 troversy began, let it be said to consist in these two 
 tenets:—in maintaining, first, that “before the 
 Incarnation there were two natures, after their 
 union one,” or that our Lord was of or from two 
 ! natures, but not in two ;—and, secondly, that His 
 flesh was not of one substance with ours, that is, 
 not of the substance of St. Mary. Of these two 
 points, he seemed willing to abandon the second, 
 but was firm in his maintenance of the first. But 
 let us return to the Council of Constantinople. 
 
 On examination Eutyches allowed that the Holy 
 Virgin was consubstantial with us, and that “ our 
 God was incarnate of her but he would not allow 
 that He was therefore, as man, consubstantial with 
 us, his notion apparently being that union with the 
 Divinity had changed what otherwise would have 
 been human nature. However, when pressed, he 
 said, that, though up to that day he had not per¬ 
 mitted himself to discuss the nature of Christ, or to 
 affirm that “God’s body is man’s body though it 
 was human,” yet he would allow, if commanded, 
 our Lord’s consubstantiality with us. Upon this 
 Flavian observed that “the Council was introducing 
 no innovation, but declaring the faith of the Fa¬ 
 thers.” To his other position, however, that our 
 Lord had but one nature after the Incarnation, he 
 adhered : when the Catholic doctrine was put before 
 him, he answered, “Let St. Athanasius be read ; 
 you will find nothing of the kind there.” 
 
 His condemnation followed: it was signed by 
 twenty-two Bishops and twenty-three Abbots; 1 
 among the former were Flavian of Constantinople, 
 Basil metropolitan of Seleucia in Isauria, the me- 
 
 1 Fleur. Hist, xxvii. 29. 
 
Sec. III.] THE FIFTH AND SIXTH CENTURIES. 295 
 
 tropolitans of Amasea in Pontus, and Marcianopolis 
 in Maesia, and the Bishop of Cos, the Pojie’s minis¬ 
 ter at Constantinople. 
 
 Eutyches appealed to the Pope of the day, St. 
 Leo, who at first hearing took his part. He wrote 
 to Flavian that, “judging by the statement of Euty¬ 
 ches, he did not see with what justice he had been 
 separated from the communion of the Church.” 
 “Send therefore,” he continued, “some suitable 
 person to give us a full account of what has oc¬ 
 curred, and let us know what the new error is.” 
 St. Flavian, who had behaved with great forbear¬ 
 ance throughout the proceedings, had not much 
 difficulty in setting the controversy before the Pope 
 in its true light. 
 
 Eutyches was supported by the Imperial Court, 
 and by Dioscorus the Patriarch of Constantinople; 
 the proceedings therefore at Constantinople were not 
 allowed to settle the question. A general Council 
 was summoned for the ensuing summer at Ephe¬ 
 sus, where the Third Ecumenical Council had been 
 held twenty years before against Nestorius. It was 
 attended by sixty metropolitans, ten from each of 
 the great divisions of the East; the whole number 
 of bishops assembled amounted to one hundred and 
 thirty-five. 1 Dioscorus was appointed President by 
 the Emperor, and the object of the assembly was 
 said to be the settlement of a question of faith 
 which had arisen between Flavian and Eutyches. 
 St. Leo, dissatisfied with the measure altogether, 
 nevertheless sent his legates, but with the object, as 
 their commission stated, and a letter he addressed 
 to the Council, of “condemning the heresy, and re¬ 
 instating Eutyches if he retracted.” His legates 
 took precedence after Dioscorus and before the 
 other Patriarchs. He also published at this time 
 his celebrated Tome on the Incarnation, in a letter 
 addressed to Flavian. 
 
 1 Gibbon, ch. 47. 
 
296 APPLICATION OF THE FIRST TEST. [Chap. Y. 
 
 The proceedings which followed were of so violent 
 a character, that the Council has gone down to pos¬ 
 terity under the name of the Latrocinium or “Gang 
 of Robbers.’ 7 Eutyches was honourably acquitted, 
 and his doctrine received; but the assembled Fa¬ 
 thers showed some backwardness to depose St. 
 Flavian. Dioscorus had been attended by a multi¬ 
 tude of monks, furious zealots for the Monophysite 
 doctrine from Syria and Egypt, and by an armed 
 force. These broke into the Church at his call; 
 Flavian was thrown down and trampled on, and 
 received injuries of which he died the third day 
 after. The Pope’s legates escaped as they could; 
 and the Bishops were compelled to sign a blank 
 paper, which was afterwards filled with the con¬ 
 demnation of Flavian. These outrages, however, 
 were subsequent to the Synodical acceptance of the 
 Creed of Eutyches, which seems to have been the 
 spontaneous act of the assembled Fathers. The 
 proceedings ended by Dioscorus excommunicating 
 the Pope, and the Emperor issuing an edict in ap¬ 
 proval of the decision of the Council. 
 
 Before continuing, the narrative, let us pause 
 awhile to consider what it has already brought 
 before us. An aged and blameless man, the friend 
 of a Saint, and him the great champion of the faith 
 against the heresy of his day, is found in the belief 
 and maintenance of a doctrine, which he declares to 
 be the very doctrine which that Saint taught in 
 opposition to that heresy. To prove it, he and his 
 friends refer to the very words of St. Cyril; Eusta¬ 
 thius of Berytus quoting from him at Ephesus as 
 follows: “We must not then conceive two natures, 
 but one nature of the Word incarnate.” 1 Moreover, 
 it seems that St. Cyril had been called to account 
 for this very phrase, and had appealed more than 
 once to a passage, which is extant as he quoted it, 
 of a work by St. Athanasius. 2 Whether .the pas- 
 
 1 Concil. Hard. t. 2, p. 127. 2 Petav. de Incarn. iv. 6, § 4. 
 
Sec. III.] THE FIFTH AND SIXTH CENTURIES. 
 
 29 
 
 sage in question is genuine is very doubtful, but 
 that is not to the purpose; for the phrase which it 
 contains is also attributed by St. Cyril to other 
 Fathers, and was admitted by Catholics generally, 
 as by St. Flavian, who deposed Eutyches, nay was 
 indirectly adopted by the Council of Chalcedon 
 itself. 
 
 But Eutyches did not merely insist upon a 
 phrase; he appealed for his doctrine to the Fathers 
 generally, 44 I have read the blessed Cyril, and the 
 holy Fathers, and the holy Athanasius;” he says at 
 Constantinople, 44 that they said, 4 Of two natures 
 before the union,’ but that 4 after the union’ they 
 said 4 but one.’” 1 In his letter to St. Leo, he ap¬ 
 peals in particular to St. Julius, Pope Felix, St. 
 Gregory Thaumaturgus, St. Gregory Xazianzen, St. 
 Basil, Atticus, and St. Proclus. He did not appeal 
 to them unreservedly certainly, as shall be presently 
 noticed; he allowed that they might err, and perhaps 
 had erred, in their expressions: but it is plain, even 
 from what has been said, that there could be no 
 consensus against him, as the word is now commonly 
 understood. It is also undeniable that, though the 
 word 44 nature” is applied to our Lord’s manhood 
 by St. Ambrose, St. Gregory Nazianzen, and others, 
 yet on the whole it is for whatever reason avoided by 
 the previous Fathers; certainly by St. Athanasius, 
 who uses the words 44 manhood,” 44 flesh,” 44 the man,” 
 44 economy,” where a later writer would have used 
 44 natureand the same is true of St. Hilary. 2 In 
 like manner, the Athanasian Creed, written, as it is 
 supposed, some twenty years before the date of 
 Eutyches, does not contain the word 44 nature.” 
 Much might be said on the plausibility of the de¬ 
 fence, which Eutyches might have made for his 
 doctrine from the history and documents of the 
 Church before his time. 
 
 1 Concil. Hard. t. 2, p. 167. 
 
 2 Vid. Athan. Ar. Oxf. trans. p. 345, note {/, p. 480, note d. 
 
298 
 
 APPLICATION OF THE FIRST TEST. 
 
 [Chap. Y. 
 
 Further, Eutyches professed to subscribe heartily 
 the decrees of the Council of Mcsea and Ephesus, 
 and his friends appealed to the latter of these Coun¬ 
 cils and to the previous Fathers, that nothing was 
 to be added to the Creed of the Church. “1,” he 
 says to St. Leo, “ even from my elders have so un¬ 
 derstood, and from my childhood have so been 
 instructed, as the holy and Ecumenical Council at 
 Nicasa of the three hundred and eighteen most blessed 
 Bishops settled the faith, and which the Holy Council 
 held at Ephesus maintained and defined anew as the 
 only faith; and I have never understood otherwise 
 than as the right or only true orthodox faith hath 
 enjoined.” He says at the Latrocinium, “When I 
 declared that my faith was conformable to the de¬ 
 cision of Mciea, confirmed at Ephesus, they de¬ 
 manded that I should add some words to it; and I, 
 fearing to act contrary to the decrees of the First 
 Council of Ephesus and of the Council of Nicma, 
 desired that your holy Council might be made ac¬ 
 quainted with it, since I was ready to submit to 
 whatever you should approve.” 1 Hioscorus states 
 the matter more strongly: “ We have heard,” he 
 says, “what this Council” of Ephesus “decreed, that 
 if any one affirm or opine anything, or raise any 
 question, beyond the Creed aforesaid” of Nicasa, “he 
 is to be condemned.” 2 It is remarkable that the 
 Council of Ephesus, which laid down this rule, had 
 
 1 Fleury, Oxf. tr. xxvii. 39. 
 
 2 Ibid. 41. In like manner, St. Athanasius in the foregoing age 
 had said, “Thefaith confessed at Nica3a by the Fathers, according to 
 the Scriptures, is sufficient for the overthrow of all misbelief.” ad 
 Epict. init. Elsewhere, however, he explains his statement, “ The 
 decrees of Nicasa are right, and sufficient for the overthrow of all 
 heresy, especially the Arian.” ad Max. fin. St. Gregory Nazian- 
 zen, in like manner, appeals to Nicaea; but he “adds an explanation 
 on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit which was left deficient by the 
 Fathers, because the question had not then been raised.” Ep. 102, 
 init. This exclusive maintenance, and yet extension of the Creed, 
 according to the exigences of the times, is instanced in other Fathers. 
 Vid. Atlian. Oxf. tr. p. 49, note/?. 
 
Sec. III.] THE FIFTH AND SIXTH CENTURIES. 299 
 
 itself sanctioned the OeoroKos, an addition, greater */ 
 perhaps than any before or since, to the letter of 
 the primitive faith. 
 
 Further, Eutyches appealed to Scripture, and 
 denied that a human nature was there given to our 
 Lord; and this appeal obliged him in consequence to 
 refuse an unconditional assent to the Councils and 
 Fathers, though he so confidently spoke about them 
 at other times. It was urged against him that the 
 Nicene Council itself had introduced into the Creed 
 extra-scriptural terms. 44 4 I have never found in 
 Scripture,’ he said,” reports one of the Priests who 
 were sent to him, 44 4 that there are two natures.’ 
 
 I replied, 4 Neither is the Consubstantiality,’ ” the 
 Homoiision of Nicaea, 44 4 to be found in the Scrip¬ 
 tures, but in the Holy Fathers, who well understood 
 them and faithfully expounded them.’” 1 Accord¬ 
 ingly, on another occasion, a report was made of 
 him, that 44 he professed himself ready to assent to 
 the Exposition of Faith made by the Holy Fathers 
 of the Nicene and Ephesine Councils, and he engaged 
 to subscribe their interpretations. However, if there 
 were any accidental fault or error in any expressions 
 which they made, this he would neither blame nor 
 accept; but only search the Scriptures, as being surer 
 than the expositions of the Fathers; that since the 
 time of the Incarnation of God the Word .... he 
 worshipped one Nature: that the doctrine that our 
 Lord Jesus Christ came of Two Natures personally 
 united, this it was that he had not learned from the 
 expositions of the Floly Fathers; nor did he accept, 
 if aught was read to him from any author to that 
 effect, because the Holy Scriptures, as he said, were 
 better than the teaching of the Fathers.” 2 This 
 appeal to the Scriptures will remind us of what has 
 lately been said of the school of Theodore in the 
 history of Nestorianism, and of the challenge of the 
 Arians to St. Avitus before the Gothic King. 3 It 
 1 Fleury, ibid. 27. 2 Concil. Hard. t. 2, p. 142. 3 supr. p. 240. 
 
300 APPLICATION OP THE FIRST TEST. [Chap. V, 
 
 had also been the characteristic of heresy in the 
 antecedent period. St. Hilary brings together a 
 number of instances in point, from the history of 
 Marcellus,Photinus, Sabellius, Montanus, and Manes; 
 then he adds, u They all speak Scripture without the 
 sense of Scripture, and profess a faith without faith.” 1 
 
 Once more; the Council of the Latrocinium, though 
 tyrannized over by Dioscorus in the matter of St. 
 Flavian, certainly did acquit Eutyches and accept 
 his doctrine canonically, and, as it would appear, 
 cordially; though their change at Chalcedon, and 
 the subsequent variations of the East, make it a 
 matter of little moment how they decided. The 
 Acts of Constantinople were read to the Fathers of 
 the Latrocinium; when they came to the part where 
 Eusebius of Dorykeum, the accuser of Eutyches, 
 asked him, whether he confessed Two Natures after 
 the Incarnation, and the Consubstantiality according 
 to the flesh, the Fathers broke in upon the reading:— 
 u Away with Eusebius; burn him; burn him alive; 
 cut him in two; as he divided, so let him be divided.” 1 
 The Council seems to have been unanimous, with 
 the exception of the Pope’s Legates, in the restora¬ 
 tion of Eutyches; a more complete decision can 
 hardly be imagined. It is true the whole number 
 of signatures now extant, one hundred and eight, 
 may seem small out of a thousand, the number of 
 Sees in the East; but the attendance of Councils 
 always bore a representative character. The whole 
 number of East and West was about eighteen hun- 
 j dred, yet the Second Ecumenical Council was at¬ 
 tended by only one hundred and fifty, which is but 
 a twelfth part of the whole number; the Third Coun¬ 
 cil by about two hundred, or a ninth; the Council 
 of Nictea itself numbered only three hundred and 
 . eighteen Bishops. Moreover, when we look through 
 the names subscribed to the Synodal decision, we 
 
 1 Ad Const, ii. 9. Vid. Athan. Ar. Oxf. tr. p. 386, note. 
 
 2 Concil. Hard. t. 2, p. 162. 
 
Sec. III.] THE FIFTH AND SIXTH CENTURIES. 
 
 301 
 
 find that the misbelief, or misapprehension, or weak¬ 
 ness, to which this great offence must be attributed, 
 was no local phenomenon, but the unanimous sin 
 of every patriarchate and every school of the East- 
 Three out of the four Patriarchs were in favour of 
 the heresiarch, the fourth being on his trial. Of 
 these, Domnus of Antioch and Juvenal of Jerusalem 
 acquitted him, on the ground of his confessing the 
 faith of Nicasa and Ephesus: and Domnus was a 
 man of the fairest and purest character, and origi¬ 
 nally a disciple of St. Euthemius, however incon¬ 
 sistent on this occasion, and ill-advised in former 
 steps of his career. Dioscorus, violent and bad man 
 as he showed himself, had been Archdeacon to St. 
 Cyril, whom he attended at the Council of Ephesus; 
 and was on this occasion supported by those 
 Churches which had so nobly stood by their Patri¬ 
 arch Athanasius in the great Arian conflict. These 
 three Patriarchs were supported by the Exarchs 
 of Ephesus and Caesarea in Cappadocia; and both 
 of them, as well as Domnus and Juvenal, were sup¬ 
 ported in turn by their subordinate Metropolitans. 
 Even the Sees under the influence of Constantinople, 
 which was the remaining sixth division of the East, 
 took part with Eutyches. Thus among the signa¬ 
 tures to his acquittal are the Bishops of Dyrrachium, 
 of Heraclea in Macedonia, of Messene in the Pelo- 
 ponnese, of Sebaste in Armenia, of Tarsus, of Da¬ 
 mascus, of Berytus, of Bostra in Arabia, of Amida 
 in Mesopotamia, of Himeria in Osrhoene, of Babylon, 
 of Arsinoe in Egypt, and of Cyrene. The Bishops 
 of Palestine, of Macedonia, and of Achaia, where 
 the keen eye of St. Athanasius had detected the 
 doctrine in its germ, while Apollinarianism was 
 but growing into form, were his actual partizans. 
 Barsumas, a Syrian Abbot, ignorant of Greek, at¬ 
 tended the Latrocinium, as the representative of 
 the monks of his nation, whom he formed into a 
 force, material or moral, of a thousand strong, and 
 
302 
 
 APPLICATION OF THE FIRST TEST. [Chap. V. 
 
 whom at that infamous assembly he cheered on to 
 the murder of St. Flavian. 
 
 Such was the state of Eastern Christendom in the 
 year 449; a heresy, appealing to the Fathers, to the 
 Creed, and, above all, to Scripture, was by a general 
 Council, professing to be Ecumenical, received as 
 true in the person of its promulgator. If the East 
 could determine a matter of faith independently of 
 the West, certainly the Monophysite heresy was 
 established as Apostolic truth in all its provinces 
 from Macedonia to Egypt. 
 
 There had been a time in the history of Christi- 
 f anity, when it had been Athanasius against the 
 world, and the world against Athanasius. The need 
 j and straitness of the Church had been great, and 
 / one man was raised up for her deliverance. In this 
 second necessity, who was the destined champion of 
 
 ( her who cannot fail? whence did he come, and 
 what was his name ? He came with an augury of 
 victory upon him, which even Athanasius could not 
 show; it was Leo, Bishop of Rome. 
 
 Leo’s augury of success, which even Athanasius 
 had not, was this, that he was seated in the chair 
 of St. Peter and the heir of his prerogatives. In the 
 very beginning of the controversy, St. Peter Chry- 
 sologus had urged this grave consideration upon 
 Eutyches himself, in words which have already 
 been cited: U I exhort you, my venerable brother,” 
 he had said, “to submit yourself in every thing to 
 what has been written by the blessed Pope of Rome; 
 for St. Peter, who lives and presides in his own See, 
 gives the true faith to those who seek it.” 1 This voice 
 had come from Ravenna, and now after the Latro- 
 cinium it was echoed back from the depths of Syria 
 by the learned Theodoret. “That all-holy See,” he 
 says in a letter to one of the Pope’s, Legates, “ has 
 the office of heading (Try e^oviav) the whole world’s 
 Churches for many reasons; and above all others, 
 
 1 Fleury, Hist. Oxf. tr. xxvii. 37. 
 
303 
 
 Sec. III.] THE FIFTH AND SIXTH CENTURIES. 
 
 because it has remained free of the communion of 
 heretical taint, and no one of heterodox sentiments 
 hath sat in it, but it hath preserved the Apostolic 
 grace unsullied.” 1 And a third testimony in encou¬ 
 ragement of the faithful at the same dark moment 
 issued from the Imperial Court of the West. a We 
 are bound,” says Yalentinian to the Emperor of the 
 East, “ to preserve inviolate in our times the pre¬ 
 rogative of particular reverence to the blessed Apos¬ 
 tle Peter; that the most blessed Bishop of Pome, to 
 whom Antiquity assigned the priesthood over all 
 (k-ara ?rdvrwv) may have place and opportunity of 
 judging concerning the faith and the priests.” 2 
 Nor had Leo himself been wanting at the same time 
 in “the confidence” he had “obtained from the 
 most blessed Peter and head of the Apostles, that 
 he had authority to defend the truth for the peace 
 of the Church.” 3 Such are the words with which 
 we are introduced to the Council of Chalcedon. 
 
 The Council met on the 8th of October, 451, and 
 was attended by the largest number of Bishops of 
 any Council before or since ; some say by as many 
 as six hundred and thirty. Of these, only four 
 came from the West, two Roman Legates and two 
 Africans. 4 
 
 Its proceedings were opened by the Pope’s 
 Legates, who said that they had it in charge from 
 the Bishop of Rome, “ which is the head of all the 
 Churches,” to demand that Dioscorus should not sit, 
 on the ground that “he had presumed to hold a 
 Council without the authority of the Apostolic See, 
 which had never been done nor was lawful to do.” 5 
 This was immediately allowed them. 
 
 The next act of the Council was to give admission 
 to Theodoret, who had been deposed at the Latro- 
 cinium. The Imperial officers present urged his 
 
 1 Ep. 116. 2 Cone. Hard. t. 2, p. 36. 3 Ep. 43. 
 
 4 Floury, Hist. Oxf. tr. xxviii. 17, note 1 . 
 
 5 Concil. Hard. t. 2, p. 68. 
 
304 APPLICATION OF THE FIRST TEST. [Chap. Y. 
 
 admission, on the ground that u the most holy 
 Archbishop Leo hath restored him to the Episcopal 
 office, and the most pious Emperor has ordered that 
 he should assist at the holy Council.” 1 
 
 Presently, a charge was brought forward against 
 Dioscorus, that though the Legates had presented a 
 letter from the Pope to the Council, it had not been 
 read. Dioscorus admitted not only the fact, but 
 its relevancy; but alleged in excuse that he had 
 twice ordered it to be read in vain. 
 
 In the course of the reading of the Acts of the La- 
 trocinium and Constantinople, a number of Bishops 
 moved from the side of Dioscorus and placed them¬ 
 selves with the opposite party. When Peter, Bishop 
 of Corinth, crossed over, the Orientals whom he 
 joined shouted, u Peter thinks as does Peter; ortho¬ 
 dox Bishop welcome.” 
 
 In the second Session the duty of the Fathers was 
 to draw up a confession of faith condemnatory of 
 the heresy. A committee was formed for the pur¬ 
 pose, and the Creed of Nicaea and Constantinople 
 was read ; then some of the Epistles of St. Cyril; 
 lastly, St. Leo’s Tome, which had been passed over 
 in silence at the Latrocinium. Some discussion 
 followed upon the last of these documents, but at 
 length the Bishops cried out, u This is the faith of 
 the Fathers; this is the faith of the Apostles: we 
 all believe thus; the orthodox believe thus; ana¬ 
 thema to him who does not believe thus. Peter has 
 thus spoken through Leo; the Apostles taught thus.” 
 Leadings from the other Fathers followed; and then 
 some days were allowed for private discussion, before 
 drawing up the confession of faith. 
 
 During the interval, Dioscorus was tried and 
 condemned; sentence was pronounced against him 
 by the Pope’s Legates, and ran thus: u The most 
 holy Archbishop of Rome, Leo, through us and this 
 present Council, with the Apostle St. Peter, who is 
 
 1 Fleury, Oxf. tr. xxviii. 2 , 3. 
 
Sec. III.] THE FIFTH AND SIXTH CENTURIES. 305 
 
 the rock and foundation of the Catholic Church and 
 of the orthodox faith, deprives him of the Episcopal 
 dignity and every sacerdotal ministry.” 
 
 In the fourth Session the question of the definition 
 of faith came on again, and the Council got no fur¬ 
 ther than this, that it received the definition of the 
 three previous Ecumenical Councils, but would not 
 add to them. One hundred and sixty Bishops how¬ 
 ever subscribed the Tome of St. Leo. 
 
 In the fifth Session the question came on once 
 more; a definition of faith was the result of the 
 labours of the committee, and was accepted by the 
 great majority of the Council. The Bishops cried 
 out, “We are all satisfied with the definition; it is 
 the faith of the Fathers: anathema to him who 
 thinks otherwise: drive out the Nestorians.” Ob¬ 
 jectors appeared, but Anatolius, the new Patriarch 
 of Constantinople, asked, “ Did not every one yes¬ 
 terday consent to the definition of faith?” The 
 Bishops answered, “Every one consented; we do 
 not believe otherwise; it is the Faith of the Fathers; 
 let it be set down that Holy Mary is the Mother of 
 God: let this be added to the Creed; put out the Nes- 
 torians.” 1 The objectors were the Pope’s Legates, 
 who were supported by some Orientals: those clear¬ 
 sighted, firm-minded Latins understood full well 
 what and what alone was the true expression of or¬ 
 thodox doctrine under the emergency of the exist¬ 
 ing heresy. They had been instructed to induce 
 the Council to pass a declaration to the effect, that 
 Christ was not onlv “of,” but “in” two natures. 
 However, they did not enter upon disputation on 
 the point, but they used a more intelligible argu¬ 
 ment: “ If the Fathers did not consent to the letter 
 of the blessed Bishop Leo,” they would leave the 
 Council and go home. The Imperial officers took 
 the part of the Legates. The Council however 
 persisted: “ Every one approved the definition; let 
 
 1 Ibid. 20. 
 
 X 
 
306 APPLICATION OF THE FIRST TEST. [Chap. V. 
 
 it be subscribed : he who refuses to subscribe it is 
 a heretic.” They even proceeded to refer it to 
 Divine inspiration. The officers asked if they re¬ 
 ceived St. Leo’s Tome; they answered that they 
 had subscribed it, but that they would not intro¬ 
 duce its contents into their definition of faith. 
 44 We are for no other definition,” they said; “no¬ 
 thing is wanting in this.” 
 
 Notwithstanding, the Pope’s Legates gained their 
 point through the support of the Emperor Marcian, 
 who had succeeded Theodosius. A fresh committee 
 Avas obtained under the threat that, if they resisted, 
 the Council should be transferred to the West. Some 
 voices Avere raised against this measure; the cries 
 Avere repeated against the Roman party, u They 
 are Nestorians; let them go to Rome.” The Impe¬ 
 rial officers remonstrated, 44 Dioscorus said, 4 Of two 
 natures; ’ Leo says, 4 Taa t o natures: ’ which Avill you 
 folloAv, Leo or Dioscorus?” On their ansAvering 
 44 Leo,” they continued, 44 Well then, add to the de¬ 
 finition, according to the judgment of our most 
 holy Leo.” Nothing more Avas to be said. The 
 committee immediately proceeded to their Avork, 
 and in a short time returned to the assembly Avith 
 such a definition as the Pope required. After re¬ 
 citing the Creed of Nicsea and Constantinople, it 
 observes, 44 This Creed were sufficient for the 
 I perfect knoAvledge of religion, but the enemies of 
 the truth have invented novel expressions;” and 
 therefore it proceeds to state the faith more expli¬ 
 citly. When this Avas read through, the Bishops 
 all exclaimed, 44 This is the faith of the Fathers; 
 Ave all folloAv it.” And thus ended the controversy 
 once for all. 
 
 The Council, after its termination, addressed a 
 letter to St. Leo; in it the Fathers acknoAvledge 
 him as 44 constituted interpreter of the voice of 
 •Blessed Peter,” 1 with an allusion to St. Peter’s 
 Confession in Matthew xvi., and speak of him as 
 
 1 Cone. Hard. t. 2, p. 656. 
 
Sec. III.] THE FIFTH AND SIXTH CENTURIES. 307 
 
 “ the very one commissioned with the guardianship 
 of the Vine by the Saviour. 77 
 
 Such is the external aspect of those proceedings 
 by which the Catholic faith has been established in 
 Christendom against the Monophysites. That the 
 definition passed at Chalcedon is the Apostolic 
 Truth once delivered to the Saints is most firmly 
 to be received, from faith in that overruling Provi¬ 
 dence which is by special promise extended over 
 the acts of the Church; moreover, that it is in 
 simple accordance with the faith of St. Athanasius, 
 St. Gregory Nazianzen, and all the other Fathers, 
 will be evident to the theological student in propor¬ 
 tion as he becomes familiar with their works: but 
 the historical account of the Council is this, that a \ 
 doctrine which the Creed did not declare, which the 
 Fathers did not unanimously witness, and which \ 
 some eminent Saints had almost in set terms op¬ 
 posed, which the whole East refused as a symbol, 
 not once, but twice, patriarch by patriarch, metro¬ 
 politan by metropolitan, first by the mouth of above 
 a hundred, then by the mouth of above six hundred 
 of its Bishops, and refused upon the grounds of its 
 being an addition to the Creed, was forced upon 
 the Council, not indeed as a Creed, yet, on the other j 
 hand, not for subscription merely, but for its accept¬ 
 ance as a definition of faith under the sanction of 
 an anathema, forced on the Council by the resolu¬ 
 tion of the Pope of the day, acting through his 1 
 Legates and supported by the civil power. 
 
 It cannot be supposed that such a transaction 
 would approve itself to the Churches of Egypt, and 
 the event showed it: they disowned the authority 
 of the Council, and called its adherents Chalcedo- 
 nians, 1 and Synodites. 2 Here was the West tyran- 
 
 1 I cannot find my. reference for this fact; the sketch is formed 
 
 */ 
 
 from notes made some years since, though I have now verified 
 them. 
 
 2 Leont. de Sect. v. p. 512. 
 
 x 2 
 
308 APPLICATION OF THE FII1ST TEST. [Chap. V. 
 
 prizing over the East, forcing it into agreement with 
 itself, resolved to have one and one only form of 
 words, rejecting the definition of faith which the 
 East had drawn up in Council, bidding it and 
 making it frame another, dealing peremptorily and 
 sternly with the assembled Bishops, and casting 
 contempt on the most sacred traditions of Egypt. 
 What was Eutyches to them ? He might be guilty 
 or innocent; they gave him up: Dioscorus had 
 given him up at Chalcedon; 1 they did not agree 
 with him: 2 he was an extreme man; they would 
 not call themselves by human titles; they were not 
 Eutychians; Eutyches was not their master, but 
 Athanasius and Cyril were their doctors. 3 The 
 two great lights of their Church, the two greatest 
 and most successful polemical Fathers that, Chris¬ 
 tianity had seen, had both pronounced “ One Nature 
 Incarnate,” though allowing Two before the Incarna¬ 
 tion ; and though Leo and his Council had not gone 
 so far as to deny this phrase, they had proceeded to 
 say what was the contrary to it, to explain away, 
 to overlay the truth, by defining that the Incarnate 
 Saviour was “in Two Natures.” At Ephesus it had 
 been declared that the Creed should not be touched; 
 the Chalcedonian Fathers had, not literally, but vir¬ 
 tually added to it: by subscribing Leo’s Tome, and 
 promulgating their definition of faith, they had 
 added what might be called, u The Creed of Pope 
 Leo.” 
 
 It is remarkable, as has been just stated, that 
 Dioscorus, wicked man as he was in act, was of the 
 moderate or middle school in doctrine, as the 
 violent and able Severus after him; and from the 
 first the great body of the protesting party dis¬ 
 owned Eutyches, whose form of the heresy took 
 refuge in Armenia, where it remains to this day. 
 The Armenians alone were pure Eutychians, and 
 
 1 Concil. Hard. t. 2, p. 99, vid. also p. 418. 2 Renaud. Patr. Alex. p. 115. 
 
 3 Assem. B. 0. t. 2, pp. 133—137. 
 
Sec. III.] THE FIFTH AND SIXTH CENTURIES. 
 
 309 
 
 so zealously such that they innovated on the an¬ 
 cient and recognised custom of mixing water with 
 the wine in the Holy Eucharist, and consecrated the 
 wine by itself in token of the one nature, as they 
 considered, of the Christ. Elsewhere both name and 
 doctrine of Eutyches were abjured; the heretical 
 bodies in Egypt and Syria took a title from their 
 tenet, and formed the Monophysite communion. 
 Their theology was at once simple and specious. 
 They based it upon the illustration which is fami¬ 
 liar to us in the Athanasian Creed, and which had 
 been used by St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Cyril, 
 St. Augustine, Vincent, of Lerins, not to say St. 
 Leo himself. They argued that as body and soul 
 made up one man, so God and man made up but 
 one, though one compound Nature, in Christ. It. 
 might have been charitably hoped that their differ¬ 
 ence from the Catholics had been a simple matter 
 of words, as it is allowed by Vigilius of Thapsa 
 really to have been in many cases; but their refusal 
 to obey the voice of the Church was an omen of 
 error in their faith, and its secret heterodoxy is 
 proved by their connexion, in spite of themselves, 
 with the extreme or ultra party whom they so 
 vehemently disowned. It is very observable that, 
 ingenious as is their theory and sometimes per¬ 
 plexing to a disputant, the Monophysites never 
 could shake themselves free of the Eutychians; 
 and though they could draw intelligible lines on 
 paper between the two doctrines, yet in fact by a 
 hidden fatality their partizans were ever running 
 into or forming alliance with the anathematized 
 extreme. Thus Peter the Euller, the Theopaschite 
 (Eutychian), is at one time in alliance with Peter the 
 Stammerer, who advocated the Henoticon (Mono¬ 
 physite). The Acephali, though separating from the 
 latter Peter for that advocacy, and accused by Leon¬ 
 tius of being Gaianit.es 1 (Eutychians), are considered 
 
 1 Lcont. do Sect. vii. pp. 521, 2. 
 
310 APPLICATION OF THE FIRST TEST. [Chap. V. 
 
 by Facundus as Monophysites. 1 Timothy the Cat, 
 who is said to have agreed with Dioscorus and 
 Peter the Stammerer, who signed the Henoticon, 
 that is, with two Monophysite Patriarchs, is said 
 nevertheless, according to Anastasius, to have 
 maintained the extreme tenet, that “the Divinity 
 is the sole nature in Christ.” 2 Severus, according 
 to Anastasius, 2 symbolized with the Phantasiasts 
 (Eutychians), yet he is more truly, according to 
 Leontius, the chief doctor and leader of the Mono¬ 
 phy sites. And at one time there was a union, 
 though temporary, between the Theodosians (Mo¬ 
 nophy sites) and the Gaianites. 
 
 Such a division of an heretical party, into the 
 maintainers of a moderate and an extreme view, 
 perspicuous and plausible on paper, yet in fact 
 unreal, impracticable, and hopeless, was no new 
 phenomenon in the history of the Church. As Eu- 
 tyches put forward an extravagant tenet, which was 
 first corrected into the Monophysite, and then re¬ 
 lapsed recklessly into the doctrine of the Phantasiasts 
 and the Theopaschites, so had Arius been superseded 
 by the Eusebians, and had revived in Eunomius; 
 and as the moderate Eusebians had formed the great 
 body of the dissentients to the Aicene Council, so 
 did the Monophysites include the mass of those who 
 protested against Chalcedon; and as the Eusebians 
 had been moderate in creed, yet unscrupulous in 
 act, so were the Monophysites. And as the Eusebi¬ 
 ans were ever running individually into pure Arian- 
 ism, so did the Monophysites run into pure Euty- 
 chianism. And as the Monophysites set themselves 
 against Pope Leo, so had the Eusebians, with even 
 less provocation, withstood and complained of Pope 
 Julius. In like manner, the Apollinarians had 
 divided into two sects; one, with Timotheus, going 
 the whole length of the inferences which the tenet 
 of their master involved, and the more cautious 
 Fac. i. 5, circ. initr 2 Hodeg. 20, p. 319. 
 
 1 
 
Sec. III.] THE FIFTH AND SIXTH CENTURIES. 311 
 
 or timid party making an unintelligible stand with 
 Valentinus. Again, in the history of Nestorianism, 
 though it admitted less opportunity for division of 
 opinion, the See of Rome was with St. Cyril in one 
 extreme, Nestorius in the other, and between them 
 the great Eastern party, headed by John of An¬ 
 tioch and Theodoret, not heretical, but for a time 
 dissatisfied with the Council of Ephesus. 
 
 The Nestorian heresy, I have said, gave less oppor¬ 
 tunity for doctrinal varieties than the heresy of 
 Eutyches. Its spirit was rationalizing, and had the 
 qualities which go with rationalism. When cast 
 out of the Roman Empire, it addressed itself, as we 
 have seen, to a new and rich field of exertion, got 
 possession of an Established Church, co-operated 
 with the civil government, adopted secular fashions, 
 and, by whatever means, pushed itself out into an 
 Empire. Apparently, though it requires a very 
 intimate knowledge of its history to speak, except 
 conjecturally, it was a political power rather than a 
 dogma, and despised the science of theology. Euty- 
 chianism, on the other hand, was mystical, severe, 
 enthusiastic; with the exception of Severus, and 
 one or Two more, it was supported by little polemi¬ 
 cal skill; it had little hold upon the intellectual 
 Greeks of Syria and Asia Minor, but flourished in 
 Egypt, which was far behind the East in civiliza¬ 
 tion, and among the native Syrians. Nestorianism, 
 like Arianism before it, was a cold religion, and 
 more fitted for the schools than for the many ; l but 
 the Monophysites carried the people with them. 
 Like modern Jansenism, and unlike Nestorianism, 
 the Monophy sites were famous for their austerities. 
 They have, or had, five Lents in the year, during 
 which laity as well as clergy abstain not only 
 from flesh and eggs, but from wine, oil, and fish. 2 
 
 1 i. e. in Greece: “ Sanctiores aures plebis quam corda sunt sacer- 
 dotum.” S. Hil. contr. Auxent. 6 . It requires some research to ac¬ 
 count for its hold on the barbarians. Vid. Supr. pp. 271, 2. 
 
 2 Gibbon, eh. 47. 
 
312 APPLICATION OF THE FIRST TEST. [Chap. V. 
 
 Monachism was a characteristic part of their eccle¬ 
 siastical system : their Bishops, and Maphrian or 
 Patriarch, were always taken from the Monks, who 
 are even said to have worn an iron shirt or breast¬ 
 plate as a part of their monastic habit. 1 
 
 Severus, Patriarch of Antioch at the end of the 
 fifth century, has already been mentioned as an * 
 exception to the general character of the Monophy- 
 sites, and, by his learning and ability, may be ac¬ 
 counted the founder of its theology. Their cause, 
 however, had been undertaken by the Emperors 
 themselves before him. For the first thirty years 
 after the Council of Chalcedon, the protesting Church 
 of Egypt had been the scene of continued tumult 
 and bloodshed. Dioscorus had been popular with 
 the people for his munificence, in spite of the ex¬ 
 treme laxity of his morals, and for a while the Im¬ 
 perial Government did not succeed in obtaining the 
 election of a successor. At length Proterius, a man 
 of fair character, and the Yicar-general of Dioscorus 
 on his absence at Chalcedon, was chosen, conse¬ 
 crated, and enthroned; but the people rose against 
 the civil authorities, and the military, coming to 
 their defence, were attacked with stones, and pur¬ 
 sued into a church, where they were burned alive 
 by the mob. Next, the popular leaders prepared 
 to intercept the supplies of grain which were des¬ 
 tined for Constantinople; and, a defensive retaliation 
 taking place, Alexandria was starved. Then a force 
 of two thousand men were sent for the restoration 
 of order, and permitted themselves in scandalous 
 excesses towards the women of Alexandria. Pro¬ 
 terius’s life was attempted, and he was obliged to be 
 attended by a guard. The Bishops of Egypt would 
 not submit to him; two of his own clergy, who 
 afterwards succeeded him, Timothy and Peter, se¬ 
 ceded, and were joined by four or five of the Bishops 
 and by the mass of the population; 2 and the Catholic 
 1 Assem. B. 0. t. 2, tie Monopb. circ. fin. 2 Leont. Sect. v. init. 
 
Sec. III.] 
 
 THE FIETH AND SIXTH CENTURIES. 
 
 813 
 
 Patriarch was left without a communion in Alex¬ 
 andria. He held a council, and condemned the 
 schismatics; and the Emperor, seconding his efforts, 
 sent them out of the country, and enforced the laws 
 against the Eutychians. An external quiet suc¬ 
 ceeded ; then Marcian died; and then forthwith 
 Timothy the Cat made his appearance again, first 
 in Egypt, then in Alexandria. The people rose in 
 his favour, and carried in triumph their persecuted 
 champion to the great Caesarean Church, where he 
 was consecrated Patriarch by two deprived Bishops, 
 who had been put out of their sees, whether by a 
 Council of Egypt or of Palestine. 1 Timothy, now 
 raised to the Episcopal rank, began to create a new 
 succession; he ordained Bishops for the Churches 
 of Egypt, and drove into exile those who were in 
 possession. The Imperial troops, who had been 
 stationed in Upper Egypt, returned to Alexandria; 
 the mob rose again, broke into the Church, where 
 St. Proterius was in prayer, and murdered him. 
 
