LIT 
 
 I'BRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OP 
 CAiJKMNIA 
 
 -4- 
 
 j 
 
THE 
 
 OXFORD DIVINES 
 
 NOT MEMBERS OF THE CHURCH 
 OF ENGLAND. 
 
 BY 
 
 T. B. BROWNE, 
 
 OF MELLINGTON, 
 AUTHOR OF " THOUGHTS OF THE TIMES.' 
 
 I persuade myself that I shall plainly shew, that the most vehe- 
 ment accusers are the greatest offenders, and that they are indeed, 
 at this time, the greatest schismatics who make the way to heaven 
 narrower, the yoke of Christ heavier, the differences of faith 
 greater, the conditions of ecclesiastical communion harder and 
 stricter, than they were made at the beginning by Christ and his 
 apostles : they who talk of unity, but aim at tyranny, and will 
 have peace with none but with their slaves and vassals. 
 
 Chillingworth. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED FOR 
 
 LONGMAN, ORME, BROWN, GREEN, & LONGMANS, 
 
 PATERNOSTER-ROW. 
 
 1839. 
 
^Pdxdon : 
 Printed by A. Spottiswoode, 
 New-Street-Square. 
 
SXsaob 
 
 St 
 
 OXFORD DIVINES 
 
 NOT MEMBERS OF THE CHURCH OF 
 ENGLAND. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 It would seem, on looking at the history of the 
 Church of Christ in various ages, that real zeal for 
 true religion has rarely with the multitude endured 
 long. Energies, which might have done much if 
 rightly directed, have not seldom been abused and 
 wasted in disseminating errors which had little but 
 their novelty to recommend them : often the aus- 
 terity of one generation has provoked licentiousness 
 in the next ; and, at the present time, there is cer- 
 tainly some danger, lest the religious zeal, which, in 
 this country, has hitherto favourably characterised 
 the nineteenth century, should be diverted from its 
 legitimate office of purifying the heart and mind, 
 
 B 056 
 
into an exaggerated estimate of the importance 
 of outward things, ordinances, forms, and cere- 
 monies, ecclesiastical traditions, priestly authority 
 and power. 
 
 There is nothing surprising in this. Men awakened 
 to a sense of religion are naturally anxious to 
 know their real state : the more obvious and scrip- 
 tural mode of attaining this knowledge, by the ex- 
 amination of their own hearts, is at all times a hard 
 task, in which, above all others, we are apt to 
 deceive ourselves ; for " the kingdom of God," says 
 our Saviour, M cometh not with observation" (words 
 surely not to be restricted merely to the first 
 preaching # of the Gospel, but descriptive also of the 
 workings of divine grace in each individual Christian 
 soul) ; and therefore it is that men cling in their 
 perplexity to those visible and external symbols, 
 according to Scripture and reason, typical only of 
 the necessary distinction between the spiritual and 
 carnal mind ; but, according to their superstitious 
 fears, aided by the artifices and half-assertions of 
 ambitious priests, at length identified or inseparably 
 united with, what, as signs only, they can but doubt- 
 fully and occasionally shadow out and declare. 
 
 A religion, then, which should promise boldly and 
 undoubtingly, and impose on its followers many 
 ordinances and observances to distinguish them 
 from others, is little likely, from its peculiar apt- 
 
itude to human weakness, to want adherents ; and 
 this is precisely the character of Popery, and the 
 probable cause of its continued success, and of its 
 recent revival amongst ourselves, at first sight so 
 strangely at variance with the presumed spirit of 
 inquiry, and the so-called philosophy of our times. 
 
 That Popery has decidedly increased among us, 
 the number of Catholic chapels lately built and 
 still building in all parts of the kingdom clearly 
 proves; but a variety of it under a new and more 
 insidious form, and therefore more dangerous, and 
 difficult to combat, has raised its head in the Church 
 of England itself, in the very bosom of that Uni- 
 versity of Oxford which has always advanced the 
 loudest pretensions to superior orthodoxy. 
 
 It is proposed in the following pages to examine 
 the peculiar doctrines of this sect, as developed in 
 a work of one of its most distinguished advocates, 
 viz. " Lectures on the Prophetical Office of the 
 Church, viewed relatively to Romanism and popular 
 Protestantism,'' by the Rev. J. H. Newman.* As 
 the word " sect" will be objected to, I wish to 
 premise that I do not use it with any intention to 
 give offence, but because no outward division of 
 
 * The edition of Mr. Newman's book which I have used is 
 the first ; I am not aware that the second differs from it in 
 any material point. 
 
 B 2 
 
Christians can possibly be entitled to the exclusive, 
 though many may to the joint use of its correlative, 
 " church," certainly an ambiguous term, and pro- 
 bably the source of much error and presumption. 
 Before, therefore, proceeding further, it will be ad- 
 visable to endeavour to ascertain the meaning 
 attached to the word church in Scripture and our 
 own Articles, and afterwards, as far as possible, to 
 use it throughout in no sense not warranted by 
 their joint authority. 
 
 As this is the very question discussed by Hooker 
 at the commencement of the third book of his 
 Ecclesiastical Polity, it will be preferable, on every 
 ground, to use, in stating it, the language of that 
 great writer, whose opinions no Christian, of what- 
 ever denomination, will treat with disrespect. 
 
 " That Church of Christ which we properly term 
 his body mystical, can be but one ; neither can that 
 one be sensibly discerned by any man, inasmuch as 
 the parts thereof are some in heaven already with 
 Christ, and the rest that are on earth (albeit their 
 natural persons be visible), we do not discern under 
 this property, whereby they are truly and infallibly 
 of that body. Only our minds, by intellectual 
 conceit, are able to apprehend that such a real body 
 there is, a body collective, because it containeth a 
 huge multitude ; a body mystical, because the mys- 
 tery of their conjunction is removed altogether 
 
from sense. Whatsoever we read in Scripture con- 
 cerning the endless love and the saving mercy 
 which God showeth towards his Church, the only- 
 proper subject thereof is this church. Concerning 
 this flock it is that our Lord and Saviour hath pro- 
 mised, * I give unto them eternal life ; and they 
 shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out 
 of my hand.'* They who are of this society have 
 such marks and notes of distinction from all others, 
 as are not object unto our sense ; only unto God, 
 who seeth their hearts and understandeth all their 
 secret cogitations; unto him they are clear and 
 manifest. All men knew Nathanael to be an Is- 
 raelite ; but our Saviour, piercing deeper, giveth 
 further testimony of him than men could have 
 done with such certainty as he did, * Behold an 
 Israelite indeed in whom is no guile.' j If we 
 profess, as Peter did;}:, that we love the Lord, and 
 profess it in the hearing of men, charity is prone to 
 believe all things, and therefore charitable men are 
 likely to think we do so, as long as they see no 
 proof to the contrary. But that our love is sound 
 and sincere ; that it cometh from ' a pure heart, and 
 a good conscience, and a faith unfeigned' , who 
 can pronounce, saving only the Searcher of all 
 
 * John, x. 28. t John, i. 47. 
 
 f John, xxi. 15. ] Tim. i. 5. 
 
 B 3 
 
men's hearts, who alone intuitively doth know in 
 this kind who are His? 
 
 "And as those everlasting promises of love, mercy, 
 and blessedness, belong to the mystical Church, 
 even so, on the other side, when we read of any duty 
 which the Church of God is bound unto, the Church 
 whom this doth concern is a sensibly known com- 
 pany. And this visible Church, in like sort, is but 
 one, continued from the first beginning of the world 
 to the last end. Which company being divided into 
 two moieties, the one before, the other since the 
 coming of Christ ; that part, which since the coming 
 of Christ, partly hath embraced, and partly shall here- 
 after embrace, the Christian religion, we term by a 
 more proper name the Church of Christ. And there- 
 fore the apostle affirmeth plainly of all men Christian, 
 that, be they Jews or Gentiles, bond or free, they are 
 all incorporated into one company, they all make 
 but one body. The unity of which visible body and 
 Church of Christ consisteth in that uniformity which 
 all several persons thereunto belonging have, by 
 reason of that one Lord, whose servants they all 
 profess themselves, that one Faith, which they all 
 acknowledge, that one Baptism, wherewith they are 
 all initiated. 
 
 "The visible Church of Jesus Christ is therefore 
 one, in outward profession of those things which 
 
supernaturally appertain to the very essence of 
 Christianity, and are necessarily required in every 
 particular Christian man." 
 
 The meaning attached to the word Church in 
 Scripture sufficiently appears from this passage of 
 Hooker, with which the nineteenth article of that 
 portion of the visible Church, called the Church of 
 England, precisely agrees : 
 
 " The visible Church of Christ is a congregation 
 of faithful men, in the which the pure word of God 
 is preached, and the sacraments be duly ministered, 
 according to Christ's ordinance, in all those things 
 that of necessity are requisite to the same." 
 
 The conclusion necessarily flowing from these 
 premises, is thus honestly and fearlessly given by 
 Hooker : 
 
 "As for those virtues that belong unto moral 
 righteousness and honesty of life, we do not mention 
 them, because they are not proper unto Christian 
 men as they are Christians, but do concern them as 
 they are men. True it is, the want of these virtues 
 excludeth from salvation : so doth much more the 
 absence of inward belief of heart ; so doth despair 
 and lack of hope ; so emptiness of Christian love 
 and charity. But we speak now of the visible Church, 
 whose children are signed with this mark, < one 
 Lord, one Faith, one Baptism/ In whomsoever 
 
these things are, the Church doth acknowledge them 
 for her children ; them only she holdeth for aliens 
 and strangers in whom these things are not found. 
 For want of these it is that Saracens, Jews, and 
 Infidels are excluded out of the bounds of the 
 Church. Others we may not deny to be of the 
 visible Church, as long as these things are not want- 
 ing in them. For apparent it is, that all men are of 
 necessity either Christians or not Christians. If by 
 external profession they be Christians, then are they 
 of the visible Church of Christ ; and Christians by 
 external profession they are all, whose mark of re- 
 cognisance hath in it those things which we have 
 mentioned, yea, although they be impious idolaters, 
 wicked heretics, persons excommunicable, yea, and 
 cast out for notorious improbity. Such, withal, we 
 deny not to be the imps and limbs of Satan, even as 
 long as they continue such. 
 
 " Is it then possible, that the selfsame men should 
 belong both to the synagogue of Satan and to the 
 Church of Jesus Christ ? Unto that Church which 
 is his mystical body, not possible ; because that body 
 consisteth of none but only true Israelites, true sons 
 of Abraham, true servants and saints of God. How- 
 beit of the visible body and Church of Jesus Christ, 
 those may be, and oftentimes are, in respect of the 
 main parts of their outward profession, who in regard 
 of their inward disposition of mind, yea, of external 
 
conversation, yea, even of some parts of their very 
 profession, are most worthily both hateful in the 
 sight of God himself, and in the eyes of the sounder 
 part of the visible Church most execrable. Our 
 Saviour therefore compareth the kingdom of Heaven 
 to a net*, whereunto all which cometh neither is 
 nor seemeth fish : his Church he compareth unto a 
 field, where tares, manifestly known and seen by all 
 men, do grow intermingled with good corn t, and 
 even so shall continue till the final consummation of 
 the world. God hath had ever, and ever shall have, 
 some Church visible upon earth." 
 
 Hooker then proceeds to maintain, consistently 
 with his argument, that even the idolatrous Jews 
 did not cease to become members of the visible 
 Church. It would appear, however, that there were 
 two kinds of Jewish idolaters the first consisting of 
 those who served strange gods only, and wholly for- 
 sook the Lord ; the second of those who combined 
 the worship of the Lord with that of idols, like Jehu, 
 who destroyed the worshippers of Baal, but departed 
 not from serving "the golden calves that were in 
 Bethel, and that were in Dan." J The first of these 
 having abandoned even outward profession, can in 
 no sense be considered members even of the visible 
 Church ; nor did Hooker, as I apprehend, so consider 
 them : but the second must ; otherwise Roman Ca- 
 
 * Matt. xiii. 47. t Ibld 24 - t 2 Kings, x. 29. 
 
10 
 
 tholics, as idolaters*, would be excluded from it; 
 and the promise of our Lord, that the gates of hell 
 should never prevail against his Church, would fail 
 of effect, inasmuch as there was a period, and that 
 not a brief one, when none can be proved wholly 
 free from idolatry. 
 
 " For lack," says Hooker, " of diligent observing 
 the difference, first, between the Church of God, 
 mystical and visible, then between the visible, sound, 
 and corrupted, sometimes more, sometimes less, the 
 oversights are neither few nor light that have been 
 committed." One, not assuredly the least important, 
 is that of Mr. Newman, when, as we have seen, 
 contrary to Scripture, contrary to the Articles of that 
 church which he professes, but, as will appear here- 
 
 * I am well aware that many will term this charge against 
 the Romanists very illiberal; the question is, whether it is just. 
 Few who have been at Rome can have avoided remarking the 
 celebrated statue of St. Peter in the church of that name, and 
 the numbers of all ranks who are constantly kneeling before it 
 and kissing it. A portion of one of the feet of the statue is 
 actually worn away by the impression of their lips. The wor- 
 shippers of Baal, as we learn from what the seven thousand a , 
 who in those days belonged to the mystical Church, did not do, 
 bowed the knee and kissed the idol, and therefore they are 
 called idolaters : the Roman Catholics, at Rome itself, the 
 very seat of their religion, and in its chiefest and most famous 
 temple, do the same. It would be violating truth to give a 
 different name to the same acts. 
 
 1 Kings, xix. 18, 
 
11 
 
 after, to which he does not really belong ; contrary 
 to the authority of an Anglican divine, whose judg- 
 ment has become proverbial, he calls the Church of 
 England, as contrasted with all Protestant churches 
 or sects dissenting from it, " the One Holy Spouse 
 of Christ, the Church Catholic, which in this coun- 
 try manifests herself in the Church, commonly so 
 called, as her representative." p. 58. 
 
 It can scarcely be necessary to say more in re- 
 futation of this monstrous position, but some con- 
 sequences flowing from it may be noticed. We ask, 
 then, 
 
 Is it impossible for any dissenters to be members 
 of the mystical Church? In other words, is it impos- 
 sible for any dissenters to be saved ? Bold as Mr. 
 Newman is, he will hardly venture to answer in the 
 affirmative. Yet this he must do, otherwise the 
 Church of England is not the " One Spouse of 
 Christ ; " for dissenters, not being heathen, to be- 
 come capable of salvation, must be members of the 
 mystical Church; and if of the mystical, much more 
 of the visible ; and therefore their different sects, 
 such of them, that is, as acknowledge " the same 
 Lord, the same Faith, and the same Baptism/' with 
 ourselves, are equally with us "churches, " or mem- 
 bers of the one Church, and ought rightly to be so 
 called. 
 
 But Mr. Newman, in this passage, makes no dis~ 
 
12 
 
 tinction between the mystical and visible Church. 
 H he is speaking of the mystical, it will follow, 
 from many passages of Scripture, that all members 
 of the Church of England, even those who die un- 
 repenting in the midst of their sins, must be saved, 
 a doctrine more impious and immoral than the 
 wildest Antinomians ever taught : if he intends the 
 visible Church only, he invites men to belong to it 
 who are members already. 
 
 Again, Mr. Newman admits Roman Catholics to 
 be members of the visible Church equally with the 
 Church of England, although differing from it in 
 very many and most material points. There are 
 some dissenters who differ from the Church of 
 England in no material point excepting episcopacy. 
 They may use indeed a different liturgy, but this 
 cannot be made the test of exclusion, for so also do 
 the Roman Catholics. It follows, then, that the 
 approving or disapproving of a particular form of 
 church government becomes the solitary test, 
 whereby we determine whether a man is a member 
 of the visible Church of Christ or not. The test of 
 " one Lord; one Faith, one Baptism, " is excluded, 
 and episcopacy substituted in its place. Is this 
 Christianity or superstition ? 
 
 But Mr. Newman will deny that dissenters have 
 the " same baptism " with the Church of England, 
 and allege the doctrine of apostolical succession 
 
13 
 
 in support of his denial. Superstition, however, will 
 still be found the real foundation of his system ; a 
 charge from which he has attempted in vain to de- 
 fend himself, as it would seem, with a certain internal 
 consciousness of its justice. 
 
 The doctrine of apostolical succession rests upon 
 an assumed analogy between the Jewish and 
 Christian priesthood, that, as Aaron and his descend- 
 ants, with the whole tribe of Levi, were set apart 
 for the ministry from the remainder of the Israelites, 
 who were forbidden to exercise the priestly office, 
 so in the Church of Christ, they who have received 
 episcopal ordination, are also set apart to preach 
 the Word and administer the sacraments, becoming 
 thereby only successors of the apostles ; and that 
 all who have received any other than episcopal 
 ordination, presuming to exercise the priestly office, 
 are guilty of the sin so signally punished in the 
 cases of Korah and Uzziah. 
 
 Now, on turning to Scripture for confirmation of 
 this supposed analogy, we find none. On the con- 
 trary, we find that preaching the Gospel, and ad- 
 ministering the sacraments, are forbidden to women 
 only, an exception which implies, that if it had been 
 intended that the prohibition should have extended 
 farther, it would have been, expressly mentioned, 
 for "expressio unius est exclusio alterius ;" and no 
 form of ordination is anywhere prescribed. It 
 
14 
 
 would appear, indeed, that all who had received the 
 Holy Ghost were at liberty to officiate as priests *, 
 although not expressly appointed by the apostles : 
 and with this supposition, the practice of lay bap- 
 tism t, admitted to have always prevailed in the 
 Church, strikingly agrees; for if laymen may baptize, 
 assuredly they may also preach ; since, with adult 
 converts, baptism must be preceded by Reaching. 
 
 Here, then, we have a decided failure in the sup- 
 posed analogy between episcopacy and the Jewish 
 priesthood ; first, in that all Israelites not of the 
 tribe of Levi were distinctly forbidden to enter the 
 ministry, whereas even a form of ordination is not 
 enjoined upon Christians ; and secondly, in the prac- 
 tice of lay baptism, a fact wholly irreconcileable 
 with the supposed necessity of episcopal ordination, 
 as an indispensable preliminary to the administra- 
 tion of the sacraments. 
 
 It will be conceded, however, that lay baptism is 
 only justifiable in extreme cases ; and that, though 
 ordination is nowhere in Scripture expressly en- 
 joined, still it is desirable on -many grounds, and, 
 according to the twenty-third article, imperative, 
 that among all divisions of Christians a body of 
 
 * 1 Peter, ii. 5. 
 
 j- Bp. Tomline states lay baptism to have prevailed for 
 several years in the Church of England. Theology, vol. ii. 
 p. 474. 
 
15 
 
 men should be set apart by some solemn religious 
 ceremony for the service of God. The question is, 
 whether it is not mere superstition to attach a pe- 
 culiar sanctity to episcopal, above any other form 
 of ordination. It might be answered at once, that 
 Christianity is essential Jy a spiritual and not a 
 formal religion ; that the outward forms which it 
 absolutely requires are two only, Baptism and the 
 Lord's Supper, and those of the simplest kind. 
 But the question is a formal one, and it will be 
 better to treat it strictly as such. Episcopal ordin- 
 ation is supposed to be peculiarly sacred, because 
 it is through the bishops of the Romish Church only 
 that a priest of the present day can trace his spi- 
 ritual descent from the apostles. Here the very point 
 at issue, which is a fact, is assumed. There is not 
 a priest in Christendom who can trace his spiritual 
 descent unbroken to the apostles. There is not a 
 priest in Christendom who can prove that there was 
 no irregularity in the ordination of any one of his 
 spiritual predecessors. And let it be remarked, that 
 any irregularity in the baptism or ordination of any 
 one bishop, (and who can doubt that in the dark 
 ages there were many irregularities in the baptizing 
 and ordaining of deacons, priests, and bishops,) 
 would vitiate subsequent ordinations to an extent 
 that cannot now be determined. Who will venture 
 to affirm that none have ever been admitted into 
 
16 
 
 the Church of England who had not received epis- 
 copal ordination ? Was not the very establishment 
 of the Church of England by Queen Elizabeth both 
 irregular and violent ? Besides, the theory of apos- 
 tolical succession turning upon an outward form, it 
 must be determined what inadvertencies, mistakes, 
 or irregularities, are sufficient or insufficient to ren- 
 der that form of none effect, which can be done 
 only by an infallible Church. 
 
 But this is not the only reason for esteeming 
 the formal theory of apostolical succession a " vain 
 deceit." In the Christian scheme, according to 
 the true and primary sense of the words, there is 
 not, and cannot be, either altar, priest, or sacrifice. 
 The last priest was Christ ; the last sacrifice was 
 his death for the sins of men ; and the last altar 
 was the cross of Calvary. According to the view 
 of Papists and Semi-Papists, there is no meaning 
 in the most significant miracle of the crucifixion, 
 the rending in twain of the veil of the temple. 
 In the New Testament, mention is made of va- 
 rious offices in the Church of Christ: we read of 
 apostles, prophets, evangelists, teachers, preachers, 
 stewards, presbyters or elders, bishops or overseers, 
 deacons or ministers; but of priests, as a select 
 body, never. On the other hand, the words priests 
 and priesthood are repeatedly applied to all true 
 believers, as offering up to God not a formal or 
 
17 
 
 outward, but a spiritual and inward sacrifice of their 
 own souls and bodies. Rome, indeed, with her 
 habitual superstitious presumption, has not only- 
 adopted from the Jewish dispensation, the words 
 priest and altar ; but to fill up the measure of her 
 impiety, has invented a sacrifice. There are in the 
 popish system two sacrifices : that of the mass, and 
 that of the Eucharist, the consecrated wafer, or 
 host, which means " the victim." To this cum- 
 brous fabric of superstition, measured with " the 
 line of confusion," and built up with " the stones of 
 emptiness," we oppose the plain words of the Bible, 
 " by one offering he hath perfected for ever them 
 that are sanctified." * It is obvious therefore, that 
 the theory of a formal apostolical succession is 
 needless, even if it could be proved, which, as we 
 have seen, is impossible ; inasmuch as such succes- 
 sors would have no office of absolute necessity to dis- 
 charge. Priests, or rather ministers, as such, have 
 no power ; rites and ceremonies, as such, have no 
 virtue. Faithful ministers of the Gospel are indeed 
 among God's most efficient servants, but their value 
 is determined by their fidelity. The holiest of all 
 rites, the sacraments of Baptism, and the Supper 
 of the Lord, are powerful means of grace, if we 
 u rightly, worthily, and with faith receive them t;" if 
 
 * Hebrews, x. 14. See Art. xxxi. 
 f Art. xxviii. 
 
 C 
 
18 
 
 we receive them otherwise, they serve only " to 
 kindle God's wrath against us." 
 
 Do we then deny apostolical succession ? No. 
 We distinguish the formal from the real succes- 
 sors of the apostles: the formal, such as Judas 
 Iscariot, called to be an apostle, by Christ himself, 
 and yet a castaway, as if to shew that all outward 
 forms are unavailing, though imposed by the holiest 
 hands ; and the real, who are to be found among all 
 denominations of true Christians ; ministers, who, 
 however, or by whomsoever ordained, lead a holy 
 and religious life, and preach the Gospel. 
 
 But the doctrine of apostolical succession main- 
 tained by the Oxford divines is not found in the 
 articles of the Church of England ; it is derived from 
 the writings of priests in various ages, naturally 
 desirous, by every means, to increase their own au- 
 thority and importance, and from certain passages 
 in the liturgy. Here, therefore, the question arises 
 whether, if the liturgy in certain passages shall be 
 found to add to or contradict the articles, the mem- 
 bers of the Church of England are bound to adhere 
 to the former or the latter ; whether, in fact, the 
 liturgy or the articles are the higher authority. 
 