 A general ejectment of the Catholic clergy through¬ 
 out Egypt followed. On their betaking themselves 
 to Constantinople to the new Emperor, Timothy 
 and his party addressed him also. They quoted 
 the Fathers, and demanded the abrogation of the 
 Council of Chalcedon. Next, they demanded a ; 
 conference; the Catholics said that what was once 7 
 done could not be undone; they agreed, and urged 
 it, as their very argument against Chalcedon, that / 
 it had added to the faith, and reversed former de- J 
 cisions. 2 After a rule of three years, Timothy was 
 driven out and Catholicism restored; but then in 
 turn the Monopliysites rallied, and this state of 
 warfare and alternate success continued for thirty 
 years. 
 
 At length the Imperial Government, wearied out 
 with a dispute which was interminable, came to 
 
 1 Tillemont, t. 15, p. 784. 
 
 2 Tillemont, Mem. t. 15, pp. 790—811. 
 
314 
 
 APPLICATION OF THE FIRST TEST. [Chap. V. 
 
 , the conclusion that the only way of restoring peace 
 to the Church was to abandon the Council of 
 1 Chalcedon. In the year 482 was published the fa¬ 
 mous llenoticon or Pacification of Zeno, in which 
 the Emperor took upon himself to determine a 
 matter of faith. The Henoticon declared that no 
 symbol of faith but that of the Nicene Creed, com¬ 
 monly so called, should be received in the Churches; 
 it anathematized the opposite heresies of Nestorius 
 and Eutyches, and it was silent on the question of 
 L the “ One” or “Two Natures” after the Incarnation. 
 This middle measure had the various effects which 
 might be anticipated. It united the great body of 
 the Eastern Bishops, who readily relapsed into the 
 vague profession of doctrine from which they had 
 been roused by the authority of St. Leo. All the 
 Eastern Bishops signed this Imperial formulary. 
 But this unanimity of the East was purchased by a 
 breach with the West; the Popes cut oif the commu¬ 
 nication between the two divisions of Christendom 
 for thirty-live years. On the other hand, the more 
 zealous Monophysites, disgusted at their leaders for 
 accepting what they considered an unjustifiable 
 compromise, split off from the heretical Churches, 
 and formed a sect by themselves, which remained 
 without Bishops ( acephali ) for three hundred years, 
 when at length they were received back into the 
 ’ communion of the Catholic Church. 
 
 Dreary and waste was the condition of the Church, 
 and forlorn her prospects, at the period which we 
 have been reviewing. After the brief triumph which 
 attended the conversion of Constantine, trouble and 
 trial had returned upon her. Her imperial protec¬ 
 tors were failing in power or in faith. Strange 
 forms of evil were rising in the distance and were 
 thronging for the conflict. There was but one spot 
 in the whole of Christendom, one voice in the whole 
 
Sec. TIL] the FIFTH AND SIXTH CENTURIES. 315 
 
 Episcopate, to which the faithful turned in hope in 
 that miserable day. In the year 493, in the Ponti¬ 
 ficate of Gelasius, the whole of the East was in the 
 hands of traitors to Chalcedon, and the whole of the 
 West under the tyranny of the open enemies of 
 INican. Italy was the prey of robbers; mercenary 
 bands had overrun its territory, and barbarians were 
 seizing on its farms and settling in its villas. The 
 peasants were thinned by famine and pestilence; 
 Tuscany might be even said, as Gelasius words it, 
 to contain scarcely a single inhabitant. 1 Odoacer 
 was sinking before Theodoric, and the Pope was 
 changing one Arian master for another. And as if 
 one heresy were not enough, Pelagianism was spread¬ 
 ing with the connivance of the Bishops in the terri¬ 
 tory of Picenum. In the North of the dismembered 
 Empire, the Britons had first been infected by Pela¬ 
 gianism, and now were dispossessed by the heathen 
 Saxons. The Armoricans still preserved a witness 
 of Catholicism in the West of Gaul; but Picardy, 
 Champagne, and the neighbouring provinces, where 
 some remnant of its supremacy had been found, 
 had lately submitted to the yet heathen Clovis. The 
 Arian kingdoms of Burgundy in France, and of the 
 Visigoths in Aquitaine and Spain, oppressed a zea¬ 
 lous and Catholic clergy. Africa was in still more 
 deplorable condition under the cruel sway of the 
 Vandal Gundamond: the people indeed uncorrupted 
 by the heresy, 2 but their clergy in exile and their 
 worship suspended. While such was the state of 
 the Latins, what had happened in the East? Aca- 
 cius, the Patriarch of Constantinople, had secretly 
 taken part against the Council of Chalcedon and 
 was under Papal excommunication. Nearly all the 
 whole East had sided with Acacius, and a schism 
 had begun between East and West, which lasted for 
 thirty-five years. The Henoticon was in force, and 
 
 1 Gibbon, Hist. ch. 36, fin. 2 Ibid. 
 
 j 
 
316 
 
 APPLICATION OF THE FIRST TEST. [Chap. V. 
 
 at the Imperial command had been signed by all the 
 Patriarchs and Bishops throughout the Eastern Em¬ 
 pire. 1 In Armenia the Churches were ripening for 
 the pure Eutychianism which they adopted in the 
 following Century; and in Egypt the Acephali had 
 already broken off from the Monophysite Patriarch, 
 were extending in the east and west of the country, 
 and preferred the loss of the Episcopal Succession 
 to the reception of the Council of Chalcedon. And 
 while Monophysites or their favourers occupied the 
 Churches of the Eastern Empire, Nestorianism 
 was making progress in the territories beyond it. 
 Barsumas had filled the See of Nisibis, Theodore 
 was read in the schools of Persia, and the succes¬ 
 sive Catholici of Seleucia had abolished Monachism 
 and were secularizing the clergy. 
 
 If then there is now a form of Christianity such, 
 that it extends throughout the world, though with 
 varying measures of prominence or prosperity in 
 separate places;—that it lies under the power of sove¬ 
 reigns and magistrates, in different ways alien to its 
 faith;—that flourishing nations and great empires, 
 professing or tolerating the Christian name, lie over 
 against it as antagonists;—that schools of philosophy 
 and learning are supporting theories, and following 
 out conclusions, hostile to it, and establishing an ex- 
 egetical system subversive of its Scriptures;—that it 
 has lost whole Churches by schism, and is now op¬ 
 posed by powerful communions once part of itself;— 
 that it has been altogether or almost driven from 
 some countries;—that in others its line of teachers is 
 overlaid, its flocks oppressed, its Churches occupied, 
 its property held by what may be called a duplicate 
 succession;—that in others its members are degener¬ 
 ate and corrupt, and surpassed in conscientiousness 
 and in virtue, as in gifts of intellect, by the very 
 heretics whom it condemns;—that heresies are rife 
 
 1 Gibbon, Hist. ch. 47. 
 
317 
 
 Sec. III.] THE FIFTH AND SIXTH CENTURIES. 
 
 and bishops negligent within its own pale;—and that 
 amid its disorders and fears there is but one Voice 
 for whose decisions its people wait with trust, one 
 Name and one See to which they look with hope, 
 and that name Peter, and that see Rome;—such a 
 religion is not unlike the Christianity of the fifth 
 and sixth Centuries. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS CONTINUED. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 APPLICATION OF THE SECOND TEST OF FIDELITY 
 
 IN DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 It appears then that there has been a certain 
 general type of Christianity in every age, by which 
 it is known at first sight, as any physical production, 
 animal or vegetable, is named at once by those to 
 whom such forms of nature are familiar; or as 
 some work of literature or art is at once assigned 
 to its right author by the critic, difficult as may 
 be the analysis of that specific impression by which 
 he is enabled to do so. And it appears that this 
 type has remained entire from first to last, in spite 
 of that process of development which seems to be 
 attributed by all parties, for good or bad, to the 
 doctrines, rites, and usages in which Christianity 
 consists; or, in other words, that the changes which 
 have taken place in Christianity have not been such 
 as to destroy that type,—that is, that they are not 
 corruptions, because they are consistent with that 
 type. Here then, in the 'preservation of type , we 
 have a first proof of the fidelity of the existing 
 developments of Christianity. Now we proceed 
 to a second. 
 
 When the Christian developments are spoken of, 
 it is sometimes supposed that they are deductions 
 
Sec. I.] SCRIPTURE AND ITS MYSTICAL SENSE. 319 
 
 and divertions made at random, according to ac¬ 
 cident or the caprice of individuals; whereas, if 
 they really deserve the name, they must be con¬ 
 ducted all along on definite and continuous prin¬ 
 ciples, which determine their course. Thus Judaism 
 did but develop, while it bore in mind its imperfec¬ 
 tion, and its subordination to a coming Messiah; and 
 it became corrupt as soon, and in proportion, as 
 it fancied itself self-sufficient, and rejected the 
 Gospel. What then are the principles of Christian 
 development ? Have they been the same from the 
 first to the present age? For continuity of principle 
 will become a second evidence that the so-called 
 Catholic doctrines are true developments, and not 
 corruptions. Principles of development, thus con¬ 
 tinuous, may I think be assigned; and I proceed 
 to mention two or three by way of specimen. 
 
 Scripture and its Mystical Interpretation. 
 
 Several passages have occurred in the course of 
 the Chapters last preceding, to suggest the rule of 
 development on which a few words are first to be 
 said. Theodore’s exclusive adoption of the literal, and 
 repudiation of the mystical interpretation of Scrip¬ 
 ture, suggests to us the consideration of the latter, 
 as one of the characteristic conditions or principles 
 on which the development of doctrine has pro¬ 
 ceeded. Again, Christianity developed, as we have 
 incidentally seen, in the form, first, of a Catholic, 
 then of a Papal Church. Now Scripture was made 
 the rule on which this development proceeded in each 
 case 
 tical 
 
 inconsistently confined to the letter, and a Millen¬ 
 nium was in consequence expected, the very course 
 of events, as time went on, interpreted the prophecies 
 
 , and Scripture moreover interpreted in a mvs- 
 sense: and, whereas at first certain texts were 
 
320 APPLICATION OF THE SECOND TEST. [Chap. VI. 
 
 about the Church more truly, and that first in respect 
 of her prerogative as occupying the orbis terrarum , 
 next in support of the claims of the See of St. Peter. 1 
 This is but one specimen of a certain law of Chris- 
 tian development, which is this, — a reference to 
 Scripture throughout, and especially in its mystical 
 sense. 
 
 1. This is a characteristic which will become 
 more and more evident to us, the more we look for 
 it. The divines of the Church are in every age 
 engaged in regulating themselves by Scripture, 
 appealing to Scripture in proof of their conclusions, 
 and exhorting and teaching in the thoughts and 
 language of Scripture. S cripture may be said to 
 be the medium in which the mind of the Church has 
 energized and developed. 2 When St. Methodius 
 would enforce the doctrine of vows of celibacy, he 
 refers to the book of Numbers; and if St. Iremeus 
 proclaims the dignity of St. Mary, it is from a 
 comparison of St. Luke’s Gospel with Genesis. 
 And thus St. Cyprian, in his Testimonies, rests the 
 prerogatives of martyrdom, as indeed the whole 
 circle of Christian doctrine, on the declaration of 
 certain texts; and, when in his letter to Antonian 
 he seems to allude to Purgatory, he refers to our 
 Lord’s words about “the prison” and “paying the 
 last farthing.” And if St. Ignatius exhorts to 
 
 1 Vid. Proph. Off. pp. 226—230. 
 
 2 A late writer goes farther, and maintains that it is not deter¬ 
 mined by the Council of Trent, whether the whole of the Revelation 
 is in Scripture or not. Though this position be untenable, at least it 
 is a remarkable testimony on the part of opponents to the Church’s 
 reverence for the written word. “ The Synod declares that the 
 Christian 4 truth and discipline are contained in written books and 
 unwritten traditions.’ They were well aware that the controversy 
 then was, whether the Christian doctrine was only in part contained 
 in Scripture. But they did not dare to frame their decree openly 
 in accordance with the modern Romish view; they did not venture 
 to affirm, as they might easily have done, that the Christian verity 
 4 was contained partly in written books, and partly in unwritten 
 traditions .’”—Palmer on the Church , vol. 2, p. 15. 
 
Sec. L] SCRIPTURE AND ITS MYSTICAL SENSE. 
 
 321 
 
 unity, it is from St. Paul; and he quotes St. Luke 
 against the Phantasiasts of his day. We have a 
 first instance of this law in the Epistle of St. Poly- 
 carp, and a last in the practical works of St. Alphonso 
 Liguori. St. Cyprian, or St. Ambrose, or St. Bede, 
 or St. Bernard, or St. Carlo, or such popular books 
 as Horstius’s Paradisns Animce , are specimens of a 
 rule which is too obvious to need formal proof. It 
 is exemplified in the theological decisions of St. 
 Athanasius in the fourth century, and of St. 
 Thomas in the thirteenth; in the structure of the 
 Canon Law, and in the Bulls and Letters of Popes. 
 It is instanced in the notion so long prevalent in 
 the Church, which philosophers of this day do not 
 allow us to forget, that all truth, all science, must 
 be derived from the inspired volume. And it is 
 recognised as well as exemplified; recognised as 
 distinctly by writers of the Society of Jesus, as 
 it is copiously exemplified by the Ante-nicene 
 Fathers. 
 
 “ Scriptures are called canonical,” says Salmeron, 
 “as having been received and set apart by the 
 Church into the Canon of sacred books, and because 
 they are to us a rule of right belief and good living; 
 also because they ought to rule and moderate all 
 other doctrines, laws, writings, whether ecclesiastical, 
 apocryphal, or human. For as these agree with them, 
 or at least do not disagree, so far are they admitted; 
 but they are repudiated and reprobated so far as they 
 differ from them even in the least matter.” 1 Again: 
 “The main subject of Scripture is nothing else than 
 to treat of the God-Man, or the Man-God, Christ 
 Jesus, not only in the New Testament, which is 
 
 open, but in the Old.For whereas Scripture 
 
 contains nothing but the precepts of belief and con¬ 
 duct, or faith and works, the end and the means 
 towards it, the Creator and the creature, love of 
 God and of our neighbour, creation and redemption, 
 
 1 Opp. t. 1, p. 4. 
 
 Y 
 
322 APPLICATION OF THE SECOND TEST. [Chap. VI. 
 
 and whereas all these are found in Christ, it follows 
 that Christ is the proper subject of Canonical Scrip¬ 
 ture. For all matters of faith, whether concerning 
 Creator or creatures, are recapitulated in Jesus, 
 whom every heresy denies, according to that text, 
 /‘Every spirit that denies ( solvit ) Jesus is not of 
 God ; ’ for He as man is united to the Godhead, and 
 as God to the manhood, to the Father from whom 
 He is born, to the Holy Ghost who proceeds at once 
 from Christ and the Father, to Mary His most 
 Holy Mother, to the Church, to Scriptures, Sacra¬ 
 ments, Saints, Angels, the Blessed, to Divine Grace, 
 to the authority and ministers of the Church, so 
 that it is rightly said that every heresy denies 
 Jesus.” 1 And again: “Holy Scripture is so 
 fashioned and composed by the Holy Ghost as to 
 be accommodated to all plans, times, persons, dif¬ 
 ficulties, dangers, diseases, the expulsion of evil, 
 the obtaining of good, the stifling of errors, the 
 establishment of doctrines, the ingrafting of virtues, 
 the averting of vices. Hence it is deservedly com¬ 
 pared by St. Basil to a dispensary which supplies 
 various medicines against every complaint. From 
 it did the Church in the age of Martyrs draw her 
 firmness and fortitude ; in the age of Doctors, 
 her wisdom and light of knowledge; in the time 
 of heretics, the overthrow of error; in time of 
 prosperity, humility and moderation; fervour and 
 diligence, in a lukewarm time; and in times of 
 depravity and growing abuse, reformation from 
 corrupt living and return to the first estate.’ 72 
 
 u Holy Scripture,” says Cornelius a Lapide, 
 u contains the beginnings of all theology: for the¬ 
 ology is nothing but the science of conclusions 
 which are drawn from principles certain to faith, 
 and therefore is of all sciences most august as well 
 as certain ; but the principles of faith and faith 
 itself doth Scripture contain; whence it evidently 
 1 Opp. t. i. pp. 4, 5. 2 Ibid. p. 9. 
 
Sec. . 1 ] SCRIPTURE ANI) ITS MYSTICAL SENSE. 323 
 
 follows that Holy Scripture lays down those princi¬ 
 ples of theology by which the theologian begets of 
 the mind’s reasoning his demonstrations. He, then, 
 who thinks he can tear away Scholastic Science 
 from the work of commenting on Holy Scripture 
 is hoping for offspring without a mother.” 1 Again : 
 “What is the subject-matter of Scripture? Must 
 I say it in a word ? Its aim is cle omni scibili; it 
 embraces in its bosom all studies, all that can be 
 known: and thus it is a certain university of 
 sciences containing all sciences either ‘formally’ or 
 ‘ eminently.’ ” 2 
 
 Nor am I aware that Post-tridentine writers 
 
 MMtMwK— — — = —- - 1 i || ii nrnirn i >j i >nmnr-“n»rTnir--m r-iT-M - iTr.r- 
 
 deny that the whole Catholic faith may be proved 
 from Scripture, though they would certainly main- 
 tain that it is not to be found on the surface of it, 
 
 nor in such sense that it may be gained from Scrip¬ 
 ture without the aid of Tradition. 
 
 2. And this has been the doctrine of all ages of 
 the Church, as is shown by the disinclination of her 
 teachers to confine themselves to the mere literal 
 interpretation of Scripture. Her m ost subtle and 
 powerful method of proof, whether in ancient ox 
 ^modern times, is the mystical sense, which is so 
 frequently used in doctrinal controversy as on many 
 occasions to supersede any other. Thus the Coun¬ 
 cil of Trent appeals to the peace-offering spoken of 
 in Malachi i. in proof of the Eucharistic Sacrifice; 
 to the water and blood issuing from our Lord’s side, 
 and to the mention of “waters” in the Apocalypse, in 
 admonishing on the subject of the mixture of water 
 with the wine in the Oblation. Thus Bellarmine 
 defends Monastic celibacy by our Lord’s words in 
 Matthew xix., and refers to “ We went through fire 
 and water,” &c. in the Psalm, as an argument for 
 Purgatory; and these, as is plain, are but specimens 
 of a rule. Now, on turning to primitive contro¬ 
 versy, we find this method of interpretation to be the 
 
 1 Proem. 5. 
 
324 
 
 APPLICATION OF THE SECOND TEST. [ClIAP. VI. 
 
 very basis of the proof of the Catholic doctrine of 
 the Holy Trinity. Whether we betake ourselves to 
 the Ante-nicene writers or the Aicene, certain texts 
 will meet us, which do not obviously refer to that 
 doctrine, yet are put forward as palmary proofs of 
 it. Such are, in respect of our Lord's divinity, 
 “ My heart is inditing of a good matter," or “ has 
 burst with a good Word;" “The Lord made" or 
 “possessed Me in the beginning of His ways;" “ I 
 was with Him, in whom He delighted;" “In Thy 
 Light shall we see Light;" “ Who shall declare 
 His generation?" “ She is the Breath of the Power 
 of God;” and “His Eternal Power and Godhead." 
 On the other hand, the School of Antioch, which 
 
 ** — . .I, «' « - • 
 
 adopted the literal interpretation, was the very me- 
 tropolis of heresy. Not to speak of Lucian, whose 
 history is but imperfectly known,—one of the first 
 masters of this school, and also teacher of Arius and 
 his principal supporters,—Diodorus and Theodore of 
 Mopsuestia, who were the most eminent masters of 
 literalism in the succeeding generation, were, as we 
 have seen, the forerunners of Nestorianism. The 
 case had been the same in a still earlier age;—the 
 Jews clung to the literal sense of the Old Testa¬ 
 ment and rejected the Gospel; the Christian Apo¬ 
 logists proved its divinity by means of the allegorical. 
 The formal connexion of this mode of interpretation 
 with Christian theology is noticed by Porphyry, 
 who speaks of Origen and others as borrowing it 
 from heathen philosophy, both in explanation of 
 the Old Testament and in defence of their own 
 j doctrine. It may be almost laid down as an his- 
 H torical fact, that the mystical interpretation and 
 
 • * J JL 
 
 orthodoxy will stand or fall together. This is 
 clearly seen, as regards the primitive theology, 
 by a recent writer, in the course of a Disserta¬ 
 tion upon St. Ephrem. After observing that 
 Theodore of Heraclea, Eusebius, and Diodorus 
 gave a systematic opposition to the mystical inter- 
 
Sec. I.] SCRIPTURE AND ITS MYSTICAL SENSE. 325 
 
 pretation, which had a sort of sanction from An¬ 
 tiquity and the orthodox Church, he proceeds; 
 “ Ephrem is not as sober in his interpretations, 
 nor could lie be , since he was a zealous disciple of 
 the orthodox faith. For all those who are most 
 eminent in such sobriety were as far as possible re¬ 
 moved from the faith of the Councils.On the 
 
 other hand, all who retained the faith of the Church 
 never entirely dispensed with the spiritual sense of 
 the Scriptures. For the Councils watched over the 
 orthodox faith; nor was it safe in those ages, as we 
 learn especially from the instance of Theodore of 
 Mopsuestia, to desert the spiritual for an exclusive 
 cultivation of the literal method. Moreover, the 
 allegorical interpretation, even when the literal 
 sense was not injured, was also preserved; because 
 in those times, when both heretics and Jews in con¬ 
 troversy were stubborn in their objections to Chris¬ 
 tian doctrine, maintaining that the Messiah was yet 
 to come, or denying the abrogation of the Sabbath 
 and ceremonial law, or ridiculing the Christian doc¬ 
 trine of the Trinity, and especially that of Christ’s 
 Divine Nature, under such circumstances ecclesias¬ 
 tical writers found it to their purpose, in answer to 
 such exceptions, violently to refer every part of 
 Scripture by allegory to Christ and His Church.” 1 
 
 With this passage from a learned German, illus¬ 
 trating the bearing of the allegorical method upon 
 the Judaic and Athanasian controversies, it will be 
 well to compare the following passage from the 
 latitudinarian Hales’s u Golden Remains,” as directed 
 against the theology of Rome. u The literal, plain, and 
 uncontroversable meaning of Scripture,” he says, 
 “without any addition or supply by way of interpre¬ 
 tation, is that alone which for ground of faith we 
 are necessarily bound to accept; except it be there, 
 where the Holy Ghost Himself treads us out another 
 way. I take not this to be any particular conceit of 
 1 Lengerke, cle Ephr. S. pp. 78—80. 
 
326 APPLICATION OF THE SECOND TEST. [Chap. VI. 
 
 mine, but that unto which our Church stands neces¬ 
 sarily hound. W hen w e receded from the Church of 
 Rome, one motive was, because she added unto 
 Scripture her glosses as Canonical, to supply what 
 the plain text of Scripture could not yield. If, in place 
 of hers, we set up our own glosses, thus to do were 
 nothing else but to pull down Baal, and set up an 
 Ephod, to run round and meet the Church of Rome 
 again in the same point in which at first we left her. . 
 This doctrine of the literal sense was never grievous 
 or prejudicial to any, but only to those who were 
 inwardly conscious that their positions were not 
 sufficiently grounded. When Cardinal Cajetan, in 
 the days of our grandfathers, had forsaken that vein 
 of postilling and allegorising on Scripture, which 
 for a long time had prevailed in the Church, and 
 betaken himself unto the literal sense, it was a thing 
 so distasteful unto the Church of Rome that he was 
 forced to find out many shifts and make many apo¬ 
 logies for himself. The truth is, (as it will appear 
 to him that reads his writings,) this sticking close 
 to the literal sense was that alone which made him 
 to shake off many of those tenets upon which the 
 Church of Rome and the reformed Churches differ. 
 But when the importunity of the reformers, and the 
 great credit of Calvin’s writings in that kind, had 
 forced the divines of Rome to level their interpreta¬ 
 tions by the same line; when they saw that no 
 pains, no subtlety of wit was strong enough to de¬ 
 feat the literal evidence of Scripture, it drove them 
 on those desperate shoals, on which at this day they 
 stick, to call in question, as far as they durst, the 
 credit of the Hebrew text, and countenance against 
 it a corrupt translation; to add traditions unto Scrip¬ 
 ture, and to make the Church’s interpretation, so 
 pretended, to be above exception .” 1 
 
 He presently adds concerning the allegorical sense: 
 “ If we absolu tely condemn these interpretations, 
 
 1 pp. 24—26. 
 
Sec. I.] 
 
 SUPREMACY OF FAITH. 
 
 327 
 
 then must we condemn a great part of Antiquity, 
 who are very much conversant in this kind of inter¬ 
 preting. For the most partial for Antiquity cannot 
 choose but see and confess thus much, that for the li¬ 
 teral sense, the interpreters of our own times, because 
 of their skill in the original languages, their care 
 of pressing the circumstances and coherence of the 
 text, of comparing like places of Scripture with like, 
 have generally surpassed the best of the ancients .” 1 
 
 T he use of Scr ipture t hen, esp ecially its spiritual A 
 or second sense, as a medium of thought and deduc¬ 
 tion, is a characteristic principle of the develop¬ 
 ments of doctrine in the Church. 
 
 j -- ! - - r ~ - ' — v . 
 
 Supremacy of Faith. 
 
 Though, in the two preceding Chapters, our sole 
 business was to take an external view of Chris¬ 
 tianity, as it would appear to a bystander, yet some 
 of the principles on which it has developed came, 
 as it were, to the surface, and were incidentally 
 mentioned. Such was the rejection of the mere 
 literal interpretation of Scripture on which I have 
 been speaking; and such again was its special pre¬ 
 ference of Faith to Reason, which was so great a jest 
 to Celsus and Julian. 
 
 The latter principle, when brought out into words, 
 is as follows: that belief is in itself better than un¬ 
 belief; that it is saf er to believe; that we must 
 b egin with believing, and that conviction will fol¬ 
 low; that as for the reasons of believing, they are 
 for the most part implicit, and but slightly recognised 
 by the mind that is under their influence; that 
 they consist moreover rather of presumptions and 
 guesses, ventures after the truth than of accurate 
 proofs; and that probable arguments are sufficient 
 
 1 p. 27. 
 
328 APPLICATION OP THE SECOND TEST. [Chap. VI. 
 
 
 ■fit-.. .. , " 
 
 - - 
 
 4 
 
 . ~ Uj 
 
 ' 
 
 ! 
 
 
 Mi 
 
 i 
 
 c i»•• \n ? 
 
 >.. i 
 
 for conclusions which we even embrace as most cer¬ 
 tain, and turn to the most important uses. On the 
 other hand, it has ever been the heretical principle 
 to prefer Reason to Faith, and to hold that things 
 must be considered true only so far as they are 
 proved. This shall be shown in the words of Locke, 
 and will illustrate the ecclesiastical principle of 
 Faith by the contrast:— 
 
 He says, w Whatever God hath revealed is cer¬ 
 tainly true; no doubt can be made of it. This is 
 the proper object of Faith; but whether it be a 
 divine revelation or no, reason must judge .” 1 Now, 
 if he merely means that proofs can be given for Re¬ 
 velation, and that Reason comes in logical order be¬ 
 fore Faith, such a doctrine is in no sense uncatholic; 
 but he certainly holds that for individuals to act 
 on Faith without Reason, or to make Faith a primary 
 principle of conduct for themselves, without waiting 
 till theyjhave got their reasons accurately drawn out 
 and serviceable for controversy, is enthusiastic and 
 absurd. “ How a man may know whether he be 
 [a lover of truth for truth’s sake] is worth inquiry; 
 and I think there is this one unerring mark of it, 
 viz. the not entertaining any proposition with 
 greater assurance, than the proofs it is built upon, 
 will warrant. Whoever goes beyond this measure 
 of assent, it is plain, receives not truth in the love 
 of it; loves not truth for truth’s sake, but for some 
 other by-end. For the evidence that any proposi¬ 
 tion is true, except such as are self-evident, lying 
 only in the proofs a man has of it, whatsoever de¬ 
 grees of assent he affords it, beyond the degrees of 
 that evidence, it is plain all that surplusage of 
 assurance is owing to some other affection, and not 
 to the love of truth; it being as impossible that the 
 love of truth should carry my assent above the evi¬ 
 dence there is to me that it is true, as that the love 
 of truth should make me assent to any proposition 
 
 1 Of Hum. Underst. iv. 18, 19. 
 
Sec. I.] 
 
 SUPREMACY OF FAITH. 
 
 329 
 
 for the sake of that evidence which it has not, that it 
 is true; which is in effect to love it as a truth, be¬ 
 cause it is possible or probable that it may not be 
 true. 1 . .. What I see , 2 I know to be so by the evi¬ 
 dence of the thing itself: what I believe, I take to 
 be so upon the testimony of another; but this testi¬ 
 mony I must know to be given, or else what ground 
 have I of believing? . . . Enthusiasm fails of the 
 evidence it pretends to; for men, thus possessed, 
 boast of a light whereby, they say, they are en¬ 
 lightened, and brought into the knowledge of this 
 or that truth. But if they know it to be a truth, 
 they must know it to be so, either by its own self¬ 
 evidence to natural reason, or by the rational proofs 
 that make it out to be so.” Here this author lays 
 down, that a lover of truth is he who loves a valid 
 argument, and that such faith as is not credulity or 
 enthusiasm is always traceable to a process of rea¬ 
 son, and varies with its cogency. 
 
 I mil but observe on such philosophy as this, 
 that, were it received, no great work ever would 
 have been done tor Bod s glory and the welfare ot 
 man. Enthusiasm may do much harm, and act at 
 times absurdly; but calculation never made a hero. 
 But it is not to our present purpose to examine 
 this theory, and I have done so elsewhere. Here I 
 have but to show that both ancient and modern 
 Catholics reject it. For instance, it is the very 
 objection urged by Celsus, that Christians were but 
 parallel to the credulous victims of jugglers or of 
 devotees, who itinerated through the pagan popula¬ 
 tion. He says “that some do not even wish to give 
 or to receive a reason for their faith, but say, c Do 
 not inquire but believe,’ and 1 Thy faith will save thee;’ 
 and c A bad thing is the world’s wisdom, and foolish¬ 
 ness is a good.’ ” How does Origen answer the 
 charge? by denying the fact, and speaking of Rea¬ 
 son as proving the Scriptures to be divine, and Faith 
 
 1 p. 334. 2 p. 336. 
 
330 APPLICATION OF THE SECOND TEST. [Chap. VI. 
 
 after that conclusion receiving the contents, as it is 
 now popular to maintain? Far from it; he grants 
 the fact alleged against the Church and defends 
 it. He observes that, considering the engagements 
 and the necessary ignorance of the multitude of 
 men, it is a very happy circumstance that a substi¬ 
 tute is provided for those philosophical exercises, 
 which Christianity allows and encourages, but does 
 not impose on the individual. a Which,” he asks, 
 “is the better, for them to believe without reason, 
 and thus to reform any how and gain a benefit, from 
 their belief in the punishment of sinners and the 
 reward of well-doers, or to refuse their conversion 
 on mere belief, except they devote themselves to an 
 intellectual inquiry ?” 1 Such a provision then is a 
 mark of divine wisdom and mercy. In like man¬ 
 ner, St. Xrenasus, after observing that the Jews had 
 the evidence of prophecy, which the Gentiles had 
 not, and that to the latter it was a foreign teaching 
 and a new doctrine to be told that the gods of the 
 Gentiles were not only not gods, but were idols of 
 devils, and that in consequence St. Paul laboured 
 more upon them, as needing it more, adds, “On the 
 other hand, the faith of the Gentiles is thereby 
 shown to be more generous, who followed the word 
 of God without the assistance of Scriptures.” To 
 believe on less evidence was generous faith, not 
 enthusiasm. And so again, Eusebius, while he 
 contends of course that Christians are influenced by 
 “ no irrational faith,” that is, by a faith which is 
 capable of a logical basis, fully allows that, in the 
 individual believing, it is not necessarily or ordi¬ 
 narily based upon Reason, and maintains that it is 
 connected with that very “ hope,” and inclusively 
 with that desire of the things beloved, which Locke 
 in the above extract considers incompatible with 
 the love of truth. “ What do we find,” he says, 
 “but that the whole life of man is suspended on 
 
Sec. I.] 
 
 SUPBEMACY OF FAITH. 
 
 331 
 
 these t wo, hopeand faith?” 1 and Clement calls 
 Taitli a “presumption.” The natural tendency of 
 the heretical doctrine concerning Faith is to make 
 
 men over-confident, in cases where they do not be¬ 
 come sceptical and unbelieving. Thus the same 
 Father says that the Valentinians attribute to them¬ 
 selves Knowledge and to Catholics Faith.” Tertul- 
 lian too observes of heretics generally: u All are 
 puffed up, all promise knowledge; their catechumens 
 are perfected before they are taught.” 2 
 
 I do not mean to imply that the Fathers were 
 opposed to inquiries into the intellectual basis of 
 Christianity, but that they held that men were not 
 obliged to wait for proof before believing; on the con¬ 
 trary, that the maiority were to believe first and 
 prove afterwards. 
 
 St. Augustine, who had tried both ways, strikingly 
 contrasts them in his De Utilitate credendi , though his 
 
 6 -O 
 
 } Vi 
 
 5 tA 
 
 direct object in that work is to decide, not between 
 Reason and Faith, but between Reason and Au¬ 
 thority. He addresses in it a very dear friend, who, 
 like himself, had become a Manichee, but who, with 
 less happiness than his own, was still retained in 
 the heresy. “ The Manichees,” he observes, u in¬ 
 veigh against those who, following the authority of 
 the Catholic faith, fortify themselves in the first 
 instance with believing, and, before they are able to 
 set eyes upon that truth, which is discerned by the 
 pure soul, prepare themselves for a God who shall 
 illuminate. You, Honoratus, know that nothing else 
 was the cause of my falling into their hands, than 
 their professing to put away Authority which was so 
 terrible, and by absolute and simple Reason to lead 
 their hearers to God’s presence, and to rid them of 
 
 
 '%*# 
 
 L i 
 
 1 Haer. iv. 24. Euseb. Praep. Ev. i. 5. Vicl. also Clem. Strom, ii. 2. 
 Arnob. ii. 8. Cyril, Cat. v. 8. Greg. Naz. Orat. 32, 26. Pseudo-Basil, 
 in Ps. 115. init Tlieod. Graec. Aff. i. p. 717, &c. 
 
 2 Clement. Strom, ii. 6. (Vid. the word prcesumptio in Tertullian, 
 Oxf. tr. p. 136, note t. Kortholt. Calumn. 10, p. 83.) Ibid. 3. Tertull. 
 de Prasscr. Han*. 41. 
 
332 APPLICATION OF THE SECOND TEST. [Chap. VI. 
 
 all error. For what was there that forced me, for 
 nearly nine years, to slight the religion which was 
 sown in me when a child by my parents, and to 
 follow them and diligently attend their lectures, 
 but their assertion that I was terrified by super¬ 
 stition, and was bidden to have Faith before I had 
 Reason, whereas they pressed no one to believe 
 before the truth had been discussed and unravelled ? 
 Who would not be seduced by these promises, and 
 especially a youth, such as they found me then, 
 desirous of truth, nay conceited and forward, by 
 j reason of the disputations of certain men of school 
 learning, with a contempt of old-wives’ tales, and 
 a desire of possessing and drinking that clear and 
 unmixed truth which they promised me ?” 1 Pre¬ 
 sently he goes on to describe how he was re¬ 
 claimed. Fie found the Manichees more suc¬ 
 cessful in pulling down than in building up; he 
 was disappointed in Faust us, whom we found elo¬ 
 quent and nothing besides. Upon this, he did 
 not know what to hold, and was tempted to a 
 general scepticism. At length he found he must 
 be guided by Authority ; then came the question, 
 Which authority among so many teachers ? He 
 cried earnestly to God for help, and at last was led 
 to the Catholic Church. He then returns to the 
 question urged against that Church, that u she bids 
 !' those who come to her believe,” whereas heretics 
 u boast that they do not impose a yoke of believing, 
 but open a fountain of teaching.” On which he 
 observes, u True religion cannot in any manner be 
 rightly embraced, without a belief in those things 
 which each individual afterwards attains and per¬ 
 ceives, if he behave himself well and shall deserve 
 it, nor altogether without some weighty and im¬ 
 perative Authority. ” 2 
 
 These are specimens of the teaching of the Ancient 
 Church on the subject of Faith and Reason; if, on the 
 other hand, we would know what has been taught on 
 1 Init. 2 Dc Util. Cred. init. 
 
Sec. I.] 
 
 SUPREMACY OF FAITH. 
 
 333 
 
 the subject in those modern schools, in and through 
 which the subsequent developments of Catholic 
 doctrines have proceeded, we may turn to the ex¬ 
 tracts made from their writings by Huet, in his 
 “Essay on the Human Understanding;” and, in so 
 doing, we need not perplex ourselves with the 
 particular theory, true or not, for the sake of which 
 he has collected them. Speaking of the weakness 
 of the Understanding, Huet says :— 
 
 “God, by His goodness, repairs this defect of 
 human nature, by granting us the inestimable gift 
 of Faith, which confirms our staggering Reason, and 
 corrects that perplexity of doubts which we must 
 bring to the knowledge of things. For example: 
 my reason not being able to inform me with ab¬ 
 solute evidence, and perfect certainty, whether there 
 are bodies, what was the origin of the world, and 
 many other like things; after I have received the 
 Faith, all those doubts vanish, as darkness at the 
 rising of the sun. This made St. Thomas Aquinas 
 say: 4 It is necessary for man to receive as articles 
 of Faith, not only the things which are above 
 Reason, but even those that for their certainty may 
 be known by Reason. For human Reason is very 
 deficient in things divine; a sign of which we have 
 from philosophers, who, in the search of human 
 things by natural methods, have been deceived, and 
 opposed each other on many heads. To the end 
 then that men may have a certain and undoubted 
 cognizance of God, it was necessary things divine 
 should be taught them by way of Faith, as being 
 
 revealed of God Himself, who cannot lie .’ 1 . 
 
 “Then St.Thomas adds afterwards: 4 No search 
 by natural Reason is sufficient to make man know 
 things divine, nor even those which we can prove 
 by Reason.’ And in another place he speaks thus: 
 c Things which may be proved demonstratively, as the 
 Being of God, the Unity of the Godhead, and other 
 points, are placed among articles we are to believe, 
 
 1 pp. 142, 143, Combe’s tr. 
 
334 APPLICATION OF THE SECOND TEST. [Chap. VI. 
 
 because previous to other things that are of Faith; 
 and these must be pre- supposed, at least by such 
 as have no demonstration of them. 
 
 “What St. Thomas says of the cognizance of 
 divine things extends also to the knowledge of 
 human, according to the doctrine of Suarez. ‘ We 
 often correct,’ he says, ‘the light of Nature by the 
 light of Faith, even in things which seem to be first 
 principles, as appears in this: those things that are 
 the same to a third, are the same between them¬ 
 selves; which, if we have respect to the Trinity, 
 ought to be restrained to finite things. And in 
 other mysteries, especially in those of the Incar¬ 
 nation and the Eucharist, we use many other limi¬ 
 tations, that nothing may be repugnant to the Faith. 
 This is then an indication that the light of Faith is 
 most certain, because founded on the first truth, 
 which is God, to whom it’s more impossible to de¬ 
 ceive or be deceived than for the natural science of 
 man to be mistaken and erroneous.’ 1 .... 
 