 Taking the sixth article, that nothing is to be re- 
 quired of any man which cannot be proved from 
 Scripture, as a key to all the rest, and therefore in- 
 terpreting the articles to speak conditionally, not 
 absolutely, they may be considered on the whole 
 
19 
 
 consistent, and not contradictory to each other; 
 but the same rule of interpretation cannot with pro- 
 priety be applied to the liturgy. I should observe, 
 that I use the term liturgy, in its widest sense, as em- 
 bracing the whole ritual, forms of prayer and thanks- 
 giving, adopted by the Church of England. In the 
 ordination service then, we find the power of abso- 
 lution or forgiveness of sins, asserted in the most 
 express and positive manner to belong to every 
 priest of the church: "Whose sins thou dost for- 
 give, they are forgiven ; and whose sins thou dost 
 retain, they are retained." And yet, this high 
 power thus directly claimed, without condition or 
 qualification, in the very language of our Lord to his 
 inspired apostles, is limited in exercise to a solitary 
 instance in the visitation of the sick, and in that in- 
 stance so studiously guarded by the rubric, that in 
 fact it is, I believe, very rarely exercised. The ab- 
 solution indeed at the commencement of the church- 
 service claims the power, but has recourse to a 
 solecism to avoid its exercise. We should expect 
 to find it, if anywhere, in the communion service ; 
 it is not there ; it is not in the articles ; and it is 
 scarcely necessary to observe, that we have no war- 
 rant whatever from Scripture for extending it be- 
 yond those inspired men, who wrought miracles to 
 prove that they possessed it, or that its exercise 
 
 * Mark, xvi. 17. 
 C 2 
 
20 
 
 would naturally lead, and has led in the Romish 
 church, to the grossest superstition and the most 
 enormous abuses.* What then is the inference, but 
 that the general tenor of the liturgy, together with 
 the articles, tacitly condemn (I say tacitly, because 
 although the twenty-second article positively con- 
 demns the Romish doctrine of pardons, the thirty- 
 sixth says the book of consecration contains in it 
 nothing superstitious,) an unwarranted assumption 
 of power, confined to two insulated passages, and in 
 practice almost, if not altogether, dormant ! Can 
 then the liturgy be styled consistent with itself? 
 
 The liturgy also contradicts the articles, as in the 
 prayer after baptism in the baptismal service. 
 
 " We yield thee most hearty thanks, most mer- 
 ciful Father, that it hath pleased thee to regenerate 
 this infant with thy Holy Spirit, to receive him for 
 
 * No person at all acquainted with ecclesiastical history 
 can doubt, that in very many instances, absolution has been 
 improperly given, and improperly withheld; neither can it be 
 otherwise, unless priests possess the power of discerning men's 
 hearts. If it be said that such a power is communicated to them 
 at their ordination by the Holy Spirit, it is an assertion which 
 cannot be proved, and which facts contradict ; besides, such an 
 interposition of the Holy Spirit would be miraculous ; and if 
 priests have the power to work one miracle, there is no reason 
 why they should not be able to work another. Let them work 
 a miracle to prove that they can forgive sins, and, if we are 
 satisfied that it is not a forgery, we will believe them ; but not 
 till then. In the mean time their interpretations of certain 
 passages of Scripture would make Scripture contradict facts, 
 and therefore must be wrong. 
 
21 
 
 thine own child by adoption, and to incorporate him 
 into thy Holy Church. And humbly we beseech 
 thee to grant, that he being dead unto sin, and living 
 unto righteousness, and being buried with Christ in 
 his death, may crucify the old man, and utterly 
 abolish the whole body of sin ; and that as he is 
 made partaker of the death of thy Son, he may 
 also be partaker of his resurrection ; so that finally 
 with the residue of thy holy Church, he may be an 
 inheritor of thine everlasting kingdom through Jesus 
 Christ our Lord. Amen." 
 
 The articles are far from confounding regeneration 
 with baptism ; thus in the twenty-fifth article it is 
 said of sacraments, that " in such only as worthily 
 receive the same, they have a wholesome effect or 
 operation; " and in the twenty-seventh, of baptism, 
 that it is "a sign of regeneration, or new birth, 
 whereby, as by an instrument, they that receive 
 baptism rightly are grafted into the Church.'' Ac- 
 cording to the first sentence of the prayer, all are 
 regenerate by baptism, according to the articles 
 they only who receive it worthily or rightly, which 
 infants, being necessarily passive, cannot do. No 
 infants afford any evidence at the time that they do 
 so worthily receive it, and very many in their after 
 lives most ample evidence to the contrary. 
 
 To confound regeneration with baptism, is also to 
 confound the sign with the thing signified. 
 c 3 
 
22 
 
 Again, the expression in the catechism, that the 
 body and blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken 
 and received by the faithful in the Lord's supper," 
 although limited to " the faithful," is hardly recon- 
 cileable with the words of the twenty-eighth article; 
 " the body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in 
 the supper only after an heavenly and spiritual 
 manner." 
 
 The superior authority claimed for the articles, 
 not, indeed, as binding upon Christians unless sup- 
 ported by Scripture, but as declaratory of the doc- 
 trines of the Church of England, rests upon surer 
 ground than the inconsistencies and contradictions 
 of the liturgy. We must look to the respective 
 origin of both. The liturgy is a ritual, derived 
 chiefly from the Romanists, and necessarily there- 
 fore, in its original form tainted to a great degree 
 with their superstitions and heresies. It is not sur- 
 prising that in the revision which it underwent for 
 the purpose of adapting it to the use of the Church 
 of England, some weeds should have been left to 
 disfigure, what may be termed, on the whole, a fair 
 and fruitful garden, some errors should not have 
 been rooted out. There is a wide distinction also 
 between originating and adopting ; a man may as- 
 sent to an opinion already given, and yet if urged 
 to declare himself, the discrepancies between what 
 he had assented to and what he himself utters may 
 
23 
 
 be found neither few nor trivial. The liturgy was 
 for the most part adopted only by the Church of 
 England, the articles were originated, if not wholly 
 by Anglicans, at all events by their Protestant con- 
 temporaries. If then, in all cases where they shall 
 be found to differ, we esteem the articles a higher 
 authority than the liturgy, we follow, in endeavour- 
 ing to ascertain the opinions of a collective body, the 
 same reasonable and natural rule by which we are 
 guided in ascertaining the opinions of an individual. 
 
 Again, the liturgy is spread over a wide surface, 
 the articles are confined within a comparatively 
 brief space, and the probability of errors increases 
 with the multiplication of words. The language also 
 of a rule of faith,, such as the articles, is and ought 
 to be most studiously guarded ; in prayer remissness 
 is indeed inexcusable: ,yet the same scrupulous ba- 
 lancing of every word and sentence is hardly to be 
 expected. On this subject much more might be 
 said, but, perhaps, it will be sufficient to add, that 
 unqualified adhesion to the articles being required 
 as an indispensable requisite from every man on his 
 ordination as a minister of the Church of England, 
 can it be honest in any outwardly to continue mem- 
 bers of a communion whose doctrines they denounce, 
 after pledging themselves inviolably to maintain 
 them by their own most solemn act ? 
 
 We now proceed to the examination of Mr. New- 
 c 4 
 
24 
 
 man's book. He begins, pp. 1, 2., somewhat suspi- 
 ciously, with a condemnation of inquiry, which has 
 been so repeatedly and amply defended that it can 
 hardly be necessary to discuss it now. Some in- 
 quiry surely must, in every case, precede belief, or 
 there can be no security that we shall believe what 
 is true. Assent without inquiry usually springs 
 from indifference to truth ; men do not inquire be- 
 cause they feel no interest in the subject: whereas, 
 on the other hand, there can hardly be inquiry 
 which deserves the name, without some desire to 
 know the truth. The Bible expressly enjoins in- 
 quiry ; thus we are told to " search the Scriptures," 
 and to " be ready always to give an answer to every 
 man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in 
 you with meekness and fear" !* It will, perhaps, 
 be found that inquiry is commonly discouraged only 
 by those who have reason to dread it. Mr. Newman, 
 it appears, would have inquiry silenced by force : 
 pp. 5, 6. his complaint of being " reduced to the use 
 of argument," reminds us of Cruelty in the Old 
 Morality, 
 
 " If I might do what I list, 
 Not one of them all that should 'scape my fist." 
 
 Mr. Newman goes on to make many assertions, as 
 
 that " it is certain, from history, that the meaning 
 
 of the word Church was undisputed" (p. 4.); that the 
 
 * 1 Peter, iii. 15. 
 
25 
 
 liberty of private judgment is " a liberty to the 
 sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine ;" thus 
 giving an entirely new interpretation to the prophet 
 Jeremiah, xxxiv. 1 7. ; (p. 5.) ; that "Ignatius and Po- 
 ly carp enjoyed a primitive truth which the nineteenth 
 century has lost" (p. 9.). As Mr. Newman produces 
 no proof whatever in this place in support of any 
 of these assertions, it is not necessary for the present 
 to reply to them ; but no one can fail to remark how 
 easy it is to make them. 
 
 At p. 13. Mr. Newman speaks of "our divinely 
 framed system," leaving it in doubt whether he 
 means Christianity, which, indeed, is not a system 
 at all ; or the Church of England, which is not a 
 system either, and which can only be termed " di- 
 vinely framed," as one of the many visible members 
 of Christ's body, and not exclusively ; or the pecu- 
 liar sect to which he himself belongs. It may seem 
 trivial, but on consideration it will be found not so, 
 to remark, that here and elsewhere Mr. Newman 
 calls the Church of England " the Church," imply- 
 ing that its claims to be styled the Church of Christ 
 are superior to those of any other church, an 
 arrogant assumption, wholly unsupported by our 
 articles, and which cannot be justified without 
 infallibility. 
 
 We are enabled to appreciate the value of Mr. 
 Newman's historical assertions when we find him, 
 
26 
 
 at pages 14. and 16., styling Charles I. and Arch- 
 bishop Laud " martyrs," the first being most clearly 
 proved to have been faithless, and the second cruel ; 
 and he seems to consider that the conduct of Laud 
 may have been " most judicious and successful in 
 a religious point of view," but most unfavourable to 
 " the temporal aggrandisement of the Church." 
 Mr. Newman must not be permitted thus to misstate 
 the charge against Laud. Cutting off men's ears 
 cannot be termed a " religious " act. When St. 
 Peter cut off the ear of Malchus, our Lord did not 
 commend, but rebuke him ; " Put up again thy 
 sword into his place : for all they that take the 
 sword shall perish with the sword." If St. Peter 
 was wrong, Laud could not have been right. Neither 
 can he, with any propriety, be called " a martyr ;" 
 for, though we are far from justifying his execution, 
 he met with the death which all persecutors provoke. 
 At page 20. Mr. Newman admits that his system, 
 which he calls Via Media, " has never existed ex- 
 cept on paper ;" it is plain, therefore, on his own 
 shewing, that it is not the doctrine of the Church of 
 England. It cannot be the doctrine of those who 
 are called High-churchmen, for that has had always 
 a real existence ; still less is it that of the Latitudina- 
 rians, or of the Calvinists, and, if none of these, it 
 
 * Matt, xxvi. 52. 
 
will not be easy for its supporters to prove that it is 
 not a novelty, to a greater or less extent, 
 
 From p. 27. to the end of his introduction, Mr. 
 Newman assumes that revealed religion is " a 
 positive system," and this mistaken assumption is 
 probably one of the chief sources of his errors. We 
 are not called upon to prove a negative ; it is Mr. 
 Newman's duty to show that revelation is a system, 
 which he has not done : on the contrary, he admits 
 afterwards, at p. 109., that " little has actually been 
 revealed to us in a systematic way." Can he shew 
 that any thing has ? If the Bible were a system, 
 or religion a science, how could either be adapted, 
 as they are, to all classes of minds ? Superior at- 
 tainments in a science necessarily require superior 
 intellects ; but in scriptural knowledge, in an insight 
 into the true meaning of the word of God, how often 
 do we see that " God hath chosen the foolish things 
 of the world, to confound the wise " ! # " The natural 
 man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God ; 
 for they are foolishness unto him : neither can he 
 know them, because they are spiritually discerned."! 
 But to prostrate our reason, as Mr. Newman requires, 
 before traditions or systems of men, is to neglect the 
 talent which God has committed to us ; and, more- 
 over, an act of irreverence and impiety towards his 
 revealed word ; it is to treat it as insufficient and 
 
 * 1 Cor. i. 27. f 1 Cor. ii. 14. 
 
28 
 
 imperfect, and to raise things human to an equality 
 with things divine. Thus, to say that " no member 
 of the English church allows himself to build on 
 any other doctrine than that found in our book of 
 Common Prayer," (p. 28.), is to raise the Prayer- 
 book inconsistent and contradictory as in some 
 respects it is to a level, or rather to more than a 
 level, with the Bible ; nor is there less impiety, nor, 
 as we shall see, less absurdity, in accepting * all 
 greater matters of theology," because " the witness 
 of our great masters in their behalf is prominent 
 and concordant," rather than from the only fountain 
 of all truth. 
 
 The Bible," says Mr. Newman, (p. 34.) " is a 
 small book ; any one may possess it ; and every 
 one, unless he be very humble, will think he is able 
 to understand it." There is a looseness of ex- 
 pression here, which whether designed or not, must 
 not pass unnoticed. The question is, whether every 
 man may not understand enough of the Bible to 
 make him " wise unto salvation," not whether any 
 man may understand the whole Bible, which, as far 
 as I know, no one man has ever yet pretended to 
 do. Will Mr. Newman venture to say, that any 
 man who is a responsible agent and therefore of 
 sound mind, is incapable of understanding enough 
 of the Bible to make him "wise unto salvation"? 
 If so, why was " the Gospel preached to the poor"? 
 
29 
 
 If they could not understand it, it was a mere 
 mockery. The fact that the poor and ignorant not 
 less, but more frequently than the rich and learned, 
 were preached to by the inspired apostles, ne- 
 cessarily implies that they were capable of under- 
 standing the Gospel. The Scripture is express : 
 jf No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by 
 the Holy Ghost;" there is no exception in favour 
 of the rich or learned, but rather the reverse, and 
 certainly no limitation of the teaching of the Holy 
 Spirit, without which the Scripture cannot be un- 
 derstood, to them only. 
 
 But, notwithstanding the ambiguity of his lan- 
 guage, Mr. Newman will hardly dare to deny that 
 the poor and ignorant may understand enough of 
 the Bible to become "wise unto salvation;" we 
 proceed therefore to another insinuation in the 
 same page. Speaking of a standard of faith, he 
 says, " The Bible is this common ground of faith 
 among Protestants, and seems to have been ori- 
 ginally assumed in no small degree from a notion of 
 its simplicity in argument." Now, why does Mr. 
 Newman thus attempt to insinuate, after the manner 
 of Gibbon, what he knows very well he cannot 
 prove ? but he shall answer himself. " We learn 
 from the testimony of the early Church, that Scrip- 
 ture and Scripture only, is inspired. This explains 
 how it may be called in an especial manner the 
 
30 
 
 Testament or Will of our Lord and Saviour. Scrip- 
 ture has a gift which tradition has not ; it is fixed, 
 tangible, accessible, readily applicable, and besides 
 all this, perfectly true in all its parts and relations: 
 in a word it is a sacred text." (P. 346.) Here, then, 
 we have a reason why Protestants took, and con- 
 tinue to take, Scripture as the ground of faith, not 
 " from a notion of its simplicity in argument," but 
 because " Scripture only is inspired," and therefore 
 cannot err : but uninspired men may err and have 
 erred; therefore if we follow them we have no 
 security that we shall receive the truth. 
 
 It is true that " the Bible is not so written as to 
 force its meaning upon the reader :" if it were, it 
 would be contrary to the entire analogy of God's 
 dealings with men ; we contend only that all will 
 understand as much of it as is necessary for sal- 
 vation, who will seek the teaching of the Holy 
 Spirit, a truth which we derive from the Bible 
 itself, and not from any authority of men. When 
 Mr. Newman says (p. 34.), that " no two Protestant 
 sects can agree together whose interpretation of 
 the Bible is to be received," he expresses himself 
 with the same ambiguity which we have already 
 noticed. Protestant sects do agree to a very great 
 extent in their interpretation of the Bible, but no 
 two interpreters will probably be found to agree in 
 every particular, and it rests upon those who would 
 
31 
 
 insinuate that such agreement is necessary, to prove 
 as a first step that it is so ; secondly, to shew how 
 Protestants can agree in receiving any one inter- 
 pretation of Scripture as uniformly accurate, with- 
 out holding its author infallible ; and lastly to shew 
 how they can be justified in assuming what they 
 cannot prove the infallibility of any man or any 
 body of men. The Papists, with all their pre- 
 tensions to infallibility, have never, I think, ventured 
 to put forward an infallible interpretation of the 
 Bible. 
 
 The notion that " the Bible is the sole authori- 
 tative judge in controversies of faith " (p. 35.), will 
 hardly be maintained by reflecting Protestants, cer- 
 tainly not by Chillingworth # , who has clearly shewn 
 that it is inaccurate. The Bible is c < not a judge of 
 controversies, but a rule only, and the only rule for 
 Christians to judge them by," a witness or test of 
 the truth, which, as far as is necessary to salvation, 
 none will fail of understanding who adopt the means 
 which the Bible has itself laid down ; and the reason 
 why men have differed so widely as to its meaning, 
 is, not because Scripture is not clear enough, but 
 because they are not honest enough in interpreting 
 it. Neither do we say " that that is truth to each 
 which each thinks to be truth, provided he sincerely 
 and really thinks it ; " but that is truth which God 
 * Vol. i. 167. Oxford edition, 1833. 
 
32 
 
 has spoken, and that, God has promised that all 
 shall know, not absolutely indeed, for " now we see 
 through a glass darkly," but as far as is necessary, 
 who will use the means which He has appointed.* 
 
 That we must trust men, in religion as in all other 
 matters to a considerable extent, is undoubtedly 
 true ; without it we cannot live ; but it does not 
 therefore follow that we are to trust them absolutely, 
 and without reserve. If we do so, what security 
 can we have that our teachers will always be ac- 
 curate in facts, sound in judgment, and honest in 
 intention ? All must trust something ; none need or 
 ought to trust everything, for this is to make gods 
 of men. 
 
 At page 36. Mr. Newman says, " We do not con- 
 sider Scripture our sole informant in divine truths.'' 
 Yet he has admitted, as we have seen, that Scripture 
 only is inspired ; and it therefore rests with him to 
 shew, how, without inspiration, any men can be our 
 authoritative informants in divine truths. There are 
 no doctrines, independent of Scripture, which can be 
 distinctly traced on credible evidence to the apostles 
 themselves ; and if there were, we have no warrant 
 for holding the extrajudicial sayings, even of the 
 apostles, infallible. St. Paul says, of St. Peter, that 
 he " withstood him to the face, because he was to be 
 blamed. ,, f And, in the same epistle to the Gala- 
 Luke, xi. 10. t 2 Galat. ii. 11. 
 
33 
 
 tians, he says, " But, though we, or an angel from 
 heaven, preach any other Gospel unto you than that 
 which we have preached unto you, let him be ac- 
 cursed." (i. 8.) Nor is this all ; for those who assert 
 that there are any divine truths not derived from 
 Scripture must tell us what those truths are, and 
 how they know that they are divine. 
 
 Mr. Newman proceeds to dogmatise thus : " We 
 do confute them," that is, other Protestant sects or 
 churches, " with the weapon they have assumed as 
 their own, and we know we do ; and we are able to 
 convert others by means of it, though not them, 
 which proves its cogency in our use of it." Mr. 
 Newman forgets that it is just as easy for others to 
 say all this as for himself. His assertion, in the 
 same page, of the adoption, as it appears, for there 
 is no limitation, by all Protestant sects, " of the 
 latitudinarian notion, that one creed is as good as 
 another,'* is a further instance of that reckless in- 
 trepidity as to facts which has been already noticed. 
 
 It may be, as Mr. Newman says (p. 37.)> that Uni- 
 tarians profess to appeal to Scripture, but we cannot 
 allow that they receive it as conclusive. This point, 
 however, we shall have an opportunity of reverting 
 to. 
 
 Mr. Newman must have felt himself in great dis- 
 tress for an illustration of his hypothesis of tradition, 
 when he had recourse to the following (p. 39. ) : 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 " There is no explicit written law, for instance, simply 
 declaring murder to be a capital offence." The statute 
 9 Geo. IV. c. 31. s. 3. enacts that "Every person 
 convicted of murder, or of being an accessary before 
 the fact to murder, shall suffer death as a felon." 
 Murder has been a capital offence, by statute, 
 for centuries. The total failure of this illustration 
 signifies indeed nothing to the argument ; but it is 
 a specimen, which may not be wholly useless, of 
 Mr. Newman's accuracy. 
 
 It appears that Mr. Newman agrees with the 
 theory of tradition, which he has given at p. 40., 
 as that of the Romanists. " The Christian doctrine, 
 as it has proceeded from the mouth of the apostles, 
 is too varied and too minute in its details to be re- 
 duced to writing ;" and his argument in support of it 
 is also theirs. " To refuse to listen to tradition and 
 antiquity because we have a written word, is a 
 self-destructive course, inasmuch as that written 
 word is plainly proved to be such mainly by these 
 very informants which we reject as if to do honour 
 to it. It is to overthrow our premises with our con- 
 clusion. That which ascertains for us the divinity 
 of Scripture, may convey to us other articles of 
 faith also, unless Scripture has expressly deter- 
 mined in the negative." (P. 44.) 
 
 Now, in the first place, it is necessary to under- 
 stand clearly what Mr. Newman and the Romanists 
 
35 
 
 mean, which neither party seems very desirous that 
 we should do. Tradition, according to the quota- 
 tion from p. 40., is oral only ; and if it be meant to 
 insinuate that we receive the Scripture on oral 
 tradition, we unequivocally deny the fact. We do 
 receive Scripture on the authority, or rather on the 
 evidence, of antiquity, that is, of ancient writers, 
 though this is far from being our only ground ; " we 
 have also a more sure word of prophecy," and in- 
 ternal evidence, which last in the case of the Bible 
 is irresistible. But it does not follow, because we 
 receive Scripture in a great measure on the author- 
 ity of ancient writers, that is, because we admit 
 them as witnesses, to prove that they had the same 
 Scripture with ourselves, that we therefore must 
 admit them as authorities in divine truths. It is a 
 fact, not a doctrine, which we admit them to prove. 
 Every person, at all familiar with the subject of 
 evidence, is aware of the distinction between a wit- 
 ness to a fact, and a witness authorised to give his 
 opinion : there is a wide difference between I think 
 and I know. The evidence for the genuineness of 
 Scripture does not differ in kind from that for the 
 genuineness of any other ancient book, of the orations 
 of Cicero or the poems of Horace, for instance ; but 
 it differs most materially in degree, for Scripture is 
 supported by a weight of historical authorities which 
 no other ancient book has obtained. We reject the 
 d 2 
 
36 
 
 ancient writers as authorities in matters of doctrine, 
 for more reasons than because we have a written 
 word. We reject them because we have no ground 
 for holding any one of them to be inspired, because 
 they frequently differ from each other, from Scrip- 
 ture, and even from themselves : and to receive con- 
 flicting authorities is a " self-destructive course ; " 
 because, if we once admit any of them, we cannot 
 determine when and where to stop, and all are agreed 
 in maintaining that some limit there is and must be. 
 Lastly, we reject them because Scripture expressly 
 commands it : " Every word of God is pure : He is 
 a shield unto them that put their trust in him. Add 
 thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and 
 thou be found a liar." * 
 
 But Mr. Newman again furnishes us with an an- 
 swer to himself. " The most highly-gifted and re- 
 ligious persons are liable to error, and are not to be 
 implicitly trusted where they profess to be recording, 
 
 not a fact, but their own opinion. Christ 
 
 alone is the Author and Finisher of Faith in all its 
 senses ; His servants do but witness it, and their 
 statements are, then, only valuable when they are 
 testimonies, not deductions or conjectures." (P. 65.) 
 
 Neither is it accurate to say that " whatever ex- 
 planation the Protestant makes in behalf of the 
 preservation of the written word, will be applicable 
 
 * Prov. xxx. 5, 6. 
 
37 
 
 in the theory to the unwritten." (P. 46.) There is no 
 comparison between the credibility of an oral tra- 
 dition of very ancient date and that of the Bible. 
 In the case of the tradition, we have no means of 
 knowing that it was not in some degree varied by 
 each successive recipient, so that, for anything we 
 can tell, not even a shadow of a shade of the original 
 may remain to us. In the case of the Bible, the 
 impossibility of forgery is shown by internal evi- 
 dence ; by the fact, that the same Scriptures were 
 very early received by all Christians, and quoted by 
 many writers, living in many countries, at great 
 distances from each other, several of whom suffered 
 tortures and death rather than abjure them. That 
 the evidence for oral tradition might be much greater 
 than it is, is doubtless true, it could hardly be less ; 
 but we have nothing to do with what might be ; our 
 business is with what is. 
 