 “ If we hearken not to Reason, say you, you over¬ 
 throw that great foundation of Religion which 
 Reason has established in our understanding, viz. 
 God is. To answer this objection, you must be 
 told that men know God in two manners. By Rea¬ 
 son, with entire human certainty; and by Faith, 
 with absolute and divine certainty. Although by 
 Reason we cannot acquire any knowledge more cer¬ 
 tain than that of the Being of God; insomuch that 
 all the arguments, which the impious oppose to this 
 knowledge are of no validity and easily refuted; 
 nevertheless this certainty is not absolutely per-) 
 feet. 2 . J 
 
 u Now although, to prove the existence of the Deity, 
 we can bring arguments which, accumulated and 
 connected together, are not of less power to con¬ 
 vince men than geometrical principles, and theorems 
 deduced from them, and which are of entire human 
 certainty; notwithstanding, because learned philo- 
 
 1 pp. 144, 145. 2 p. 219. 
 
Sec. I.] 
 
 SUPREMACY OF FAITH. 
 
 335 
 
 sophers have openly opposed even these principles, 
 7 tis clear we cannot, neither in the natural know¬ 
 ledge we have of God, which is acquired by Reason, 
 nor in science founded on geometrical principles 
 and theorems, find absolute and consummate cer¬ 
 tainty, but only that human certainty I have 
 spoken of, to which nevertheless every wise man 
 ought to submit his understanding. This being 
 not repugnant to the testimony of the Book of 
 Wisdom and the Epistle to the Romans, which de¬ 
 clares that men who do not from the make of the 
 world acknowledge the power and divinity of the 
 Maker are senseless and inexcusable. 
 
 “For to use the terms of Vasquez: ‘By these 
 words the Holy Scripture means only that there 
 has ever been a sufficient testimony of the Being of 
 a God in the fabrick of the world, and in His other 
 works, to make Him known unto men: but the 
 Scripture is not under any concern whether this 
 knowledge be evident or of greatest probability; 
 for these terms are seen and understood, in their 
 common and usual acceptation, to signify all the 
 knowledge of the mind with a determined assent . 7 
 He adds after: ‘For if any one should at this time 
 deny Christ, that which would render him inexcu¬ 
 sable would not be because he might have had an 
 evident knowledge and reason for believing in Him, 
 but because he might have believed it by Faith and 
 a prudential knowledge . 7 
 
 “ 7 Tis with reason then that Suarez teaches that 
 ‘ the natural evidence of this principle, God is the 
 first truth, who cannot be deceived, is not necessary, 
 nor sufficient enough to make us believe by in¬ 
 fused Faith, what God reveals . 7 He proves, by the 
 testimony of experience, that it is not necessary; 
 for ignorant and illiterate Christians, though they 
 know nothing clearly and certainly of God, do be¬ 
 lieve nevertheless that God is. Even Christians of 
 parts and learning, as St. Thomas has observed, 
 
336 APPLICATION OF THE SECOND TEST. [Chap. VI. 
 
 believe that God is, before they know it by Reason. 
 Suarez shows afterwards that the natural evidence 
 of this principle is not sufficient, because divine Faith, 
 which is infused into our understanding, cannot be 
 bottomed upon human faith alone, how clear and 
 firm soever it is, as upon a formal object, because 
 an assent most firm, and of an order most noble and 
 exalted, cannot derive its certainty from a more in¬ 
 firm assent . 1 .... 
 
 “As touching the motives of credibility, which, 
 preparing the mind to receive Faith, ought ac¬ 
 cording to you to be not only certain by supreme 
 and human certainty, but by supreme and abso¬ 
 lute certainty, I will oppose Gabriel Biel to you, 
 who pronounces that to receive Faith ’tis suffi¬ 
 cient that the motives of credibility be proposed as 
 probable. Do you believe that children, illiterate, 
 gross, ignorant people, who have scarcely the use of 
 Reason, and notwithstanding have received the gift 
 of Faith, do most clearly, and most steadfastly con¬ 
 ceive those forementioned motives of credibility? 
 No, 'without doubt; but the grace of God comes 
 into their assistance, and sustains the imbecility of 
 Nature and Reason. 
 
 “This is the common opinion of divines. Reason 
 has need of divine grace, not only in gross, illiter¬ 
 ate persons, but even in those of parts and learning; 
 for how clear-sighted soever that may be, yet it can¬ 
 not make us have Faith, if celestial light does not 
 illuminate us within, because, as I have said al¬ 
 ready, divine Faith being of a superior order cannot 
 
 derive its efficacy from human faith . 2 . 
 
 “ This is likewise the doctrine of St. Thomas 
 Aquinas: c The light of Faith makes things seen thatv 
 are believed. ’ He says moreover, 4 Believers have 
 knowledge of the things of Faith, not in a demon¬ 
 strative way, but so as by the light of Faith it ap¬ 
 pears to them that they ought to be believed.’ ” 3 
 1 pp. 221, 223. 2 pp. 229, 230. 3 pp. 230, 231. 
 
Sec. II.] 
 
 THE SECOND AND THIRD TESTS. 
 
 337 
 
 It is very evident, what a special influence a view 
 such as this must have on the controversial method 
 of those who hold it. Arguments will come to be 
 considered rather as representations and persuasives 
 Than as logical proofs; and developments as the 
 spontaneous, gradual and ethical growth, not as 
 intentional and arbitrary deductions, of existing 
 opinions. 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 APPLICATION OF THE SECOND AND THIRD TESTS. 
 
 THE DOGMATIC AND SACRAMENTAL PRINCIPLES, AND THE FORMATION OF 
 
 A THEOLOGY BY MEANS OF THEM. 
 
 Since religious systems, true and false, have one 
 and the same great and comprehensive subject- 
 matter, they necessarily interfere with one another 
 as rivals, both in those points in which they agree 
 together, and in those in which they differ. That 
 Christianity on its rise was in these circumstances of 
 competition and controversy, is sufficiently evident 
 even from a foregoing Chapter: it was surrounded 
 by rites, sects, and philosophies, which contemplated 
 the same questions, sometimes advocated the same 
 truths, and in no slight degree wore the same exter¬ 
 nal appearance. It could not stand still, it could 
 not take its own way, and let them take theirs: 
 they came across its path, and a conflict was inevita¬ 
 ble. The very nature of a true philosophy relatively 
 to other systems is to be polemical, eclectic, uni- 
 tive: Christianity was polemical; it could not but 
 be eclectic; but was it also unitive? Had it the 
 power, keeping its own identity, of absorbing its 
 antagonists, as Aaron’s rod, according to St. Je¬ 
 rome’s illustration, devoured the rods of the sor¬ 
 cerers of Egypt? Did it incorporate them into 
 
 z 
 
338 THE SECOND AND THIRD TESTS. [Chap. VI. 
 
 itself, or was it dissolved into them? Did it assimi¬ 
 late them into its own substance, or, keeping its 
 name, was it simply infected by them ? In a word, 
 were its developments faithful or corrupt? Nor is 
 this a question merely of the early centuries. When 
 we consider the deep interest of the controversies 
 which Christianity raises, the various minds it has 
 swayed, the range of subjects which it embraces, 
 the many countries it has entered, the deep philoso¬ 
 phies it has encountered, the vicissitudes it has 
 undergone, and the length of time through which it 
 has lasted, it requires some assignable explanation, 
 why we should not consider it modified and changed, 
 that is, corrupted, from the first by the numberless 
 influences to which it has been exposed. 
 
 Now there was this cardinal distinction between 
 Christianity and the religions and philosophies by 
 which it was surrounded, nay even the Judaism of 
 of the day, that it referred all truth and revelation 
 to one source, and that the Supreme and Only God. 
 Pagan rites which honoured one out of ten thou¬ 
 sand deities; philosophies which scarcely taught any 
 source of revelation at all; Gnostic heresies which 
 were based on Dualism, adored angels, or ascribed 
 the two Testaments to distinct authors, could not 
 regard truth as one, unalterable, consistent, impera¬ 
 tive, and saving. But Christianity started with the 
 principle that there was but “ one God and one Me¬ 
 diator,” and that He, u who at sundry times and in 
 divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers 
 by the Prophets, had in the3e last days spoken unto 
 us by His Son.” Hence Christianity, and it alone, 
 revered and protected the Divine word which it had 
 received, as both sacred and as sanctifying. It was 
 grace, and it was truth. 
 
 In other words, Chri stianity has from first to last 
 kept fixed principles in view in the course of its 
 developments, and thereby has been able to incor- 
 p orate (mctrine^wluch was external to it witho ut 
 
Sec. II.] THE DOGMATIC PRINCIPLE. 339 
 
 losing its own. Such continuity of principle, and 
 such assimilating power, are each of them incom¬ 
 patible with the idea of a corruption, as was laid 
 down in an early part of the Volume. The two 
 special principles which the foregoing paragraph 
 introduces, may be called the Dogmatic and the 
 Sacramental, and their assimilating power shall 
 now be illustrated. 
 
 1. That opinions in religion are not matters of 
 indifference, but have a definite bearing on the 
 position of their holders in the Divine Sight, is a 
 principle on which the Evangelical Faith has from 
 the first developed, and on which that Faith has 
 been the first to develope. I suppose, it hardly had 
 any exercise under the Law; the zeal and obedience 
 of the ancient people being employed in the main¬ 
 tenance of divine worship and the overthrow of 
 idolatry, not in the assertion of opinion. Faith is 
 in this, as in other respects, a characteristic of the 
 Gospel, except so far as it was anticipated, as its 
 time drew near. Elijah and the Prophets down to 
 Ezra resisted Baal or restored the Temple Service ; 
 the Three Children refused to bow down before the 
 golden image; Daniel would turn his face towards 
 Jerusalem; the Maccabees spurned the Grecian pa¬ 
 ganism. On the other hand, the Greek Philosophers 
 were authoritative indeed in their teaching, used 
 the “ Ipse dixit” and demanded the faith of their dis¬ 
 ciples ; but they did not commonly attach sanctity or 
 reality to opinions, or view them in a religious light. 
 Our Saviour was the first to “ bear witness to the 
 Truth,” and to die for it, when “before Pontius 
 Pilate he witnessed a good confession.” St. John 
 and St. Paul, following his example, both pronounce 
 anathema on those who denied “ the Truth” or 
 “brought in another Gospel.” Tradition tells us 
 that the Apostle of love seconded his word with his 
 deed, and on one occasion hastily quitted a bath 
 
 z 2 
 
340 
 
 TIIE SECOND AND THIRD TESTS. 
 
 [Chap. YI. 
 
 because an heresiarch of the day had entered it. 
 St. Ignatius, his contemporary, compares false teach¬ 
 ers to raging dogs; and St. Polycarp, his disciple, 
 exercised the same severity upon Mar cion which St. 
 John had shown towards Cerintlius. 
 
 St. Iren am s exemplifies the same doctrine after St. 
 Poly carp : “I saw thee,” he says to the heretic Flori- 
 nus, “when 1 was yet a boy, in lower Asia, with Poly¬ 
 carp, when thou wast living splendidly in the Impe¬ 
 rial Court, and trying to recommend thyself to him. 
 I remember indeed what then happened better than 
 more recent occurrences, for the lessons of boyhood 
 grow with the mind and become one with it. Thus 
 I can name the place where blessed Polycarp sat 
 and conversed, and his goings out and comings in, 
 and the fashion of his life, and the appearance of 
 his person, and his discourses to the people, and his 
 familiarity with John, which he used to tell of, and 
 with the rest who had seen the Lord, and how he 
 used to repeat their words, and what it was that he 
 
 had learned about the Lord from them.And 
 
 in the sight of God, I can protest, that, if that 
 blessed and apostolical Elder had heard aught of 
 this doctrine, he had cried out and stopped his ears, 
 saying after his wont, c 0 Good God, for what times 
 hast thou reserved me that I should endure this?’ 
 and he had fled the place where he was sitting or 
 standing when he heard it.” It seems to have been 
 the duty of every individual Christian from the first 
 to witness in his place against all opinions which 
 were contrary to what he had received in his bap¬ 
 tismal catechizing, and to shun the society of those 
 .who maintained them. “So religious,” says Irenaeus 
 after giving his account of St. Poly carp, “ were the 
 Apostles and their disciples, in not even conversing 
 with those who counterfeited the truth.” 1 
 
 Such a principle, however, would but have broken 
 up the Church the sooner, resolving it into the in- 
 
 1 Euseb. Hist. iv. 14, v. 20. 
 
Sec. II.] 
 
 THE DOGMATIC PRINCIPLE. 
 
 341 
 
 dividuals of which it was composed, unless the 
 Truth, to which they were to bear witness, had been 
 a something definite, and formal, and independent 
 of themselves. Christians were bound to defend and 
 to transmit the faith which they had received, and 
 they received it from the rulers of the Church; and, 
 on the other hand, it was the duty of those rulers to 
 watch over and define this traditionary faith. It 
 is unnecessary to go over ground which has been 
 traversed so often of late years. St. Irenseus brings 
 the subject before us in his description of St. Poly¬ 
 carp, part of which has already been quoted; and 
 to it we may limit ourselves. u Polycarp,” he says 
 when writing against the Gnostics, u whom we 
 have seen in our first youth, ever taught those 
 lessons which he learned from the Apostles, which 
 the Church also transmits, which alone are true. 
 All the Churches of Asia bear witness to them; 
 and the successors of Polycarp down to this day, 
 who is a much more trustworthy and sure witness 
 of truth than Valentinus, Marcion, or their perverse 
 companions. The same was in Pome in the time of 
 Anicetus, and converted many of the aforenamed 
 heretics to the Church of God, preaching that he 
 had received from the Apostles this one and only 
 truth, which had been transmitted by the Church.” 1 
 
 1 Contr. Han*, iii. 3, § 4. This whole passage, by the way, sup¬ 
 plies an answer to a statement which has sometimes been made 
 that in the Fathers “Evangelical” Tradition and “Apostolical” 
 Tradition properly stand, not for what is now meant by Tradition, 
 but for the Gospels and Epistles respectively. On the contrary, 
 St. 1 re mens, who is here plainly speaking of Tradition commonly 
 so called, expresses it thus, “Traditio qiun est ab Apostolis;” 
 “Necpie Scripturis neque Traditioni consentire;” “ Traditio Apos- 
 tolorum;” to Kppvyfjia tmv u7rooToA.au' teal tt/v Trcipabomv' fjv 
 uivb ro)V incovToXiov Trapaboaiv elXp^ei’ “ Apostolicam Eccleske 
 Traditionem;” “Veterem Apostolorum Traditionem.” Again, Thcodo- 
 ret says that the word Seotokoq was used, Kara rpy cnrocrToXiKriv 
 7rcipadocnv. User. iv. 12. And St. Basil contrasts rd ek rfjQ Eyypatyov 
 Sibacncuk'iaQ, and tcl ek rijg ribv anoarbXoJV TrapaboaEioQ. de. Sp. S. 
 § 66. Presently he speaks of ovte tpq Seottvevcttov ypcupijf;, ovte rtiv 
 iiTroffToXtKuiv 7rctpcid<j(T£U)v. § 77. Origen speaks ol a dogma, ovte 
 
342 
 
 THE SECOND AND THIRD TESTS. [Chap. VI. 
 
 Nor was this the doctrine and practice of one 
 school only, which might he ignorant of philosophy; 
 the cultivated minds of the Alexandrian Fathers, 
 who are said to owe so much to Pagan science, 
 certainly showed no gratitude or reverence towards 
 their alleged instructress, but maintained the 
 supremacy of Catholic Tradition. Clement 1 speaks 
 of heretical teachers as perverting Scripture, and 
 essaying the gate of heaven with a false key, not 
 raising the veil, as he and his, by means of tradition 
 from Christ, but digging through the Church’s wall, 
 and becoming mystagogues of misbelief; “for,” he 
 continues, “few words are enough to prove that 
 they have formed their human assemblies later than 
 
 Tvapabibogevov vivo ru>v uTvoaroXinv, ovte EfubaivofiEVov tvov tcov 
 
 ypatyivv. Tom. in Matth. xiii. 1. Vid. also t. 4, p. 696, and de 
 Princ. prsaf. 2, and Euseb. Hist. v. 23. So in St. Athanasius (de 
 Synod. 21, fin.) we read of “the Apostolical Tradition and teaching 
 which is acknowledged by all.” And soon after of a believing 
 conformably, rrj EvayyEXiKrj koi ciTvocrroXiry 7rcipctc)6(T£i.” 23, init. 
 where TvapdZocng means doctrine , not books, for the Greek would run rtj 
 Evayy’ ml rrj cltvoctt’ were the Gospels and Epistles intended. (Tims St. 
 Leo, “secundum evangclicam apostolicamque doctrinam” Ep.124,1.) 
 And he makes y eintyyeXt/a) TrapdboaiQ, and f/ EKicXyaiacrTiicrj Trap’ 
 synonymous. Cf. contr. Apoll. i. 22, with ad Aclelph. 2, init. In like 
 manner, Neander speaks of two lands of so called Apostolical Tradi¬ 
 tions, doctrinal and ecclesiastical, Eccl. Hist. t. 2, p. 333, transl. 
 And Le Moyne considers the Apostolical Tradition of St. Hippolytus 
 to be what St. Irenseus means by it, doctrine, as distinct from Scrip¬ 
 ture. Var. Sacr. p. 1062. Vid. also Pearson, Vindie. Ignat, i. 4, 
 circ. fin. In like manner, St. Augustine contrasts Apostolical Tra¬ 
 dition, and writings. De Bapt. contr. Don. ii. 7, v. 23. And calls 
 Infant Baptism an Apostolical Tradition. De Peccat. Mer. i, 26. 
 And St. Cyprian speaks of, not only wine, but the mixed Cup in the 
 Holy Eucharist, as an “ Evangelical truth and tradition of the Lord.” 
 Epist. 63. Sometimes the phrase, on the other hand, is almost synony¬ 
 mous with Scripture, E. g. “The Apostolical Tradition teaches, 
 blessed Peter saying, &c. and Paul writing, &c.” Athan. ad Adelph. 6. 
 Suicer refers to Greg. Nys. de Virg. xi. Cyril in Is. Ixvi. 5, Bal- 
 samon, ad Can. vi. Nic. 2, Cyprian, Ep. 74, &c. A recent contro- 
 vcrsalist has also adduced these same passages and one or two others, 
 in illustration of a sentence in Atlian. cont. Apoll. i. 22, which the 
 writer of these pages had understood of tradition; his tone is not 
 such as claims a more distinct notice here. 
 
 1 ed. Potter, p. 897. 
 

 Sec. II.] THE DOGMATIC PRINCIPLE. 343 
 
 the Catholic Church,” and “from that previously 
 existing and most true Church it is very clear that 
 these later heresies, and others which have been 
 since, are counterfeit and novel inventions.” 1 
 “ When the Marcionites, Valentinians, and the 
 like,” says Origen, “appeal to apocryphal works, 
 they are saying, ‘ Christ is in the desert;’ when to 
 canonical Scripture, c Lo, lie is in the chambers 
 but we must* not depart from that first and 
 ecclesiastical tradition, nor believe otherwise than 
 as the Churches of God by succession have trans¬ 
 mitted to us.” And it is recorded of him in his 
 youth, that he never could be brought to attend 
 the prayers of a heretic who was in the house of 
 his patroness, from abomination of his doctrine, 
 “ observing,” adds Eusebius, “ the rule of the 
 Church.” Eusebius too himself, unsatisfactory as 
 is his own theology, cannot break from this fun¬ 
 damental rule; he ever speaks of the Gnostic 
 teachers, the chief heretics of his period, (at least 
 before the rise of Arianism,) in terms most expressive 
 of abhorrence and disgust. 
 
 The African, Syrian, and Asian schools are 
 additional witnesses; Tertullian at Carthage was 
 strenuous for the dogmatic principle even after he 
 had given up the traditional. The Fathers of Asia 
 Minor, who excommunicated Noetus, rehearse the 
 Creed, and add, “We declare as we have learned;” 
 the Fathers of Antioch, who depose Paul of Samo- 
 sata set down in writing the Creed from Scripture, 
 “which,” they say, “ we received from the beginning, 
 and have, by tradition and in custody, in the Ca¬ 
 tholic and Holy Church, until this day, by suc¬ 
 cession, as preached by the blessed Apostles, who 
 were eye-witnesses and ministers of the Word.” 2 
 
 1 ed. Potter, p. 899. 
 
 2 Cicm. Strom, vii. 17. Origen in Matth. Comm. Ser. 4G. 
 Euseb. Hist. vi. 2, fin. Epiph. IIa?r. 57, p. 480. Routh, t. 2, 
 p. 465. 
 
344 
 
 THE SECOND AND THIRD TESTS. [Chap. VI. 
 
 And it is as plain, or even plainer, that what the 
 Christians of the first ages anathematized, included 
 deductions from the Articles of Faith, that is, 
 developments, as well as those Articles of Faith 
 themselves. For, since the reason they commonly 
 gave for using the anathema was that the doctrine 
 in question was strange and startling, it follows 
 that the truth, which was its contradictory, had 
 also been unknown to them hitherto; which is also 
 shown by their temporary perplexity, and their 
 difficulty of meeting heresy, in particular cases. 
 “Who ever heard the like hitherto? 77 says St. 
 Athanasius of Apollinarianism; “who was the 
 teacher of it, who the hearer? ‘From Sion shall 
 go forth the Law of God, and the Word of the Lord 
 from Jerusalem; 7 but from whence hath this gone 
 forth? What hell hath burst out with it? 771 The 
 Fathers at Nica3a stopped their ears; St. Irenseus, 
 as above quoted, says that St. Polycarp, had he heard 
 the Gnostic blasphemies, would have stopped his 
 ears, and deplored the times for which he was 
 reserved. They anathematized the doctrine, not 
 because it was old, but because it was new: the 
 anathema would have altogether slept, if it could 
 not have been extended to propositions not anathe¬ 
 matized in the beginning; for the very charac¬ 
 teristic of heresy is this novelty and originality of 
 manifestation. 
 
 2. That there is a truth then ; that there is one 
 truth; that religious error is in itself of an immoral 
 nature; that its maintainers, unless involuntarily 
 such, are guilty in maintaining it; that it is to be 
 dreaded; that the search for truth is not the gra¬ 
 tification of curiosity; that its attainment has 
 nothing of the excitement of a discovery; that the 
 mind is below truth, not above it, and is bound, 
 not to descant upon it, but to venerate it; that 
 truth and falsehood are set before us for the trial 
 
 1 Ad Epict. 2. 
 
Sec. II.] FORMATION OF THEOLOGICAL SCIENCE. 345 
 
 of our hearts; that our choice is an awful giving 
 forth of lots on which salvation or rejection is 
 inscribed; that “ before all things it is necessary 
 to hold the Catholic faith;” that “ he that would 
 be saved must thus think,” and not otherwise; 
 that “if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest 
 up thy voice for understanding, if thou seekest 
 her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid 
 treasure, then shalt thou understand the fear of the 
 Lord, and find the knowledge of God,”—this is 
 the dogmatical principle, which has strength. 
 
 That truth and falsehood in religion are but 
 matter of opinion; that one doctrine is as good as 
 another; that the Governor of the world does not 
 intend that we should gain the truth; that there is 
 no truth; that we are not more acceptable to God by; 
 believing this than by believing that; that no one is 
 answerable for his opinions; that they are a matter 
 of necessity or accident; that it is enough if we 
 sincerely hold what we profess; that our merit 
 lies in seeking, not in possessing; that it is a duty to 
 follow what seems to us true, without a fear lest it 
 should not be true; that it may be a gain to succeed, 
 and can be no harm to fail; that we may take up and 
 lay down opinions at pleasure; that belief belongs to 
 the mere intellect, not to the heart; that we may 
 safely trust ourselves in matters of Faith, and 
 need no other guide,—this is the principle of phi¬ 
 losophies and heresies, which is very weakness. 
 
 Two opinions encounter; each may be abstract¬ 
 edly true; or again, each may be a subtle, compre¬ 
 hensive doctrine, vigorous, elastic, expansive, vari¬ 
 ous; one is held as a matter of indifference, the 
 other as a matter of life and death; one is held by 
 the intellect, the other by the heart: it is plain which 
 of the two must succumb to the otlier. Such was 
 The conflict of Christianity with the old established 
 Paganism, which was almost dead before Christian¬ 
 ity appeared; with the Oriental Mysteries, flitting 
 
346 
 
 THE SECOND AND THIRD TESTS. 
 
 [Ciiap. VI. 
 
 wildly to and fro like spectres; with the Gnostics, 
 who made Knowledge all in all, despised the many, 
 and called Catholics mere children in the Truth; 
 with the Neo-platonists, men of literature, pedants, 
 visionaries, or courtiers; with the Ma nichees. who 
 professed to seek Truth by Reason, not by Faith; with 
 the fluctuating teachers of the School of Antioch, 
 the time-serving Eusebians, and the reckless vari¬ 
 able Arians; with the fanatic Montanists and harsh 
 Novatians, who hated the Catholic doctrine, without 
 loving their own. These sects had no stay or con¬ 
 sistence, yet they contained elements of truth amid 
 their error, and had Christianity been as they, it 
 might have resolved into them; but it had that 
 hold of the truth which gave its teaching a gravity, 
 / a directness, a consistency, a sternness, and a force, 
 to which they were strangers. It could not call 
 evil good, or good evil, because it discerned the 
 difference between them; it could not make light 
 of what was so solemn, or fall off from what was so 
 solid. Hence, in the collision, it broke in pieces its 
 antagonists, and divided the spoils. 
 
 This was but another form of the spirit that 
 made martyrs. Dogmatism was in teaching, what 
 confession was in act. Each was the same strong 
 principle of life in a different aspect, distinguishing 
 the faith which was displayed in it from the world’s 
 philosophies on the one side, and the world’s reli¬ 
 gions on the other. The heathen sects and the 
 .here sies of Christian history were dissolved by th e 
 breath of opinion which made them; paganism 
 shuddered and died at the very sight of the 
 sword of persecution, which it had itself un¬ 
 sheathed. Intellect and force were applied as tests 
 both upon the Divine and upon the human work; 
 they prevailed with the human, they did but become 
 instruments of the Divine. “No one,” says St. 
 Justin, has so believed Socrates as to die for the 
 doctrine which he taught.” “ No one was ever 
 
Sec. II.] FORMATION OF THEOLOGICAL SCIENCE. 347 
 
 found undergoing death for faith in the sun.” 1 
 Thus Christianity grew in its proportions, gaining 
 aliment and medicine from all that it came near, yet 
 preserving its original type, from its perception and 
 its love of what had been revealed once for all and 
 was no private imagination. 
 
 There are writers who refer to the first centuries 
 of the Church as a time when opinion was free, and 
 the conscience exempt from the obligation or temp¬ 
 tation to take on trust what it had not proved; and 
 that, apparently on the mere ground that the series 
 of great theological decisions did not commence till 
 the fourth. This seems to be M. Guizot’s meaning 
 when he says that Christianity “in the early ages 
 was a belief, a sentiment, an individual conviction;” 2 
 that “ the Christian society appears as a pure asso¬ 
 ciation of men, animated by the same sentiments 
 and professing the same creed. The first Chris¬ 
 tians,” he continues, u assembled to enjoy together 
 the same emotions, the same religious convictions. 
 We do not find any doctrinal system established, 
 any form of discipline or of laws, or any body of 
 magistrates.” 3 What can be meant by saying that 
 Christianity had no magistrates in the earliest ages ? 
 — but, any how, in sta tements suc h as thes e the dis¬ 
 ti nction is not properly reco gnised between a prin¬ 
 ciple and its developments, even if the fact were as 
 is repr esented. The principle indeed of Dogmatism 
 d evelop s into Councils in the course of time; but it 
 is active, nay sovereign from the first, in every part 
 of Christendom. A conviction that truth was one; 
 that it was a gift from without, a sacred trust, an 
 inestimable blessing; that it was to be reverenced, 
 guarded, defended, transmitted; that its absence 
 was a grievous want, and its loss an unutterable ca¬ 
 lamity ;—all this is quite consistent with perplexity 
 or mistake as to what was truth in particular cases, 
 
 1 Justin, Apol. ii. 10, Trvpli. 121. 
 
 2 Europ. Civ. p. 56. tr. 3 p. 58. 
 
348 
 
 THE SECOND AND THIRD TESTS. 
 
 [Ciiap. VI. 
 
 in what way doubtful questions were to be decided, 
 or what were the limits of the Revelation. Councils 
 and Popes are the guardians and instruments of the 
 dogmatic principle: they ar e not that principle 
 themselves: they presuppose the principle: they 
 are summoned into action at the call of the 
 
 - ....-- - - .- -- - 1- - 1 ••■min, n i l'nfwnrn— 
 
 principle, and the principle might act even before 
 they had their legitimate place, and exercised a 
 recognised power, in the movements of the Christian 
 
 _ O - y M —r ur iw nwgiraft ii OTWTtw-wrrni i AiWftwjB^J ii ^ i 'JgW i " ' 1 fw* »> f »a iiw ii grw « nrM 4 B i hthi m ww mu iM iw^aMWMWiwww wiwai »■ >** -- 
 
 body. 
 
 The instance of Conscience, which has already 
 served us in illustration, may assist us here. What 
 Conscience is in the history of an individual mind, 
 such was the dogmatic principle in the history of 
 Christianity. Both in the one case and the other, 
 there is the gradual formation of a directing power 
 out of a principle. The natural voice of Conscience 
 is far more imperative in testifying and enforcing a 
 rule of duty, than successful in determining that 
 duty in particular cases. It acts as a messenger 
 from above, and says that there is a right and a 
 wrong, and that the right must be followed; but it 
 is variously, and therefore erroneously, trained in 
 the instance of various persons. It mistakes error 
 for truth; and yet we believe that on the whole, and 
 even in those cases where it is ill-instructed, if its 
 voice be diligently obeyed, it will gradually be 
 cleared, simplified, and perfected, so that minds, 
 starting differently, will, if honest, in course of time 
 converge to one and the same truth. I would not 
 imply that there is indistinctness so great as this 
 in the knowledge of the first centuries; but so far 
 is plain, that the early Church and Fathers exer¬ 
 cised far more a ruler’s than a doctor’s office: it 
 j was the age of Martyrs, of acting not of thinking, 
 j Doctors succeeded Martyrs, as light and peace of 
 conscience follow upon obedience to it; yet, even 
 before the Ch urch had grown into the full measure 
 of its doctrines, it was rooted, in its principles. 
 
Sec. II.] FORMATION OF THEOLOGICAL SCIENCE. 349 
 
 So far, however, may be granted to M. Guizot, that 
 even principles were not so well understood and so 
 carefully handled at first, as they were afterwards, 
 hi the early period, we see traces of a conflict, as well 
 as of a variety, in theological elements, which were 
 in course of combination, but which required adjust¬ 
 ment and management before they could be used 
 with precision as one. In a thousand instances of 
 a minor character, the statements of the early 
 Fathers are but tokens of the multiplicity of open¬ 
 ings which the mind of the Church was making 
 into the treasure-house of Truth; real openings, 
 but incomplete or irregular. Nay, the doctrines 
 even of the heretical bodies are indices and antici¬ 
 pations of the mind of the Church. As the first 
 step in settling a point of doctrine is to raise and 
 debate it, so heresies in every age may be taken as 
 the measure of the existing state of thought in the 
 Church, and of the movement of her theology; they 
 determine in what way the current is setting, and 
 the rate at which it flows. 
 
 Thus, St. Clement may be called the represen¬ 
 tative of the eclectic element, and Tertullian of the 
 dogmatic; and Clement perhaps went too far in 
 his accommodation to philosophy, and Tertullian 
 asserted with exaggeration the immutability of the 
 Creed. Nay, the two antagonist principles of dog¬ 
 matism and development are found in Tertullian 
 alone, though with some deficiency of amalgamation, 
 and with a greater leaning towards the dogmatic. 
 Though the Montanists professed to pass over the 
 subject of doctrine, it is chiefly in Tertullian’s Mon- 
 tanistic works that his strong statements occur of^ 
 the unalterableness of the Creed ; and extravagance 
 on the subject is not only in keeping with the stern 
 and vehement temper of that Father, but with the 
 general severity and harshness of his sect. On the 
 other hand the very foundation of Montanism is 
 development, though not of doctrine, yet of dis- 
 
350 THE SECOND AND THTRD TESTS. [Chap. VI. 
 
 cipline and conduct. It is said that its founder 
 professed himself the promised Comforter, through 
 whom the Church was to he perfected; he provided 
 prophets as organs of the new revelation, and called 
 Catholics Psychici or carnal. Tertullian distinctly 
 recognises even the process of development in one 
 of his Montanistic works. After speaking of an 
 innovation upon usage, which his newly revealed 
 truth required, he proceeds, u Therefore hath the 
 Lord sent the Paraclete, that, since human infirmity 
 could not take all things in at once, discipline might 
 be gradually directed, regulated and brought to per¬ 
 fection by the Lord’s Vicar, the Holy Ghost. 1 1 
 have yet many things to say to you,’ he saith, ‘ but 
 ye, &c.’ What is this dispensation of the Paraclete 
 but this, that discipline is directed, Scriptures re¬ 
 vealed, intellect reformed, improvements effected ? 
 Nothing can take place without age, and all things 
 wait their time. In short, the Preacher says 
 c There is a time for all things.’ Behold the crea¬ 
 ture itself gradually advancing to fruit. At first 
 there is a seed, and a stalk springs out of the seed, 
 and from the stalk bursts out a shrub, and then its 
 branches and foliage grow vigorous, and all that we 
 mean by a tree is unfolded; then there is the swelling 
 of the bud, and the bud is resolved into a blossom, 
 and the blossom is opened into a fruit, and it for 
 a while rudimental and unformed, till, by degrees 
 tempering its own age, it is matured into mildness 
 of flavour. So too righteousness, for there is the 
 same God both of righteousness and of the creature, 
 was at first, in its rudiments, a nature fearing God; 
 thence, by means of Law and Prophets, it advanced 
 into infancy; thence, by the gospel, it burst forth 
 into its youth; and now, by the Paraclete, it is 
 fashioned into maturity.” 1 
 
 Not in one principle or doctrine only, but in its 
 whole system, Montanism is a remarkable anticipa- 
 
 De Virg. Vel. 1. 
 
 i 
 
Sec. II.] FORMATION OF THEOLOGICAL SCIENCE. 351 
 
 tion or presage of developments which soon began 
 to show themselves in the Church, though they 
 were not perfected for centuries after. Its rigid 
 maintenance of the original Creed, yet its admis¬ 
 sion of a development, at least in the ritual, -has 
 just been instanced in the person of Tertullian. 
 Equally Catholic in their principle, whether in fact or 
 anticipation, were most of the other peculiarities of 
 Montanism: its rigorous fasts, its visions, its com¬ 
 mendation of celibacy and martyrdom, its contempt 
 of temporal goods, its penitential discipline, and its 
 centre of unity. The doctrinal determinations and 
 the ecclesiastical usages of the middle ages are the 
 true fulfilment of its self-willed and abortive at¬ 
 tempts at precipitating the growth of the Church. 
 The favour shown to it for a while by Pope Victor 
 is an evidence of its external resemblance to ortho¬ 
 doxy; and the celebrated Martyrs and Saints in 
 Africa, in the beginning of the third century, 
 Perpetua and Felicitas, or at least their Acts, be¬ 
 token that same peculiar temper of religion, which, 
 when cut off from the Church a few years after¬ 
 wards, quickly degenerated into a heresy. A pa¬ 
 rallel instance occurs in the case of the Donatists. 
 They held a doctrine on the subject of Baptism 
 similar to that of St. Cyprian: “ Vincentius Liri- 
 nensis,” says Gibbon, referring to Tillemont’s re¬ 
 marks on that resemblance, “has explained why the 
 Donatists are eternally burning with the devil, 
 while St. Cyprian reigns in heaven with-, Jesus 
 Christ .” 1 And his reason is intelligible: it is, says 
 Tillemont, “as St. Augustine often says, because 
 the Donatists had broken the bond of peace and 
 charity with the other Churches, which St. Cyprian 
 had preserved so carefully .” 2 
 
 These are specimens of the raw material, as it may 
 be called, which whether as found in individual Fa¬ 
 thers within the pale of the Church, or in heretics 
 1 Hist. t. 3, p. 312. 2 Mem. Eccl. t. 6, p. 83. 
 
352 THE SECOND AND THIRD TESTS. [Chap. VI. 
 
 external to it, slie had the power, by means of the 
 continuity and firmness of her principles, to convert 
 to her own uses. She alone has succeeded in thus re- 
 jecting evil without sacrificing the good, and in hold¬ 
 ing together in one things which in all other schools 
 are incompatible. Gnostic or Platonic words are 
 found in the inspired theology of St. John. Unitarian 
 writers trace the doctrine of our Lord’s divinity to 
 the Platonists; Gibbon the idea of the Incarnation 
 to the Gnostics. The Gnostics too seem first 
 to have systematically directed the intellect upon 
 matters of faith; and the very term u Gnostic” 
 has been taken by Clement to express his per¬ 
 fect Christian. ' And, though ascetics existed from 
 the beginning, the notion of a religion higher 
 than the Christianity of the many, was first promi¬ 
 nently brought forward by the Gnostics, Montanists, 
 Novatians, and Manichees. And while the prophets of 
 the Montanists prefigure the Church’s Doctors, and 
 their inspiration her infallibility, and their reve¬ 
 lations her developments, and the heresiarch him¬ 
 self is the unsightly anticipation of St. Francis, in 
 Novatian again we discern the aspiration of nature 
 after such creations of grace as St. Benedict or St. 
 Bruno. And so the effort of Sabellius to complete 
 the mystery of the Ever-blessed Trinity failed: it 
 became a heresy; grace would not be constrained; 
 the course of thought could not be forced;—at 
 length it was realized in the true Unitarianism of 
 St. Augustine. 
 