 It is, then, not by authority, but by reason, that 
 we know Scripture to be the word of God. What 
 is the language of our Lord in St. Luke, xii. 57., but 
 an appeal to private judgment? "Yea, and why 
 even of yourselves judge ye not what is right?'* 
 It is true, indeed, that to disparage reason is no new 
 thing ; the attacks may come from many and even 
 opposing quarters, just as men may maintain oppo- 
 site opinions, and yet neither party maintain the 
 truth. The language addressed long ago by Hooker 
 j) 3 
 
38 
 
 to a very different class of irrationalists, is equally 
 applicable to Mr. Newman and the Papists now. 
 
 " In vain it were to speak anything of God, but 
 that by reason men are able somewhat to judge of 
 that they hear, and by discourse to discern how con- 
 sonant it is to truth. 
 
 " Scripture indeed teaches things above nature, 
 things which our reason by itself could not reach 
 unto. Yet those things also we believe, knowing, 
 by reason that the Scripture is the word of God. 
 In the presence of Festus a Roman, and of King 
 Agrippa a Jew, St. Paul omitting the one, who 
 neither knew the Jews' religion, nor the books 
 whereby they were taught it, speaks unto the other 
 of things foreshewed by Moses and the prophets 
 and performed in Jesus Christ ; intending thereby 
 to prove himself so unjustly accused, that, unless his 
 judges did condemn both Moses and the prophets, 
 him they could not choose but acquit, who taught 
 only that fulfilled, which they so long since had fore- 
 told. His cause was easy to be discerned ; what 
 was done their eyes were witnesses ; what Moses 
 and the prophets did speak their books could quickly 
 shew; it was no hard thing for him to compare 
 them, which knew the one, and believed the other. 
 < King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets ? I know 
 thou dost/ The question is, how the books of the 
 prophets came to be credited of King Agrippa. For 
 
39 
 
 what with him did authorise the prophets, the like 
 with us doth cause the rest of the Scripture of God 
 to be of credit. 
 
 " Because we maintain that in Scripture we are 
 taught all things necessary unto salvation ; here- 
 upon, very childishly it is by some demanded, What 
 Scripture can teach us the sacred authority of the 
 Scripture, upon the knowledge whereof our whole 
 faith and salvation dependeth ? As though there 
 were any kind of science in the world which leadeth 
 men into knowledge without pre-supposing a number 
 of things already known. No science doth make 
 known the first principles whereon it buildeth, but 
 they are always either taken as plain and manifest 
 in themselves, or as proved and granted already, 
 some former knowledge having made them evident. 
 Scripture teacheth all supernatural revealed truth, 
 without the knowledge whereof salvation cannot be 
 obtained. * The main principle whereupon our be- 
 lief of all things therein contained dependeth, is, 
 that the Scriptures are the oracles of God himself. 
 This in itself we cannot say is evident. For then 
 all men that hear it would acknowledge it in heart, 
 as they do when they hear that ' every whole is 
 more than any part of that whole/ because this in 
 
 * I do not understand Hooker here to deny the possibility of 
 the salvation of the heathen ; but only of those to whom revela- 
 tion has been fairly offered, and who have wilfully rejected it. 
 D 4i 
 
40 
 
 itself is evident. The other we know that all do 
 not acknowledge when they hear it. There must 
 be therefore some former knowledge pre-supposed 
 which doth herein assure the hearts of all believers. 
 Scripture teacheth us that saving truth which God 
 hath discovered unto the world by revelation, and it 
 presumeth us taught otherwise that itself is divine 
 and sacred. 
 
 " The question then being by what means we 
 are taught this, some answer, that to learn it we 
 have no other way than only tradition ; as, namely, 
 that so we believe because both we from our pre- 
 decessors, and they from theirs, have so received. 
 But is this enough ? That which all men's ex- 
 perience teacheth them may not in anywise be 
 denied. And by experience we all know, that the 
 first outward motive leading men so to esteem of 
 the Scripture is the authority of God's Church. 
 For when we know the whole Church of God hath 
 that opinion of the Scripture, we judge it even at 
 the first an impudent thing for any man bred and 
 brought up in the Church to be of a contrary mind 
 without cause. Afterwards the more we bestow 
 our labour in reading or hearing the mysteries 
 thereof, the more we find that the thing itself doth 
 answer our received opinion concerning it. So that 
 the former inducement, prevailing somewhat with 
 us before, doth now much more prevail, when the 
 
41 
 
 very thing hath ministered farther reason. If in- 
 fidels or atheists chance at any time to call it in 
 question, this giveth us occasion to sift what reason 
 there is, whereby the testimony of the Church con- 
 cerning Scripture, and our own persuasion which 
 Scripture itself hath confirmed, may be proved a 
 truth infallible. In which case the ancient Fathers 
 being often constrained to shew what warrant they 
 had so much to rely upon the Scriptures, endea- 
 voured still to maintain the authority of the books 
 of God by arguments such as unbelievers themselves 
 must needs think reasonable, if they judged thereof 
 as they should. Neither is it a thing impossible or 
 greatly hard, even by such kind of proofs so to 
 manifest and clear that point, that no man living 
 shall be able to deny it, without denying some ap- 
 parent principle such as all men acknowledge to be 
 true. 
 
 " Wherefore, if I believe the Gospel, yet is reason 
 of singular use, for that it confirmeth me in this 
 my belief the more : if I do not as yet believe, 
 nevertheless to bring me to the number of believers, 
 except reason did somewhat help, and were an 
 instrument which. God doth use unto such pur- 
 poses, what should it boot to dispute with infidels 
 or godless persons for their conversion and per- 
 suasion in that point ? 
 
 " Neither can I think, that when grave and learned 
 
42 
 
 men do sometime hold, that of this principle there 
 is no proof but by the testimony of the Spirit, 
 which assureth our hearts therein, it is their meaning 
 to exclude utterly all force which any kind of reason 
 may have in that behalf; but I rather incline to 
 interpret such their speeches, as if they had more 
 expressly set down, that other motives and induce- 
 ments, be they never so strong and consonant unto 
 reason, are notwithstanding ineffectual of themselves 
 to work faith concerning this principle, if the spe- 
 cial grace of the Holy Ghost concur not to the 
 enlightening of our minds. For otherwise I doubt 
 not but men of wisdom and judgment will grant, 
 that the Church, in this point especially, is fur- 
 nished with reason to stop the mouths of her im- 
 pious adversaries ; and that as it were altogether 
 bootless to allege against them what the Spirit 
 hath taught us, so likewise that even to our own 
 selves it needeth caution and explication how the 
 testimony of the Spirit may be discerned, by what 
 means it may be known ; lest men think that the 
 Spirit of God doth testify those things which the 
 spirit of error suggesteth. The operations of the 
 Spirit, especially those ordinary which be common 
 unto all true Christian men, are as we know things 
 secret and undiscernible even to the very soul 
 where they are, because their nature is of another 
 and an higher kind than that they can be by us 
 
43 
 
 perceived in this life. Wherefore albeit the Spirit 
 lead us into all truth and direct us in all goodness, 
 yet because these workings of the Spirit in us are 
 so privy and secret, we therefore stand on a plainer 
 ground, when we gather by reason from the quality 
 of things believed or done, that the Spirit of God 
 hath directed us in both, than if we settle ourselves 
 to believe or to do any certain particular thing, as 
 being moved thereto by the Spirit. 
 
 " But of this enough. To go from the books of 
 Scripture to the sense and meaning thereof: be- 
 cause the sentences which are by the apostles 
 recited out of the Psalms, to prove the resurrection 
 of Jesus Christ, did not prove it, if so be the 
 prophet David meant them of himself; this expo- 
 sition therefore they plainly disprove, and shew by 
 manifest reason, that of David the words of David 
 could not possibly be meant. Exclude the use of 
 natural reasoning about the sense of Holy Scrip- 
 ture concerning the articles of our faith, and then 
 that the Scripture doth concern the articles of our 
 faith, who can assure us? That, which by right 
 exposition buildeth up Christian faith, being mis- 
 construed, breedeth error : between true and false 
 construction the difference reason must shew. Can 
 Christian men perform that which Peter requireth 
 at their hands ? is it possible they should both be- 
 lieve and be able, without the use of reason, to 
 
44 
 
 render ' a reason of their belief/ a reason sound 
 and sufficient to answer them that demand it, be 
 they of the same faith with us or enemies there- 
 unto ? May we cause our faith without reason to 
 appear reasonable in the eyes of men ? " (Ecc. PoL 
 book iii. c. 8.) 
 
 But Mr. Newman would deny the capacity of the 
 great multitude of Protestants to reason at all on 
 the matter. He says (p. 43.) that " the great mul- 
 titude of uneducated persons are obliged to believe 
 what their instructors tell them." Uneducated 
 persons cannot certainly examine the evidence for 
 the divine authority of Scripture themselves, they 
 must receive the sacred text on the credit of their 
 instructors ; but they are obliged to receive nothing 
 else ; and if they are really in earnest in the matter, 
 they will not, if they can help it, rely implicitly on 
 their instructors, who may be wrong, for the meaning 
 of Scripture ; that they will endeavour to ascertain 
 for themselves ; for how can any man love God 
 with all his heart, unless he ardently desires to 
 know what He has spoken, and to do what He has 
 commanded ? And is it not the fact, that very many 
 of our poorer and more uneducated classes are 
 " mighty in the Scriptures," esteeming God's Word 
 more highly, and possessing a far clearer perception 
 of its true meaning than many priests of the Church 
 of England ? 
 
45 
 
 Mr. Newman thinks that the Romish controversy 
 is more likely to be brought to an end by appealing 
 to antiquity than by appealing to Scripture, al- 
 though he admits that the writings of antiquity are 
 voluminous, and that " to read them is the work of 
 a life." (P. 48.) But he forgets that he is himself 
 unable to define antiquity, or to say within what 
 period its authority ought to cease ; or to give a 
 sufficient reason for so determining the authority of 
 antiquity, having once admitted it ; or why, inde- 
 pendently of Scripture, certain authors are to be 
 admitted as authorities on some points and rejected 
 on others : the canon of Vincentius Lirinensis is 
 impracticable, as we shall presently see. Such 
 controversies also, like those on texts of Scripture, 
 must necessarily be determined by the meanings of 
 words, and these by reason, to which we must still 
 appeal in the last resort. To suppose that, by 
 widening the field of controversy to an indefinite 
 extent, we are more likely to determine contro- 
 versies, is a notion so preposterous, that it carries 
 along with it its own refutation. 
 
 It may well be, as Mr. Newman maintains (p. 50.), 
 that schism is a sin, but it must be determined by 
 the facts of each particular case, which party incurs 
 the guilt: assuredly it is not always on the se- 
 ceding side. What was the visible Church before 
 the Reformation, Protestant or Popish ? If Popish, 
 
46 
 
 then Protestants seceded ; and did they sin in so 
 doing ? Was not even Christianity itself a secession 
 from the Jewish Church ? Is not rather the sin of 
 schism incurred by any Church or any men who 
 require others to believe what the Bible does not 
 authorise ? 
 
 " No one," says Mr. Newman, " would ever call 
 a miser liberal ; and so no one would call a mere 
 Protestant a Catholic, except an altogether new 
 sense was put on the word to suit a purpose. 
 Romanism has the principle of true Catholicism 
 perverted ; popular Protestantism is wanting in the 
 principle." (P. 52.) To call a miser liberal, is a con- 
 tradiction in terms; to call all Protestants, who 
 have " one Lord, one Faith, and one Baptism," 
 Catholics, is so far from being either this, or a no- 
 velty, that, as we have seen, it is the very position 
 maintained by Hooker, whose definition of the word 
 Church Mr. Newman cannot overthrow. There is 
 perhaps not a single Protestant sect, unless the 
 Unitarians, who have neither the same faith nor the 
 same Lord, should by some be heedlessly termed 
 such, which has not a better title to the epithet 
 Catholic than the idolatrous Romanists, as ap- 
 proaching far more nearly than they do to scriptural 
 truth. What Mr. Newman means by " the prin- 
 ciple of true Catholicism," which Romanism has 
 and Protestantism has not, he has not explained ; 
 
47 
 
 and he will probably find it as difficult to do so as 
 to prove what he has elsewhere said, that our con- 
 troversy with Romanists relates rather to facts 
 than opinions. 
 
 Protestants are little indebted to Mr. Newman 
 for saying that they have pronounced Romanism to 
 be the Antichrist, because " so much may be said 
 for it " (p. 55.\ ; on the contrary, a true Protestant 
 will maintain that there is little difficulty in refuting 
 Romanism, provided the controversy be placed on 
 the right ground. Whether Rome be Antichrist or 
 not is another question, and one which it should 
 seem we are hardly enabled to answer satisfactorily. 
 
 The assertion in the same page, that the Church 
 of England agrees with that of Rome in holding 
 " the supernatural grace of the sacraments," is, to 
 say the least, very ambiguous. The grace bestowed 
 on receiving the sacraments is most studiously 
 limited by the Church of England to those who 
 receive them worthily. The doctrine of apostolical 
 succession, limited by Mr. Newman and the Roman- 
 ists to episcopal ordination only, is not compatible 
 with the nineteenth article of the Church of 
 England. 
 
 It is clear from pages 56-7., that Mr. Newman's 
 sympathies lean much more strongly to Popery 
 than to Protestantism. But we cannot admit him 
 to speak for the Church of England, or indeed to 
 
48 
 
 be a member of the Church of England at all, 
 when he says, " The necessary difference between 
 us and them," the Romanists, " is not one of es- 
 sential principle ;" or when he says, not that Popery, 
 but that Protestantism " does not admit of reform," 
 and misplaces its affections on " the systems of 
 men." How can Protestants, who trust in the 
 Bible only, be said to misplace their affections on 
 the systems of men? Mr. Newman objects to 
 others his own sin. Is the authority of antiquity 
 human or divine? If his answer be human, then 
 are his own affections misplaced on the systems of 
 men ; if divine, it must have been inspired, and 
 that he has himself denied. 
 
 Mr. Newman's errors are doubly mischievous, as 
 tending, on the one hand, to delude his followers, 
 by persuading them that formal ordinances may be 
 substituted with safety for spiritual realities, and no- 
 minal for true religion, thus " speaking peace where 
 there is no peace ;" and on the other, to exasperate 
 his opponents by misrepresentation and injustice, 
 and by condemning them for not receiving what 
 Scripture does not command. What is the former 
 if not heresy ? what is the latter if not schism ? 
 
49 
 
 CHAP. II. 
 
 A considerable portion of Mr. Newman's work 
 is^directed against Romanism ; but Protestants will 
 give a doubtful welcome to such a defender, not 
 only because he is himself deeply tainted with many 
 of the errors of Rome, but because he places the 
 controversy between the Churches on a false ground, 
 and one on which it can never be determined. 
 Better is an open enemy than a false friend : 
 
 ** Da chi mi fido guardami, Dio, 
 Da chi non mi fido mi guardero io. " 
 
 Mr. Newman approves of the test of Vincentius 
 Lirinensis, " that that is to be received as apostolic, 
 which has been taught always, every where, and by 
 all." p. 63. Yet this test is clearly distinct from and 
 inconsistent with that proposed by himself in the 
 preceding page. 
 
 " Whatever doctrine the primitive ages unani- 
 mously attest, whether by consent of fathers, or by . 
 councils, or by the events of history, or by con- 
 troversies, or in whatever way, whatever may fairly 
 and reasonably be considered to be the universal 
 belief of those ages, is to be received as coming 
 
 E 
 
50 
 
 from the Apostles. This canon, as it may be 
 called, rests upon the principle which we act on 
 daily, that what many independent and competent 
 
 witnesses guarantee, is true If it be asked 
 
 why we do not argue in this way from the existing, 
 as well as from the ancient, Church ; we answer, 
 that Christendom now differs from itself in all points, 
 except those in which it is already known to have 
 agreed of old ; so that we cannot make use of it if 
 we would.*' p. 62. 
 
 It is obvious that this test or canon, if anything 
 so vague and indistinct can be called by such a 
 name, is not that of Vincentius, for the test of 
 Vincentius embraces all ages of the Church equally ; 
 that of Mr. Newman is restricted to " the primitive 
 ages." It can, I think, be readily shewn that both 
 tests are false and mischievous, and first of that of 
 Mr. Newman. 
 
 All sound principles of reasoning require that a 
 test, or that by which something else is to be tried, 
 should be itself first determined. Is this done here ? 
 Before we are required to believe what the primi- 
 tive ages only believed, we must determine which 
 are the primitive ages, and within what limits the 
 expression is to be applied. It is clear that our own 
 age is not to be held primitive. Then the pri- 
 mitive ages have ceased ; and if so, when did they 
 cease ? We must have the precise period, other- 
 
51 
 
 wise we may take that for the primitive faith 
 which really was not so, and we must have a suffi- 
 cient reason for determining the primitive ages at 
 that precise period. Mr. Newman cannot dispute 
 the validity of this argument, for it is the same 
 with that which he has himself urged successfully 
 against the infallibility of the Church of Rome, 
 p. 148. He denies the infallibility of Rome for 
 this, among other reasons, that the Romanists can- 
 not determine among themselves where their sup- 
 posed infallibility resides ; so we ask Mr. Newman, 
 where his primitive ages end ? And what is his 
 answer ? After enumerating many different opinions 
 of different writers, he admits, p. 247., that " the 
 era of purity " cannot be determined within more 
 than 400 years ! not " much earlier than the council 
 of Sardica, A. D. 347, nor so late as the second 
 Nicene council, A. D. 787." What can be deter- 
 mined by a test, exclusive or inclusive, we cannot 
 tell which, of all the theological writers of more 
 than four centuries ? 
 
 Mr. Newman objects to Romanism, that " it 
 neither determines who or what is infallible, or 
 why." p. 146. So we say to himself, he neither 
 determines what his test is, or why we are to 
 adopt it. 
 
 Another element of this test is the consent of 
 Fathers, And here again we ask Mr. Newman 
 e 2 
 
52 
 
 why we are to incumber ourselves with such in- 
 superable difficulties ? Who are the Fathers ? Can 
 we number them like the books of the Bible ? Can 
 we certainly distinguish their genuine works from 
 the spurious books attributed to them ? Is not the 
 text of some of them corrupt to an extraordinary 
 degree ? Is there one among them all wholly free 
 from error ? What says Mr. Newman himself? p. 65, 
 " Pope Gregory might be an advocate for a doctrine 
 resembling that of purgatory ; St. Gregory Nyssen 
 may have used language available in defence of 
 transubstantiation : St. Ephraim may have invoked 
 the Virgin ; St. Austin might believe in their respec- 
 tive predestination of individuals ; St. Cyril might 
 afford a handle to Eutyches ; Tertullian might be a 
 Montanist ; Origen might deny the eternity of future 
 punishment." It is clear, then, that the Fathers 
 were all fallible men, for they all erred ; and why, 
 therefore, are we to hold their authority as superior 
 to that of modern divines ? But, it will be said, 
 we are to receive them as an authority only when 
 they agree* Hard, indeed, would be the task of 
 the student in theology, if he had to search through 
 so many ponderous folios (how many, Mr. Newman 
 himself cannot tell), not for the general opinions of 
 their respective authors, but for those opinions only 
 in which they all agree ; although he cannot deter- 
 mine who the parties are whose agreement is re- 
 
53 
 
 quired. And, after all, if he may mistake the meaning 
 of the Bible, so also may he that of the Fathers ; he 
 may suppose them to agree when they do not: and 
 his prospect of arriving at truth is not greater, but 
 less, than if he confined himself to the Bible only, 
 for the field is widened to an indefinite extent. 
 
 But the Fathers, according to Mr. Newman, are 
 to be tried by Catholic tradition, p. 66., and this 
 again by the fact of its apostolic origin. To this 
 we answer, Is there a single doctrine not contained 
 in Scripture, which can be clearly traced on credible 
 evidence to the Apostles ? and who is the Apostle to 
 whom such doctrine can he traced ? If this cannot 
 be done, tradition is only a mischievous incum- 
 brance ; mischievous, because it is confessedly a 
 mixture of truth and falsehood; and an incumbrance, 
 because it teaches us no religious truth which we 
 have not already drawn from the infallible source of 
 the Bible? Who would drink of the turbid pool 
 when he can quench his thirst with the pure foun- 
 tain ? 
 
 The authority of councils, Mr. Newman subjects 
 to private judgment. " Councils or individuals are 
 of authority, when we have reason to suppose they 
 are trustworthy informants of apostolical tradition." 
 p. 64*. Apostolical tradition is a high-sounding 
 term, but here it really means only what one 
 man tells another. Traditions are not apostolical, 
 e 3 
 
54 
 
 unless they can be traced to the Apostles. But 
 whether councils or individuals are trustworthy 
 informants or not, we judge by reason, which, dis- 
 guise it as we may, is necessarily and unavoidably 
 the final tribunal whereunto all parties must appeal. 
 Whatever can be proved from Scripture, we are 
 ready to receive, not merely on the authority of 
 Fathers or councils, but on that of any man in any 
 age. 
 
 I pass the farther discussion of the competence 
 of the Fathers to prove anything more, as witnesses, 
 than the fact that their Scriptures were the same 
 with ours. Suffice it to observe, that Mr. Newman 
 has assumed their competence as doctrinal autho- 
 rities, independent of Scripture, without any proof. 
 
 As to the reason given for excluding the au- 
 thority of the existing Church, that " Christendom 
 now differs from itself in all points, except those in 
 which it is already known to have agreed of old ; " 
 it is rather an assertion than an argument. The 
 exception is incorrect. Christendom differed of 
 old and differs now ; on which side the more or less 
 of difference lies is a matter of opinion which may be 
 disputed ; and as long as the fact of difference both 
 now and of old is admitted, the questionable test 
 of more or less, as a ground for assuming the pre- 
 sence or absence of authority, is as vague as can 
 well be imagined. 
 
55 
 
 The objection to the test of Vincentius is, that 
 unless the exceptions are to be held greater than 
 the rule, it is wholly impracticable. It is not in 
 the power of any man to search all the works of all 
 the theological writers of eighteen centuries, in 
 order to ascertain what opinions only were held by 
 all of them. Doubtless, if such a search were made, 
 a certain uniformity would be discovered ; and the 
 reason is obvious, because theological writers in 
 every age have always derived something from 
 Scripture, the source of their unanimity as far as 
 it exists, but from whence no one writer, in any 
 age, can be proved never to have departed. Mr. 
 Newman admits, indeed, that this test can never 
 be fully satisfied, p. 69. ; but he has alleged nothing 
 in its favour, but what may be urged with equal 
 force by the Romanists in favour of infallibility. 
 Butler's argument in his admirable Analogy, is 
 wholly foreign to the matter in point. The question 
 is, whether, having the Bible, we are to do what is 
 equivalent to discarding it, because we may mistake 
 its meaning in matters not essential to salvation ; 
 (for we are well assured that, in essentials, none will 
 ever mistake it who will study it in a right spirit ;) 
 and substitute in its stead a test of truth admitted 
 to be indefinite, and in strictness impracticable. 
 The insufficiency of the Bible is assumed, in express 
 contradiction to the Bible itself, and volumes innu- 
 E 4 
 
56 
 
 merable substituted for it, none free from the very 
 objection made to the Bible, if objection it can be 
 called, the possibility of mistaking whatever is con- 
 veyed through the medium of words, which *, 
 " after all, have a distinct meaning in spite of so- 
 phistry/' and liable, in addition, to faults of their 
 own, from which the Bible is entirely free. Mr. 
 Newman has nothing in common here with Butler, 
 but he has with the Utilitarians, who would sub- 
 stitute for a moral sense an impracticable analysis 
 of all the tendencies of all human actions, just as 
 he, and that, too, inconsistently with himself, would 
 substitute for the Bible the impracticable test of 
 the agreement of all theological writers. 
 
 But Mr. Newman will say that it is unjust to 
 impute to him the intention of substituting tradi- 
 tion for Scripture, that he denies Scripture to none, 
 but denies only to individuals the liberty of inter- 
 preting it. The interpretation is the whole question. 
 Hear Chillingworth : 
 
 " He that would usurp an absolute lordship and 
 tyranny over any people, need not put himself to 
 the trouble and difficulty of abrogating and dis- 
 annulling the laws made to maintain the common 
 liberty ; for he may frustrate their intent, and com- 
 pass his own design as well, if he can get the power 
 and authority to interpret them as he pleases, and 
 * Lectures, p. 70. 
 