 Doctrine too is percolated, as it were, through 
 different minds, beginning with writers of inferior 
 authority in the Church, and issuing at length in the 
 enunciation of her Doctors. Origen, Tertullian, nay 
 Eusebius and the Antiochenes, supply the materials, 
 from which the Fathers have wrought out comments, 
 or treatises. St. Gregory Nazianzen and St. Basil 
 digested into form the theological principles of Ori¬ 
 gen ; St. Hilary and St. Ambrose are both indebted 
 
Sec. II.] FORMATION OF THEOLOGICAL SCIENCE. 353 
 
 I 
 
 to the same great writer in their interpretations of 
 Scripture; St. Ambrose again has taken his comment 
 on St. Luke from Eusebius, and certain of his Tracts 
 from Philo; St. Cyprian called Tertullian his Mas¬ 
 ter; and traces of Tertullian, in his almost here¬ 
 tical treatises, may be detected in the most finished 
 sentences of St. Leo. The school of Antioch, in 
 spite of its heretical taint, formed the genius of 
 St. Chrysostom. And the Apocryphal gospels have 
 contributed many things for the devotion and edifi¬ 
 cation of Catholic believers. 1 ^ 
 
 The deep meditation which seems to have been 
 exercised by the Fathers on points of doctrine, the 
 \ debate and turbulence yet lucid determination of 
 Councils, the indecision of Popes, are all in different, 
 ways, at least when viewed together, portions and 
 indications of the same process. The theology of 
 ' the Church is no random combination of various 
 opinions, but a diligent, patient working out of one 
 doctrine out of many materials. The conduct of 
 Pones, Councils, Fathers, betokens the slow, painful, 
 anxious taking up of new elements into an existing 
 body of belief. St. Athanasius, St. Augustine, St. 
 Leo are conspicuous for the repetition in terminis 
 of their own theological statements; on the contrary 
 it has been observed of Tertullian, that his works 
 “indicate no ordinary fertility of mind in that he so 
 little repeats himself or recurs to favourite thoughts, 
 as is frequently the case even with the great St. 
 Augustine . 7,2 
 
 Here we see the difference between originality of 
 mind and the gift and calling of a Doctor in the 
 Church; the holy Fathers just mentioned were in¬ 
 tently fixing their minds on what they taught, 
 grasping it more and more closely, viewing it on 
 various sides, trying its consistency, weighing their 
 own separate expressions. And thus if in some 
 
 1 Galland. t. 3, p. 673, note 3. 
 
 2 Vid. Preface to Oxford Transl. of Tertullian, where the cha¬ 
 racter of his mind is admirably drawn out. 
 
354 
 
 THE SECOND AND THIRD TESTS. [Chap. VI. 
 
 cases they were even left in ignorance, the next 
 generation of teachers completed their work, for the 
 same unwearied anxious process of thought went 
 on. St. Gregory Nyssen finishes the investigations 
 of St. Athanasius; St. Leo guards the polemical 
 statements of St. Cyril. Clement may hold a pur¬ 
 gatory, yet tend to consider all punishment purga¬ 
 torial ; St. Cyprian may hold the unsanctified state of 
 heretics, hut include in his doctrine a denial of their 
 baptism; St. Hippolytus may believe in the personal 
 existence of the Word from eternity, yet speak con¬ 
 fusedly on the eternity of His Sonship; the Council 
 of Antioch might put aside the Homoiision, and the 
 Council of Niciea impose it; St. Hilary may believe 
 in a purgatory, yet confine it to the day of judgment; 
 St. Athanasius and other Fathers may treat with 
 almost supernatural exactness the doctrine of our 
 Lord’s incarnation, yet imply, as far as words go, 
 that He was ignorant in His human nature; the 
 Athanasian Creed may admit the illustration of soul 
 and body, and later Fathers discountenance it; St. 
 Augustine might first be opposed to the employ¬ 
 ment of force in religion, and then acquiesce in it. 
 Prayers for the faithful departed may be found in 
 the early liturgies, yet with an indistinctness which 
 included St. Mary and the Martyrs in the same rank 
 with the imperfect Christian whose sins were as yet 
 unexpiated; and succeeding times might keep what 
 was exact, and supply what was deficient. Aristotle 
 might be reprobated by certain early Fathers, yet 
 furnish the phraseology for theological definitions 
 afterwards. And in a different subject-matter, St. Isi¬ 
 dore and others might be suspicious of the decoration 
 of churches; St. Paulinus and St. Helena advance it. 
 
 3. There is in truth a certain virtue or grace in 
 the Gospel which changes the quality of doctrines, 
 opinions, usages, actions, and personal characters 
 which become incorporated with it, and makes them 
 right and acceptable to its Divine Author, when be¬ 
 fore they were either contrary to truth, or at best but 
 
Sec. II.] THE SACRAMENTAL PRINCIPLE. 355 
 
 shadows of it. This is that second principle, above 
 spoken of, which I have called the Sacramental. 
 “We know that we are of God, and the whole world 
 lieth in wickedness,” is an enunciation of the prin¬ 
 ciple;—or, the declaration of the Apostle of the 
 Gentiles, “ If any man be in Christ, he is a new 
 creature; old things are passed away, behold all 
 things are become new.” Thus outward rites, which 
 are but worthless in themselves, lose their own cha¬ 
 racter and become Sacraments under the gospel; 
 circumcision, as St. Paul says, is carnal and has 
 come to an end, yet Baptism is a perpetual ordi¬ 
 nance, as being grafted upon a system which is grace 
 and truth. Elsewhere, he parallels, while he con¬ 
 trasts, “the cup of the Lord” and “the cup of 
 devils,” in this respect, that to partake of either 
 is to hold communion with the source from which 
 it comes; and he adds presently, that “we have 
 been all made to drink into one Spirit.” So again 
 he says, no one is justified by the works of the Law; 
 while both St. Paul implies, and St. James declares, 
 that Christians are justified by works of the Spirit. 
 Again he contrasts the exercises of the intellect as 
 exhibited by heathen and Christian. “ Howbeit,” 
 he says, after condemning heathen wisdom, “ we 
 speak wisdom among them that are perfect, yet not 
 the wisdom of this world;” and it is plain that no 
 where need we look for more glowing eloquence, 
 more distinct profession of reasoning, more careful 
 assertion of principles, than are to be found in the 
 Apostle’s writings. 
 
 In like manner when the Jewish exorcists at¬ 
 tempted to “ call over them which had evil spirits 
 the Name of the Lord Jesus,” the evil spirit pro¬ 
 fessed not to know them, and inflicted on them 
 a bodily injury; on the other hand, the occasion of 
 this attempt of theirs was a stupendous instance or 
 type, in the person of St. Paul, of the very principle 
 I am illustrating. “ God wrought special miracles 
 
 2 a 2 
 
356 
 
 THE SECOND AND THIRD TESTS. [Chap. VI. 
 
 by the hands of Paul, so that from his body were 
 brought unto the sick handkerchiefs and aprons, 
 and the diseases departed from them, and the evil 
 spirits went out of them.” The grace given him 
 was communicable, diffusive; an influence, as en¬ 
 thusiasm may be, or moral habits and principles, 
 or tastes, or knowledge. 
 
 Parallel instances occur of the operation of this 
 principle in the history of the Church, as soon as 
 the Apostles were taken from it. St. Paul de¬ 
 nounces distinctions in meat and drink, the observ¬ 
 ance of Sabbaths and holy days, and of ordinances, 
 and the worship of Angels; yet Christians, from the 
 first, were rigid in their stated fastings, venerated, 
 as St. Justin tells us, the Angelic intelligences, 1 
 and established the observance of the Lord’s day 
 as soon as persecution ceased. 
 
 In like manner Celsus objects that Christians did 
 not “ endure the sight of temples, altars, and sta¬ 
 tues ;” Porphyry, that u they blame the rites of 
 worship, victims, and frankincense;” the heathen 
 disputant in Minucius asks, u Why have Christians 
 no altars, no temples, no conspicuous images?” and 
 “ no sacrifices;” and yet it is plain from Tertullian 
 that Christians had altars of their own, and sacrifices 
 and priests. And that they had churches is again 
 and again proved by Eusebius who had seen “ the 
 houses of prayer levelled ” in the Dioclesian perse¬ 
 cution; from the history too of St. Gregory Thauma- 
 turgus, nay from Clement. 2 Again, St. Justin 
 and Minucius speak of the form of the Cross in 
 terms of reverence, quite inconsistent with the doc¬ 
 trine that external emblems of religion may not be 
 venerated. Tertullian speaks of Christians signing 
 themselves with it whatever they set about, whether 
 they walk, eat, or lie down to sleep.; In Eusebius’s 
 
 1 Infra, p. 377, &c. 
 
 2 Orig. c. Cels. vii. 63, viii. 17, (vid. not. Bened. in loc.) August. 
 Ep. 102, 16; Minuc. F. 10, and 32; Tertull. de Orab. fin. ad 
 Uxor. i. fin. Euseb. Hist. viii. 2; Clem. Strom, vii. 6, p. 846. 
 
Sec. II.] THE SACRAMENTAL PRINCIPLE. 357 
 
 life of Constantine, the figure of the Cross holds a 
 most conspicuous place; the Emperor sees it in the 
 sky and is converted; he places it upon his stand¬ 
 ards ; he places it in his own hand when he puts 
 up his statue; wherever the Cross is displayed in 
 his battles, he conquers; he appoints fifty men to 
 carry it; he engraves it on his soldiers’ arms; and 
 Licinius dreads its power. Sh ortly after, Jul ian 
 plainly accuses Christians of worshipping the wood of 
 t he C ross, though they refused to worship the ancile. 
 
 In a later age the worship of images was introduced. 1 
 
 The principle of the distinction, on which these 
 observances were pious in Christianity and super¬ 
 stitious in paganism, is implied in such passages of 
 Tertullian, Lactantius, and others, as speak of evil 
 spirits lurking under the pagan statues. It is 
 intimated also by Origen, who, after saying that 
 .Scripture so strongly “forbids temples, altars, and 
 images,” that Christians are “ ready to go to death, 
 if necessary, rather than pollute their notion of the 
 God of all by any such transgression,” assigns as a 
 reason “ that, as far as possible, they might not fall 
 into the notion that images were gods.” St. Au¬ 
 gustine, in replying to Porphyry, is more express; 
 
 “ Those,” he says, “who are acquainted with Old and 
 New Testament do not blame in the pagan religion 
 the erection of temples or institution of priesthoods, 
 but that these are done to idols and devils. . . 
 True religion blames in their superstitions, not so 
 much their sacrificing, for the ancient saints sacri¬ 
 ficed to the True God, as their sacrificing to false 
 gods.” 2 To Faustus the Manichee he answers, “We 
 have some things in common with the gentiles, but F 
 our purpose is different.” 3 And St. Jerome asks 
 Yigilantius, who made objections to lights and oil, 
 
 “ Because we once worshipped idols, is that a reason 
 why we should not worship God, for fear of seem- 
 
 1 Tertull. deCor. 8 ; Just. Apol. i. 55 ; Minuc. F. 29 ; Julian ap. 
 Cyr. vi. p. 194, Spanh. 
 
 2 Epp. 102, 18. 
 
 3 Contr. Faust, 20, 28. 
 
358 
 
 THE SECOND AND THIRD TESTS. 
 
 [Chap. VI. 
 
 ing to address him with an honour like that which 
 was paid to idols and then was detestable, whereas 
 this is paid to Martyrs and therefore to be received ?” 1 
 
 Confiding then in the power of Christianity to 
 resist the infection of evil, and to transmute the 
 very instruments and appendages of demon-worship 
 to an evangelical use, and feeling also that these 
 usages had originally come from primitive revela¬ 
 tions and from the instinct of nature, though they 
 had been corrupted; and that they must invent 
 what they needed, if they did not use what they 
 found; and that they had moreover with them the 
 very archetypes, of which paganism attempted the 
 shadows; the rulers of the Church from early £Lmes 
 
 ( were prepared, should the occasion arise, to adopt, 
 or imitate, or sanction the existing rites and customs 
 of the populace, as well as the philosophy of the 
 educated class. St. Gregory Thaumaturgus sup¬ 
 plies the first instance on record of this economy. 
 He was the Apostle of Pontus, which since Pliny’s 
 time seems to have fallen back into heathenism, 
 and one of his methods for governing an untoward 
 population is thus related by St. Gregory of Nyssa. 
 “ Returning,” he says, u from the city, and revisiting 
 its environs, he increased the devotion of the people 
 everywhere by instituting festive meetings in honour 
 of those who had fought for the faith. The bodies 
 of the Martyrs were distributed in different places, 
 and the people assembled and made merry, as the 
 year came round, holding festival in their honour. 
 This indeed was a proof of his great wisdom . . . 
 for, perceiving that the childish and untrained 
 populace were retained in their idolatrous error by 
 sensual indulgences, in order that what was of first 
 importance should at any rate be secured to them, 
 viz. that they should look to God in place of their 
 vain rites, he allowed them to be merry and solace 
 
 1 Lact ii. 15, 16; Tertull. Sput. 12; Origen, c. Cels. vii. 64—66; 
 August. Ep. 102, 18; Contr. Faust, xx. 23; Ilirom. c. Vigil. 8. 
 
Sec. II.] 
 
 THE SACRAMENTAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 359 
 
 themselves at the monuments of the holy Martyrs, 
 as if their behaviour would in time undergo a spon¬ 
 taneous change into greater seriousness and strict¬ 
 ness, and faith would lead them to it; which has 
 actually been the happy issue in that population, 
 all sensual gratification having turned into a spiri¬ 
 tual form of rejoicing.” 1 There is no reason to sup¬ 
 pose that the license here spoken of passed the 
 limits of harmless though rude festivity; for it is 
 observable that the same reason, the need of holy^T 
 days for the multitude, is assigned by Origen, St. 
 Gregory’s master, to explain the establishment of 
 the Lord’s Day also, and the Paschal and the Pen¬ 
 tecostal festivals, which have never been viewed as 
 unlawful compliances; and, moreover, the people 
 were eventually reclaimed from their gross habits 
 by his indulgent policy, a successful issue which 
 could not have followed an accommodation to what 
 was sinful. 
 
 The example set by St. Gregory in an age of 
 persecution was impetuously followed when a time 
 of peace succeeded. In the course of the fourth 
 century two movements or developments spread 
 over the face of Christendom, with a rapidity cha¬ 
 racteristic of the Church; the one ascetic, the other 
 ritual or ceremonial. We are told in various ways by 
 Eusebius, 2 that Constantine, in order to recommend 
 the new religion to the heathen, transferred into it 
 the outward ornaments to which they had been 
 accustomed in their own. It is not necessary to go 
 into a subject which the diligence of Protestant 
 writers has made familiar to most of us. The use 
 of temples, and these dedicated to particular saints, 
 and ornamented on occasions with branches of 
 
 -- r r I I llll — rilj ]H>M'III1'IHTJXI~»1' »II In 1 1 i i.r»uninnijip'mjijm_ i U.jn Iii I. nil J 1 , 1,, -. 
 
 trees; incense, lamps, and candles; votive offerings 
 on recovery from illness; holy water; as}dums; 
 holydays and seasons, use of calendars, proces¬ 
 sions, blessings on the fields; sacerdotal vestments, 
 
 1 Vit. Thaum. c. 27. 2 V. Const, iii. 1, iv. 23, &c. 
 
360 
 
 THE SECOND AND THIRD TESTS. 
 
 [Chap. VI. 
 
 the tonsure, the ring in marriage, turning to the \ 
 East, images at a later date, perhaps the ecclesias¬ 
 tical chant, and the Kyrie Eleison, 1 are all of pagan 
 origin, and sanctified by their adoption into the 
 Church. * 
 
 The eighth book of Theodoret’s work Adversus 
 Gentiles , which is 44 On the Martyrs,” treats so 
 largely on the subject, that we must content our¬ 
 selves with but a specimen of the illustrations which 
 it affords, to the principle acted on by St. Gregory 
 Thaumaturgus. 44 Time, which makes all things 
 decay,” he says, speaking of the Martyrs, 44 has pre¬ 
 served their glory incorruptible. For as the noble 
 souls of those conquerors traverse the heavens, and 
 take part in the spiritual choirs, so their bodies are 
 not consigned to separate tombs, but cities and 
 towns have distributed them; and they call them 
 saviours of souls and bodies, and physicians, and 
 honour them as the protectors and guards of cities, 
 and, using their intervention with the Lord of all, 
 through them they obtain divine gifts. And though 
 the body be divided, the grace remains indivisible; 
 and that small and tiny particle is equal in power 
 with the Martyr that hath never been dispersed 
 about. For the grace which thrives distributes the 
 gifts, measuring the bounty according to the faith 
 of comers. 
 
 44 Yet not even this persuades you to celebrate 
 their God, but ye laugh and mock at the honour 
 which is paid them by all, and consider it a pol¬ 
 lution to approach their tombs. But though all 
 men made a jest of them, yet at least the Greeks 
 could not decently complain, to whom belonged 
 libations and expiations, and heroes and demi-gods 
 and deified men. To Hercules, though a man, and 
 compelled to serve Eurystheus, they built temples, 
 and constructed altars, and offered sacrifices in 
 honour, and allotted feasts; and that, not Spartans 
 
 1 According to Dr. E. D. Clarke, Travels, vol. i. p. 352. 
 
THE SACRAMENTAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 Sec. II.] 
 
 361 
 
 only and Athenians, but the whole of Greece and 
 the greater part of Europe.” 
 
 Then, after going through the history of many 
 heathen deities, and referring to the doctrine of the 
 philosophers about great men, and to the monuments 
 of kings and emperors, all of which at once are wit¬ 
 nesses and are inferior, to the greatness of the 
 Martyrs, he continues: “To their temples we come, 
 not once or twice a year or five times, but often do 
 we hold celebrations; often, nay daily, do we present 
 hymns to their Lord. And the sound in health 
 ask for its preservation, and those who struggle 
 with any disease for a release from their sufferings; 
 the childless for children, the barren to become 
 mothers, and those who enjoy the blessing for its 
 safe-keeping. Those too who are setting out for a 
 foreign land beg that they may be their fellow-travel¬ 
 lers and guides of the journey; those who have come 
 safe back acknowledge the grace, not coming to 
 them as to gods, but beseeching them as divine 
 men, and asking their intercession. And that they 
 obtain what they ask in faith, their dedications 
 openly witness, in token of their care. For some 
 bring likenesses of eyes, others of feet, others of 
 hands; some of gold, others of silver; and their 
 Lord accepts' even the small and cheap, measuring 
 the gift by the offerer’s ability . . . Philosophers and 
 Orators are consigned to oblivion, and kings and 
 captains are not known even by name to the many; 
 but the names of the Martyrs are better known to 
 all than the names of those dearest to them. And 
 they make a point of giving them to their children, 
 with a view of gaining for them thereby safety and 
 protection .... Nay, of the so-called gods, so utterly 
 have the sacred places been destroyed, that not even 
 their outline remains, nor the shape of their altars 
 is known to men of this generation, while their ma¬ 
 terials have been devoted to the shrines of the Mar¬ 
 tyrs. For the Lord has introduced His own dead in 
 
362 
 
 THE SECOND AND THIRD TESTS. 
 
 [Chap. VI. 
 
 the place of your gods; of the one He hath made a 
 riddance, on the other He hath conferred their 
 honours. For the Pandian festival, the Diasia, and \ 
 the Dionysia, and your other feasts, we have the 
 celebrations of Peter, of Paul, of Thomas, of Sergius, 
 of Marcellus, of Leontius, of Panteleemon, of An¬ 
 
 tony, of Maurice, and of the other Martyrs; and for 
 that ancient procession, and indecency of work and 
 word, are held modest festivities, without intem¬ 
 perance, or revel, or laughter, but with divine hymns, 
 and attendance on holy discourses and prayers, 
 adorned with laudable tears. ” This was the view 
 of the “Evidences of Christianity” which a Bishop 
 of the fifth century offered for the conversion of 
 unbelievers. 
 
 The introduction of Images was still later, and 
 met with more opposition in the West than in the 
 East. It is grounded on the same great principle 
 which I am illustrating; and as I have given ex¬ 
 tracts from Theodoret for the developments of the 
 fourth and fifth centuries, so will I now cite St. 
 John Damascene in defence of the further develop¬ 
 ments of the eighth. 1 
 
 “As to the passages you adduce,” he says to his 
 opponents, “ they abominate not the worship paid 
 to our Images, but that of the Greeks, who made 
 them gods. It needs not therefore, because of the 
 absurd use of the Greeks, to abolish our use which 
 is so pious. Enchanters and wizards adjure, so 
 does the Church its Catechumens; but they invoke 
 devils, and she invokes God against devils. Greeks 
 dedicate images to devils, and call them gods; but 
 we to True God Incarnate, and to God’s servants 
 and friends, who drive away the troops of devils.” 1 
 Again, “ As the holy Fathers overthrew the temples 
 and shrines of the devils, and raised in their places 
 shrines in the names of Saints and we worship them, 
 so also they overthrew the images of the devils, and 
 
 1 De Imag. 1. 24. 
 
 
Sec. II.] 
 
 THE SACRAMENTAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 363 
 
 in their stead raised images of Christ, and God’s 
 Mother, and the Saints. And under the Old Cove¬ 
 nant, Israel neither raised temples in the name of 
 men, nor was memory of man made a festival; for, 
 as yet, man’s nature was under a curse, and death 
 was condemnation, and therefore was lamented, and 
 a corpse was reckoned unclean and he who touched 
 it; but now that the Godhead has been combined 
 with our nature, as some life-giving and saving 
 medicine, our nature has been glorified and is 
 transelemented into incorruption. Wherefore the 
 death of Saints is made a feast, and temples are 
 raised to them, and Images are painted.... For 
 the Image is a triumph, and a manifestation, and a 
 monument in memory of the victory of those who 
 have done nobly and excelled, and of the shame of 
 the devils defeated and overthrown.” 1 Once more, 
 “ If because of the Law thou dost forbid Images, 
 you will soon have to sabbatise and be circumcised, 
 for these ordinances the Law commands as indis¬ 
 pensable ; nay, to observe the whole law, and not to 
 keep the festival of the Lord’s Pascha out of Jeru¬ 
 salem : but know that if you keep the Law, Christ 
 hath profited you nothing .... But away with this, 
 for whoever of you are justified in the Law have 
 fallen from grace.” 
 
 It is quite consistent with the tenor of these re¬ 
 marks to observe, or to allow, that real superstitions 
 have sometimes obtained in parts of the Church from 
 its int ercour se with the heathenor have even been 
 admitted, or all but admitted, though commonly 
 st ren uously resisted, by its authorities, in conse¬ 
 quence of the resemblance which exists between the 
 heathen rites and certain portions of its ritual. 
 As philosophy has at times corrupted its divines, so 
 has paganism corrupted its worshippers; and as the 
 more intellectual have been involved in heresy, so 
 have the ignorant been corrupted by superstition. 
 
 1 ii. ll. 
 
364 THE SECOND AND THIRD TESTS. [Chap. VI. 
 
 Thus St. Chrysostom is vehement against the super¬ 
 stitious usages which Jews and Gentiles were introdu¬ 
 cing among Christians at Antioch and Constantinople. 
 u What shall we say,’ 7 he asks in one place, u about 
 the amulets and bells which are hung upon the hands, 
 and the scarlet woof, and other things full of such 
 extreme folly; when they ought to invest the child 
 with nothing else save the protection of the Cross ? 
 But now that is despised which hath converted the 
 whole world, and given the sore wound to the devil, 
 and overthrown all his power; while the thread, and 
 the woof, and the other amulets of that kind, are 
 entrusted with the child’s safety.” After mention¬ 
 ing further superstitions, he proceeds, “ JS T ow that 
 among Greeks such things should be done, is no 
 wonder; but among the worshippers of the Cross, 
 and partakers in unspeakable mysteries, and pro¬ 
 fessors of such morality, that such unseemliness 
 should prevail, this is especially to be deplored 
 again and again.” 1 And in like manner St. Au¬ 
 gustine suppressed the feasts called Agapa3, which had 
 been allowed the African Christians on their first 
 conversion. u It is time,” he says, “ for men who 
 dare not deny that they are Christians, to begin 
 to live according to the will of Christ, and, now 
 being Christians, to reject what was only allowed 
 that they might become Christians.” The people 
 objected the example of the Vatican Church at 
 Eome, where such feasts were observed every day; 
 St. Augustine answered, u I have heard that it has 
 been often prohibited, but the place is far off 
 from the Bishop’s abode (the Lateran), and in so 
 large a city there is a multitude of carnal persons, 
 especially of strangers who resort daily thither.” 2 
 And in like manner it certainly is possible that 
 the consciousness of the sanctifying power in Chris¬ 
 tianity may have acted as a temptation to sins, 
 
 1 Horn. xii. in Cor. 1, Oxf. Tr. 
 
 2 Floury, Hist. xx. 11, Oxf. Tr. 
 

 Sec. II.] 
 
 THE SACRAMENTAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 365 
 
 
 
 
 whether of deceit or of violence; as if the habit or 
 state of grace destroyed the sinfulness of certain 
 acts, or as if the end justified the means. 
 
 It is but enunciating in other words the principle 
 wp. are tracing, to say that the Church has b een 
 entrusted with the dispensatio n of g race. For if 
 she can conv ert heathen appointments into spiritua l 
 rif gg and usages, what is this but to be in p os- 
 session of a treasure, and to exercise a. discretionary 
 po wer in its application ? Hence there has been 
 from the first much variety and change, in the 
 Sacramental issues and instruments which the 
 Church has used. Wh ile the E aste rn and African" 
 C hurches baptize d heretics^ on their reconciliation, 
 the Church of Rome, as the Catholic Church since, 
 maintained that imposition of hands was sufficient, 
 
 A ..V,: . .. - ' 
 
 if their prior baptism had been formally correct. 
 The ceremony of imposition of hands was used on 
 various occasions with a distinct meaning; at the 
 
 rite of Catechumens, on admitting heretics, in Con¬ 
 firmation, in Ordination, in Benediction. The 
 Eastern Church seemed to consider the consecration 
 of the elements in Baptism and the Eucharist to lie 
 in the invocatory prayer; the Latin placed it in the 
 recitation of the words of institution. Baptism 
 was sometimes administered by immersion, some¬ 
 times by infusion. Infant Baptism was not 
 enforced as afterwards. Children or even infants 
 were admitted to the Eucharist in the African 
 Church and the rest of the West, as now in the 
 Greek. The Bread or the Wine was sometimes 
 administered without the corresponding element. 
 Oil had various uses, as for healing the sick, or as 
 in the rite of Extreme Unction. Confession and 
 Penance were at first public, afterwards private, as 
 in the Church of Rome at this day. Indulgences 
 of works or of periods of penance, had a different 
 meaning, according to circumstances. In like manner 
 t he Sign of the Cross was one of t he earl iest means 
 
366 
 
 THE SECOND AND THIRD TESTS. [Chap. VI. 
 
 of grace ; then holy seasons, and holy places, 
 and pilgrimage to them; holy water; prescribed 
 prayers, or other observances; garments, as the 
 scapular, or coronation robes; the rosary; the 
 crucifix. And for some wise purpose doubtless, 
 such as that of showing the power of the Church 
 in the dispensation of divine grace, as well as the 
 perfection and spirituality of the Eucharistic 
 Presence, the Cup is withheld from all but the 
 celebrant in the Holy Eucharist. 
 
 In the foregoing sketch I have been tracing the 
 gradual consolidation of doctrine and ritual in the 
 Christian Church, and describing the principles 
 on which the process was conducted. 
 
 1. The Dogmatic and Sacramental principles 
 have in consequence been enlarged upon here, while 
 others were specified in a former Section; such as 
 the mystical interpretation of Scripture, and the 
 substitution of Faith for Reason as a principle 
 of conduct. 
 
 2. The continuity of these various principles down 
 to this day, and the vigour of their operation, are two 
 distinct guarantees that the theological conclusions 
 to which they are subservient are, in accordance 
 with the Divine Promise, true developments, and 
 not corruptions of the Revelation. 
 
 3. Moreover, if it be true that the principles of 
 the later Church are the same as those of the earlier, 
 then, whatever are the variations of belief between 
 the two periods, the earlier in reality agrees more than 
 it differs with the later, for principles are responsible 
 for doctrines. Hence they who assert that the 
 modern Roman system is the corruption of primitive 
 theology are forced to discover some difference 
 of principle between the one and the other; for 
 instance, that the right of private judgment was 
 secured to the early Church and has been lost to 
 the later, or, again, that the later Church ration¬ 
 alizes and the earlier went by faith. 
 
PRINCIPLES OF THEOLOGY. 
 
 367 
 
 Sec. II.] 
 
 4. On this point I will but remark as follows. 
 It cannot be doubted that the horror of heresy, the 
 law of implicit obedience to ecclesiastical authority, 
 ar id the doctrine of the m ystical virtue of uni ty, 
 were as strong and active in the Church of St. 
 Ignatius and St. Cyprian as in that of St. Carlo 
 and St. Pius the Fifth, whatever be thought of the 
 theology respectively taught in the one and in 
 the other. Now we have before our eyes the 
 effect of these principles in the instance of the 
 later Church; they have entirely succeeded in 
 preventing innovation upon the doctrine of Trent 
 for three hundred years. Have w r e any reason 
 for doubting, that from the same strictness the 
 same fidelity would follow, in the first three, or 
 any three, centuries of the Ante-tridentine period ? 
 Where then was the opportunity of corruption in 
 the three hundred years between St. Ignatius and 
 St. Augustine? or between St. Augustine and St. 
 Bede ? or between St. Bede and St. Peter Damiani ? 
 or again, between St. Irena3us and St. Leo, St. 
 Cyprian and St. Gregory the Great, St. Athanasius 
 and St. John Damascene? Thus the tradition of 
 eighteen centuries becomes a chain of indefinitely 
 many links, one crossing the other; and each 
 year, as it comes, is guaranteed with various 
 degrees of cogency by every year which has gone 
 before it. 
 
 5. Moreover, the various heresies which have 
 from time to time arisen, have all in one respect or 
 other violated those principles with which the 
 Church rose into existence, and which she still 
 retains. Thus Arian and Nestorian schools denied 
 the allegorical rule of Scripture interpretation ;' the 
 Gnostics and Eunomians for Faith professed to 
 substitute Knowledge; and the Manichees also, as St. 
 Augustine so touchingly declares in the beginning 
 of his work, De Utilitate Credendi. The Dogmatic 
 Pule, at least so far as regards its traditional cha- 
 
THE SECOND AND THIRD TESTS. 
 
 [Chap. VI. 
 
 ' 
 
 / 
 
 368 
 
 racter was thrown aside by all those sects which, 
 as Tertullian tells us, claimed to judge for them¬ 
 selves from Scripture; and the Sacramental prin- 
 ciple was violated, ivso facto , bv all who separated 
 
 X ' ' * " * ' m 11 ' • 1 * " «n»i rn «wM > k < ».I. n . I I — t iw -^- — 
 
 from the C hu rch, was denied too by Faustus the 
 
 Manichee when he argued against the Catholi c ce re-. 
 
 monial, by Vmilantius in his opposition to relics, 
 
 and by the Iconoclasts. In like manner the con- 
 0 / 
 
 tempt of mystery, of reverence, of devoutedness, of 
 sanctity, are other notes of the heretical spirit. It 
 is plain in how many ways Protestantism has 
 reversed the principles of Catholic theology. 
 
 6. Further, these principles of Catholic develop¬ 
 ment admit of development themselves, and have in 
 fact developed, as was above suggested, though not 
 to the prejudice of their manifest identity throughoLit. 
 For instance, the principle of Dogmatism involves 
 the philosophy, as it may be called, of the intellectual 
 exhibition of mysteries, and the principle of infal¬ 
 libility. Again, it is plain that such writers as 
 St. Thomas and Suardfr speak more definitely on 
 the subject of Faith and -Eeason than Origen or Eu¬ 
 sebius. And, in like manner, for the assertion of 
 the Sacramental principle we shall have recourse, not 
 to St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, who acted upon it, 
 but to St. Augustine or St. John Damascene. 
 
 7. And, lastly, it might be expected that the 
 Catholic principles would be later in development 
 than the Catholic doctrines, as lying deeper in the 
 mind, and as being its assumptions rather than its 
 objective professions. This has been the case. 
 T he Protestant controversy has mainly turned, or 
 is turning, on one or other of th e principles of 
 Catholjcityj^ anclto this~ Jay the rule of Scripture 
 Interpretation, the doctrine of Inspiration, the rela- 
 tion of Faith to Reason, moral responsibility, private 
 judgment, inherent grace, the seat of infallibility, 
 remain, I suppose, more or less undeveloped, or, at 
 least, undefined, by the Church. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS CONTINUED. 
 
 APPLICATION OF THE FOURTH TEST OF FIDELITY IN 
 
 DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 It has been set down above as a fourth argument 
 in favour of the fidelity of developments, ethical or 
 political, if the doctrine from which they have pro¬ 
 ceeded, in any early stage of its history, gave indi¬ 
 cations of those opinions and practices in which it 
 has ended. Supposing then the so-called Catholic 
 doctrines and practices are true and legitimate de¬ 
 velopments, and not corruptions, we may expect to 
 find traces of them in the first centuries. And this 
 I conceive to be the case: the records indeed of those 
 times are scanty, and we have little means of de¬ 
 termining what daily Christian life then was: we 
 know little of the thoughts, and the prayers, and 
 the meditations, and the discourses of the early dis¬ 
 ciples of Christ, at a time when these professed de¬ 
 velopments were not recognised and duly located in 
 the theological system; yet it appears, even from 
 what remains, that the atmosphere of the Church 
 was, as it were, charged with them from the first, 
 and delivered itself of them from time to time, in 
 this way or that, in various places and persons, as 
 occasion elicited them, testifying the presence of a 
 vast body of thought within it, which one day 
 would take shape and position. 
 
 §i- 
 
 Resurrection and Relics . 
 
 As a chief specimen of what I would say, I 
 will direct attention to a characteristic principle 
 
 2 b 
 
370 APPLICATION OP THE FOURTH TEST. [Chap. VII. 
 
 of Christianity, which may almost be considered as 
 a modification or instance of the great Sacramental 
 Principle on which I have lately insisted; I mean 
 the vie w which Christianity takes of Matt er as \ 
 susceptible of grace, or as capable of a union with f 
 a Divine Presence and influence. Hus principle 4 , / 
 as we shall see, was in the nrst age both strongly 
 manifested and variously developed; and that chiefly 
 in consequence of the diametrically opposite doc¬ 
 trine of the schools and the religions of the day. 
 And thus its exhibition in that primitive time be¬ 
 comes also an instance of a statement often made 
 in controversy, that the profession and the develop¬ 
 ments of a doctrine are according to the emergency 
 of the time, and that silence at a certain period im¬ 
 plies, not that it was not then held, but that it was 
 not questioned. 
 
 Christianity began by considering Matter as a 
 creature of God, and in itself u very good.” It 
 taught that Matter, as well as Spirit, had become 
 corrupt, in the instance of Adam; and it contem¬ 
 plated its recovery. It taught that the Highest 
 had taken a portion of that corrupt mass upon Him¬ 
 self, in order to its sanctification. It taught that, 
 as a firstfruits of His purpose, He had purified 
 from all sin that very portion of it which He took 
 into His Eternal Person, and thereunto had taken- 
 it from a Virgin Womb, which He had filled with 
 the abundance of His Spirit. Moreover, it taught 
 that during His earthly sojourn He had been subject 
 to all the natural infirmities of man, and had suf¬ 
 fered all those ills to which flesh is heir. It taught 
 that the Highest had in that flesh died on the Cross, 
 and that His blood had an expiatory power; more¬ 
 over, that He had risen again in that flesh, and had 
 carried that flesh with Him into heaven, and that 
 from that flesh, glorified and deified in Him, He 
 never would be divided. As a first consequence of 
 these awful doctrines comes that of the resurrection of 
 
RESURRECTION AND RELICS. 
 
 371 
 
 § I-] 
 
 t he bodies of His Saints, and their future glorifica¬ 
 tion with Him; next, that of the sanctity of relics; 
 f urther , that of the Real Presence in the Eucharist; 
 further, that of the merit of Virginity; and, lastly, 
 that of the prerogatives of Mary, Mother of God. 
 
 A. ■ CD - J 7 ^ 
 
 All these doctrines are more or less developed in 
 the Ante-nicene period, though in very various de¬ 
 grees, from the nature of the case. 
 
 And they were all objects of offence or of scorn 
 to philosophers, priests, or populace of the day. 
 With varieties of opinions which need not be men¬ 
 tioned, it was a fundamental doctrine in the schools, 
 whether Greek or Oriental, that Matter was essen¬ 
 tially evil. It had not been created by the Supreme 
 God; it was in eternal enmity with Him; it was 
 the source of all pollution; and it was irreclaimable. 
 Such was the doctrine of Platonist, Gnostic, and 
 Manichee:—whereas then St. John had laid it down 
 that “Every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus 
 Christ is come in the flesh is the spirit of Anti¬ 
 christ:” the Gnostics obstinately denied the Incar¬ 
 nation, and held that Christ was but a phantom, 
 or had come on the man Jesus at his baptism, and 
 left him at his passion. The one great topic of 
 preaching with Apostles and Evangelists was the 
 Resurrection of Christ and of all mankind after Him; 
 but when the philosophers of Athens heard St. 
 Paul, “ some mocked,” and others contemptuously 
 put aside the doctrine. T he birth from a Virgi n 
 i mplied, no t only that the body was not intrinsically 
 evil, but that one state of it was holier than another, 
 anHZSZZPauI explained that, while marriage was 
 good, celibacy was better; but the Gnostics, hold¬ 
 ing the utter malignity of Matter, one and all con¬ 
 demned marriage as sinful, and, whether they ob¬ 
 served continence or not, or abstained from eating 
 flesh or not, maintained that all functions of our 
 animal nature were evil and abominable. 
 
 “ Perish the thought,” says Manes, “ that our 
 
 2b 2 
 
372 APPLICATION OF THE FOURTH TEST. [Chap. VII. 
 
 Lord Jesus Christ should have descended through 
 the womb of a woman.’ 7 “ He descended,” said 
 Marcion, “but without touching her or taking aught 
 from her.” “Through her, not of her,” said another. 
 “It is absurd to assert,” says a disciple of Bar- 
 desanes, “ that this flesh in which we are imprisoned 
 shall rise again, for it is well called a burden, a 
 tomb, and a chain.” “ They execrate the funeral- 
 pile,” says Cucilius of Christians, “as if bodies, 
 though withdrawn from the flames, did not all 
 resolve into dust by years, whether beasts tear, or 
 sea swallows, or earth covers, or flame wastes.” 
 According to the old Paganism, both the educated 
 and vulgar held corpses and sepulchres in aversion. 
 They quickly rid themselves of the remains even of 
 their friends, thinking their presence a pollution, 
 and felt the same terror even of burying-places which 
 assails the ignorant and superstitious now. It is re¬ 
 corded of Hannibal that, on his return to the Afri¬ 
 can coast from Italy, he changed his landing-place 
 to avoid a ruined sepulchre. “ For that falsehood,” 
 says Apuleius in his .Apology “may the god who 
 passes between heaven and hell present to thy eyes, 
 0 Emiliars, all that haunts the night, all that alarms 
 in burying-places, all that terrifies in tombs.” 
 George of Cappadocia could not direct a more bitter 
 taunt against the Alexandrian Pagans than to call 
 
 the temple of Serapis a sepulchre.^_ The case had 
 
 been the same even among the Jews; the Pab- 
 bins taught, that even the corpses of holy men “ did 
 but serve to diffuse infection and defilement.” “When 
 deaths were Judaieal,” says the writer who goes 
 under the name of St. Basil, “ corpses were an 
 abomination; when death is for Christ, the relies 
 of Saints are precious. It was anc iently said to the 
 P riests an d the Nazarites, ‘If any one s hall t ouch 
 a corpse, he shall be unclean till evening, and lie 
 shall wash his garment;’ now, on the contrary, if any 
 one shall touch a, Martyr’s bones, by reason of the 
 
RESURRECTION AND RELICS. 
 
 373 
 
 § 1.] 
 
 grace dwelling in the body, he receives s ome par- 
 tiiupatioii of his sanctity.” 1 .Nay, Christianity taught 
 a reverence for the bodies even of heathen. The 
 c are of the d ea d is one of the praises which, as we 
 have seen above, is extorted in their favour from 
 the Emperor Julian; and it was exemplified during 
 the mortality which spread through the Roman 
 world in the time of St. Cyprian. u They did 
 good,” says Pontius of the Christians of Carthage, 
 
 “ in the profusion of exuberant works to all, and " 
 not only to the household of faith. They did some¬ 
 what more than is recorded of the incomparable 
 benevolence of Tobias. The slain of the king and 
 the outcasts, whom Tobias gathered together, were 
 of his own kin only.” 2 
 
 It was far more of course than such general re¬ 
 verence which they showed to the bodies of the 
 Saints. They ascribed virtue to their martyred taber¬ 
 nacles, and treasured, as something supernatural, 
 their blood, their ashes, and their bones. When St. 
 Cyprian was beheaded, his brethren brought nap¬ 
 kins to soak up his blood. u Only the harder por¬ 
 tion of the holy relics remained,” say the Acts of 
 St. Ignatius, who was exposed to the beasts in the 
 amphitheatre, u which were conveyed to Antioch, 
 and deposited in linen, bequeathed by the grace 
 that was in the Martyr to that holy Church as a 
 priceless treasure.” The Jews attempted to de¬ 
 prive the brethren of St. Poly carp’s body, u lest, 
 leaving the Crucified, they begin to worship him,” 
 say his Acts; u ignorant,” they continue, u that we 
 can never leave Christ;” and they add, U W e, having 
 taken up his bones which were more costly than 
 precious stones, and refined more than gold, de¬ 
 posited them where was fitting; and there when 
 
 1 Act. Arch. p. 85. Athan. c. Apoll. ii. 3.—Adam. Dial. iii. init. 
 Minuc. Dial. 11. April. Apol. p. 535. Kortholt Cal. p. 63. Cal met, 
 Diet. t. 2, p. 736. Basil in Ps. 115, 4. 
 
 2 Vit. S. Cypr. 10. 
 
c- y 
 
 l 
 
 \r 
 
 374 APPLICATION OF THE FOURTH TEST. [Chap. VII. 
 
 we meet together, as we can, the Lord will grant us 
 to celebrate with joy and gladness the birthday of 
 his martyrdom.’ 7 On one occasion in Palestine, 
 the Imperial authorities disinterred the bodies and 
 cast them into the sea, “lest, as their opinion went,” 
 says Eusebius, “ there should be those who in their 
 sepulchres and monuments might think them gods, 
 and treat them with divine worship.” Julian, who 
 bad been a Christian, and knew the Christian his¬ 
 tory more intimately than a mere infidel would 
 know it, traces the superstition, as he considers it, 
 to the very life-time of St. John, that is, as early as 
 there were Martyrs to honour; makes their ob¬ 
 servance contemporaneous with the worship paid to 
 our Lord, and equally distinct and formal; and, 
 moreover, declares that first it was secret, which for 
 various reasons it was likely to have been. “Neither 
 Paul/’ he says, “ nor Matthew, nor Luke, nor 
 Mark, dared to call Jesus God; but honest John, 
 having perceived that a great multitude had been 
 caught by this disease in many of the Greek and 
 Italian cities, and hearing, I suppose, that the 
 monuments of Peter and Paul were, secretly in¬ 
 deed, but still hearing that they were honoured, 
 first dared to say it.” “ Who can feel worthy 
 abomination ?” he s ays elsewhe re: “vojihave fill ed 
 aU places with tombs and monuments, though it has 
 been no where told you to tumble ddwn at tombs 
 or to honour them,.... if Jesus said that they were 
 
 Full of 1111 cleanness, why dove invoke God at them?” 
 The tone of Faustus the Manichaean is the same. 
 “ Ye have turned,” he says to St. Augustine, “the 
 idols” of the heathen “into your Martyrs, whom ye 
 observe ( colitis ) with similar prayers (yotis ).” 1 
 
 It is remarkable that both Christians and their 
 opponents proceeded from the subject of the relics of 
 the Ma rtyrs to that of their persons. Basilides at least, 
 
 1 Act. Procons. 5. Ruinart, Act. Mart. pp. 22, 44. Euseb. Hist, 
 viii. 6. Julian, ap. Cyr. pp. 327, 335. August, c. Faust, xx. 4. 
 
RESURRECTION AND RELICS. 
 
 § I-] 
 
 who was founder of one of the most impious Gnostic 
 sects, spoke of them with disrespect; lie considered 
 that their sufferings were the penalty of secret sins 
 or evil desires, or transgressions committed in 
 another body, and a sign of divine favour only 
 because they were allowed to connect them with 
 the cause of Christ. 1 On the other hand, it was the 
 doctrine of the Church that Martyrdom was me¬ 
 ritorious., that it had a certain supernatural efficacy 
 I n i t, and that the blood of the Saints received from 
 the grace of the One Redeemer a certain expiatory 
 power. Martyrdom stood in the place of Baptism, 
 where the Sacrament had not been administered. 
 It exempted the soul from all preparatory waiting, 
 and gained its immediate admittance into glory. 
 “ All crimes are pardoned for the sake of this 
 work,” says Tertullian. And in proportion to 
 the Martyrs’ near approach to their Almighty 
 Judge, such was their high dignity and power. 
 St. Dionysius speaks of their reigning with Christ; 
 Origen even conjectures that “as we are redeemed 
 by the precious blood of Jesus, so some are re¬ 
 deemed by the precious blood of the Martyrs.” 
 St. Cyprian seems to explain his meaning when he 
 says, “We believe that the merits of Martyrs and 
 works of the just avail much with the Judge,” 
 that is, for those who were lapsed, “when, after 
 the end of this age and the world, Christ’s people 
 shall stand before His judgment-seat.” Accordingly 
 they were considered to intercede for the Church 
 below in their state of glory, and for individuals 
 whom they had known. St. Potamiama of Alex¬ 
 andria, in the first years of the third century, when 
 taken out for execution, promised to obtain after 
 her departure the salvation of the officer who led 
 her out; and did appear to him, according to 
 Eusebius, on the third day, and prophesied his 
 own speedy martyrdom. And St. Theodosia in 
 
 1 Clem. Strom, iv. 12. 
 
376 APPLICATION OF THE FOURTH TEST. [Chap. VII. 
 
 Palestine came to certain confessors who were in 
 bonds, “to request them,” as Eusebius tells us, 
 “to remember her when they came to the Lord’s 
 Presence.” Tertullian, when a Montanist, betrays 
 the existence of the doctrine in the Church by pro¬ 
 testing against it . 1 
 
 § 2 - 
 
 Cultus of Saints and Angels. 
 
 Little as is known of the early Spanish Church, 
 it furnishes one point of detail about itself, which 
 seems to be a further development of the doctrine 
 of the Intercession of Saints. The Canons are 
 extant of a Council of Illiberis, held shortly 
 before the Council of Nictea, and representative of 
 course of the doctrine of the third century. Among 
 these occurs the following: “It is decreed, that 
 pictures ought not to be in the Church, lest what 
 is worshipped or adored be painted on the walls.” 2 
 Now these words are commonly taken to be decisive 
 against the use of pictures in the Spanish Church 
 at that era. Let us grant it ; let us grant that 
 the use of all pictures is forbidden, pictures not 
 only of our Lord, and sacred emblems, as of the 
 Lamb and Dove, but pictures of Angels and Saints 
 also. It is not fair to restrict the words, nor are 
 controversialists found desirous of doing so; they 
 
 take them to include the images."'of the Saints. 
 
 “Lor keeping of pictures out of the Church, the 
 Canon of the Eliberine or Illiberitine Council, held in 
 Spain, about the time of Constantine the Great, is 
 most plain ,” 3 says Usher: he is speaking of “the 
 representations of God and of Christ, and of Angels 
 and of Saints .” 4 “The Council of Eliberis is very 
 
 1 Tertull. Apol. fin. Euseb. Hist. vi. 42. Orig. ad Martyr. 50. 
 Ruin art, Act. Mart. pp. 122, 823. 
 
 2 Placuit picturas in ecclesia esse non debere, ne, quod colitur aut 
 adoratur, in parietibus depingatur. Can. 36. 
 
 3 Answ. to a Jcs. 10, p. 437. 
 
 4 p. 430. The “ colitur aut adoratur” marks a difference of worship. 
 
§ 2 .] 
 
 SAINTS AND ANGELS. 
 
 ancient, and of great fame,” says Taylor, a in which 
 it is expressly forbidden that what is worshipped 
 should be depicted on the walls, and that therefore 
 pictures ought not to be in churches .” 1 He too is 
 speaking of the Saints, Let us grant this freely. 
 This inference seems to follow, that the Spanish 
 Church considered the Saints to be in the number of 
 objects either of “worship or adoration;” for it is of 
 such objects that the representations are forbidden. 
 The very drift of the prohibition is this ,—lest what 
 is in itself an object of worship (quod colitur) should 
 be worshipped in painting ; unless then Saints and 
 Angels were objects of worship, their pictures would 
 have been allowed . 2 
 
 The glorious reign of Saints and Martyrs with 
 Christ leads to a subject which incidentally came 
 before us in the Introduction to this Essay, the 
 association of His Angels with Him; though to speak 
 of incorporeal beings will be a digression from the 
 line of inquiry which we are pursuing. 
 
 St. Justin, after “answering the charge of 
 Atheism,” as Dr. Burton says, “ which was brought 
 against Christians of his day, and observing that 
 they were punished for not worshipping evil demons 
 which were not really gods,” continues, “But Him, 
 (God,) and the Son who came from Him, and 
 taught us these things, and the host of the other 
 good Angels which attend upon and resemble them, 
 and the prophetic Spirit, we worship and adore, 
 paying them a reasonable and true honour, and not 
 refusing to deliver to any one else, who wishes to be 
 taught, what we ourselves have learned .” 3 
 
 1 Dissuasive, i. 1, 8. 
 
 2 The canon runs “ ne quod colitur.depingatur; if it merely 
 
 meant “lest what may become an object of worship,” &c. it would 
 have been “ ne quod colatur.” 
 
 3 E keIvov re, k at Toy Trap' avrov viov iXS'oyraKcu biba^avra yyag 
 ravra, [feat Toy tcov aXXioy Eiroyeywv ical e^oyoLovyeyojy cryciS'dA 
 ayyeXojy orparm',] Tryevya re to TTpo(pr]TLKoy (TEpoyeSa Kai Trpoa- 
 Kvvovyev , Xoyip teai aXrj^eta riycoyreg, kcll navr'i ftovXoyeyo) 
 
378 APPLICATION OF THE FOURTH TEST. [Chap. VII. 
 
 A more express testimony to the cultus angelorum 
 cannot be required; nor is it unnatural in the 
 connexion in which it occurs, considering St. Justin 
 has been speaking of the heathen worship of demons, 
 and therefore would be led without effort to mention, 
 not only the incommunicable adoration paid to the 
 One God, who “will not give His glory to another,” 
 but such inferior honour as may be paid to creatures 
 without sin, on the side of giver or receiver. Nor is 
 the construction of the original Greek harsher than 
 is found in other authors ; nor need it surprise us 
 in one whose style is not accurate, that two words 
 should be used to express worship, and that one 
 \ should include Angels, and that the other should 
 not. 
 
 The following is Dr. Burton’s account of the 
 passage : 
 
 44 Scultetus, a Protestant divine of Heidelberg, in 
 his Medulla Theologies Patrum , which appeared in 
 1605, gave a totally different meaning to the passage; 
 and instead of connecting 4 the host 7 with L we 
 worships 7 connected it with 4 taught us. 7 The words 
 would then be rendered thus: 4 But Him, and the Son 
 who came from Him, who also gave us instructions 
 concerning these things, and concerning the host of 
 the other good angels we worship, 7 &c. This inter¬ 
 pretation is adopted and defended at some length by 
 Bishop Bull, and by Stephen Le Moyne; and even the 
 Benedictine Le Nourry supposed Justin to mean that 
 Christ had taught us not to worship the bad angels, as 
 well as the existence of good angels. Grabe, in his 
 edition of 4 Justin’s Apology, 7 which was printed 
 in 1703, adopted another interpretation, which had 
 
 fictSeiv, cog e^i^a^rjfier, cupSovug irapaS lSovteq. — Apol. i. 6. 
 The passage is parallel to the Prayer in the Breviary: “Sacro¬ 
 sanct® ct individuse Trinitati, Crucifixi Domini nostri Jesu Christi 
 humanitati, bcatissimaa et gloriosissimee semperque Virginis Marise 
 fsecund® integritati, et omnium Sanctorum universitati, 'sit sempiterna 
 Ians, honor, virtus, ct gloria ab omni creator a,” &c. 
 
SAINTS AND ANGELS. 
 
 379 
 
 § 2 .] 
 
 been before proposed by Le Moyne and by Cave. 
 This also connects L the host ’ with 4 taught ,’ and 
 would require us to render the passage thus : 
 "... and the Son who came from Him, who also 
 taught these things to us, and to the host of the 
 other Angels,’ &c. It might be thought that 
 Langus, who published a Latin translation of Justin 
 in 1565, meant to adopt one of these interpretations, 
 or at least to connect L host 7 with c taught these things' 
 Both of them certainly are ingenious, and are not 
 perhaps opposed to the literal construction of 
 the Greek words ; but I cannot say that they are 
 satisfactory, or that I am surprised at Homan Ca¬ 
 tholic writers describing them as forced and violent 
 attempts to evade a difficulty. If the words en¬ 
 closed in brackets were removed, the whole passage 
 would certainly contain a strong argument in 
 favour of the Trinity; but as they now stand, 
 Roman Catholic writers will naturally quote them 
 as supporting the worship of Angels. There is, J 
 however, this difficulty in such a construction of the j 
 passage: it proves too much. By coupling the Angels 
 with the three persons of the Trinity, as objects of re¬ 
 ligious adoration, it seems to go beyond even what 
 Roman Catholics themselves would maintain con¬ 
 cerning the worship of Angels. Their well-known ! 
 distinction between latria and clulia would be entirely 
 confounded; and the difficulty felt by the Bene¬ 
 dictine editor appears to have been as great, as his 
 attempt to explain it is unsuccessful, when he wrote 
 as follows : 4 Our adversaries in vain object the 
 twofold expression, we worship and adore. For 
 the former is applied to Angels themselves, regard 
 being had to the distinction between the creature 
 and the Creator ; the latter by no means necessarily 
 includes the Angels.’ This sentence requires con¬ 
 cessions, which no opponent could be expected to 
 make ; and if one of the two terms, ire worship and 
 adore , may be applied to Angels, it is unreasonable 
 
380 APPLICATION OF THE FOURTH TEST. [Chap. YIL 
 
 to contend that the other must- not also. Perhaps, 
 however, the passage may he explained so as to 
 admit a distinction of this kind. The interpre¬ 
 tations of Scultetus and Grabe have not found 
 many advocates; and upon the whole I should 
 be inclined to conclude, that the clause, which 
 relates to the Angels, is connected particularly with 
 the words, c paying them a reasonable ancl true 
 honour'” 1 
 
 Two violent alterations of the text have been 
 proposed: one to transfer the clause which creates 
 the difficulty, after the words paying them honour; 
 the other to substitute arganp/bv ( commander ) for 
 
 (JTfJCtTOV (host). 
 
 Presently Dr. Burton continues:— u Justin, as I 
 observed, is defending the Christians from the 
 charge of Atheism; and after saying that the gods, 
 whom they refused to worship, were no gods, but evil 
 demons, he points out what were the Beings who were 
 worshipped by the Christians. He names the true 
 God, who is the source of all virtue; the Son, who 
 proceeded from Him; the good and ministering 
 s pirits ; and the Holy Ghost. To these Beings, he 
 says, we pay all the worship, adoration, and 
 honour, which is due to each of them; i. e. worship 
 where worship is due, honour where honour is due. 
 The Christians were accused of worshipping no 
 gods, that is, of acknoivledging no superior beings 
 at all. Justin shows that so far was this from 
 , being true, that they acknowledged more than one 
 order of spiritual Beings; they offered divine wor¬ 
 ship to the true God, and they also believed in the 
 existence of good spirits, which were entitled to 
 honour and respect. If the reader will view the 
 passage as a whole, he will perhaps see that there 
 is nothing violent in thus restricting the words 
 worship and adore , and honouring , to certain parts 
 of it respectively. It may seem strange that Justin 
 
 1 Test. Trin. pp. 16, 17, 18. 
 
§3-] 
 
 TIIE MERIT OE VIRGINITY. 
 
 381 
 
 should mention the ministering spirits before the 
 Holy Ghost: but this is a difficulty which presses 
 upon the Roman Catholics as much as upon our¬ 
 selves; and we may perhaps adopt the explanation 
 of the Bishop of Lincoln, who says, c I have some¬ 
 times thought that in this passage, L and the host] 
 is equivalent to ‘with the host] and that Justin 
 had in his mind the glorified state of Christ, when 
 He should come to judge the world, surrounded by 
 the host of heaven.” The bishop then brings 
 several passages from Justin, where the Son of God 
 is spoken of as attended by a company of Angels; 
 and if this idea was then in Justin’s mind, it might 
 account for his naming the ministering spirits im¬ 
 mediately after the Son of God, rather than after 
 the Holy Ghost, which would have been the natural 
 and proper order.” 1 
 
 This passage is the more remarkable, because it 
 cannot be denied that there was a worship of the 
 Angels at that day, of which St. Raul speaks, which 
 was Jewish and Gnostic, and utterly reprobated by 
 the Church. 
 
 § 3 . 
 
 The merit of Virginity. 
 
 Next to the prerogatives of bodily suffering or 
 Martyrdom came, in the estimation of the early 
 Church, the prerogatives of bodily purity or Virginity ; 
 another form of the general principle which I am 
 here illustrating. “ The first reward,” says St. 
 Cyprian to the Virgins, “ is for the Martyrs an 
 hundred fold; the second sixty fold is for yourselves.” 2 
 Their state and its merit is recognised by a con¬ 
 sensus of the Ante-nicene writers; of whom Athena- 
 goras distinctly connects Virginity with the privi¬ 
 lege of divine communion: “ You will find many of 
 our people,” he says to the Emperor Marcus, u both 
 1 p. 19—21. 2 DeHab. Virg. 12. 
 
382 APPLICATION OF THE FOURTH TEST. [Ciiap. VII. 
 
 men and women, grown old in their single state, in 
 hope thereby of a closer union with God.” 1 
 
 Among the numerous authorities which might 
 be cited, I will confine myself to a work, elaborate 
 in itself, and important from its author. St. Me¬ 
 thodius was a Bishop and Martyr of the latter years 
 of the Ante-nicene period, and is celebrated as the 
 most variously endowed divine of his day. His 
 learning, elegance in composition, and eloquence, 
 are all commemorated. 2 The work in question, the 
 Convivium Virginum , is a conference in which ten 
 Virgins successively take part, in praise of the state 
 of life to which they have themselves been specially 
 called. I do not wish to deny that there are portions 
 of it which strangely grate upon the feelings of an 
 age, which is formed on principles of which mar¬ 
 riage is the centre. But here we are concerned 
 with its doctrine. Of the speakers in this Col¬ 
 loquy, three at least are real persons prior to St. 
 Methodius’ time; of these Thecla, whom tradition 
 associates with St. Paul, is one, and Marcella, who 
 in the Roman Breviary is considered to be St. 
 Martha’s servant, and who is said to have been the 
 woman who exclaimed, u Blessed is the womb that 
 bare Thee,” &c., is described as a still older servant 
 of Christ. The latter opens the discourse, and her 
 subject is the gradual development of the doctrine 
 of Virginity in the Divine Dispensations; Theophila, 
 who follows, enlarges on the sanctity of Matrimony, 
 with which the special glory of the higher state does 
 not interfere; Thalia discourses on the mystical 
 union which exists between Christ and His Church, 
 and on the seventh chapter of the first Epistle to the 
 Corinthians; Theopatra on the merit of Virginity; 
 Thallusa exhorts to a watchful guardianship of the 
 gift; Agatha shows the necessity of other virtues 
 and good works, in order to the real praise of their 
 peculiar profession; Procilla extols Virginity as 
 1 Athenag. Leg. 33. 2 Lumper, Hist. t. 13, p. 439. 
 
§3.] 
 
 THE MERIT OF VIRGINITY. 
 
 388 
 
 the special instrument of becoming a spouse of 
 Christ; Thecla treats of it as the great combatant 
 in the warfare between heaven and hell, good and 
 evil; and Domnina allegorizes Jothan’s parable in 
 Judges ix. Virtue, who has been introduced as 
 the principal personage in the representation from 
 the first, closes the discussion with an exhortation 
 to inward purity, and they answer her by an hymn 
 to our Lord as the Spouse of His Saints. 
 
 It is observable that St. Methodius plainly speaks 
 of the profession of Virginity as avow. “ I will ex¬ 
 plain,’ 7 says one of his speakers, “how we are dedicated 
 to the Lord. What is enacted in the Book of Num¬ 
 bers, c to vow a vow mightily,’ shows what I am 
 insisting on at great length, that Chastity is a 
 mighty vow beyond all vows.” 1 This language is 
 not peculiar to St. Methodius among the Ante- 
 nicene Fathers. “Let such as promise Virginity 
 and break their profession be ranked among diga¬ 
 mists,” says the Council of Ancyra in the beginning 
 of the fourth century. Tertullian speaks of being 
 “married to Christ,” and marriage implies a vow; 
 he proceeds, “ to ITim thou hast pledged (sponsasti ) 
 thy ripeness of age;” and before he had expressly 
 spoken of the continentice votum , Origen speaks 
 of “devoting one’s body to God” in chastity; and 
 St. Cyprian “of Christ’s Virgin, dedicated to Him 
 and destined for His sanctity,” and elsewhere 
 of “members dedicated to Christ, and for ever 
 devoted by virtuous chastity to the praise of con¬ 
 tinence;” and Eusebius of those “who had conse¬ 
 crated themselves body and soul to a pure and 
 all-holy life.” 2 
 
 1 Galland. t. 3, p. 700. 
 
 2 Rontli, Reliqu. t. 3, p. 414. Tertull. dc Virg. Vcl. 16 and 11. 
 Orig. in Num. Horn. 24, 2. Cyprian. Ep. 4, p. 8, ed. Fell. Ep. 62, 
 p. 147. Euseb. v. Const, iv. 26. 
 
384 APPLICATION OF THE FOURTH TEST. [Chap. VII. 
 
 § 4 
 
 Office of St. Mary . 
 
 The special prerogatives of St. Mary, the Virgo 
 Virqinum , are intimately involved in the doctrine 
 of the Incarnation itself, with Avhich these remarks 
 began. As is well known, they were not fully recog¬ 
 nised in the Catholic ritual till a late date, but they 
 were not a new thing in the Church* or strange to her 
 earlier teachers. St. Justin, St. Irenceus, and others, 
 had distinctly laid it down, that she not only had 
 an office, but bore a part, and was a voluntary 
 agent, in the actual process of redemption, as Eve 
 had been instrumental and responsible m Adam’s 
 fall. They taught that, as the first woman might 
 have foiled the Tempter and did not, so had Mary 
 / been disobedient or unbelieving on Gabriel’s mes¬ 
 sage, the Divine Economy would have been frus¬ 
 trated. And certainly the parallel between “ the 
 M other of all living” and the Mother of the R e- 
 deemer may be gathered from a comparison of the 
 first chapters of Scripture with the last. It was 
 noticed in a former place, that the only passage 
 where the serpent is directly identified with the evil 
 spirit occurs in the twelfth chapter of Revelations; 
 now it is observable that the recognition, when 
 made, is found in the course of a vision of a “woman 
 clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet 
 thus two women are brought into contrast with 
 each other. Moreover, as it is said in the Apoca¬ 
 lypse, “ The dragon was wroth with the woman, 
 and went about to make Avar Avith the remnant of 
 her seed,” so is it prophesied in Genesis, “I Avill 
 put enmity betAveen thee and the woman, and be- 
 tAveen thy seed and her Seed. He shall bruise thy 
 head, and thou shalt bruise His heel.” Also the 
 enmity Avas to exist, not only betAveen the Serpent 
 and the Seed of the woman, but between the ser¬ 
 pent and the woman herself; and here too there 
 
§4.] 
 
 OFFICE OF ST. MARY. 
 
 385 
 
 is a correspondence in the Apocalyptic vision. 
 
 If then there is reason for thinking that this mys¬ 
 tery at the close of Revelation answers to the 
 mystery in the beginning of it and that “ the Wo- \ 
 man” mentioned in both passages is one and the 
 same, then she can be none other than St. Mary, 
 thus introduced prophetically to our notice irnme-y 
 diately on the transgression of Eve. 
 
 Here, however, we are not so much concerned to’ 
 interpret Scripture as to examine the Fathers. 
 Thus St. Justin says, “ Eve, being a virgin and 
 incorrupt, having conceived the word from the 
 Serpent, bore disobedience and death; but Mary 
 the Virgin, receiving faith and joy, when Gabriel 
 the Angel evangelized her, answered, “ Be it unto 
 me according to thy word.” 1 And Tert ull ian s ays 
 that, whereas Eve believed the Serpent, and Mary 
 believed Gabriel, “ what Eve failed in believing, 
 Mary by believing hath blotted out.” 2 St. Irenaeus 
 speaks more explicitly: “AsEve,” he says, “was se¬ 
 duced by the Angel’s speech so as to flee God, 
 having transgressed His word, so also Mary by an 
 Angel’s speech was evangelized so as to contain God, 
 being obedient to His Word. And as the one was 
 seduced to flee God, so the other was persuaded to 
 obey God, that the Virgin Mary might become the 
 Advocate (Paraclete) of the Virgin Eve, that as 
 mankind has been bound to death through a Virgin, 
 through a Virgin it may be saved,—virginal dis¬ 
 obedience by virginal obedience, the balance being 
 made equal,” And elsewhere, “ As Eve, becoming 
 disobedient, became the cause of death to herself 
 and to all mankind, so Mary too, having the pre¬ 
 destined Man, and yet a Virgin, being obedient, 
 became cause of salvation both to herself and to all 
 mankind . . . The knot formed by Eve’s disobe- 
 dience w as untied through the obedience of Mary; 
 for what the Virgin Eve tied through unbelief, that 
 1 Tryph. 100. 2 Resurr. Cam. 17. 
 
 2 c 
 
386 APPLICATION OF THE FOURTH TEST. [Chap. VII. 
 
 theVirgin Mary unties through fai th.” 1 T his becomes 
 the received doctrine in the Post-nicene Church. 
 
 One well-known instance occurs in the history 
 of the third century of St. Mary’s interposition, and 
 it is remarkable from the names of the two persons, 
 who were, one the subject, the other the historian 
 of it. St. Gregory Nyssen, a native of Cappadocia 
 in the fourth century, relates that his name-sake 
 Bishop of Neo-csesarea, surnamed Thaumaturgus, 
 in the preceding century, shortly before he was 
 called to the priesthood, received in a vision a 
 Creed, which is still extant, from St. Mary at the 
 hands of St. John. The account runs thus: He 
 was deeply pondering theological doctrine, which 
 the heretics of the day depraved. u In such thoughts,” 
 says his name-sake of Nyssa, u he was passing the 
 night, when one appeared, as if in human form, 
 aged in appearance, saintly in the fashion of his 
 garments, and very venerable both in grace of 
 countenance and general mien. Amazed at the 
 sight, he started from his bed, and asked who it 
 was, and why he came; but, on the other calming 
 the perturbation of his mind with his gentle voice, 
 and saying he had appeared to him by divine com¬ 
 mand on account of his doubts, in order that the 
 truth of the orthodox faith might be revealed to 
 him, he took courage at the word, and regarded him 
 with a mixture of joy and fright. Then on his 
 stretching his hand straight forward, and pointing 
 with his fingers at something on one side, he 
 followed with his eyes the extended hand, and saw 
 another appearance opposite to the former, in shape 
 of a woman, but more than human .... When his 
 eyes could not bear the apparition, he heard them 
 conversing together on the subject of his doubts; 
 and thereby not only gained a true knowledge of 
 the faith, but learned their names, as they addressed 
 each other by their respective appellations. And 
 thus he is said to have heard the person in woman’s 
 
 Hair. iii. 22, § 4, v. 19. 
 
 I 
 
§4.] 
 
 OFFICE OF ST. MARY. 
 
 387 
 
 shape bid 4 John the Evangelist’ disclose to the 
 young man the mystery of godliness; and he an¬ 
 swered that he was ready to comply in this matter 
 with the wish of 4 the Mother of the Lord,’ and 
 enunciated a formulary, well-turned and complete, 
 and so vanished. He, on the other hand, immedi¬ 
 ately committed to writing that divine teaching of 
 his mystagogue, and henceforth preached in the 
 Church according to that form, and bequeathed to 
 posterity, as an inheritance, that heavenly teaching, 
 by means of which his people are instructed down 
 to this day, being preserved from all heretical 
 evil.” He proceeds to rehearse the Creed thus 
 given, 44 There is One God, Father of a Living 
 Word,” &C . 1 Bull, after quoting it in his work 
 upon the Nicene Faith, alludes to this history of its 
 origin, and adds, 44 No one should think it incredi¬ 
 ble that such a providence should befall a man 
 whose whole life was conspicuous for revelations 
 and miracles, as all ecclesiastical writers who have 
 mentioned him (and who has not?) witness with 
 one voice .” 2 
 
 It is remarkable that St. Gregory Nazianzen 
 relates an instance, even more pointed, of St. Mary’s 
 intercession, contemporaneous with this appearance 
 to Thaumaturgus; but it is attended with mistake 
 in the narrative, which weakens its cogency as an 
 evidence of the belief, not indeed of the fourth 
 century, in which St. Gregory lived, but of the 
 third. He speaks of a Christian woman having 
 recourse to the protection of St. Mary, and obtain¬ 
 ing the conversion of a heathen who had attempted 
 to practise on her by magical arts. They were 
 both martyred. 
 
 In both these instances the Blessed Virgin ap¬ 
 pears especially in that character of Patroness or 
 Paraclete, which St. Irenaeus and other Fathers 
 describe, and which the Medieval Church exhibits,— 
 a loving; Mother with clients. 
 
 1 Nyss. Opp. t. ii. p. 977. 2 Def. F. N. ii. 12. 
 
 2 C 2 
 
388 APPLICATION OF THE FOURTH TEST. [Chap. VII. 
 
 Specimens of Theological Science. 
 
 It will be observed that in nothing that has 
 hitherto been adduced from the Ante-nicene Church, 
 is there any evidence of a theology, that is, of a 
 conscious deduction of proposition from proposition, 
 and the formation of a doctrinal system. Though 
 the series of divine truths proceeded from the In¬ 
 carnation and Resurrection to the merit of Mar¬ 
 tyrdom, the sanctity of Relics, the intercession of 
 Saints, the excellence of Virginity, and the preroga¬ 
 tives of St. Mary, yet there was no very clear 
 evidence that the preachers of these doctrines un¬ 
 derstood their connexion with each other. Thus I 
 am not aware of any passage in which the religious 
 observance of Relics is clearly connected with the 
 doctrine of the Resurrection, from which it un- 
 doubtedly proceeds. This may afford matter for 
 an objection. It may be said that we are connecting 
 together for a particular purpose certain opinions 
 or practices, which are found among others in pri¬ 
 mitive times, and which are really unconnected 
 and accidental. It may be urged, moreover, that 
 there are many things in the documents or the history 
 of the period which have a contrary bearing; that 
 the Fathers also speak against idols, and invocation 
 of Angels; that some of them have been betrayed 
 into statements which savour of heresy or pagan 
 philosophy; and that by putting all these together 
 we might form as imposing a catena against the 
 Catholic doctrines as can be formed in their favour. 
 
 But this is to misunderstand the drift of this 
 argument, which is merely to determine whether 
 certain developments, which did afterwards and do 
 exist, nave not such sufficient countenance m early 
 times, that we may pronounce them to be true 
 developments and not corruptions. If existing 
 developments can be produced of an opposite kind.. 
 
§ 5.] THEOLOGICAL SCIENCE. 389 
 
 and the question arises whether these also are 
 really such or corruptions, then will be the time, 
 and then will it be fair, to make mention of such 
 antagonist instances as shall be forthcoming. Nay, if 
 there be but an hypothesis which has never been 
 realized, with which they fall in, which interprets 
 more consistently than the Catholic creed the whole 
 mass of Ante-nicene testimony, this will have it s 
 weight, though it rest on no historical foundation. 
 But this is not the case. Stray heterodox expres¬ 
 sions, Sabellian or Unitarian, or what was after¬ 
 wards Arian, Platonisms, argumenta ad hominem , 
 assertions in controversy, omissions in practice, 
 silence in public teaching, and thp like, such as 
 alone can be adduced, can be made up into no sys¬ 
 tem. They are u a rope of sand/’ to use the familiar 
 phrase, not a catena; each stands by itself, with an 
 independence, or an irrelevancy, which precludes 
 the chance of assimilation or coalition. On the 
 other hand, the Catholic anticipations which have 
 been instanced, are parts of a whole, and have 
 innate attractions towards each other, and have been 
 proved to have them by the event; and therefore, 
 it is no paradox to say, that even were they much 
 fewer than those of a contrary character, they would 
 be the rule, and the majority would be the excep¬ 
 tion : for they have a principle of consistence, and 
 tend to be something; whereas the others must be 
 mere accidents and errors, because they have no 
 meaning, and come to nothing. 
 
 However in fact there is very clear evidence of 
 the formation of a theology in Christianity from 
 the first, and that founded on the very views of 
 the relation of Matter to the Evangelical Dispensa¬ 
 tion, which has been above selected for illustration; 
 though that theology in the primitive age does not 
 extend to all the developments which have been 
 already instanced in their popular and devotional 
 aspects. In order to make this plain, I shall make 
 
390 APPLICATION OF THE FOURTH TEST. [Chap. VII. 
 
 use of* an article which appeared in a Review 
 some years ago , 1 on the subject of St. Ignatius’ 
 Epistles. 
 
 u Men fancy,” it was observed, “ that though they 
 have never seen Clement or Ignatius, or any other 
 Father before, they are quite as well qualified to 
 interpret the words XaiTovpyia or irpoacpopd as if they 
 knew them and their brethren well. How different 
 is their judgment in other matters! Who will not 
 grant, except in the case of theology, that an ex¬ 
 perienced eye is an important qualification for 
 understanding the distinction of things or detect¬ 
 ing their force and tendency ? In politics, the 
 sagacious statesman puts his finger on some ap¬ 
 parently small or not confessedly great event, 
 promptly declares it to be ‘no little matter,’ and 
 is believed. Why? because he is conceived to 
 have scholarship in the language of political his- 
 tory, and to be well read in the world’s events. In 
 the same''Way the comparative anatomist falls in 
 with a little bone, and confidently declares, from it, 
 the make, habits, and age of the animal to which it 
 belonged. What should we say to the unscientific 
 hearer who disputed his accuracy and attempted to 
 argue against him? Yet, is not this just the case 
 of sciolists, or less than sciolists in theology, who, 
 when persons who have given time to the Fathers 
 recognise in some phrase or word in Clement or 
 Ignatius a Catholic doctrine, object that the con¬ 
 nexion between the phrase and the doctrine is not 
 clear to them , and allow nothing to the judgment of 
 the experienced, over that of ordinary men? Or 
 again, s urely it need s not be formally proved jthat 
 Y \ s ymp athy and congeniality of mind are concerned 
 in enabling us to enter into another’s meaning. 
 
 1 - — J T , ■ — ... r_- rTnr , r .,—, m m .n inr - r--n-r-i O 
 
 Iiis single words or tones are nothing to one man, 
 they tell a story to another: the one man passes 
 them over; the other is arrested by them, and 
 1 British Critic, January, 1839, pp. 57—74. 
 
§5,] 
 
 THEOLOGICAL SCIENCE. 
 
 391 
 
 never forgets them. Such is the difference between 
 reading the Apostolical Father with or without a 
 knowledge of theological language.” 
 
 After quoting various passages from St. Ignatius, 
 the writer continued, 
 
 u In these extracts there are a number of re¬ 
 markable expressions, which the student in Catholic 
 theology alone will recognise, and he at once, as 
 belonging to that theology, and having a special 
 reference to the heretical perversions of it. He will 
 enter into, and another might pass over such words 
 and phrases as yevvrirdg Kai ay^wr/rog,—Iv vapid yzvo- 
 pevog Stag, — Ik Maplag Kal sk Otov, — iraO^rog Kal diraOgg, 
 — dy^povog, — doparog , di’d/udg oparog,—rtXtiog dvSptoTTog 
 yavopevog, — vapKoepopog,—irdOog rov Qzov. He will per¬ 
 ceive such expressions to be dogmatic, and will be 
 at home in them. 
 
 u For instance, take the words rtXeiog dvSpMTrog, 
 
 L perfect man.’ A heresy existed in the beginning of 
 the fourth century, which was in fact a revival of 
 the error of the Docetre, in St. John’s times, viz. 
 that our Lord was not really a man as other men 
 are, that he had no intellectual soul, and, as they 
 went on to say, not even a real body. Such was * 
 the tenet of Apollinarianism, and the Catholics pro¬ 
 tested against it by maintaining that Christ was 
 1 perfect man’ (r^Xeiog). This was their special 
 symbol against the heresy, as we find it in the 
 Athanasian Creed, c perfect man, subsisting of a 
 reasonable soul and human flesh.’ The Apolli- 
 narians joined issue on this point; they contended 
 that it was impossible for one and the same person 
 to contain in him cvo t£X aa, and that since our Lord 
 was perfect God, he could not be perfect man. In 
 consequence, this became a turning point of the 
 controversy, and is treated as such, among other 
 authors, by Athanasius, Nazianzen, Epiphanius, 
 Leontius, and Maximus. 
 
 u The importance of the word is most readily 
 
392 APPLICATION OF THE FOURTH TEST. [Chap. VH. 
 
 shown by its occurrence in Creeds. The Athana- 
 sian has already been mentioned; in like manner a 
 confession ascribed by Theodoret to St. Ambrose 
 speaks of our Lord Jesus Christ, ‘who in the last 
 days became incarnate, and took on Him a perfect 
 manhood of rational soul and body;’ so that 1 of 
 two perfect natures an union has been made in¬ 
 effably,’ &c. In a Creed of Pelagius, who was 
 orthodox on this point, we are told that ‘ they who 
 own in the Son an imperfect God and imperfect man, 
 are to be accounted not to hold truly either God or 
 man.’ And John of Antioch, in his explanation to 
 St. Cyril, confesses that our Lord is ‘ perfect God 
 and perfect man, of a reasonable soul and body.’ 
 
 “ The expression, then, ‘ perfect man,’ was a por¬ 
 tion of the dogmatic Catholic view existing in the 
 fourth and fifth centuries. Now, as we have above 
 quoted, it belongs also to Ignatius: ‘ I endure all,’ 
 he says, ‘ as He who became perfect man, enables 
 me.’ Here, then, on the one hand, we find a word 
 in Ignatius, which is scarcely taken from Scripture, 
 which is uncongenial to modern sentiments, which 
 is uncalled for by the context, which has the air of 
 a dogmatic expression, which was well adapted to 
 oppose existing errors, and which is found in a 
 work which does oppose heresies of various sorts. 
 On the other hand, we find this word undeniably 
 and prominently a dogmatic term in the fourth 
 century; can we doubt that it is dogmatic in 
 Ignatius ? or, in other words, that Ignatius’s tone of 
 writing is inconsistent with the modern theory, 
 whether of feelings or of good lives being the whole 
 of religion, and formal creeds being superfluous or 
 burdens ? 
 
 “ Take another instance: he speaks of those who 
 blaspheme’ Christ, ‘not confessing that He bore 
 flesh’ (aapKCHpopovf This word is of a dogmatic 
 character on the very face of the passage; and it is 
 notoriously such in after-controversy. It is so 
 
393 
 
 § 5.] THEOLOGICAL SCIENCE. 
 
 used by Clement of Alexandria, Athanasius, and in 
 the Confessions of the Emperors Valentinian, Amiens, 
 and Gratian. It was used both in the Apollinarian 
 and Nestorian controversies; by the Catholics 
 against Nestorius, who asserted that our Lord was 
 
 not Otoe crapKotyopoQ, but avSpwnog OtoQopog, and by 
 the Apollinarians with a view of imputing to the 
 Catholics what was really the Nestorian tenet. 
 