57 
 
 add to them what he pleases, and to have his inter- 
 pretations and additions stand for laws ; if he can 
 rule his people by his laws, and his laws by his 
 lawyers. So the Church of Rome, to establish her 
 tyranny over men's consciences, needed not either 
 to abolish or corrupt the Holy Scriptures, the pillars 
 and supporters of Christian liberty; (which, in regard 
 of the numerous multitude of copies dispersed 
 through all places, translated into almost all lan- 
 guages, guarded with all solicitous care and in- 
 dustry, had been an impossible attempt ;) but the 
 more expedite way, and therefore more likely to 
 be successful, was to gain the opinion and esteem 
 of the public and authorised interpreters of them, 
 and the authority of adding to them what doctrine 
 she pleased, under the title of traditions or defini- 
 tions. For by this means she might both serve 
 herself of all those clauses of Scripture which might 
 be drawn to cast a favourable countenance upon her 
 ambitious pretences, which, in case the Scripture 
 had been abolished she could not have done ; and 
 yet be secure enough of having either her power 
 limited, or her corruptions and abuses reformed by 
 them ; this being once settled in the minds of men, 
 That unwritten doctrines, if proposed by her, were 
 to be received with equal reverence to those that 
 were written ; and that the sense of Scripture was 
 not that which seemed to men's reason and under- 
 
58 
 
 standing to be so, but that which the Church of 
 Rome should declare to be so, seemed it never so 
 unreasonable and incongruous." Vol. i. p. 157. ed. 
 Oxford, 1838.* 
 
 Mr. Newman seems to think that whatever we 
 find received early and generally in the Church, 
 with a silence concerning its introduction, must have 
 been appointed by the Apostles, p. 63. This is re- 
 quiring belief without evidence. Such matters, 
 whether doctrines, rites, or ceremonies, may, for any 
 thing we can tell, have been introduced by heretics, 
 as well as by the Apostles ; and even if they could 
 be traced directly to some specific Apostle, they 
 would not necessarily be binding upon Christians, 
 because they would be, if doctrines, additions to 
 Scripture, and therefore " accursed t," and if rites 
 or ceremonies, although both apostolic and scrip- 
 tural, not immutable, as Hooker clearly shews ; " for 
 laws are instruments to rule by; and instruments are 
 not only to be framed according unto the general 
 end for which they are provided, but even accord- 
 ing unto that very particular which riseth out of the 
 matter whereon they have to work." And again, 
 " Laws, though both ordained of God himself, and 
 
 * It is somewhat remarkable, that in this edition of Chil- 
 ling worth, the characteristic title of his famous work, " The 
 Religion of Protestants a safe Way to Salvation," is omitted. 
 
 t Galat. i. 8. 
 
59 
 
 the end for which they were ordained continuing, 
 may notwithstanding cease, if by alterations of per- 
 sons or times they be found insufficient to attain unto 
 that end. In which respect why may we not pre- 
 sume that God doth even call for such change or 
 alteration as the very condition of things themselves 
 doth make necessary ? 
 
 " They which do therefore plead the authority of 
 the law-maker as an argument, wherefore it should 
 not be lawful to change that which he hath instituted, 
 and will have this the cause why all the ordinances 
 of our Saviour are immutable ; they which urge the 
 wisdom of God as a proof, that whatsoever laws he 
 hath made, they ought to stand, unless himself from 
 heaven proclaim them disannulled, because it is not 
 in man to correct the ordinance of God ; may 
 know, if it please them to take notice thereof, that 
 we are far from presuming to think that men can 
 better any thing which God hath done, even as we 
 are from thinking that men should presume to undo 
 some things of men, which God doth know they 
 cannot better. God never ordained any thing that 
 could be bettered. Yet many things he hath that 
 have been changed, and that for the better. That 
 which succeedeth as better now when change is 
 requisite, had been worse when that which now is 
 changed was instituted. Otherwise God had not 
 then left this to choose that, neither would now re- 
 
60 
 
 ject that to choose this were it not for some new- 
 grown occasion, making that which hath been better 
 worse. In this case therefore men do not presume 
 to change God's ordinance, but they yield thereunto 
 requiring itself to be changed." 
 
 But " we are to believe for ever the articles of 
 evangelical doctrine, the matter of faith is constant, 
 the matter contrariwise of action daily changeable, 
 especially the matter of action belonging unto church 
 polity. Neither can I find that men of soundest 
 judgment have any otherwise taught, than that 
 articles of belief, and things which all men must of 
 necessity do to the end they may be saved, are 
 either expressly 6et down in Scripture, or else 
 plainly thereby to be gathered. But touching things 
 which belong to discipline and outward polity, the 
 Church hath authority to make canons, laws, and 
 decrees, even as we read that in the Apostles' times 
 it did. Which kind of laws (forasmuch as they are not 
 in themselves necessary to salvation) may, after they 
 are made, be also changed as the difference of times 
 or places shall require." Eccl. Pol. book iii. c. 10. 
 
 We " stand fast therefore in the liberty where- 
 with Christ hath made us free * ;'' we conclude that 
 " the Church hath power to decree rites and cere- 
 monies f ; the Church may substitute presbytery for 
 episcopacy, or episcopacy for presbytery, as circum- 
 * Galat. v, l. f Art - xx - 
 
61 
 
 stances may require ; the state may take back what 
 the state has given, observing only to wrong no man ; 
 but the Christian Faith, no Fathers, no councils, 
 no Pope, no Church can increase or diminish at all. 
 Of that Faith, God is the Finisher, no less than the 
 Author ; and " whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for 
 ever : nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken 
 from it : and God doeth it, that men should fear 
 before him." * Marvellous indeed is the sufficiency 
 of the Bible for all emergencies, and little has any 
 man to fear, who is content to rest his faith on 
 the Bible, and on that alone, from the combined 
 attacks of superstition, infidelity, fanaticism, and 
 latitudinarianism, in all their shades ! How refresh- 
 ing, after long wandering in the barren wastes of 
 theological controversy, to repose beneath " the 
 shadow of that great rock in a weary land V 
 
 When, therefore, Mr. Newman conjectures, that 
 " the doctrine of what is familiarly called Church 
 and King is apostolic,'' the remark is worse than 
 idle, and that for more reasons than one. The 
 union of Church and State is not a doctrine at all. 
 It is not a matter of faith, it is not to be found in 
 Scripture, and if it could be proved to be apostolic, 
 it would not therefore, as we have seen, be neces- 
 sarily binding on Christians. If the union of Church 
 and State had been necessary, it might have been so 
 * Ecclesiastes, iii. 14. 
 
62 
 
 ordered from the very first ; but it was not ; what is 
 now called the voluntary system lasted three cen- 
 turies, and those, it is commonly supposed, the 
 purest. It is true that the union of Church and 
 State has now lasted fifteen. Yet, when he consi- 
 ders the many wars, treasons, conspiracies, massa- 
 cres, violations of all laws human and divine, tor- 
 tures of the holiest and most virtuous men, beyond 
 what it might have been supposed the most malig- 
 nant could conceive, or the most remorseless endure 
 to execute, wherewith this union may be fairly 
 charged ; before admitting that an institution, the 
 source of such frightful miseries, and of such enor- 
 mous crimes, is indeed of divine commandment, 
 every honest and reflecting man will surely pause. 
 Besides, there is much which we know to be aposto- 
 lic not received by the Church of England. 
 
 " Our end," says Hooker, " ought always to be the 
 same ; our ways and means thereunto not so. The 
 glory of God and the good of his Church was the 
 thing which the Apostles aimed at, and therefore 
 ought to be the mark whereat we also level. But 
 seeing those rights and orders may be at one time 
 more which at another are less available unto that 
 purpose, what reason is there in these things to 
 urge the state of one only age as a pattern for all 
 to follow ? It is not I am right sure their meaning, 
 that we should now assemble our people to serve 
 
63 
 
 God in close and secret meetings ; or that common 
 brooks or rivers should be used for places of bap- 
 tism ; or that the Eucharist should be administered 
 after meat ; or that the custom of church feasting 
 should be renewed ; or that all kind of standing 
 provision for the ministry should be utterly taken 
 away, and their estate made again dependent upon 
 the voluntary devotion of men. In these things 
 they easily perceive how unfit that were for the 
 present, which was for the first age convenient 
 enough." EccL Pol. book iv. c. 2. 
 
 With what consistency, then, can we be required 
 to receive some matters of Church polity, rites, or 
 ceremonies, because they may be apostolic, when 
 we reject others which we know to be apostolic ? 
 Must we receive them on the authority of the 
 Church ? then we set the authority of the Church 
 above that of the Apostles, because all that the 
 Apostles ordered we do not receive. There is but 
 one way of extricating ourselves from the difficulty. 
 We receive or reject matters of church polity, rites, 
 and ceremonies, not on authority, but because they 
 are fit or unfit for our own circumstances and times, 
 and such their fitness or unfitness reason only can 
 shew. 
 
 It is a satisfaction, after having had so much to 
 object to Mr. Newman, to find something in which 
 we can join : 
 
64 
 
 " Faith differs from opinion, in its considering the 
 being, governance, and will of God as a matter of 
 personal interest and importance to us, not in the 
 degree of light or darkness under which it perceives 
 these truths.'* p. 104. This is true as far as it goes, 
 but it is not the whole truth ; for a saving faith im- 
 plies trust, as well as belief and personal interest. 
 He objects also to the doctrine of infallibility, that it 
 necessarily infers completeness as well as certainty 
 of knowledge, because in infallibility there can be 
 no degrees ; it infers more than was possessed, as 
 appears from Scripture, even by the Apostles them- 
 selves, who were not absolutely infallible, though 
 the Bible is, for " to the rest speak I, not the Lord, 
 I have no commandment of the Lord, yet I give my 
 judgment*," says St. Paul. Vast indeed is the incon- 
 sistency, presumption, and folly whereunto this as- 
 sumption of unerring knowledge in things divine has 
 led ! Infallibility binds together and gives enduring 
 consistence to all the heresies and corruptions of 
 Rome. It renders all reform impossible, and cuts off 
 all retreat from any error once advanced : it is the 
 most insolent and the most groundless of all the "ac- 
 cursed " additions which men have made to God's 
 word: it is self-contradictory, for none can determine 
 who or what is infallible, or why ; and no truth is more 
 certain than that all men, both individually and col- 
 * 1 Cor. vii. 1225. 
 
65 
 
 lectively, have erred both in thought and act : it 
 takes away that trial of our faith, which it is most 
 clear from Scripture that God designed ; which is in 
 strict conformity with all His dealings with us ; that 
 trial, both moral and religious, which is inseparable 
 from our condition as responsible agents, and which 
 it is a folly of all the chiefest to think we can elude 
 or transfer to others. 
 
 Mr. Newman justly objects to the Romanists that 
 they would make religion a system ; but, as we have 
 seen, he is not himself free from the same charge. 
 In his enumeration of matters we do not know, he 
 says (p. 112.) " We do not know what will be the 
 future destiny, whether of happiness or misery, 
 of the body of baptized persons, who certainly seem 
 to live and die in an unchristian way." It appears, 
 however, that this is a point which Mr. Newman does 
 know, for elsewhere he says, " Grace without re- 
 pentance is pledged to the ordinances of the Church 
 Catholic *." (P. 249.) What says the Scripture ? 
 "The wicked shall be turned into hell :" there is 
 no exception of the baptized wicked. " Let every one 
 that nameththe name of Christ depart from iniquity." 
 
 * In Romans, xi. 29. it is said " the gifts and calling of 
 God are without repentance." But what has this to do with 
 the Church ? Is the Church to usurp what belongs to God ? 
 The Church does, indeed, seem to be the fgod of Mr. New- 
 man's idolatry, although, as he frequently uses the word, it ap- 
 pears to be little more than an unreal abstraction. 
 F 
 
66 
 
 Our Lord's saying of the wicked Pharisees, in those 
 days members of the visible Church, as wicked men 
 baptized are now, is yet more express, " It shall be 
 more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrha in the day 
 of judgment than for you." Mr. Newman's first 
 remark is most mischievous, and decidedly Antino- 
 mian in its tendency ; the second is pure Antino- 
 mianism. To affect even to doubt whether men may 
 live and die in sin, and yet be saved because they 
 are baptized, is a most grievous breach of trust in a 
 Christian minister, and alone sufficient to justify his 
 expulsion from the Church of England. If Mr. 
 Newman seeks to shelter himself under the equi- 
 vocal word " seem," then we answer, he should sub- 
 stitute " mankind" for " baptized persons ;" and still 
 the sentence would require considerable qualifi- 
 cation to render it harmless. Yet, this most mis- 
 chievous doctrine is but a consequence of confound- 
 ing baptism with regeneration ; the sign with the 
 thing signified ! 
 