 /■ Again: Nest orius cons idering, after the.Cerin- 
 thians and other early Gnostics, that the Son of 
 God was distinct from Christ, a man, as if Christ 
 had a separate existence or personality, the Catho¬ 
 lics met the heresy, among other strong statements, 
 by the phrases that 4 God was born and suffered on 
 the cross,’ and that the Blessed ATrgin was Oeotokoc , 
 
 7 O s 
 
 4 the Mother of God.’ On the other hand, such 
 phrases, it is scarcely necessary to say, are con¬ 
 sidered in the judgment of this day’s religion at 
 once incorrect and unbecoming. This is not the 
 place to go into the history of the controversy, and 
 to show their propriety and necessity. The latter 
 of the two is found in Origen, who, moreover, en¬ 
 gaged in an inquiry into its real meaning, which is 
 remarkable as showing that it was at that time a 
 received word; for we do not investigate what we 
 have invented. It is used by Alexander, Nazian- 
 zen, and Athanasius, and, as many think, by Dio¬ 
 nysius. As to the former phrase, Irenasus speaks 
 of our Lord’s 4 clescensio in Mariam ;’ Tertullian of 
 His descending c in vulvam de vulva carnem partici- 
 paturus ;’ or of 4 Dei passionesj L Dei interemptores 
 and Athanasius of the 4 a Co pa fcou,’ and of the con¬ 
 sequent duty of worshipping it. Athanasius, 
 indeed, as is well known, objected to the phrase 
 that 4 God suffered,’ as used by Apollinaris, who 
 by Qtog meant Oeor^g, but that it was a usual and 
 received phrase in the Church Catholic cannot be 
 disputed. Now turning to Ignatius, we find it in 
 a passage above quoted from his Epistles; he speaks 
 

 
 L 
 
 
 r ' 
 
 394 APPLICATION OF THE FOURTH TEST. [Chap. VII. 
 
 of being 4 a follower of the 7 r«0oc tov Oeov .’ In like 
 manner, he says that 4 our God, J esus the Christ, 
 was born in the womb, hcvofpoprjOri , by Mary.’ Is 
 this the language of the modern school, and not 
 rather of the Catholic Church?” 
 
 And then after adding other instances : 44 To 
 draw out fully the case for Catholic doctrine, which 
 this apostolical Father supplies, would lead us be¬ 
 yond both the literal and moral bounds of a re¬ 
 view. It would be a great service if some divine 
 would publish the text of these Epistles, with a 
 running comment from the Fathers after them. It 
 is hardly too much to say that almost the whole 
 system of Catholic doctrine may be discovered in 
 them, at least in outline, not to say tilled up in parts. 
 There are indeed one or two remarkable omissions, as 
 if on purpose to prove to us their genuineness; for in 
 a later age these certainly would have been supplied; 
 the chief of which is the scanty notices they con¬ 
 tain of the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity, and of 
 baptismal regeneration, which in Ignatius’s time 
 were not subjects of controversy. But after all 
 the deductions from the completeness of his theo¬ 
 logical system, let us see what we have in the 
 course of these seven short compositions. We have, 
 first, the principle of dogmatic faith; next, the doc¬ 
 trine of the Incarnation, almost as theologically 
 laid down as it is in the fourth and fifth centuries; 
 then that of the dissemination of a new and divine 
 nature in the fallen stock of Adam, and that by 
 means of the Eucharist. Further, we read in 
 them of the divine origin and duty of the Episcopal 
 regimen; the divine authority of the Bishop, as the 
 representative of our unseen Maker and Redeemer; 
 the doctrine of the three orders ; the doctrine of 
 unity; the doctrine of the Church’s Catholicity; the 
 diocesan system ; the sin of going by individual 
 judgments in matters of faith; what may be called 
 the sacramental character of unity; the consecrating 
 
§5.] 
 
 THEOLOGICAL SCIENCE. 
 
 395 
 
 power and authority of Bishops over all Ecclesiastical 
 appointments, and the importance of united prayer. 
 To these might be added his implied praise of 
 virginity, and his implied countenance of resolves 
 for that purpose; apparently too his recognition of 
 what has since been called the Disciplina Arcani , of 
 what has been called the Limbus Patrum , of the 
 Lord’s day, of the acceptableness of good works, of 
 grace as inherent, not external, of Ecclesiastial 
 Councils, of departed Saints remembering, or at 
 least benefitting us, and of communion with them 
 in life and death; and, not least important as 
 throwing a light on all that has been said by the 
 contrast, his hatred and condemnation of Judaism.” 
 
 The writer continues, u Are these Epistles genu¬ 
 ine? Are they but genuine on the whole ? Are 
 they genuine all but certain incidental corruptions 
 which cannot now be detected? Let it be granted 
 oulyas far as this, that the substance of them is 
 what Ignatius wrote,—and those who deny this may 
 wrestle, as they best can, with the greater ditfi- 
 culties in which they will find themselves,—and is 
 any further witness wanting to prove that the 
 Catholic system, not in an inchoate state, not in 
 doubtful dawnings, not in tendencies, or in implicit 
 teaching, or in temper, or in surmises, but in a defi¬ 
 nite, complete, and dogmatic form, was the religion 
 of St. Ignatius; and if so, where in the world did he 
 come by it ? How came he to lose, to blot out from 
 his mind, the true Gospel, if this was not it ? How 
 came he to possess this, except it be apostolic? 
 One does not know which of the two most to be 
 struck with, his precise unhesitating tone, or the com¬ 
 pass of doctrine he goes through; the latter, however, 
 has this particular force, which the former has not, 
 that it quite cuts off the suspicion, if any lingers on 
 the mind, that the conciseness with which his senti¬ 
 ments are conveyed lias given opportunity for their 
 being practised on by theologians, and tortured into 
 
396 APPLICATION OF THE FOURTH TEST. [Chap. VII. 
 
 Church meanings which they really have not. 
 Granting that, by a mere coincidence, some one 
 form of words in his Epistles might have been mis¬ 
 interpreted into an apparent countenance of some 
 later doctrine, or that some one word like flucrmamj- 
 piov or tvxapHTTia might be laden -with a sense which 
 came in later, it is quite impossible surely that so 
 great a number of coincidences should have oc¬ 
 curred, that so many distinct doctrines afterwards 
 existing in the Church should accidently find a 
 place, find form of words capable of denoting them, 
 and used afterwards to denote them, in so short a 
 document. Either the Epistles of St. Ignatius 
 have been the document from which the Church 
 i system had been historically 
 one maintains, or the Church 
 which St. Ignatius wrote his 
 
 CD JL 
 
 It is only necessary to add, on a sentence near 
 the commencement of this last extract, that though 
 certain Catholic doctrines are found in St. Igna¬ 
 tius, ^not in an inchoate state, not in doubtful dawn- 
 ings, not in tendencies, or in implicit teaching, or in 
 temper, or in surmises, but in a definite, complete, 
 and dogmatic form,” yet certain other doctrines 
 are found in his Epistles, at most only in their rudi¬ 
 ments; as, for instance, the doctrine of the Holy 
 Trinity, of Original Sin, or of Baptismal Regenera¬ 
 tion, as indeed is expressly stated in one of the 
 above passages. 
 
 The capabilities, so to speak, of the text of St. 
 Ignatius for the process of subsequent development, 
 which are most striking in the writings of other 
 Fathers also, as in St. Athanasius and St. Augustine, 
 might have been mentioned under the next Test; 
 but it seems more natural to refer to them here. 
 
 / So much then in proof of the existence from the 
 first, whether in individual minds or popular belief, 
 of those doctrinal developments which afterwards 
 became recognised portions of the Church’s Creed. 
 
 dev eloped, which no 
 system is the basis on 
 Epistles.” 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS CONCLUDED. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 APPLICATION OF THE FIFTH TEST OF FIDELITY IN 
 
 DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 Logical Sequence was set down in the first 
 Chapter of this Essay as a fifth test of fidelity in de¬ 
 velopment, and shall now be briefly illustrated in the 
 history of Christian doctrine. That is, I mean to 
 give instances of one doctrine leading to another; 
 s o that, IFthe forineF^be admittedEthe latter can 
 h ardly be den ied, and the latter can har dly be 
 called a corruption without reflecting on the former. 
 And I use u logical sequence,” in contrast to that 
 process of incorporation and assimilation which has 
 lately been under review, to denote an internal 
 groAvth of doctrine and usage in the way of reason¬ 
 ing. Accordingly it will include any progress of 
 the mind from one judgment to another, as, for 
 instance, by way of moral fitness, which may not 
 admit of analysis into premiss and conclusion. 
 Thus St. Peter argued in the case of Cornelius and 
 his friends, u Can any man forbid water that these 
 should not be baptized, which have received the 
 Holy Ghost as well as we?” 
 
 § i- 
 
 Developments growing out of the Question of our 
 
 Lord’s Divinity, 
 
 No one who has looked ever so little into the 
 theological works of the ancient Church, but is 
 
398 
 
 / 
 
 APPLICATION OF THE FIFTH TEST. [Chap. VIII. 
 
 aware that the language of the Ante-nicene Fathers, 
 on the subject of our Lord’s Divinity, may be far 
 more easily accomodated to the Arian hypothesis 
 than the language of the Fost-nicene. Thus St. 
 Jus tin speaks of the Son as subservient to t he 
 Father in the creation of the world,, as seen .by 
 Abraham, as speaking to Moses from the bush, as 
 appearing to Joshua before the fall of Jericho , 1 as 
 Minister and Angel, and as numerically distinct 
 from the Father. Clement, again, speaks of the Word 2 
 as the “ Instrument of God,” “ close to the Sole Al¬ 
 mighty“ ministering to the Omnipotent Father’s 
 will ;” 3 “an energy, so to say, or operation of the 
 Father ,” 4 and “ constituted as the causer of all good 
 by the Almighty Father’s will.” The Council of An¬ 
 tioch, which condemned Paul of Samosata, says that 
 He “ appears to the Patriarchs and converses with 
 them, being testified sometimes to be an Angel, at 
 other times Lord, at others God;” that, while “it 
 is impious to think that the God of all is called 
 an Aiigel, the Son is the Angel of the Father .” 0 
 Formal proof, however, is unnecessary; had not 
 the fact been as I have stated it, neither Sandius 
 would have attacked the Post-nicene Fathers, nor 
 would Bull have had to defend the Ante-nicene. 
 
 One principal change which took place, as time 
 went on, was the following : the Ante-nicene 
 Fathers, as in some of the foregoing extracts, speak 
 of the Angelic visions in the Old Testament as if 
 they were appearances of the Son; but St. Augus¬ 
 tine introduced the explicit doctrine, which has 
 been received since his date, that they were simply 
 Angels, through whom the Omnipresent Son mani¬ 
 fested Himself. This indeed is the only interpre¬ 
 tation which could be put on the Ante-nicene state¬ 
 ments, as soon as reason began to examine what 
 they meant. They could not mean that the Eternal 
 
 1 Kaye’s Justin, p. 59, &c. 2 Kaye’s Clement, p. 335. 3 p. 341. 
 
 4 lb. 342. 6 Reliqu. Sacr. t. ii. p. 469, 470. 
 
Sec. I.] DOCTRINE OF OUR LORD’S DIVINITY. 
 
 399 
 
 God could really be seen by bodily eyes; if any¬ 
 thing was seen, that must have been some created 
 glory or other symbol, by which it pleased the Al¬ 
 mighty to signify His Presence. What was heard 
 was a sound, as external to His Essence, and as dis¬ 
 tinct from His Nature, as the thunder, or the voice 
 of the trumpet, which pealed along Mount Sinai; 
 what it was had not come under discussion till St. 
 Augustine; both question and answer were alike un¬ 
 developed. The earlier Fathers spoke as if there 
 were no medium interposed between the Creator and 
 the creature, and so they seemed to make the Eternal 
 Son the medium; what it really was, they had not 
 determined. St. Augustine ruled, and his ruling 
 has been accepted in later times, that it was not a 
 mere atmospheric phenomenon, or an impression on 
 the senses, but the material form proper to an An¬ 
 gelic presence, or the presence of an Angel in that 
 material garb in which blessed Spirits do ordi¬ 
 narily appear to men. Hence forth the Angel in 
 the bush, the voice which spoke with Abraham, 
 and the man who wrestled with Jacob, Avere not 
 regarded as the Son of God, but as Angelic minis¬ 
 ters, whom He employed, and through Avhomlle 
 signified His presence and His will. Thus the ten¬ 
 dency of the controversy with the Arians Avas to 
 raise our vieAV of our Lord’s Mediatorial acts, to 
 impress them on us in their divine rather than 
 their human aspect, and to associate them more inti¬ 
 mately with the ineffable glories Avhich surround the 
 Throne of God. The Mediatorship Avas no longer 
 regarded in itself in that prominently subordinate 
 place Avhich it had once occupied in the thoughts 
 of Christians, but as an office assumed by One, 
 who, though having become man in order to bear 
 it, was still God. Works and attributes, which\ 
 had hitherto been assigned to the Economy or to the ) 
 Sonship, were iioav simply assigned to the Manhood. 
 A tendency was also elicited, as the controversy 
 
400 APPLICATION OF THE FIFTH TEST. [Chap. VIII. 
 
 { 
 
 I 
 
 l 
 
 proceeded, to contemplate our Lord more distinctly 
 in His absolute perfections, than in His relation to 
 the First Person of the Blessed Trinity. Thus, 
 whereas the Nicene Creed speaks of the “Father 
 Almighty,” and u His Only-begotten Son, our Lord, 
 God from God, Light from Light, Very God from 
 Very God,” and of the Holy Ghost, u the Lord and 
 Giver of Life,” we are told in the Athanasian of 
 “ the Father Eternal, the Son Eternal, and the Holy 
 Ghost Eternal,” and that “ none is afore or after 
 other, none is greater or less than another.” 
 
 The Apollinarian and Monophysite controversy, 
 which followed in the course of the next century, 
 tended towards a development in the same direction. 
 Since the heresies, which were in question, main¬ 
 tained, at least virtually, that our Lord was not 
 man, it was obvious to insist on the passages of 
 Scripture which describe His created and subser¬ 
 vient nature, and this had the immediate effect of 
 interpreting of Flis manhood texts which had hither¬ 
 to been understood more commonly of His Divine 
 Sonship. Thus, for instance, u My Father is greater 
 than I,” which had been understood even by St. 
 Athanasius of our Lord as God, is applied by later 
 writers more commonly to His humanity; and in 
 this way the doctrine' of His subordination to the 
 Eternal Father, which formed so prominent a fea¬ 
 ture in Ante-nicene theology, comparatively fell 
 into the shade. 
 
 And coincident with these changes, a most re¬ 
 markable result is discovered. The treatment of 
 the Arian and Monophysite errors, being of this 
 character, became the natural introduction of the 
 cultus Sanctorum; for in proportion as words des¬ 
 criptive of created mediation ceased to be applied 
 to our Lord, so was a room opened for created medi¬ 
 ators. Nay, as regards the instance of Angelic 
 appearances itself, as St. Augustine explained them, 
 if" those appearances were creatures, certainly crea¬ 
 tures were worshipped by the Patriarchs, not indeed 
 
 4- A */ J 
 
Sec. I.] WORSHIP OF ANGELS AND SAINTS. 401 
 
 in themselves, but as the token of a Presence J 
 greater than themselves. When “ Moses hid his J 
 face, for he was afraid to look upon God,’ 7 he hid 
 his face before a creature; when Jacob said, “ I 
 have seen God face to face, and my life is pre¬ 
 served,” the Son of God was there, but what he 
 saw, what he wrestled with, was an Angel. When 
 “ Joshua fell on his face to the earth and did wor¬ 
 ship before the captain of the Lord’s host, and said 
 unto him, What saith my Lord unto his servant?” 
 what was seen and heard was a glorified creature, 
 if St. Augustine is to be followed; and the Son of 
 God was in him. 
 
 And there were plain precedents in the Old Tes¬ 
 tament for the religiousness of such adoration. 
 When “the people saw the cloudy pillar stand at 
 the tabernacle-door,” “ all the people rose up and 
 Avorshipped, every man in his tent-door.” 1 When 
 Daniel too saw “ a certain man clothed in linen ” 
 
 “ there remained no strength ” in him, for his 
 “comeliness was turned” in him “into corruption.” 
 He fell down on his face, and next remained on his 
 knees and hands, and at length “ stood trembling,” 
 and said, “ 0 my Lord, by the vision my sorrows 
 are turned upon me, and I have retained no 
 strength. For how can the servant of this my 
 Lord talk with this my Lord?” 2 It might be 
 objected perhaps to this argument, that a worship 
 which was allowable in an elementary system 
 might be unlawful when “ grace and truth ” had 
 come “through Jesus Christ;” but t hen it might 
 be retorted surely, that that elementary system had 
 b een em phatically opposed to all idolatry, and had 
 been minutely jealous of everything winch might 
 approach to favouring it. Nay, the very promi¬ 
 nence given in the Pentateuch to the doctrine of a 
 Creator, and the comparative silence concerning the 
 Angelic creation, and the prominence given to the 
 1 Ex. xxxiii. 10. 2 Dan. x. 5—17. 
 
402 APPLICATION OF THE FIFTH TEST. [Chap; VIII. 
 
 Angelic creation in the later Prophets, taken toge¬ 
 ther, were a token both of that jealousy, and of its 
 cessation in course of time. Nor can anything be 
 concluded from St. Paul’s censure of Angel worship, 
 since the sin which he is denouncing was that of 
 u not holding the Head,” and of worshipping crea¬ 
 tures instead of the Creator as the source of good. 
 The same explanation avails for passages like those 
 in St. Athanasius and Theodoret, in which the 
 worship of Angels is discountenanced. 
 
 The Arian controversy had led to another de- 
 velopment, which confirmed by anticipation the 
 - cult us to which St. Augustine’s doctrine pointed. 
 In answer to the objection urged against our Lord’s 
 supreme Divinity from texts which speak of His 
 exaltation, St. Athanasius is led to insist largely on 
 the benefits which have accrued to man through it. 
 He says that, in truth, not Christ, but that human 
 nature which He had assumed, was raised and 
 glorified in Him. The more plausible was the here- 
 ti cal argument from those texts against Ilis Divi¬ 
 nity, the more emphatic is' St. Athanasius’ exalta- 
 tiorpof our regenerate nature by way of explaining 
 them. But intimate indeed must be the connexion 
 between Christ and His brethren, and high their 
 glory, if the language which seemed to belong to the 
 Incarnate Word really belonged to them. Thus 
 the pressure of the controversy elicited and de¬ 
 veloped a truth, which till then was held indeed by 
 Christians, but less perfectly realized and not pub¬ 
 licly recognized. The sanctification, or rather the 
 de ification of the nature of man, is one main 
 subject of St. Athanasius’ theology. Christ, in 
 rising, raises His Saints with Him to the right hand 
 of power. They become instinct with His life, of 
 one body with His flesh, sons, kings, gods. He is in 
 them, because He is in human nature; and He com¬ 
 municates to them that nature deified by becoming 
 His, that it may deify them. He is in them by the 
 
Sec. I.] DEIFICATION OF THE SAINTS. 403 
 
 P resence of His S pirit, and in t hem is He seen. 
 They have those titles of honour By participation, 
 which are properly His. Without misgiving we 
 may apply to them the most sacred language of 
 Psalmists and Prophets. u Thou art a Priest for 
 ever ” may Be said of St. Polycarp or St. Martin as 
 well as of their Lord. u He hath dispersed abroad, 
 he hath given to the poor,” was fulfilled in St. 
 Laurence. “ I have found David My servant ” 
 was said first of the King of Israel, Belongs really 
 to Christ, is transferred again by grace to His Vice- 
 gerents upon earth. “ I have given thee the nations 
 for thine inheritance ” is the prerogative of Popes. 
 “ Thou hast given him his heart’s desire,” the record 
 of a Martyr; “thou hast loved righteousness and 
 hated iniquity,” the praise of Virgins. 
 
 “As Christ,” says St. Athanasius, “died, and was 
 exalted as man, so, as man, is He said to take what, 
 as God, He ever had, that even this so high a grant 
 of grace might reach to us. For the Word was not 
 impaired in receiving a Body, that He should seek 
 to receive a grace, but rather He deified that which 
 He put on, nay, gave it graciously to the race of 
 man. For it is the Father’s glory, that man made 
 and then lost should Be found again; and, when 
 the prey of death, that he should Be made alive, and 
 should Become God’s temple. For whereas the 
 powers in heaven, both Angels and Archangels, 
 were ever worshipping the Lord, as they are now 
 worshipping Him in the Name of Jesus, this is our 
 grace and high exaltation, that, even when He Be¬ 
 came man, the Son of God is worshipped, and the 
 heavenly powers are not startled at seeing all of us, 
 who are of one Body with Him, introduced into 
 their realms.” 1 I n th is passage it is almost said 
 that the glorified Saints will partake in the homage 
 paid By Angels to Christ, the True Object of all 
 worship; and at least a reason is suggested By it 
 
 J Athan. Orat. i. 42, Oxf. tr. 
 
 2 D 2 
 
404 
 
 APPLICATION OF THE FIFTH TEST. [Chap. VIII. 
 
 
 for the Angel’s shrinking in the Apocalypse from 
 the homage of St. John, the Theologian and Prophet 
 of the Church. But St. Athanasius proceeds still 
 more explicitly, “In that the Lord, even when come 
 in human body and called Jesus, was worshipped 
 and believed to be God’s Son, and that through 
 Him the Father is known, it is plain, as has been 
 said, that, not the Word , considered as the Word, 
 received this so great grace, hut we. For, because 
 of our relationship to His Body, we too have become 
 God’s temple, and in consequence are made God’s 
 sons, so t hat even in us the Lord is note worshipped. 
 and beEolders report, as the Apostle says, that L God 
 is there of a truth.’ ” 1 It would appear to be dis¬ 
 tinctly stated in this passage, that those who are 
 known to be God’s adopted, sons in Christ are lit 
 objects of worship on account of Him who is in them; 
 a doctrine which both interprets and accounts for 
 the invocation of Saints, the observance of relics, and 
 the religious veneration in which even the living 
 have sometimes been held, who, being saintly, were 
 ^distinguished by miraculous gifts. 2 Worship then 
 is the necessary correlative of glory; and in the 
 same sense in which created natures can share in 
 the Creator’s incommunicable glory, do they also 
 share in that worship which is His property alone. 
 
 There was one other subject on which the Arian 
 controversy had a more intimate, though not an 
 immediate influence. Its tendency to give a new 
 interpretation to the texts which speak of our 
 Lord’s subordination, has already been noticed; such 
 as admitted of it were henceforth explained more 
 prominently of His manhood than of His Economy 
 or His Sonship. But there were other texts which 
 
 1 Athan. ibid. 
 
 2 And so Eusebius, in his Life of Constantine: “The all-holy 
 choir of God’s perpetual virgins, he was used almost to worship 
 (criflbjp), believing that that God, to whom they had consecrated 
 themselves, was an inhabitant in the souls of such.” Vit. Const. 
 
Sec. L] 
 
 DEIFICATION OF ST. MANY. 
 
 405 
 
 did not admit of this interpretation, but which, 
 without ceasing to belong to Him, might seem more 
 directly applicable to a creature than to the Creator. 
 He indeed was really the “Wisdom in whom the 
 Father eternally delighted,” yet it would be but na¬ 
 tural, if, under the circumstances of Arian misbelief, 
 theologians looked out for other than the Eternal Son 
 to be the immediate object of such descriptions. And 
 thus the controversy opened a question which it did 
 not settle. It discovered a new sphere, if we may 
 so speak, in the realms of light, to which the Church 
 had not yet assigned its inhabitant. Arianism had 
 admitted that our Lord was both the God of the 
 Evangelical covenant, and the actual Creator of the 
 Universe; but even this was not enough, because it did 
 not confess Him to be the One, Everlasting, Infinite, 
 Supreme Being, but to be made by Him. It was not 
 enough with that heresy to proclaim Him to be be¬ 
 gotten ineffably before all worlds; not enough to 
 place Him high above all creatures as the type of all 
 the Avorks of God’s Hands; not enough to make Him 
 the Lord of His Saints, the Mediator betAveen God 
 and man, the Object of worship, the Image of the 
 Father; not enough, because it was not all, and 
 betAveen all, and anything short of all, there Avas 
 an infinite interval. The highest of creatures is 
 levelled with the kwest in comparison of the One 
 Creator Himself. T hat is, the Nicene Council re¬ 
 
 cognised the eventful principle, that, AYhile Ave believe 
 and profess anv being; to be a creature, such a being; 
 
 " 1 JL 1 co * _ - cj 
 
 is really no God to us, though honoured by us Avith 
 whatever high titles and Avith whatever homage. 
 Arius or Asterius did all but confess that Christ 
 
 Avas the Almighty; they said much more than St. 
 Bernard or St. Alphonso have since said of St. Mary; 
 yet they left Him a creature and Avere found wanting. 
 Thus there was “ a Avonder in heaven: ” a throne 
 Avas seen, far above all created powers, mediatorial, 
 intercessory; a title archetypal; a crown bright as 
 
406 APPLICATION OF THE FIFTH TEST. [Chap. VIII. 
 
 the morning star; a glory issuing from the Eternal 
 Throne; robes pure as the heavens; and a sceptre 
 over all; and who was the predestined heir of that 
 Majesty? Who was that Wisdom, and what was 
 her name, “the Mother of fair love, and fear, and 
 holy hope,” “ exalted like a palm-tree in Engaddi, 
 and a rose-plant in Jericho,” “created from the 
 beginning before the world ” in God’s counsels, and 
 “ in Jerusalem was her power” ? The vision is found 
 in the Apocalypse, a Woman clothed with the sun, 
 and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a 
 crown of twelve stars. The votaries of Mary do not 
 exceed the true faith, unless the blasphemers of her 
 Son came up to it. T he Church of Rome is nob 
 i dolatrous, unless Aria nism is o rtho doxy. 
 
 I am not stating conclusions which were drawn 
 out in the controversy, but of premisses which 
 were laid, broad and deep. It was t hen shown, it 
 was then determined, that to exalt a creature was no 
 recognition of its divinity. Nor am I speaking of 
 the Semi-arians, who, holding our Lord’s derivation 
 from the Substance of the Father, yet denying His 
 Consubstantiality, really did lie open to the charge 
 of maintaining two Gods, and present no parallel 
 to the defenders of the prerogatives of St. Mary. 
 But I speak of the Arians who taught that our 
 Lord’s Substance was created; and concerning them 
 it is true that St. Athanasius’ condemnation of 
 their theology is a vindication of the Medieval. 
 Yet it is not wonderful, considering how Socinians, 
 Sabellians, Nestorians, and the like, abound in these 
 days, without their even knowing it themselves, if 
 those who never rise higher in their notions of our 
 Lord’s Divinity than to consider Him a man sin- \ 
 gularly inhabited by a Divine Presence, that is, a 
 Catholic Saint,—if such men should recognise, in 
 the honour paid by the Church to St. Mary, the 
 very honour which, and which alone, they offer to 
 her Eternal Son. 
 
Sec. I.] 
 
 DEIFICATION OF ST. MARY. 
 
 407 
 
 I Jmve said that there was in the first ages n<y 
 public and ecclesiastical recognition of the place 
 which St. Mary holds in the Economy of grace; this 
 ^vyas reserved for the fifth century, as the definition 
 of our Lord’s proper Divinity had been the work of 
 the fourth. There was a controversy contemporary 
 with those already mentioned, I mean the Nestorian, 
 which brought out the complement of the develop¬ 
 ment, to which they had been subservient; and 
 which, if I may so speak, supplied the subject of 
 that august proposition of which Arianism had pro¬ 
 vided the predicate. In order to do honour to 
 Christ, in order to defend the true doctrine of the 
 Incarnation, in order to secure a right faith in the 
 manhood of the Eternal Son, the Council of Ephesus 
 determined the Blessed Virgin to be the Mother of I 
 God. Thus all heresies of that day, though opposite 
 to each other, tended in a most wonderful way to her 
 exaltation; and the School of Antioch, the fountain 
 of primitive rationalism, led the Church to lay down 
 first the conceivable greatness of a creature, and 
 then the incommunicable dignity of St. Mary. 
 
 But the spontaneous or traditional feeling of ) 
 Christians, as we saw in the foregoing Chapter, had 
 in great measure anticipated the formal ecclesias- | 
 tical decision. Thus the title Theotocos , or Mother 
 of God, was familiar to Christians from primitive 
 times, and is used, among other writers, by Origen, 
 Eusebius, St. Alexander, St. Athanasius, St. Am¬ 
 brose, St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Gregory Ayssen, 
 and St. Nilus. She had been called Ever-Virgin 
 by St. Epiphanius, Didymus, and others. By 
 others, “the Mother of all living,” as being the anti¬ 
 type of Eve; for, as St. Epiphanius observes, “ in 
 truth,” not in shadow, “ from Mary was Life itself 
 brought into the world, that Mary might bear things 
 living, and might become Mother of living things.” 1 
 St. Augustine says that all have sinned “ except 
 
 1 Haar. 78, 18. 
 
408 APPLICATION OF THE FIFTH TEST. [Chap. VIII. 
 
 the Holy Virgin Mary, concerning whom, for the 
 honour of the Lord, I wish no question to be raised 
 at all, when we are treating of sins.” “She was 
 alone and wrought the world’s salvation,” says St. 
 Ambrose, alluding to her conception of the Re¬ 
 deemer. She is signified by the Pillar of the cloud 
 which guided the Israelites, according to the same 
 Father; and she had “so great grace, as not only 
 to have virginity herself, but to impart it to those 
 to whom she came;”—“the Rod out of the stem of 
 Jesse,” says St. Jerome, and “the Eastern gate 
 through which the High Priest alone goes in and out, 
 yet is ever shut;”—the wise woman, says St. Nilus, 
 who “ hath clad all believers, from the fleece of the 
 Lamb born from her, with the clothing of incorrup¬ 
 tion, and delivered them from their invisible naked¬ 
 ness;”—“the Mother of Life, of beauty, of majesty, 
 the Morning Star,” according to Antiochus;—“ the 
 mystical new heavens,” “ the heavens carrying 
 the Divinity,” “ the fruitful vine by whom we 
 are translated from death unto life,” according to 
 St. Ephraim; “ the manna which is delicate, bright, 
 sweet, and virgin, which, as though coming from 
 heaven, has poured down on all the people of the 
 Churches a food pleasanter than honey,” according 
 to St. Maximus. 
 
 St. Proclus calls her “ the unsullied shell which 
 contains the pearl of price,” “ the sacred shrine of 
 sinlessness,” “ the golden altar of holocaust,” “ the 
 holy oil of anointing,” “ the costly alabaster box of 
 spikenard,” “ the ark gilt within and without,” 
 “ the heifer whose ashes, that is, the Lord’s Body 
 taken from her, cleanses those who are defiled by 
 the pollution of sin,” “ the fair bride of the Can¬ 
 ticles,” “ the stay (<) of believers,” “ the 
 Church’s diadem,” “the expression of orthodoxy.” 
 These are oratorical expressions; but we use oratory 
 on great subjects, not on small. Elsewhere he calls 
 her “God’s only bridge to man;” and elsewhere 
 
DEIFICATION OF ST. MARY. 
 
 409 
 
 Sec. I.] 
 
 he breaks forth, “Run through all creation in your 
 thoughts, and see if there be equal to, or greater 
 than, the Holy Virgin Mother of God.” 
 
 Theodotus too, one of the Fathers of Ephesus, or 
 whoever it is whose Homilies are given to St. Amphi- 
 lochius :—“ As debtors and God’s well-affected ser¬ 
 vants, let us make confession to God the Word and 
 to His Mother, of the gift of words, as far as we are 
 able. . . Hail, Mother, clad in light, of the light which 
 sets not; hail all-undefiled mother of holiness; hail 
 most pellucid fountain of the life-giving stream! ” 
 After speaking of the Incarnation, he continues, 
 “ Such paradoxes doth the Divine Virgin Mother 
 ever bring to us in her holy irradiations, for with 
 her is the Fount of Life, and breasts of the spiritual 
 and guileless milk; from which to suck the sweet¬ 
 ness, we have even now earnestly run to her, not 
 as in forgetfulness of what has gone before, but in 
 desire of what is to come.” 
 
 St,._Fulgentius of the same date says, “ Mary be¬ 
 came the window of heaven, for through her God 
 poured the True Light upon the world; the heavenly 
 ladder, for through her did God descend upon earth. 
 . . . . Come, Virgin, to a Virgin, come ye who con¬ 
 ceive to one who did conceive, ye who bear to one 
 who bore, mothers to a Mother, ye who give suck 
 to one who suckled, young women to the Young.” 
 Lastly, “ Thou hast found grace, ” says St. Peter 
 Chrysologus, “how much? he had said above, Full. 
 And full indeed, which with full shower might pour 
 upon and into the whole creation.” 1 
 
 1 Aug. de Nat. et Grat. 42. Ambros. Ep. 1. 49, § 2, in Psalm 
 118; v. 3. de Instit. Virg. 50. Hier. in Is. xi. 1, contr. Pelag. ii. 
 4. Nil. Ep. i. p. 267. Antioch, ap. Cyr. de Rect. Fid. p. 49. Eplir. 
 Opp. Syr. t. 3, p. 607. Max. Horn. 45. Procl. Orat. vi. pp. 225—228, 
 p. 60, p. 179, 180, ed. 1630. Theodot. ap. Amphiloch. pp. 39, &c. 
 Fulgent. Serm. 3, p. 125. Chrysol. Serin. 142. A striking passage 
 from another Sermon of the last-mentioned author, on the words 
 “She cast in her mind what manner of salutation,” &c., may be added: 
 “ Quamtus sit Deus satis ignorat ille, cpii hujus Yirginis mentem non 
 
APPLICATION OF THE FIFTH TEST. [Chap. VIII. 
 
 
 410 
 
 Such was the state of sentiment on the subject 
 of St. Mary, which the Arian, Nestorian, and. Mo- 
 11 ophysite heresies found in the Church; and on 
 which the doctrinal decisions consequent upon them 
 impressed a form and consistency which has been 
 handed on in the Church to this day. 
 
 y 
 
 § 2 . 
 
 Developments following the Doctrine of Baptism. 
 
 1. It is not necessary here to enlarge on the 
 benefits which the primitive Church considered to 
 be conveyed to the soul by means of the Sacrament 
 of Baptism. Its distinguishing gift, which is in 
 point to mention, was the plenary forgiveness of 
 sins past. IC}I as also believed that the Sacrament 
 could not be repeated. The question immediately 
 followed, how was the guilt of such sin to be removed 
 as was incurred after its administration. 
 
 This question was felt to be so intimately and 
 acutely personal by the early Christians, that they de¬ 
 layed the rite, as Christians now delay attendance on 
 the Holy Eucharist. Of course it is difficult for us 
 at this day to enter into the assemblage of notions 
 which led to the postponement; other reasons besides 
 a sense of the benefit of the baptismal privilege 
 would concur, such as reluctance to be committed 
 to a rule of life, and fear of the responsibilities which 
 the baptized incur. But so it was, that Infant Bap¬ 
 tism, which is happily a fundamental rule of Christian 
 duty with us, was less clearly appreciated in the 
 
 
 stupet, amimum non miratur. Pavet ccelum, tremunt Angel i, crea- 
 tura non sustinct, natura non sufficit; et una puella sic Deum in sui 
 pectoris capit, recipit, oblectat hospitio, nt pacem terris, coelis gloriam, 
 salutem perditis, vitam mortnis, terrenis cum coelestibus parentelam, 
 ipsius Dei cum carne commercium, pro ipsa domus exigat pensione, 
 pro ipsius uteri mercede conquirat,” &c. Serin. 140. St. Basil, 
 St. Chrysostom, and St. Cyril of Alexandria sometimes speak, it is 
 true, in a different tone; but this is irrelevant to the argument, as 
 will be seen by pp. 388, 389. 
 

 » * 
 
 V 
 
 Sec. I.] 
 
 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 e arly Church. Even in the fourth century St. Gre¬ 
 gory Nazianzen, St. Basil, and St. Augustine, with j vL 
 Christian mothers, were not baptized till they were 
 adults. St. Gregory’s mother dedicated him to God 
 immediately on his birth; and again when he had 
 come to years_ of discretion, with the rite of taking 
 the sacred books into his hands by way of conse¬ 
 cration. He was religiously-minded from his youth, 
 and had devoted himself to a single life. Yet his 
 baptism did not take place till after he had attended 
 the schools of Caesarea, Palestine, and Alexandria, 
 and was on his voyage to Athens. He had em¬ 
 barked during the November gales, and for twenty 
 days his life was in danger. He presented himself 
 for baptism as soon as he got to land. St. Basil 
 was the son of Christian confessors on both father’s 
 and mother’s side. His grandmother Macrina, who 
 brought him up, had for seven years lived with her 
 husband in the woods of Pontus during the Decian 
 persecution. His father was said to have wrought 
 miracles; his mother, an orphan of great personal 
 beauty, was forced from her unprotected state to 
 abandon the hope of a single life, and was conspi¬ 
 cuous in matrimony for her care of strangers and 
 the poor, and for her offerings to the Churches. 
 
 How religiously she brought up her children is 
 shown by the singular blessing, that four out of ten 
 have since been canonized as Saints. St. Basil was 
 one of these; yet the child of such parents was not 
 baptized till he had come to man’s estate,—till, ac¬ 
 cording to the Benedictine Editor, his twenty-first, 
 and perhaps his twenty-ninth, year. St. Augustine’s 
 mother, who is herself a Saint, was a Christian when 
 he was born, though his father was not. Imme¬ 
 diately on his birth, he was made a catechumen; in 
 his childhood he fell ill, and asked for baptism. 
 
 His mother was alarmed, and was taking measures 
 for his reception into the Church, when he suddenly 
 got better, and it was deferred. He did not receive 
 
412 APPLICATION OP THE FIFTH TEST, [Chap. VIII. 
 
 baptism till the age of thirty-three, after he had for 
 nine years been a victim of Manichsean error. 
 
 Evidently then the position of Baptism in the 
 received system was not the same in the first ages 
 as in later times; and still less was it clearly ascer¬ 
 tained in the first three centuries. The problem 
 which required an answer was this, as T have al¬ 
 ready stated it. Since there was but on§_ Baptism, 
 #/ - 2 - * 
 
 what could be done for those who had received the 
 one remission oi sms, and had sinned since r ihe 
 primitive Fathers appear to have conceived that the 
 Church was empowered to grant one, and one only, 
 reconciliation after grievous offences; at least this 
 was the practice of the times. Three sins however, 
 A a t least in the W est, seem to have been irremiss ible, 
 i dolatry, murden, amdmfful terv. ~Such”a system of 
 Church discipline, suited as it was to a small com¬ 
 munity, and even expedient in a time of persecution, 
 could not exist in Christianity, as it spread into the 
 or bis terrarum , and gathered like a net of every kind. 
 A more indulgent rule gradually gained ground; 
 yet the Spanish Church adhered to it even in the 
 fourth century, and a portion of the African in the 
 third, and in the remaining portion there was a re¬ 
 laxation only as regards the crime of incontinence. 
 Meanwhile a protest was made against the growing 
 innovation: at the beginning of the third century 
 Montanus, who was a zealot for the more primitive 
 rule, shrunk from the laxity, as he considered it, of 
 the AsianChurches 1 ; as, in a different subject-matter, 
 Jovinian and Yigilantius were offended at the de¬ 
 velopments in divine worship in the century which 
 followed. The Montanists had recourse to the See 
 of Rome, and at first with some prospect of success. 
 Again, in Africa, where there had been in the first 
 instance a schism headed by Felicissimus in favour 
 of a milder discipline than St. Cyprian approved, a 
 far more formidable stand was soon made in favour 
 of Antiquity, headed by Novatus, who originally had 
 1 Gieseler, Text-book, vol. i. p. 108. 
 

 Sec. I.] 
 
 PENANCE. 
 
 413 
 
 I 
 
 been of the party of Felicissimus. This was taken 
 up at Rome by Novatian, who professed to adhere 
 to the original, or at least the primitive rule of the 
 Church, viz. that those who had once fallen from 
 the faith could in no case be received again. 1 The 
 controversy seems to have found the following issue, 
 —whether the Church had the means of pardoning 
 sins committed after Baptism, which the Novatians, 
 at least practically, denied. u It is fitting,” says 
 the Novatian Acesius, “ to exhort those who have 
 sinned after Baptism to repentance, but to expect 
 hope of remission, not from the priests, but from 
 God, who hath power to forgive sins. ” 2 The schism 
 spread into the East, and led to the appointment of 
 a penitentiary priest in the Catholic Churches. By 
 t he end of the third century as many as four de- 
 g rees of penance were appointed, through which 
 offenders had to pass in order to a reconciliation. 
 
 The length and severity of the penance varied 
 with times and places. Sometimes, as we have seen, 
 it lasted, in the case of grave offences, through life, 
 and on to death, without any reconciliation; at other 
 times it ended only in the viaticum; and if, after re¬ 
 conciliation they recovered, their ordinary penance 
 was still binding on them either for life or for a 
 certain time. In other cases it lasted ten, fifteen, 
 or twenty years. But in all cases, from the first, 
 the Bishop had the power of shortening it, and of 
 altering the nature and quality of the punishment. 
 Thus in the instance of the Emperor Theodosius, 
 whom St. Ambrose shut out from communion for 
 the massacre at Thessalonica, u according to the 
 mildest rules of ecclesiastical discipline, which were 
 established in the fourth century,” says Gibbon, 
 u the crime of homicide was expiated by the peni¬ 
 tence of twenty years; and as it was impossible, in 
 the period of human life, to purge the accumulated 
 guilt of the massacre . . . the murderer should 
 have been excluded from the holy communion 
 1 Gieseler, ibid. p. 1G4. 2 Socr. Hist. i. 10. 
 
414 APPLICATION OF THE FIFTH TEST. [Chap. VIII. 
 
 till the hour of his death.” He goes on to say that 
 the public edification which resulted from the hu¬ 
 miliation of so illustrious a penitent was a reason 
 for abridging the punishment. “ It was sufficient 
 that the Emperor of the Homans, stripped of the 
 ensigns of royalty, should appear in a mournful and 
 suppliant posture, and that, in the midst of the 
 Church of Milan, he should humbly solicit with 
 sighs and tears the pardon of his sins.” His pen¬ 
 ance was shortened to an interval of about eight 
 months. Hence arose the phrase of a u poenitentia 
 legitima, plena, et justa;” which signifies a penance 
 sufficient, perhaps in length of time, perhaps in in¬ 
 tensity of punishment. 
 
 2. Here a serious question presented itself, to. the 
 minds of Christia ns, which was now to be wrought 
 out : —Were these punishments merely signs of con¬ 
 trition, or in any sense satisfactions for sin? If 
 the former, they might be absolutely remitted at the 
 discretion of the Church, as soon as true repentance 
 was discovered; the end had then been attained, 
 and nothing more was necessary. Thus St. Chry¬ 
 sostom says in one of his Homilies, 1 u I require not 
 continuance of time, but the correction of the soul. 
 Show your contrition, show your reformation, and 
 all is done.” Yet, though there might be a reason 
 of the moment for shortening the penance imposed 
 by the Church, this does not at all decide the ques¬ 
 tion whether that ecclesiastical penance be not part 
 of an expiation made to the Almighty Judge for 
 the sin; and supposing this really to be the case, 
 the question follows, How is the complement of 
 that satisfaction to be wrought out, which on just 
 grounds of present expedience has been suspended 
 by the Church now? 
 
 As to this question, it cannot be doubted that 
 th e Fathers considered penance as not a mere 
 
 1 Horn. 14, in 2 Cor. fin. 
 
Sec. I.] 
 
 PURGATORY. 
 
 415 
 
 expression of contrition, but as an act done directly 
 towards God and a means of averting His anger. 
 “ If the sinner spare not himself, he will be spared 
 by God,” says the writer who goes under the name 
 of St. Ambrose. “ Let him lie in sackcloth, and by 
 the austerity of his life make amends for the offence 
 of his past pleasures,” says St. Jerome. “ As we 
 have sinned greatly,” says St. Cyprian, “let us weep 
 greatly; for a deep wound diligent and long tending 
 must not be wanting, the repentance must not fall 
 short of the offence.” “ Take heed to thyself,” says 
 St. Basil, “ that, in proportion to the fault, thou admit 
 also the restoration from the remedy.” 1 If so, the 
 question follows which was above contemplated,— 
 if in consequence of death, or the exercise of the 
 Church’s discretion, the “plena pcenitentia ” is not 
 accomplished in its ecclesiastical shape, how and 
 when will the residue be exacted? 
 
 Clement of Alexandria answers this particular 
 question very distinctly, according to Bishop Kaye, 
 though not in some other points expressing himself 
 conformably to the doctrine afterwards received. 
 “ Clement,” says that Author, “ distinguishes be¬ 
 tween sins committed before and after baptism: 
 the former are remitted at baptism; the latter are 
 purged by discipline. . . . The necessity of this puri¬ 
 fying discipline is such, that if it does not. take place 
 in this life, it must after death, and is then to 
 be effected by fire, not by a destructive, but a dis¬ 
 criminating fire, pervading the soul which passes 
 through it.” 1 
 
 There is a celebrated passage in St. Cyprian, on 
 the subject of the punishment of lapsed Chris¬ 
 tians, which certainly seems to express the same 
 doctrine. “St. Cyprian is arguing in favour of re¬ 
 admitting the lapsed, when penitent; and his argu¬ 
 ment seems to be that it does not follow that we 
 absolve them simply because we simply restore 
 1 Yid. Tertull. Oxf. tr. pp. 374, 5. 2 Clem. ch. 12. 
 
416 APPLICATION OF THE FIFTH TEST. [Chap. VIII. 
 
 them to the Church. He writes this to Antonian: 
 ‘It is one thing to stand for pardon, another to 
 arrive at glory; one to be sent to prison ( missum 
 in carcerem) and not to go out till the last farthing 
 be paid, another to receive at once the reward of 
 faith and virtue; one thing to be tormented for sin 
 in long pain, and so to be cleansed, and to be purged 
 a long while in the fire (purgari diu igne), another 
 to be washed from all sin in suffering; one thing, in 
 short, to wait for the Lord’s sentence in the Day of 
 Judgment, another at once to be crowned by Him.’ 
 Some understand this passage to refer to the peni¬ 
 tential discipline of the Church which was imposed 
 on the penitent; and, as far as the context goes, 
 certainly no sense could be more apposite. Yet . . 
 the words in themselves seem to go beyond any 
 mere ecclesiastical, though virtually divine censure; 
 especially ‘ missum in carcerem ’ and ‘ purgari diu 
 
 * i 
 
 igne . 1 
 
 The Acts of the Martyrs St. Perpetua and St. 
 Felicitas, which are prior to St. Cyprian, confirm 
 this interpretation. In the course of the narrative, 
 St. Perpetua prays for her brother Dinocrates, who 
 had died at the age of seven; and has a vision of a 
 dark place, and next of a pool of water, which he 
 was not tall enough to reach. She goes on pray¬ 
 ing ; and in a second vision the water descended to 
 him, and he was able to drink, and went to play as 
 children use. “ Then I knew,” she says, “ that he 
 Avas translated from his place of punishment.” 2 
 
 The prayers in the Eucharistic Service for the 
 faithful departed, inculcate, at least according to the 
 belief of the fourth century, the same doctrine, that 
 the sins of accepted and elect souls, which were not 
 
 I 7 
 
 expiated here, would receive punishment hereaft er. 
 Certainly such was St. Cyril’s belief: “I know that 
 many say,” he observes, “what is a soul profited, 
 
 1 Tracts for the Times, No. 79, p. 38. 
 
 2 Ruinart. Mart. p. 96. 
 
Sec. I.] 
 
 PURGATORY. 
 
 417 
 
 which departs from this world either with sins or 
 without sins, if it be commemorated in the [Eu¬ 
 charistic] Prayer? Now, surely, if when a king 
 had banished certain who had given him offence, 
 their connexions should weave a crown and offer it 
 to him on behalf of those under his vengeance, would 
 he not grant a respite to their punishments? In 
 the same way we, when we offer to Him our sup¬ 
 plications for those who have fallen asleep, though 
 they be sinners, weave no crown, but offer up Christ, 
 sacrificed for our sins, propitiating our merciful 
 God, both for them and for ourselves. 7 ’ 1 
 
 Thus we see how, as time went on, the doctrine 
 of .Purgatory was opened'upon the apprehension of 
 the Church, as a portion or form of Penance due for 
 sins committed after Baptism. And thus the be¬ 
 lief in this doctrine and the practice of Infant Bap¬ 
 ti sm would grow into general reception together. 
 
 The process of thought, of which it is the ..result, 
 is drawn out in the following passage, which may 
 be suitably introduced in this place, though I wish 
 to express my dissent from it in various incidental 
 points. One point of difference is important, though 
 it does not interfere with its serviceableness here; 
 the writer considers the growth of the doctrine as an 
 instance of the action of private judgment, whereas 
 I should now call it an instance of the mind of the 
 Church working out dogmatic truths from implicit 
 feelings under secret supernatural guidance. The 
 passage runs thus: u How Almighty God will deal 
 with the mass of Christians, who are neither very 
 bad nor very good, is a problem with which we are 
 not concerned, and which it is our wisdom, and 
 may be our duty, to put from our thoughts. But 
 when it has once forced itself upon the mind, we 
 are led in self-defence, with a view of keeping our¬ 
 selves from dwelling unhealthily on particular cases, 
 which come under our experience and perplex us, 
 
 1 Mystagog. 5. 
 
418 APPLICATION OF THE FIFTH TEST. [Chap. VIII. 
 
 to imagine modes, not by winch God does (for that 
 would be presumptuous to conjecture), but by 
 which He may solve the difficulty. Most men, to 
 our apprehensions, are too unformed in religious 
 habits either for heaven or for hell, yet there is no 
 middle state when Christ comes in judgment. In 
 consequence it is obvious to have recourse to the 
 interval before His coming, as a time during which 
 this incompleteness might be remedied; as a season, 
 not of changing the spiritual bent and character of 
 the soul departed, whatever that be, for probation 
 ends with mortal life, but of developing it in a more 
 determinate form, whether of good or of evil. 
 Again, when the mind once allows itself to specu¬ 
 late, it will discern in such a provision a means, 
 whereby those, who, not without true faith at bot¬ 
 tom, yet have committed great crimes, or those who 
 have been carried off in youth while still undecided, 
 or who die after a barren though not an immoral 
 or scandalous life, may receive such chastisement as 
 may prepare them for heaven, and render it consist¬ 
 ent with God’s justice to admit them thither. 
 Again, the inequality of the sufferings of Christians 
 in this life, compared one with another, leads the un¬ 
 guarded mind to the same speculations; the intense 
 suffering, for instance, which some men undergo on 
 their death-bed, seeming as if but an anticipation 
 in their case of what comes after death upon others, 
 who, without greater claim on God’s forbearance, 
 live without chastisement, and die easily. I say, 
 the mind will inevitably dwell upon such thoughts, 
 unless it has been taught to subdue them by educa¬ 
 tion or by the experience of their dangerousness. 
 
 u Various suppositions have, accordingly, been 
 made, as pure suppositions, as mere specimens of 
 the capabilities (if one may so speak) of the Divine 
 Dispensation, as efforts of the mind reaching for¬ 
 ward and venturing beyond its* depth into the abyss 
 of the Divine Counsels. If one supposition could be 
 
Sec. I.] 
 
 PURGATORY. 
 
 419 
 
 produced, sufficient to solve the problem, ten thou¬ 
 sand others are conceivable, unless indeed the re¬ 
 sources of God’s Providence are exactly commen¬ 
 surate with man’s discernment of them. Religious 
 men, amid these searchings of heart, have naturally 
 gone to Scripture for relief; to see if the inspired 
 word anywhere gave them any clue for their in¬ 
 quiries. And from what was there found, and from 
 the speculations of reason upon it, various notions 
 have been hazarded at different times; for instance, 
 that there is a certain momentary ordeal to be 
 undergone by all men after this life, more or less 
 severe according to their spiritual state; or that 
 certain gross sins in good men will be thus visited, 
 or their lighter failings and habitual imperfections; 
 or that the very sight of Divine Perfection in the 
 invisible world will be in itself a pain, while it con¬ 
 stitutes the purification of the imperfect but believ¬ 
 ing soul; or that, happiness admitting of various 
 degrees of intensity, penitents late in life may sink for 
 ever into a state, blissful as far as it goes, but more 
 or less approaching to unconsciousness; and infants 
 dying after baptism maybe as gems paving the courts 
 of heaven, or as the living wheels of the Prophet’s 
 vision; while matured Saints may excel in capacity of 
 bliss, as well as in dignity, the highest Archangels. 
 Such speculations are dangerous when indulged; the 
 event proves it; from some of them, in fact, seems 
 to have resulted the doctrine of Purgatory. 
 
 u Now the texts to which the minds of the early 
 Christians seem to have been principally drawn, 
 and from which they ventured to argue in behalf 
 of these vague notions, were these two: c The 
 fire shall try every man’s work,’ &c., and c He 
 shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with 
 fire.’ These texts, with which many more were 
 found to accord, directed their thoughts one way, 
 as making mention of c fire,’ whatever was meant 
 by the word, as the instrument of trial and puri- 
 
 2 e 2 
 
420 APPLICATION OF THE FIFTH TEST. [Chap. VIII. 
 
 fieation; and that, at some time between the pre¬ 
 sent time and the Judgment, or at the Judgment. 
 And accordingly, without perhaps having any de¬ 
 finite or consistent meaning in what they said, 
 or being able to say whether they spoke literally or 
 figuratively, and with an indefinite reference to 
 this life, as well as to the Intermediate State, they 
 sometimes named fire as the instrument of recover¬ 
 ing those who had sinned after their baptism. That 
 this is the origin of the notion of a Purgatorial fire, 
 
 1 gather from these circumstances: first, that they 
 do frequently insist on the texts in question; next, 
 that they do not agree in the particular sense they 
 put upon them. That they quote them shows that 
 they rest upon them; that they vary in explaining 
 them; that they had no Catholic sense to guide 
 them. Nothing can be clearer, if these facts lie so, 
 than that the doctrine of the Purgatorial fire in all 
 its senses, as far as it was more than a surmise, 
 and was rested on argument, was the result of pri¬ 
 vate judgment exerted, in defect of tradition, upon 
 the text of Scripture. . . . 
 
 “ As the doctrine, thus suggested by certain 
 striking texts, grew in popularity and definiteness, 
 and verged towards its present Roman form, it 
 seemed a key to many others. Great portions of 
 the books of Psalms, Job, and the Lamentations, 
 which express the feelings of religious men under 
 suffering, would powerfully recommend it by the 
 forcible and most affecting and awful meaning which 
 they received from it. When this was once sug¬ 
 gested, all other meanings would seem tame and 
 inadequate. 
 
 u To these may be added various passages from 
 the Prophets, as that in the beginning of the third 
 chapter of Malachi, which speaks of fire as the in¬ 
 strument of judgment and purification, when Christ 
 comes to visit His Church. 
 
 u Moreover, there were other texts of obscure and 
 

 PURGAT011Y. 
 
 421 
 
 Sec. I.] 
 
 indeterminate bearing, which seemed on this hypo- 
 thesis to receive a profitable meaning; such as our 
 Lord’s words in the Sermon on the Mount, c Verily, 
 
 1 say unto thee, thou shalt by no means come out 
 thence till thou hast paid the uttermost far tiling; 5 
 and St. John’s expression in the Apocalypse, that 
 ‘ no man in heaven, nor in earth, neither under the 
 earth, was able to open the book.’ 
 
 “ Further, the very circumstance that no second 
 instrument of a plenary and entire cleansing from 
 sin was given after Baptism, such as Baptism, led 
 Christians to expect that that unknown means, when 
 accorded, would be of a more painful nature than 
 that which they had received so freely and instan¬ 
 taneously in infancy; and confirmed, not only the 
 text already cited, 4 He shall baptize you with the 
 Holy Ghost and with fire,’ but also St. Paul’s an¬ 
 nouncement of the 4 judgment and fiery indignation’ 
 which await those who sin after having been once 
 4 enlightened,’ and by Christ’s warning to the im- ' 
 potent man to sin no more, lest a worse thing come 
 unto him. 
 
 u Lastly, the universal and apparently Apostolical 
 custom of praying for the dead in Christ, called for 
 s om e explanation, the reason for it not having come 
 down to posterity with it. Various reasons may 
 be supposed quite clear of this distressing doctrine; 
 but it supplied an adequate and a most constraining 
 motive for its observance, to those who were not 
 content to practise it in ignorance.” 1 
 
 The doctrine of post-baptismal sin, especially when 
 realized in the doctrine of Purgatory, leads the reci¬ 
 pient to fresh developments beyond itself. Its effect 
 is to convert a Scripture statement, which might 
 seem only of temporary application, into a universal 
 and perpetual truth. When St. Paul and St. Bar¬ 
 nabas would “ confirm the souls of the disciples,” 
 they taught them “that we must through much 
 tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.” It is 
 
 1 Proph. Office, pp. 213-220. 
 
422 APPLICATION OF THE FIFTH TEST. [Ciiap. VIII. 
 
 obvious what very practical results would follow on 
 such an announcement, in the instance of those who 
 simply accepted the Apostolic decision; and in like 
 manner a conviction that sin must have its punish¬ 
 ment, here or hereafter, and that we all must suffer, 
 how overpowering will be its effect, what a new 
 light does it cast on the history of the soul, what a 
 change does it make in our judgment of the exter¬ 
 nal world, what a reversal of our natural wishes 
 and aims for the future ! Is a doctrine conceivable 
 which would so elevate the mind above this present 
 state, and teach it so successfully to dare difficult 
 things, and to be reckless of danger and pain ? 
 Infidels, nay writers of our own, have enlarged upon 
 the influence which mil attend upon it; and though 
 they express it in the terms of their own philoso¬ 
 phy, we may make much of their testimony. u The 
 Ascetics,” says Gibbon, u who obeyed and abused 
 the rigid precepts of the gospel, were inspired by 
 the savage enthusiasm which represents man as a 
 criminal and God as a tyrant. They seriously re¬ 
 nounced the business and the pleasures of the age, 
 abjured the use of wine, of flesh, and of marriage, 
 chastised their body, mortified their affections, and 
 embraced a life of misery as the price of eternal 
 happiness. In the reign of Constantine, the As¬ 
 cetics fled from a profane and degenerate world to 
 perpetual solitude or religious society. The monks 
 might contend with Stoics in the contempt of for¬ 
 tune, of pain, and of death; the Pythagorean 
 silence and submission were revived in their servile 
 discipline; and they disdained, as firmly as the 
 Cynics themselves, all the forms and decencies of 
 civil society.” 1 What is this but to say, that he 
 who believes that suffer he must, and that delayed 
 punishment may be the greater, will be above the 
 Avorld, will admire nothing, fear nothing, desire no¬ 
 thing ? He has within his breast a source of great¬ 
 ness, self-denial, heroism. This is the secret spring of 
 
 1 Hist. ch. 37. init. 
 
Sec. I.] 
 
 THE MONASTIC RULE. 
 
 423 
 
 strenuous efforts and persevering toil, of the sacrifice 
 of fortune, friends, ease, reputation, happiness. There 
 is, it is true, a higher class of motives which will 
 be felt by the Saint; who will do from love what 
 all Christians, who act acceptably, do from faith. 
 And, moreover, the ordinary measures of charity 
 which Christians possess, suffice for securing such 
 respectable attention to religious duties as the rou¬ 
 tine necessities of the Church require. But if we 
 would raise an army of devoted men to resist the 
 world, to oppose sin and error, to relieve misery, 
 or to propagate the truth, we must be provided with 
 motives which keenly affect the many. Christian 
 love is too rare a gift, philanthropy is too weak a 
 material, for the occasion. Nor is an influence 
 to be found to suit our purpose, besides this solemn 
 conviction, which arises out of the very rudiments 
 
 »rinTiimn.n ~l lurti/ni—iyMWIin'~I m-l '1m *i r — - — — -■ — - -- ...... ..■!■« n<nn» .ir-« m^-inninuiv>.iniir»l*.l ■*”«***— 
 
 of Christian theology, and is taught by its most 
 primitive masters,—this sense of the awfulness of 
 
 JL ‘ 
 
 post-baptismal sin. It is in vain to look out for mis- 'N 
 sionaries for China or Africa, or evangelists for our 
 great towns, or Christian attendants on the sick, or 
 teachers of the ignorant, on such a scale of numbers 
 as the need requires, without the doctrine of Pur¬ 
 gatory. For thus the sins of youth are turned to I 
 account by the profitable penance of manhood; and 
 terrors, which the philosopher scorns in the indi¬ 
 vidual, become the benefactors and earn the grati¬ 
 tude of nations. 
 
 3. But there is one form of Penance which has 
 been more prevalent and uniform than any other, 
 out of which the forms just noticed have grown, or 
 on which they have been engrafted, the Monastic 
 Rule. In the first ages, the doctrine of the punish¬ 
 ments of sin, whether in this world or in the next, 
 was little called for. The rigid discipline of the in¬ 
 fant Church was the preventative of greater offences 
 and its persecutions the penance of their com- 
 
424 APPLICATION OP THE PIFTH TEST. [Chap. VIII. 
 
 mission; but when the Canons were relaxed and 
 confessorship ceased, then some substitute was 
 needed, and such was Monachism, being at once a 
 sort of continuation of primeval innocence, and a 
 school of self-chastisement. And, as it is a great 
 principle in economical and political science that 
 everything should be turned to account, and there 
 should be no waste, so, in the instance of Chris¬ 
 tianity, the penitential observances of individuals, 
 which were necessarily on a large scale as its pro¬ 
 fessors increased, took the form of works, whether 
 for the defence of the Church, or the spiritual and 
 temporal good of mankind. In no aspect of the 
 Divine system do we see more striking develop¬ 
 ments than in the successive fortunes of Mona¬ 
 chism. 
 
 Little did the youth Antony foresee, when he 
 set off to fight the evil one in the wilderness, what 
 a sublime and various history he was opening, a 
 history which had its first developments even in his 
 own lifetime. He was himself a hermit in the 
 desert; but when others followed his example, he 
 was obliged to give them guidance, and thus he 
 found himself, by degrees, at the head of a large 
 family of solitaries, five thousand of whom were 
 scattered in the district of Nitria alone. He lived 
 to see a second stage in the development; the huts 
 in which they lived were brought together, some¬ 
 times round a church, and a sort of subordinate 
 community, or college, formed among certain indi¬ 
 viduals of their number. St. Pachomius was the 
 first who imposed a general rule of discipline upon 
 the brethren, gave them a common dress, and set 
 before them the objects to which the religious life 
 was dedicated. Manual labour, study, devotion, 
 bodily mortification, were now their peculiarities; 
 and the institution, thus defined, spread and estab¬ 
 lished through Eastern and Western Christendom. 
 
 The penitential character of Monachism is not 
 
THE MONASTIC RULE, 
 
 425 
 
 Sec. I.] 
 
 prominent in St. Antony, though it is distinctly 
 noticed by Pliny in his description of the Essenes 
 of the Dead Sea, who anticipated the monastic life 
 at the rise of Christianity. In St. Basil, however, 
 it becomes a distinguishing feature;—so much so 
 that the monastic profession was made a disqualifi¬ 
 cation for the pastoral office, 1 and in theory involved 
 an absolute separation from mankind; though in 
 St. Basil’s, as well as St. Antony’s disciples, it 
 performed the office of resisting heresy. 
 
 Next, the monasteries, which in their ecclesiasti¬ 
 cal capacity had been at first separate churches I 
 under a Presbyter or Abbot, became schools for the 
 education of the clergy. 2 ^ 
 
 Centuries past, and after many extravagant 
 shapes of the institution, and much wildness and 
 insubordination in its members, a new development 
 took place under St. Benedict. Devising and digest¬ 
 ing the provisions of St. Antony, St. Pachomius, 
 and St. Basil, he bound together his monks by a 
 perpetual vow, brought them into the cloister, 
 united the separate convents into one Order, 3 and 
 added objects of an ecclesiastical and political na¬ 
 ture to that of personal edification. Of these 
 objects, agriculture seemed to St. Benedict himself 
 of first importance; but in a very short time it was 
 superseded by study and education, and the monas¬ 
 teries of the following centuries became the schools 
 and libraries, and the monks the chroniclers and 
 copyists, of a dark period. Centuries later, the 
 Benedictine Order was divided into separate Con¬ 
 gregations, and propagated in separate monastic 
 societies. The Congregation of Cluni was the most 
 celebrated of the former; and of the latter, the 
 hermit order of the Camaldoli and the agricultural 
 Cistercians. 
 
 1 Gieseler, vol. ii. p. 288. 2 Ibicl. p. 279. 
 
 3 Or rather his successors, as St. Benedict of Aniene, were the 
 founders of the Order; but minute accuracy on these points is unneces¬ 
 sary in a mere sketch of the history. 
 
426 APPLICATION OF THE FIFTH TEST. [Chap. VIII. 
 
 Both a unity and an originality are observable 
 in the successive phases under which Monachism 
 has shown itself; while its developments bring it 
 more and more into the ecclesiastical system, and 
 subordinate it to the governing power, they are 
 true to their first idea,\and spring fresh and fresh 
 from the parent stock, which from time immemorial 
 had thriven in Syria and Egypt. The sheepskin 
 and desert of St. Antony did but revive “the 
 mantle ” 1 and the mountain of the first Carmelite, 
 and St. Basil’s penitential exercises had already 
 been practised by the Therapeutse. In like manner 
 the Congregational principle, which is ascribed to 
 St. Benedict, had been anticipated by St. Antony 
 and St. Fachomius; and after centuries of disorder, 
 another function of early Monachism, for which 
 there had been little call for centuries, the defence 
 of Catholic truth, was exercised with singular success 
 by the rival orders of Dominicans and Franciscans. 
 
 St. Benedict had come,.as if to preserve a prin¬ 
 ciple of civilization, and a refuge for learning, at a 
 time when the old framework of society was 
 falling, and new political creations were taking 
 their place. And when the young intellect within 
 them began to stir, and a change of another kind 
 discovered itself, then appeared St. Francis and St. 
 Dominic to teach and chastise it; and in proportion 
 as Monachism assumed this public office, so did 
 the principle of penance, which had been the chief 
 characteristic of its earlier forms, hold a less pro¬ 
 minent place. The Tertiaries indeed, or members 
 of the third order of St. Francis and St. Dominic, 
 were penitents; but the friar himself, instead of a 
 penitent, was made a priest, and was allowed to 
 quit cloister. Nay, they assumed the character of 
 what may be called an Ecumenical Order, as being 
 supported by begging, not by endowments, and 
 
 1 firjXwrriQ , 2 Kings ii. Sept. vid. also, “ They wandered about in 
 sheepskins and goatskins.” Hob. xi. 37. 
 
Sec. I.] THE MONASTIC RULE. 427 
 
 being under the jurisdiction, not of the local Bishop, 
 but of the Holy See. The Dominicans too came 
 forward especially as a learned body, and as en¬ 
 trusted with the office of preaching, at a time when 
 the mind of Europe seemed to be developing into 
 infidelity. They filled the chairs at the Univer¬ 
 sities, while the strength of the Franciscans lay 
 among the lower orders. 
 
 At length, in the last era of ecclesiastical revolu¬ 
 tion, another principle of early Monachism, which 
 had been but partially developed, was brought out 
 into singular prominence in the history of the 
 Jesuits. “ Obedience,” said an ancient abbot, “ is a 
 monk’s service, with which he shall be heard in 
 prayer, and shall stand with confidence by the 
 Crucified, for so the Lord came to the cross, being 
 made obedient even unto death ;” 1 but it was re¬ 
 served for modern times to furnish the perfect illus¬ 
 tration of this virtue, and to receive the full bless¬ 
 ing which follows it. The great Society, which 
 bears no earthly name, still more secular in its 
 organization, and still more simply dependent on 
 the See of St. Peter, has been still more distin¬ 
 guished than any Order before it for the rule of 
 obedience, while it has compensated the danger of 
 its free intercourse with the world by its scientific 
 treatment of devotional exercises. The hermitage, 
 the cloister, the inquisitor, and the friar were suited 
 to other states of society; with the Jesuits, as well 
 as with the religious Communities, which are their 
 juniors, usefulness, secular and religious, literature, 
 education, the confessional, preaching, the oversight 
 of the poor, missions, the care of the sick, have been 
 chief objects of attention; great cities have been 
 the scene of operation: bodily austerities and 
 the ceremonial of devotion have been made of but 
 secondary importance. Yet it may fairly be ques¬ 
 tioned, whether, in an intellectual age, when free- 
 
 1 Rosweyde. V. P. p. 618. 
 
428 
 
 APPLICATION OF THE SIXTH TEST [Chap. VIII. 
 
 dom both of thought and of action is so dearly 
 prized, a greater penance can be devised for the 
 soldier of Christ than the absolute surrender of S 
 judgment and will to the command of another. 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 APPLICATION OF THE SIXTH TEST OF FIDELITY IN 
 
 DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 It is the general pretext of heretics that they are 
 but serving and protecting Christianity by their 
 
 9 ' . -■ ■— ■■ ly .i n ■ M mwTyi* ' i l l, i . .i. Miy .i i ■ ' I lM*ln 
 
 innovations; and it is their charge against what 
 by this time we may surely call the Catholic Church, 
 that her successive definitions of doctrine have but 
 overlaid and obscured it. That is, they assume, 
 what we have no wish to denv, that a true develop- 
 ment is that which is conservative of its original, 
 and a corruption is that which tends to its . de¬ 
 traction. This has already been set down as a 
 Sixth Test, discriminative of a development from 
 a corruption, and must now be applied to the 
 Catholic doctrines ; though this Essay has so far 
 exceeded its proposed limits, that both reader and 
 writer may well be weary, and may content them¬ 
 selves with a brief consideration of the portions of 
 the subject which remain. 
 
 It has been observed already 1 that a strict corre¬ 
 spondence between the various members of a de¬ 
 velopment, and those of the doctrine from which it 
 is derived, is more than we have any right to expect. 
 The bodily structure of a grown man is not merely 
 that of a magnified boy; he differs from what he 
 was in his make and proportions; still manhood is 
 the perfection of boyhood, adding something of its 
 own, yet keeping what it finds. u Nihil novum ” 
 says Yincentius, u proferatur in senibus , cpuocl non 
 in pueris jam antea latitaverit ” This character of 
 
 j 
 
Sec. II.] 
 
 OF FIDELITY IN DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 429 
 
 addition ,—that is, of a change which is in one sense 
 real and perceptible, yet without loss or reversal 
 of what was before, but, on the contrary, protective 
 and confirmative of it,—in many respects and in a 
 special way belongs to Christianity. 
 
 1. If we take the simplest and most general view 
 of its history, as existing in an individual mind, or 
 in the Church at large, we shall see in it an instance 
 of this peculiarity. It is the birth of something 
 virtually new, because latent in what was before. 
 We know that no temper of mind is acceptable in 
 the Divine Presence but love; it is love which makes 
 Christian fear differ from servile dread, and true 
 faith differ from the faith of devils; yet in the 
 beginning of the religious life, fear is the prominent 
 evangelical grace, and love is but latent in fear, and 
 has in course of time to be developed out of what 
 seems its contradictory. Then, when it is developed, 
 it takes that prominent place which fear held before, 
 yet protecting not superseding it. Love is added, 
 not fear removed, and the mind is but perfected in 
 grace by what seems a revolution. “ They that sow 
 in tears, reap in joy; 77 yet afterwards still they are 
 “sorrowful, 77 though “ alway rejoicing. 77 
 
 And so was it with the Church at large. She 
 started with suffering, which turned to victory; but 
 when she was set free from the house of her prison, 
 she did not quit it so much as turn it into a cell. 
 Meekness inherited the earth; strength came forth 
 from weakness; the poor made many rich; yet 
 meekness and poverty remained. The rulers of 
 the world were Monks, when they could not be 
 Martyrs. 
 
 2. Immediately on the overthrow of the heathen 
 power, two movements simultaneously ran through 
 the world from East to West, as quickly as the 
 lightning in the prophecy, a development of worship 
 and of asceticism. Hence, while the world’s first 
 reproach in heathen times had been that Christi- 
 
430 APPLICATION OF THE SIXTH TEST [Chap. VIII. 
 
 anity was a dark malevolent magic, its second has 
 been that it is a joyous carnal paganism;—accord¬ 
 ing to that saying, “We have piped unto you, and 
 ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, 
 and ye have not lamented. For John came neither 
 eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a devil. 
 The son of man came eating and drinking, and they 
 say, Behold a man gluttonous and a winebibber, a 
 friend of publicans and sinners.” Yet our Lord 
 too was u a man of sorrows” all the while, but 
 i softened His austerity by His gracious gentleness. 
 
 3. The like characteristic attends also on the 
 mystery of His Incarnation. He was first God and 
 He became man; but Eutyches and heretics of his 
 school refused to admit that He was man, lest they 
 should deny that He was God. In consequence the 
 Catholic Fathers are frequent and unanimous in 
 their asseverations, that “the Word” had become 
 flesh, not to His loss, but by an addition. Each 
 Nature is distinct, but the created Nature lives in 
 and by the Eternal. “ Non amittendo quod erat , 
 sed sumendo quod non erat” is the Church’s princi¬ 
 ple. And hence, though the course of development, 
 as was observed in a former Chapter, has been to 
 bring into prominence the divine aspect of our 
 Lord’s mediation, this has been attended by even a 
 more open manifestation of the doctrine of His 
 atoning sufferings. The passion of our Lord is one 
 of the most imperative and engrossing subjects of 
 Catholic teaching. It is the great topic of medita¬ 
 tions and prayers; it is brought into continual 
 remembrance by the sign of the Cross; it is preached 
 to the world in the Crucifix; it is variously honoured 
 by the many houses of prayer, and associations of 
 religious men, and pious institutions and under¬ 
 takings, which in some way or other are placed 
 under the name and the shadow of Jesus, or the 
 Saviour, or the Redeemer, or His Cross, or His 
 Passion, or His sacred Heart. 
 
Sec. II.] 
 
 OF FIDELITY IN DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 431 
 
 4. Here a singular development may be men¬ 
 tioned of the doctrine of the Cross, which some 
 have thought so contrary to its original meaning, 1 
 as to be a manifest corruption; I mean the intro¬ 
 duction of the Sign of the meek Jesus into the 
 armies of men, and the use of an emblem of peace 
 as a protection in battle. If light has no commu¬ 
 nion with darkness, or Christ with Belial, what has 
 He to do with Moloch, who would not call down 
 fire on His enemies, and came not to destroy but to 
 save? Yet this seeming anomaly is but one instance 
 of a great law which is seen in developments gene¬ 
 rally, that changes which appear at first sight to 
 contradict that out of which they grew, are really 
 its protection or illustration. Our Lord Him¬ 
 self is represented in the Prophets as a comba¬ 
 tant inflicting wounds while He received them, 
 as coming from Bozrah with dyed garments, 
 sprinkled and red in His apparel with the blood of 
 His enemies; and, whereas no war is lawful but 
 what is just, it surely beseems that they who are 
 engaged in so dreadful a commission as that of 
 taking away life at the price of their own, should 
 at least have the support of His Presence, and fight 
 under the mystical influence of His Name, who re¬ 
 deemed His elect as a combatant by the Blood of 
 Atonement, with the slaughter of His foes, the sud¬ 
 den overthrow of the Jews, and the slow and awful 
 fall of the Pagan Empire. And if the wars of 
 Christian nations have often been unjust, this is a 
 reason against much more than the use of religious 
 symbols by the parties who engage in them, though 
 the pretence of religion may increase the sin. 
 
 5. The same rule of development has been ob¬ 
 served in respect of the doctrine of the Blessed 
 Trinity. It is the objection of the School of So- 
 cinus, that belief in the Trinity is destructive of any 
 true maintenance of the Divine Unity, however 
 
 1 Supr. p. 65. 
 
432 APPLICATION OP THE SIXTH TEST [Chap. VIII. 
 
 strongly the latter may be professed; but Petavius, 
 as we have seen, 1 sets it down as one especial re¬ 
 commendation of the Catholic doctrine, that it sub¬ 
 serves that original truth which at first sight it 
 does but obscure and compromise. 
 
 6. M. Guizot has contrasted the consistency of 
 the Church of'Rome with the inconsistency of its 
 heretical opponents in the points which came into 
 controversy between them. u The Reformers are 
 told,’ 7 he says, u 4 You provoke licentiousness, you 
 produce it; but yet when you discover it, you wish to 
 constrain and repress it. And how do you repress 
 it? By the most hard and violent means,—you 
 persecute heresy too, by virtue of an illegitimate 
 authority.’ These reproaches much embarrassed 
 the Reformers. When the multitude of different 
 sects was charged against them, instead of acknow¬ 
 ledging the legitimacy of their free development, 
 they sought to anathematize dissenters, were an¬ 
 noyed by their existence, and sought some apology 
 for it. And when the dominant party amongst the 
 Reformers were reproached with persecution, not by 
 their enemies, but by the children of the Reforma¬ 
 tion ; when the sects which they anathematized ex¬ 
 claimed, 4 We only do what you did; we separate 
 ourselves from you, as you separated yourselves 
 from Rome,’ they were still more embarrassed, and 
 too frequently their only reply was an increase of 
 severity. The reason of their inconsistency is, that 
 the religious revolution of the sixteenth century had 
 never ascended to the first cause, it had never de¬ 
 scende d to the ultimate consequences of its work. 
 T he r ights and the claims of tradition have not been 
 reconciled with those of liberty; and the cause of 
 this must undoubtedly be sought in the fact that 
 the Reformation did not fully comprehend and ac¬ 
 cept either its own principles or effects.” 
 
 With this inconsistency he contrasts the harino- 
 
 1 Snpr. p. 60. 
 
Sec. IT.] OF FIDELITY IN DEVELOPMENT. 433 
 
 nious completeness and the decision of the Roman 
 Catholic theology. u The adversaries of the Refor¬ 
 mation,” he says, u knew very well what they were 
 about, and what they required; they could point to 
 their first principles, and boldly admit all the conse¬ 
 quences that might result from them. No govern¬ 
 ment was ever more consistent and systematic than 
 that of the Romish Church. In fact, the Court of 
 Rome was much more accomodating, yielded much 
 more than the Reformers; hut in principle it much 
 more completely adopted its own system, and main¬ 
 tained a much more consistent conduct. There is 
 an immense power in this full confidence of what is 
 done; this perfect knowledge of what is required; 
 this complete and rational adaptation of a system 
 and a creed.” Then he goes on to the history of 
 the Society of Jesus in illustration. u Everything,” 
 he says, a was unfavourable to the Jesuits, both for¬ 
 tune and appearances; neither practical sense which 
 requires success, nor the imagination which looks 
 for splendour, were gratified by their destiny. Still 
 it is certain that they possessed the elements of 
 greatness; a grand idea is attached to their name, 
 to their influence, and to their history. Why? be- 
 I cause they worked from fixed principles, which they 
 fully and clearly understood, and the tendency of 
 1 which they entirely comprehended. In the Refor- 
 \ mation, on the contrary, when the event surpassed 
 its conception, something incomplete, inconsequent, 
 and narrow has remained, which has placed the 
 conquerors themselves in a state of rational and 
 philosophical inferiority, the influence of which has 
 occasionally been felt in events, lhe conflict of 
 the new spiritual order of things against the old, 
 is, I think, the weak side of the Reformation.” 1 
 
 7. This representation of the consistency of the 
 Catholic system will be found to be true, even in re¬ 
 spect of those peculiarities of it, which have been 
 
 J Hist. Ear. Civil, pp. 394—398. 
 
 2 F 
 
434 APPLICATION OF THE SIXTH TEST. [Chap. VIII. 
 
 considered by Protestants most open to tlie charge 
 of corruption and innovation. It is maintained, 
 for instance, that the veneration paid to Images in 
 the Catholic Church directly contradicts the com¬ 
 mand of Scripture, and the usage of the primitive 
 ages. As to primitive usage, that part of the 
 subject was incidentally observed upon in a forego¬ 
 ing Chapter; here I will make one remark on the 
 argument from Scripture. 
 
 It may be reasonably questioned, then, whether 
 the Commandment which stands second in our 
 Decalogue, on which the prohibition of Images is 
 principally grounded, was intended for more than 
 temporary observance in the letter. So far is cer¬ 
 tain, that none could surpass the Jews in its literal 
 observance; yet this did not save them from the 
 punishments attached to the violation of it. If this 
 be so, the literal observance is not its true and 
 \ evangelical import. 
 
 u When the generation to come of your children 
 shall rise up after you,” says their inspired law¬ 
 giver, u and the stranger that shall come from a 
 far land shall say, when they see the plagues of 
 that land, and its sicknesses which the Lord hath 
 laid upon it; and that the whole land thereof is 
 brimstone, and salt, and burning, that it is not 
 sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein, . . 
 even all nations shall say, Wherefore hath the 
 Lord done this unto this land? What meaneth 
 the heat of this great anger? Then men shall say, 
 Because they have forsaken the covenants of the 
 Lord God of their fathers, which He made with 
 them when He brought them forth out of the land 
 of Egypt; for they went and served other gods, 
 and worshipped them, gods whom they knew not, 
 and whom He had not ‘given them.” Now the 
 Jews of our Lord’s day did not keep this covenant, 
 for they incurred the penalty; yet they kept the 
 letter of the Commandment rigidly, and were 
 
Sec, II.] 
 
 THE WORSHIP OF IMAGES. 
 
 435 
 
 known among the heathen far and wide for their 
 devotion to the “ Lord God of their fathers who 
 brought them out of the land of Egypt,” and for 
 their abhorrence of the u gods whom He had not 
 given them.” If then adherence to the letter was no 
 protection to the Jews, departure from the letter 
 may be no guilt in Christians. 
 
 It should be observed, moreover, that there cer¬ 
 tainly is a difference between the two covenants^ 
 in their respective view of symbols of t he Al- 
 nnghty. In the Old, it was blasphemy to represent 
 Him under “ the similitude of a calf that eateth 
 hay;” in the New, the Third Person of the Holy 
 Trinity has signified His Presence by the appear¬ 
 ance of a Dove, and the Second Person has pre¬ 
 sented His sacred Humanity for worship under the / 
 name of the Lamb. 
 
 It follows that, if the letter of the Decalogue is 
 but partially binding on Christians, it is as jus¬ 
 tifiable, in setting it before persons under instruc¬ 
 tion, to omit such parts as do not apply to them, 
 as, when we quote passages from the Pentateuch 
 in Sermons or Lectures generally, to pass over verses 
 which refer simply to the temporal promises or the 
 ceremonial law, which we are accustomed to do 
 without any intention or appearance of dealing 
 irreverently with the sacred text. 
 
 8. It has been anxiously asked, whether the 
 honours paid to St. Mary, which have grown out 
 of devotion to her Almighty Lord and Son, do not, 
 in fact, tend to weaken that devotion; and whether, 
 from the nature of the case, it is possible so to exalt 
 a creature without withdrawing the heart from the 
 Creator. 
 
 In addition to what has been said on this sub¬ 
 ject in this Chapter and the foregoing, I observe 
 that the question is one of fact, not of presumption 
 or conjecture. The abstract lawfulness of the ho¬ 
 nours paid to St, Mary, and their distinction in 
 
436 APPLICATION OF THE SIXTH TEST. [Chap. VIII. 
 
 
 theory from the incommunicable worship paid to 
 God, have already been insisted on; but here the 
 question turns upon their practicability or expedi¬ 
 ence, which must be determined by the fact whe¬ 
 ther they are practicable, and whether they have 
 been found to be expedient. 
 
 Here I observe, first, that to those who admit 
 the authority of the Council of Ephesus the ques¬ 
 tion is in no slight degree answered by its sanction 
 of the Ozotokoq, or u Mother of God,” as a title of 
 St. Mary, and that in order to protect the doctrine 
 of the Incarnation, and to preserve the faith of 
 Catholics from a specious Humanitarianism. And 
 if Ave take a survey of Europe at least, we shall find 
 that those religious communions which are charac¬ 
 terized by the observance of St. Mary, are not 
 the Churches Avhich have ceased to adore her 
 Eternal Son, but such as have renounced that ob¬ 
 servance. The regard for His glory, which Avas 
 professed in that keen jealousy of her exaltation, 
 has not been supported by the event. They Avho 
 Avere accused of worshipping a creature in His 
 stead, still Avorship Him; their accusers, who hoped 
 to worship Him so purely, Avhere obstacles to the 
 development of their principles have been removed, 
 have ceased to worship Him altogether. 
 
 Next, it must be observed, that the tone of the 
 devotion paid to St. Mary is altogether distinct from 
 that Avhich is paid to Her Eternal Son, and to the 
 Holy Trinity, as Ave shall certainly alloAV on in¬ 
 spection of the Catholic services. The supreme and 
 true Avorship paid to the Almighty As severe, pro¬ 
 found, awful. Christ is addressed as true God, 
 Avhile He is true Man; as our Creator and Judge, 
 Avhile He is most loving, tender, and gracious. On 
 the other hand, towards St. Mary the language em¬ 
 ployed is affectionate and ardent, as toAvards a mere 
 child of Adam; though subdued, as coming from 
 her sinful kindred. Hoav different, for instance, is 
 
Sec. II.] THE WORSHIP OF ST. MARY. 437 
 
 the tone of the Dies Irce from that of the Stabat 
 Mater. In the “ Tristis et afflicta Mater Unigeniti,” 
 in the u Mater fons amoris,” the u Sancta Mater,” 
 the u Virgo virginum praeclara Mihi jam non sis 
 amara, Poenas mecum divide,” the “Fac me vere 
 tecum here,” we have an expression of the feelings 
 with which we regard one who is a creature and a 
 mere human being; but in the u Rex tremendse 
 majestatis qui salvandos salvas gratis, salva me 
 Fons pietatis,” the u Ne me perdas ilia die,” the 
 u Juste judex ultionis, donum fac remissionis,” the 
 u Oro supplex et acclinis, cor contritum quasi cinis,” 
 the u Pie Jesu Domine, dona eis requiem,” we hear 
 the voice of the creature raised in hope and love, 
 yet in deep awe to his Creator, Infinite Benefactor, 
 and Judge. Or again, how distinct is the language 
 of the Breviary Services on the Festival of Pente¬ 
 cost, or of the Holy Trinity, from the language of 
 the Services for the Assumption! How indescribably 
 majestic, solemn, and soothing is the u Veni Creator 
 Spiritus,” the u Altissimi donum Dei, Fons vivus, 
 ignis, charitas,” or the “ Vera et una Trinitas, una 
 et summa Deitas, sancta et una Deitas,” the u Spes 
 nostra, salus nostra, honor noster, 0 beata Trinitas,” 
 the u Charitas Pater, gratia Filius, communicatio 
 Spiritus Sanctus, 0 beata Trinitas;” u Libera nos, 
 salva nos, vivifica nos, 0 beata Trinitas!” How 
 gentle, on the contrary, how full of sympathy and 
 affection, how stirring and animating, in the Office 
 for the Assumption, is the u Virgo prudentissima, 
 quo progrederis, quasi aurora valde rutilans? filia 
 Sion, tota formosa et suavis es, pulcra ut luna, 
 electa ut sol;” the “ Sicut dies verni circumdabant 
 earn flores rosarum, et lilia convallium ;” the 
 u Maria Virgo assumpta est ad aethereum thalamum 
 in quo Rex regum stellato sedet solio;” and the 
 “Gaudent Angeli, laudantes benedicunt Dominum.” 
 Or again, the Antiphon, the u Ad te clamamus 
 exules filii Hevae, ad te suspiramus gementes et 
 
438 APPLICATION OF THE SIXTH TEST. [Chap. VIII. 
 
 ( 
 
 s 
 
 flentes in hac lacrymarum valle,” and u Eia ergo, 
 advocata nostra, illos tuos misericordes oculos ad 
 nos eonverte,” and u 0 clemens, 0 pia, 0 dulcis 
 Virgo Maria.’’ Or the Hymn, u Ave Maris stella, Dei 
 Mater alma,” and u Virgo singnlaris, inter omnes 
 mitis, nos culpis solutos, mites fac et castos.” 
 
 Not does it^avail to object that, in this contrast 
 of devotional exercises, the human will supplant 
 the Divine, from the infirmity of our nature; for, I 
 repeat, the question is one of fact, whether it has 
 " done so. And next it must be asked, whether the 
 character of Protestant devotion towards our Lord 
 has been that of worship at all; and not rather such 
 as we pay to an excellent human being;, that is, no 
 higher devotion than that which Catholics pay to 
 St. Mary, differing from it, however, m being 
 familiar, rude, and earthly. Carnal minds will 
 ever create a carnal worship for themselves; and to 
 forbid them the service of the Saints will have no 
 
 - - ** 
 
 tendency to teach them the worship of God. 
 
 Moreover, it must be observed, what is very im¬ 
 portant, that great and constant as is the devotion 
 which the Catholic pays to St. Mary, it has a special 
 province, and has far more connexion with the 
 public services and the festive aspect of Chris¬ 
 tianity, and with certain extraordinary offices which 
 she holds, than with what is strictly personal and 
 primary in religion. Two instances will serve in 
 illustration, and they are but samples of many 
 others. 1 
 
 (1.) For example, St. Ignatius’ Spiritual Exer¬ 
 cises are among the most approved methods of de¬ 
 votion in the modern Catholic Church; they pro¬ 
 ceed from one of the most celebrated of her Saints, 
 and have the praise of Popes, and of the most 
 
 1 E. g. the “De Imitatione,” the “Introduction a la Vie Devote,” 
 the “Spiritual Combat,” the “Anima Divota,” the “Paradisus Ani- 
 ma3,” the “ Regula Cleri,” the “Garden of the Soul,” the “Journal 
 of Meditations,” &c. &c. 
 
Sec. II.] 
 
 THE WORSHIP OF ST. MARY. 
 
 439 
 
 eminent masters of the spiritual life. A Bull of 
 Paul the Third’s u approves, praises, and sanctions 
 all and everything contained in themindulgences 
 are granted to the performance of them by the 
 same Pope, by Alexander the Seventh, and by 
 Benedict the Fourteenth. St. Carlo Borromeo de¬ 
 clared that he learned more from them than from 
 all other books together; St. Francis de Sales calls 
 it u a holy method of reformation,” and they are the 
 model on which all the extraordinary devotions of 
 religious men or bodies, and the course of missions, 
 are conducted. If there is a document which is the 
 authoritative exponent of the inward communion 
 of the members of the modern Catholic Church 
 with their God and Saviour, it is this work. 
 
 The Exercises are directed to the removal of ob¬ 
 stacles in the way of the soul’s receiving and pro¬ 
 fiting by the gifts of God. They undertake to effect 
 this in three ways; by removing all objects of this 
 world, and, as it were, bringing the soul u into the 
 solitude where God may speak to its heartnext, 
 by setting before it the ultimate end of man, and its 
 own deviations from it, the beauty of holiness, and 
 the pattern of Christ; and, lastly, by giving rules 
 for its correction. They consist of a course of 
 prayers, meditations, self-examinations, and the 
 like, which in its complete extent lasts thirty days; 
 and these are divided into three stages,—the Via 
 Purgativa , in which sin is the main subject of con¬ 
 sideration ; the Via Illuminativa , which is devoted to 
 the contemplation of our Lord’s passion, involving 
 the process of the determination of our calling; 
 and the Via Unitiva , in which we proceed to the 
 contemplation of our Lord’s resurrection and as¬ 
 cension. 
 
 No more need be added in order to introduce the 
 remark for which I have referred to these Exercises; 
 viz. that in a work so highly sanctioned, so Avidely 
 received, so intimately bearing upon the most 
 
440 APPLICATION OF THE SIXTH TEST. [Chap. VIII. 
 
 sacred points of personal religion, very slight men¬ 
 tion occurs of devotion to the Blessed Virgin, Mo¬ 
 ther of God. There is one mention of her in the 
 rule given for the first Prelude or preparation, in 
 which the person meditating is directed to consider 
 before him a church, or other place with Christ in 
 it, St. Mary, and whatever else is suitable to the 
 subject of meditation. Another in the third Exer¬ 
 cise, in which one of the three addresses is made to 
 our Lady, Christ’s Mother, requesting earnestly 
 u her intercession with her Sonto which is to be 
 added the Ave Mary. In the beginning of the 
 Second Week there is a form of offering ourselves to 
 God in the presence of u His infinite goodness,” and 
 with the witness of His u glorious Virgin Mother 
 Mary, and the whole host of heaven.” At the end 
 of the Meditation upon the Angel Gabriel’s mission 
 to St. Mary, an address to each Divine Person, “ the 
 Word Incarnate, and His Mother.” In the Medi¬ 
 tation upon the Two Standards, there is an address 
 prescribed to St. Mary to implore grace from her 
 Son through her, with an Ave Mary after it. In 
 the beginning of the Third Week one address is 
 prescribed to Christ; or three, if devotion incites, to 
 Mother, Son, and Father. In the description given 
 of three different modes of prayer we are told, if we 
 would imitate St. Mary, we must recommend our¬ 
 selves to her, as having power with her Son, and 
 presently the Ave Mary, Salve Regina , and other 
 forms are prescribed, as is usual after all prayers. 
 And this is about the whole of the devotion, if it 
 may so be called, which is recommended towards 
 St. Mary in the course of so many apparently as a 
 hundred and fifty Meditations, and those chiefly on 
 the events in our Lord’s earthly history as recorded 
 in Scripture. It would seem then that whatever 
 be the influence of the doctrines connected with 
 St. Mary and the Saints in the Catholic Church, at 
 least they do not impede or obscure the freest exer- 
 
Sec. II.] THE WORSHIP OF ST. MARY. 441 
 
 eise and the fullest manifestation of the devotional 
 feelings towards God and Christ. 
 
 (2.) The other instance which I give in illustra¬ 
 tion is of a different kind, but is suitable to mention. 
 About forty little books have come into my pos¬ 
 session which are in circulation among the laity at 
 Rome, and answer to the smaller publications of 
 the Christian Knowledge Society among ourselves. 
 They have been taken almost at hazard from a 
 number of such works, and are of various lengths; 
 some running to as many as two or three hundred 
 pages, others consisting of scarce a dozen. They 
 may be divided into four classes:—a third part con¬ 
 sists of books on practical subjects; another third 
 is upon the Incarnation and Passion; and of the 
 rest, the greater part are on St. Mary, and the re¬ 
 mainder upon the Sacraments, especially the Holy 
 Eucharist. There are two or three besides for the 
 use of Missions. 
 
 As to the first class, they are on such subjects 
 as the following: “ La Consolazione degl’ Infer- 
 
 mi;” “ Pensieri di una donna sul vestire moderno;” 
 “ L’Inferno Aperto;” “II Purgatorio Aperto;” St. 
 Alphonso Liguori’s “Massime eterne;” other Max¬ 
 ims by St. Francis de Sales for every day in the year; 
 “ Pratica per ben confessarsi e communicarsi;” and 
 the like. The titles of the second class are such as 
 a Gesu dalla Croce al cuore del peccatore;” “Novena 
 del Ss. Natale di G. C.;” “ Associazione pel culto 
 perpetuo del divin cuore;” “ Compendio della Pas- 
 sione.” In the third are u II Mese Eucaristico,” 
 and a few others. 
 
 These books are, as even the titles of some of 
 them show, in great measure made up of Medita¬ 
 tions ; such are the “ Breve e pie Meditazioni ” of 
 P. Crasset; the “ Meditazioni per ciascun giorno del 
 mese sulla Passione;” the “Meditazioni per l’ora 
 Eucaristica.” Now of these it may be said gene¬ 
 rally, that in the body of the Meditation St. Mary 
 
442 APPLICATION OF THE SIXTH TEST. [C HAP. VIII. 
 
 is hardly mentioned at all. For instance, the Medi¬ 
 tations on the Passion, a book used for distribution, 
 through two hundred and seventy-seven pages St. 
 Mary is not once named. In the Prayers for Mass 
 which are added, she is introduced, at the Conhteor, 
 thus, “ I pray the Virgin, the Angels, the Apostles, 
 and all the Saints of heaven to intercede,” &c; and in 
 the Preparation for Penance, she is once addressed, 
 after our Lord, as the Pefuge of sinners, with the 
 Saints and Guardian Angel; and at the end of the 
 Exercise there is a similar prayer of four lines for 
 the intercession of St. Mary, Angels and Saints of 
 heaven. In the Exercise for Communion, in a 
 prayer to our Lord, “ my only and infinite good, 
 my treasure, my life, my paradise, my all,” the 
 merits of the Saints are mentioned, “ especially of 
 St. Mary.” She is also mentioned with Angels and 
 Saints at the termination. 
 
 In a collection of “ Spiritual Lauds” for Missions, 
 of thirty-six Hymns, we find as many as eleven 
 addressed to St. Mary, or relating to her, among 
 which are translations of the Ave Maris Stella , and 
 the Stabat Mater , and the Salve Regina; and one is 
 on “the sinner’s reliance on Mary.” Five, however, 
 which are upon Repentance, are entirely engaged 
 upon the subjects of our Lord and sin, with the ex¬ 
 ception of an address to St. Mary at the end of two 
 of them. Seven others, upon sin, the Crucifixion, and 
 the Four Last Things, do not mention St. Mary’s 
 name. 
 
 To the Manual for the Perpetual Adoration of 
 the Divine Heart of Jesus there is appended one 
 chapter on the Immaculate Conception. 
 
 The most important of the first class is the French 
 Pensez y bien , which seems a favourite book, since 
 there are two translations of it, one of them being 
 the fifteenth edition; and it is used for distribution 
 in Missions. In these Reflections there is scarcely a 
 word said of St. Mary. At the end there is a Method 
 
Sec. II.] 
 
 THE WORSHIP OF ST. MARY. 
 
 443 
 
 of reciting the Crown of the Seven Dolours of the 
 Virgin Mary, which contains seven prayers to her, 
 and the Stabat Mater. 
 
 One of the longest books in the whole collection 
 is one consisting principally of Meditations on the 
 Holy Communion; under the title of the “ Euchar¬ 
 istic Month,” as already mentioned. In these “ Pre¬ 
 parations,” “ Aspirations,” &c., St. Mary is but once 
 mentioned, and that in a prayer addressed to our 
 Lord. 0 my sweetest Brother,” it says with an 
 allusion to the Canticles, “ who, being made Man 
 for my salvation, hast sucked the milk from the 
 virginal breast of her, who is my Mother by 
 grace,” &c. In a small “Instruction” given to 
 children on their first Communion, there are the 
 following questions and answers: “ Is our Lady in 
 the Host? No. Are the Angels and the Saints? No. 
 Why not? Because they have no place there.” 
 
 Of the fourth class, which relate to St. Mary, 
 such as “ Esercizio ad Onore dell’ addolorato cuore 
 di Maria,” “ Novena di Preparazione alia festa dell’ 
 Assunzione,” “Li Quindici Misteri del Santo Ro¬ 
 sario,” the principal is a remarkable book by Father 
 Segneri, called “ II divoto di Maria,” which re¬ 
 quires a distinct notice. It is far from the intention 
 of these remarks to deny the high place which the 
 Holy Virgin holds in the devotion of Catholics; I 
 am but bringing evidence of its not interfering with 
 that incommunicable and awful relation which exists 
 between the creature and the Creator; and, as the 
 following instances show, as far as they go, that 
 that relation is preserved inviolate by such honours 
 as are paid to St. Mary, so will this treatise throw 
 light upon the rationale by which the distinction is 
 preserved between the worship of God and the 
 honour of an exalted creature, and that in singular 
 accordance with the remarks made in the foregoing 
 Section. 
 
 This work of Segneri is written against persons 
 
444 APPLICATION OF THE SIXTH TEST. [Chap. VIII. 
 
 who continue in sins under pretence of their devo¬ 
 tion to St. Mary, and in consequence it is led to 
 draw out the idea which good Catholics have of 
 her. The idea is this, that she is absolutely the 
 first of created beings. Thus the treatise says, that 
 u God might have easily made a more beautiful fir¬ 
 mament, and a greener earth, but it was not pos¬ 
 sible to make a higher Mother than the Virgin 
 Mary; and in her formation there has been conferred 
 on mere creatures all the glory of which they are 
 capable, remaining mere creatures,” p. 34. And 
 as containing all created perfection, she has all those 
 attributes, which, as was noticed above, the Arians 
 and other heretics applied to our Lord, and which 
 the Church denied of Him as infinitely below His 
 Supreme Majesty. Thus she is “the created Idea in 
 the making of the world,” p. 20; “which, as being a 
 more exact copy of the Incarnate Idea than was 
 elsewhere to be found, was used as the original of 
 the rest of the creation,” p. 21. To her are applied 
 the words, “Ego primogenita prodivi ex ore Altis- 
 simi,” because she was predestinated in the Eternal 
 Mind coevally with the Incarnation of her Divine 
 Son. But to Him alone the title of Wisdom Incar¬ 
 nate is reserved, p. 25. Again, Christ is the First¬ 
 born by nature; the Virgin in a less sublime order, 
 viz. that of adoption. Again, if omnipotence is 
 ascribed to her, it is a participated omnipotence 
 (as she and all Saints have a participated sonship, 
 divinity, glory, holiness, and worship), and is ex¬ 
 plained by the words, “ Quod Deus imperio, tu prece, 
 Virgo, potes.” 
 
 Again, a special office is assigned to St. Mary, 
 that is, special as compared with all other Saints; 
 but it is marked off with the utmost precision from 
 that assigned to our Lord. Thus she is said to 
 have been made “the arbitress of every effect coming 
 from God’s mercy.” Because she is the Mother of 
 God, the salvation of mankind is said to be given to 
 
Sec, III.] THE WORSHIP OF ST. MARY. 445 
 
 her prayers “ de congruo , but de condigno it is due 
 only to the blood of the Redeemer,” p. 113. “Merit 
 is ascribed to Christ, and prayer to St. Mary,” 
 p. 162. In a word, the whole may be expressed in the 
 words, “ Unica spes mea Jesus, et post Jesum Virgo 
 Maria. Amen.” 
 
 Again, a distinct cultus is assigned to St. Mary, 
 but the reason of it is said to be the transcendant 
 dignity of her Son. “A particular cultus is due to 
 the Virgin beyond comparison greater than that 
 given to any other Saint, because her dignity be¬ 
 longs to another order, namely to one which in some 
 sense belongs to the order of the Hypostatic Union 
 itself, and is necessarily connected with it,” p. 41. 
 And “Her being the Mother of God is the source 
 of all the extraordinary honours due to Mary,” 
 p. 35. 
 
 It is remarkable that the “Monstra te esse Ma- 
 trum” is explained, p. 158, as “Show thyself to be 
 our Mother;” an interpretation which I think I have 
 found elsewhere in these Tracts, and also in a 
 book commonly used in religious houses, called the 
 “Journal of Meditations,” and elsewhere. 
 
 We have reason then to wait for clearer proof be¬ 
 fore we say that the cultus of St. Mary obscures the 
 divine glory of her Son. And so much may suffice 
 on the Sixth Test of fidelity in the development of 
 an idea, as applied to the Catholic system. 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 APPLICATION OF THE SEVENTH TEST OF FIDELITY 
 
 IN DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 We have arrived at length at the seventh and 
 last test, which was laid down in the beginning of 
 this Essay, for distinguishing the true development 
 
446 APPLICATION OF THE SEVENTH TEST [Chap. VIII. 
 
 of an idea from its corruptions and perversions. 
 A corruption is of brief duration, runs itself out 
 quickly, and ends in death. This general law gives 
 us additional assistance in determining the charac¬ 
 ter of the developments of Christianity commonly 
 called Catholic. 
 
 When we consider the succession of ages during 
 which the" Catholic system has endured, the severity 
 of the trials it has undergone^ the sudden and 
 wonderful changes without and within which have 
 befallen it, the incessant mental activity and the 
 intellectual gifts of its maintainers, the enthusiasm 
 which it has kindled, the fury of the controversies 
 which have been carried on among its professors, the 
 impetuosity of the assaults made upon it, the ever- 
 increasing responsibilities to which it has been 
 committed by the continuous development of its 
 dogmas, it is quite inconceivable that it should not 
 have been broken up and lost, were it a corruption 
 of Christianity. Yet it is still living, if there be a 
 living religion or philosophy in the world; vigorous, 
 energetic, persuasive, progressive; vires acquirit 
 eundo; it grows and is not overgrown; it spreads 
 out, yet is not enfeebled; it is ever germinating, 
 yet ever consistent with itself. Corruptions indeed 
 are to be found which sleep and are suspended; 
 and these are usually called “ decayssuch is not 
 the case with Catholicity; it does not sleep, it is not 
 stationary even now; and that its long series of 
 developments should be corruptions would be an 
 instance of sustained error, so novel, so unaccount- ! 
 able, so preternatural, as to be little short of a 
 miracle, and to rival those manifestations of Divine 
 Power which constitute the evidence of Christianity. 
 We sometimes view with surprise and awe the 
 degree of pain and disarrangement which the 
 human frame can undergo without succumbing; 
 yet at length there comes an end. Fevers have 
 their crisis, fatal or favourable; but this corruption 
 
Sec.. III.] OF FIDELITY IN DEVELOPMENT. 447 
 
 of a thousand years, if corruption it be, has ever 
 been growing nearer death, yet never reaching it, 
 and has been strengthened, not debilitated, by its 
 excesses. 
 
 For instance: when the Empire was converted, 
 
 ^ multitudes, 'as is very plain, came into the Church 
 on but partially religious motives, and with habits 
 and opinions infected with the false worships which 
 they had professedly abandoned. History shows 
 us what anxiety and effort it cost her rulers to keep 
 Paganism out of her pale. To this tendency must 
 be added the hazard which attended on the develop¬ 
 ment of the Catholic ritual, such as the honours 
 publicly assigned to Saints and Martyrs, the 
 formal veneration of their relics, and the usages 
 and observances which followed. What was to hin¬ 
 der the rise of a sort of refined Pantheism, and the 
 overthrow of dogmatism pari passu with the multi¬ 
 plication of heavenly intercessors and patrons? If 
 what is called in reproach u Saint-worship” resem¬ 
 bled the polytheism which it supplanted, or was a 
 corruption, how did Dogmatism survive? Dogma¬ 
 tism is a religion’s profession of its own reality as 
 contrasted with other systems; but polytheists are 
 liberals, and hold that one religion is as good as 
 another. Yet the theological system was develop¬ 
 ing and strengthening, as well as the monastic rule, 
 all the while the ritual was assimilating itself, as 
 Protestants say, to the Paganism of former ages. 
 
 Nor was the development of dogmatic theology, 
 which was then taking place, a silent and spon¬ 
 taneous process. It was wrought out and carried 
 through under the fiercest controversies, and amid 
 the most fearful risks. The Catholic faith was 
 placed in a succession of perils, and rocked to and 
 fro like a vessel at sea. Large portions of Christen¬ 
 dom were, one after another, in heresy or in schism; 
 the leading Churches and the most authoritative 
 schools fell from time to time into serious error; 
 
448 APPLICATION OF THE SEVENTH TEST [Chap. VIII. 
 
 three Popes, Liberius, Vigilius, Honorius, have 
 left to posterity the burden of their defence: but 
 these disorders were no interruption to the sus¬ 
 tained and steady march of the sacred science from 
 implicit belief to formal statement. The series 
 of ecclesiastical decisions, in which its progress 
 was ever and anon signified, alternate between the 
 one and the other side of the theological dogma 
 especially in question, as if fashioning it into shape 
 by opposite strokes. The controversy began in 
 Apollinaris, who confused or denied the Two Na¬ 
 tures in Christ, and was condemned by Pope 
 Damasus. A reaction followed, and Theodore of 
 Mopsuestia ventured to teach the doctrine of Two 
 Persons. After Nestorius had brought that he¬ 
 resy into public view, and had incurred in con¬ 
 sequence the anathema of the Third Ecumenical 
 Council, the current of controversy again shifted 
 its direction; for Eutyches appeared, maintained the 
 One Nature, and was condemned at Chalcedon. 
 Something however was still wanting to the over¬ 
 throw of the Nestorian doctrine of Two Persons, 
 and the Eifth Council was formally directed 
 against the writings of Theodore and his party. 
 Then followed the Monothelite heresy, which was a 
 revival of the Eutychian or Monophysite, and was 
 condemned in the Sixth. Lastly, Ne&torianism 
 once more showed itself in the Adoptionists of 
 Spain, and gave occasion to the great Council of 
 Frankfort. Any one false step would have thrown 
 the whole theory of the doctrine into irretrievable 
 confusion; but it was as if some one individual \ 
 and perspicacious intellect, to speak humanly, ruled \ 
 the theological discussion from first to last. That } 
 in the long course of centuries, and in spite of 
 the failure, in points of detail, of the most gifted 
 Fathers and Saints, the Church thus wrought out 
 the one and only consistent theory which can be 
 taken on the great doctrine in dispute, proves how 
 
Sec. III.] OF FIDELITY IN DEVELOPMENT. 449 
 
 clear, simple, and exact her vision of that doctrine 
 was. But it proves more than this. Is it not 
 utterly incredible, that with this thorough compre¬ 
 hension of so great a mystery, as far as the human 
 mind can know it, she should be at that very 
 time in the commission of the grossest errors in 
 ! religious worship, and should be hiding the God 
 and Mediator, whose Incarnation she contemplated 
 with so clear an intellect, behind a crowd of idols ? 
 
 The integrity of the Catholic developments is 
 still more evident when they are viewed in contrast 
 with the history of other doctrinal systems. Philo¬ 
 sophies and religions of the world have each its 
 day, and are parts of a succession. They supplant 
 and are in turn supplanted. But the Catholic reli¬ 
 gion alone has had no limits; it alone has ever been 
 greater than the emergence, and can do what others 
 cannot do. If it were a falsehood, or a corruption, 
 like the systems of men, it would be weak as they 
 are; whereas it is able even to impart to them a 
 strength which they have not, and it uses them for 
 its own purposes, and locates them in its own terri¬ 
 tory. The Church can extract good from evil, or 
 at least gets no harm from it. She inherits the 
 promise made to the disciples, that they should 
 take up serpents, and, if they drank any deadly 
 thing, it should not hurt them. When evil has 
 clung to her, and the barbarian people have looked 
 on with curiosity or in malice, till she should have 
 swollen or fallen down suddenly, she has shaken 
 the venomous beast into the fire, and felt no harm. 
 
 Eusebius has set before us this attribute of Ca¬ 
 tholicism in a passage in his history. u These 
 attempts,” he says, speaking of the acts of the 
 enemy, “did not long avail him, Truth ever con¬ 
 solidating itself, and, as time goes on, shining into 
 broader day. For, while the devices of adversaries 
 were extinguished at once, undone by their very 
 impetuosity,—one heresy after another presenting 
 
 2 G 
 
450 APPLICATION OF THE SEVENTH TEST [Chap. VIII. 
 
 % 
 
 its own novelty, the former specimens ever dis¬ 
 solving and wasting variously in manifold and 
 multiform shapes,—the brightness of the Catholic 
 and only true Church went forward increasing and 
 enlarging, yet ever in the same things, and in the 
 same way, beaming on the whole race of Greeks 
 and barbarians with the awfulness, and simplicity, 
 and nobleness, and sobriety, and purity of its divine 
 polity and philosophy. Thus the calumny against 
 our whole creed died with its day, and there con¬ 
 tinued alone our Discipline, sovereign among all, 
 and acknowledged to be pre-eminent in awfulness, 
 sobriety, and divine and philosophical doctrines; so 
 that no one of this day dares to cast any base re¬ 
 proach upon our faith, nor any such calumny, such 
 as it was once usual for our enemies to use. 771 
 
 The Psalmist says, “We went through tire and 
 water ; 77 nor is it possible to imagine trials fiercer or 
 more various than those from which Catholicism has 
 come forth uninjured, as out of the Egyptian sea or 
 the Babylonian furnace. First of all were the bitter 
 persecutions of the Pagan Empire in the early 
 centuries; then its sudden conversion, the liberty 
 of Christian worship, the development of the cultus 
 sanctorum , and the reception of Monachism into 
 the ecclesiastical system. Then came the irruption 
 of the barbarians; and then occupation of the orbis 
 terrarum , first from the North, then by the Saracens 
 from the South. Meanwhile the anxious and pro¬ 
 tracted controversy concerning the Incarnation 
 hung like some terrible disease upon the faith of 
 the Church. Then came the time of thick darkness; 
 and afterwards two great struggles, one with the 
 material power, the other with the intellect, of the 
 world, terminating in the ecclesiastical monarchy, 
 and in the theology of the schools. And lastly came 
 the great changes consequent upon the contro¬ 
 versies of the sixteenth century. Is it conceivable 
 1 Euseb. Hist. iv. 7, ap. Church of the Fathers, p. 285. 
 
Sec. III.] 
 
 OF FIDELITY IN DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 451 
 
 that any one of those heresies, with which eccle¬ 
 siastical history abounds, should have gone through 
 a hundredth part of these trials, yet have come out of 
 them so nearly what it was before, as Catholicism 
 has done ? Could such a theology as Arianism have 
 lasted through the scholastic contest ? or Montanism 
 have borne the possession of the world, without com¬ 
 ing to a crisis, and failing? or could the imbecility 
 of the Manichean system, as a religion, have escaped 
 exposure, had it been brought into conflict with the 
 barbarians of the Empire, or the feudal system ? 
 
 A similar contrast discovers itself in the effects 
 and fortunes of certain influential principles or 
 usages, which have both been introduced into the 
 Catholic system, and are seen in operation else¬ 
 where. When a system really is corrupt, powerful 
 agents, when applied to it, do but develope that 
 corruption, and brine it the more speedily to an 
 end. They stimulate it preternaturally; it puts 
 forth its strength, and dies in some memorable act. 
 Very different has been the history of Catholicism, 
 when it has committed itself to such formidable 
 influences. It has borne, and can bear, principles 
 or doctrines, which in other systems of religion 
 quickly degenerate into fanaticism or infidelity. 
 This might be shown at great length in the history 
 of the Aristotelic philosophy within and without 
 the Church; or in the history of Monachism, or of 
 Mysticism;—not that there has not been at first a 
 conflict between these powerful and unruly elements 
 and the Divine System into which they were enter¬ 
 ing, but that it ended in the victory of Catholicism. 
 T he theol ogy of St. Thomas, nay of the Church of \ 
 his perio d, is built on t hat vei y A5itot3B55i7 which 
 the. early Fathers denounce as the source of all mis¬ 
 belief, and in particular of the Arlan and Monophy- / 
 site heresies. The exercises of asceticism, which 
 are so graceful in St. Antony, so touching in St. 
 Basil, and so awful in St. Germanus, do but become 
 
 2 Gr 2 
 
452 APPLICATION OF THE SEVENTH TEST. [Chap. VIII. 
 
 a melancholy and gloomy superstition even in the 
 most pious persons who are cut off from Catholic 
 communion. And while the highest devotion in the 
 Church is the mystical, and contemplation has been 
 the token of the most singularly favoured Saints, we 
 need not look deeply into the history of modern 
 sects, for evidence of the excesses in conduct, or the 
 errors in doctrine, to which mystics have been led, 
 who have boasted of their possession of reformed 
 truth, and have rejected what they called the cor¬ 
 ruptions of Catholicism. 
 
 It is true, there have been seasons when, from the 
 operation of external or internal causes, the Church 
 has been thrown into what was almost a state 
 of deliq uium: but her wonderful revivals, while 
 
 it y ■ J 
 
 the world was triumphing over her, is a further 
 evidence of the absence of corruption, in the 
 system of doctrine and worship into which she has 
 developed. I f corr uption be an incipient disor- 
 
 X "*• 1 - mmm n..j l j ..J n ■ lt/i i : —.gf—ml wr-ft T ir t ir rr- r in nit r-|¥i ii -i-f-i— 
 
 ganization, surely an abrupt and absolute recurrence 
 
 CJ *—»— WrnritnMttdMWB' •*- , 
 
 to such a state, alter an interval during which it 
 
 1 * -i 1 ^ -1 • 
 
 lias ceased to be, is even less conceivable than its 
 sustained existence. Now this is the case with the 
 revivals I speak of. After violent exertion men 
 are exhausted and fall asleep; they awake the same 
 as before, refreshed by the temporary cessation of 
 their activity; and such has been the slumber and 
 such the restoration of the Church. She pauses in 
 her course, and almost suspends her functions; she 
 rises again, and she is herself once more; all things 
 are in their place and ready for action. Doctrine is 
 where it was, and usage, and precedence, and prin¬ 
 ciple, and policy; there may be changes, but they 
 are consolidations or adaptations; all is unequivocal 
 and determinate, with an identity which there is no 
 disputing. Indeed it is one of the most popular 
 charges against the Catholic Church at this very 
 time, that she is u incorrigible;”—change she cannot, 
 if we listen to St. Athanasius or St. Leo; change 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 Sec. IIL] 
 
 453 
 
 wh e never will, if we believe the contro versialist or 
 alarmist of the present day. 
 
 s • • • • * • 
 
 Such were the thoughts concerning the “Bles¬ 
 sed Vision of Peace,” of one whose long-continued 
 petition had been that the Most Merciful would 
 not despise the work of His own Hands, nor leave 
 him to himself;—while yet his eyes were dim, 
 and his breast laden, and he could but employ 
 Reason in the things of Faith. And now, dear 
 Reader, time is short, eternity is long. Put not 
 from you what you have here found; regard it not 
 as mere matter of present controversy; set not out 
 resolved to refute it, and looking about for the best 
 way of doing so; seduce not yourself with the 
 imagination that it comes of disappointment, or 
 disgust, or restlessness, or wounded feeling, or 
 undue sensibility, or other weakness. Wrap not 
 yourself round in the associations of years past; 
 nor determine that to be truth which you wish 
 to be so, nor make an idol of cherished anticipa¬ 
 tions. Time is short, eternity is long. 
 
 Nunc dimittis servum tuum, Domine, 
 
 Secundum verbum tuum in pace: 
 
 Quia viderunt oculi mei salutare tuum. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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