 Neither can Mr. Newman be suffered to say that 
 the Romanists " consider with us that baptism is a 
 plenary and absolute remission of all sin whatever, 
 original and actual, with which the baptized person 
 is laden." (P. 113.) He must speak for himself. The 
 Church of England holds no such doctrine ; the 
 Church of England expressly limits all the benefits of 
 baptism to those that receive it "rightly." (Art. xxvu.) 
 
67 
 
 It has been already shewn that the Articles are a 
 higher authority in this matter than the baptismal 
 service, especially when the former are in accord- 
 ance with Scripture, and the latter contrary to it. 
 Is there any thing more certain in Scripture than 
 that sin cannot be forgiven without repentance and 
 without faith ? Yet baptism may be received without 
 either. 
 
 Among the assertions in which Mr. Newman so 
 often indulges without proving, may be numbered 
 the following : "In the religion popular among us 
 at the present day only so much of the high doc- 
 trines of the Gospel is admitted as is seen and felt to 
 tend to our moral improvement." (P. 118.) Let the 
 Gospel doctrines excluded be specified. For my part 
 I will not assert, but I believe, that all the doctrines 
 of the Gospel were never more truly and more ge- 
 nerally preached in England than they have been 
 in this nineteenth century. Wherever some are 
 intentionally withheld, to use the singularly ele- 
 gant language of our author on another occasion, 
 " Christian holiness loses its freshness, vigour, and 
 comeliness, being frozen as it were into certain atti- 
 tudes, which are not graceful except when unstudied." 
 
 At (p. 135.) we observe Mr. Newman calls the 
 Book of Tobit Scripture, although it is expressly 
 excluded from the canon by the Church of England. 
 
 We come now to the question of private judg- 
 f 2 
 
68 
 
 ment. Mr. Newman having successfully combated 
 the Romish doctrine of infallibility, dreading the 
 opposite extreme of reason, sets up an intermediate 
 theory of his own, which, as we shall see, is not 
 tenable if his own arguments against infallibility 
 are sound. We have said a theory of his own, 
 because we deny it to be, as Mr. Newman calls it, 
 the doctrine of the Church of England, although 
 he not very consistently allows, that " it has never 
 been realised in any religious community." (P. 154*.) 
 He says, that the Church of England " considers 
 that on certain definite subjects private judgment 
 upon the text of Scripture has been superseded, but 
 not by the mere authoritative sentence of the 
 Church, but by its historical testimony delivered 
 down from the apostles' time." (P. 152.) And here 
 we cannot but observe the singularly unsystematic 
 arrangement of Mr. Newman's treatise. He does 
 not proceed by steps from one proof to another, 
 but he perpetually assumes what he has to prove ; 
 he continually repeats himself; and so mixes up 
 assertion and conjecture with argument, that in 
 replying to him we are unavoidably compelled to 
 occupy a much greater space than the nature of 
 the" case really requires. It would, for instance, 
 have shortened this discussion, if, instead of as- 
 serting that the Church of England " considers 
 private judgment on certain definite subjects su- 
 
69 
 
 perseded," he had given the words of the Church 
 of England which he thus interprets, as it is not 
 easy to discover where they are to be found ; and 
 if he had also enumerated specifically all such 
 " certain definite subjects," and stated where such 
 enumeration was to be found. 
 
 What the doctrine of our Church on this matter 
 really is, we find in the sixth article. * f Holy Scrip- 
 ture containeth all things necessary to salvation : 
 so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be 
 proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, 
 that it should be believed as an article of the faith, 
 or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation." 
 
 There is not a word here of " superseding private 
 judgment," of " the authoritative sentence of the 
 Church," or of " historical testimony." " But,'' 
 says Mr. Newman, " this statement is very plain and 
 clear except in one point, namely, who is to be the 
 judge what is and what is not contained in Scrip- 
 ture." (P. 319.) According to him antiquity is to 
 be the judge (p. 325.) ; but, as we have seen, he 
 cannot determine what antiquity is ; the Church he 
 admits not to be a judge but a witness (p. 320. ); 
 and so far we agree with him, though we deny the 
 unintelligible distinction between the Church and 
 antiquity: and to say that antiquity is a judge 
 without determining what antiquity is, or dis- 
 tinguishing it from the Church, is to say that it is 
 F 3 
 
70 
 
 and is not a judge in the same breath ; for it is a 
 condition precedent to a decision, that some de- 
 finite person should pronounce it. J^ow can we 
 submit to any judgment when we do not know 
 whether to exclude from or include among our 
 judges all the theological writers of more than 
 400 years? How can we arrive at any definite 
 conclusion from indefinite premises ? How can we 
 arrive at any conclusion from premises so extensive 
 that no man's life is long enough to master them? 
 And lastly, why are we to take for our judges in mat- 
 ters of faith men confessedly fallible, and of these 
 some, and not others, in express contradiction to the 
 words of our Lord, who tells us, that to u teach 
 for doctrines the commandments of men," is to 
 " worship God in vain ?" 
 
 It is clear, then, that antiquity cannot be a judge ; 
 besides, that the addition to the article of " proved 
 thereby to the satisfaction of antiquity," would be 
 manifestly absurd. The church is admitted to be 
 only a witness, and such is obviously the meaning 
 of the article, for the Church takes upon herself 
 the burden of proof; if she is required to prove to 
 her own satisfaction only, the word " proved " is 
 redundant, for a witness must be presumed already 
 convinced of the truth of what he is to prove. To 
 say to others, " You must believe what is proved to 
 my satisfaction," is to speak from authority ; not as 
 
71 
 
 a witness, but as a judge. The word "proved" 
 must have some meaning, and unless it refers to a 
 third party, distinct from the party proving, it can- 
 not be shewn to have any. Then the question 
 arises, who that third party is ? and if neither anti- 
 quity or the Church, supposing them, for the sake of 
 the argument, distinct, it can only be the party 
 mentioned in the latter portion of the sentence, 
 viz. any man who is required to believe. Besides, 
 as Mr. Newman says, " all parties must be agreed, 
 that without private judgment there is no responsi- 
 bility" (p. 155.) ; and no man can transfer his own 
 responsibility to others. " The soul that sinneth it 
 shall die." 
 
 We conclude therefore that the Church of Eng- 
 land, so far from superseding private judgment, 
 requires no man to believe what is not proved from 
 Scripture to his satisfaction ; and this is to authorise 
 private judgment ; but it is a very grave question 
 for every man, whether he deals fairly with him- 
 self in this matter, whether he really receives 
 every doctrine which he cannot deny that Scripture 
 contains, however opposed to his own prejudices, 
 his ordinary course of life, or his most cherished 
 opinions. We do not say that every man is re- 
 quired to believe every doctrine which may be 
 proved from Scripture ; for in scriptural knowledge, 
 as in all other matters, to some much is given, and 
 f 4 
 
72 
 
 to others little; and God is a just judge; but every 
 man in a Christian country is required to believe 
 Scripture to be God's word, " and to do his best en- 
 deavour to find the true sense of it* ;" and no man 
 can reject without sin any doctrine which he really 
 believes Scripture to contain. A catalogue of es- 
 sentials we cannot give, " because none that can be 
 given can universally serve for all men, God re- 
 quiring more of them to whom he gives more, and 
 less of them to whom he gives less, and conse- 
 quently that may be fundamental and necessary to 
 one which to another is not so." * 
 
 Men have fallen into endless absurdities by at- 
 tempting to deprive others of the use of their un- 
 derstandings, which is the real meaning of denying 
 private judgment. Besides, in fact, it cannot be 
 done. The only question is, at what point the 
 exercise of the understanding is to begin. If it 
 were possible for a man to go so far as to believe 
 every thing that every body told him, still he must 
 first know what every body says ; he must interpret 
 to himself the meaning of the words he hears be- 
 fore he can believe them, and so far exercise private 
 judgment. If men take their opinions not from 
 the Bible, but from what their priest tells them the 
 Bible means, they must first understand what the 
 priest says ; and, if moreover, the lay members of 
 * Chillingworth, vol. i. p. 322. 
 
73 
 
 the Church of England believe every thing that 
 every priest tells them, they will believe many con- 
 tradictory opinions. Why then are we not to begin 
 at the Bible, the foundation which alone is infallibly 
 sure, since, if we begin any where else, we have no 
 security that we shall not believe what is false? 
 They who trust to men and not to the Bible, do so 
 at their peril. They may, indeed, believe what 
 they please, and trust to whom they please; but 
 divest themselves of their personal responsibility, 
 both for what they think, as well as for what they 
 do, they never can. But fearful indeed is the in- 
 crease of responsibility which they incur who would 
 allow others to receive no interpretations of the 
 word of God but theirs ! 
 
 Mr. Newman calls upon us to receive all aids, 
 both internal and external, in forming our judgment 
 on religion. (P. 156.) We receive all, we reject 
 none, but we deny any to be of authority except 
 the Bible. And yet it is certain that all aids, both 
 external and internal, will be unavailing without 
 the teaching of God's Holy Spirit. No man can have 
 a saving faith, " no man can say that Jesus is the 
 Lord but by the Holy Ghost." There is nothing 
 narrowing in this doctrine. The teaching of the 
 Spirit we know will be given to all who really ask it. 
 " If ye being evil," says our Lord, " know how to 
 give good gifts unto your children, how much rather 
 
74 
 
 shall my heavenly Father give his Holy Spirit to them 
 that ask him ! " Yet certainly it would not be safe 
 for any man to argue that a doctrine is scriptural 
 because he conceives that he has been taught it 
 personally by the Holy Spirit. It is, perhaps, the 
 most spiritual of all English divines who says, in a 
 passage already quoted, " the operations of the 
 Spirit, especially those ordinary which be common 
 unto all true Christian men, are, as we know,-things 
 secret and undiscernible even to the very soul where 
 they are." * And therefore it is that we are com- 
 manded in Scripture to " be ready always to give 
 an answer to every man that asketh you a reason 
 of the hope that is in you with meekness and 
 fear." f 
 
 Mr, Newman contradicts himself, Scripture, 
 reason, and the Church of England, when he calls 
 all informants indiscriminately "divine." (P. 158.) He 
 has admitted already that " Scripture only is in- 
 spired/' and all other informants, therefore, except- 
 ing Scripture and the Spirit, must be human. Be- 
 sides, no man can consult all informants, for life is 
 not long enough to do it ; and none are commanded 
 to consult any, excepting Scripture and the Holy 
 Spirit. To receive any informants as authorities, 
 excepting these last, is to add to Scripture, and to 
 raise human means to an equality with divine. 
 * Hooker, ante. f * Peter, iii. 15. 
 
" Scripture, antiquity, and catholicity," says 
 Mr. Newman, " cannot really contradict each other" 
 (P. 160.) Then antiquity and catholicity must be in- 
 fallible ; but in fact they do contradict each other, 
 for there have always been, as Mr. Newman well 
 knows, many different opinions in the Church, and 
 therefore, antiquity and catholicity, which, as we 
 have seen, cannot be distinguished, are not infallible, 
 and therefore not safe guides. 
 
 It is idle in Mr. Newman, to tell us " to follow 
 antiquity ; " he must first shew what antiquity is, 
 and then why we are to follow it; otherwise, his own 
 argument against infallibility is unsound As to the 
 notion, that " it is pious to sacrifice our own opinion 
 to that of the Church" (p. 161.), although it is true 
 that a man had better not dissent from the religion 
 he has been taught for a slight cause, yet, without 
 material qualification, it is mere superstition, and 
 incompatible with the love of truth, which God re- 
 quires of us. If such a sacrifice is an act of piety, 
 why is Mr. Newman a Protestant, even in name ? The 
 reformers did not think it pious to sacrifice their 
 opinions to those of the then existing Church. It 
 is most dishonest in Mr. Newman to put forth these 
 and similar extravagances as the doctrines of the 
 Church of England ! Instead of " forbearing to 
 scrutinise" (p.l62.),we are expressly commanded to 
 " search the Scriptures." Doubtless, in this country 
 
men are taught religion before they are able to 
 search ; and to this no one I suppose will object: but 
 when they are able, if they are in earnest, they 
 will search ; if they are not in earnest, it matters 
 little what they do. Mr. Newman furnishes a ready 
 excuse for the indifferent. 
 
 I know not who the persons are, of whom Mr. 
 Newman speaks, who consider " that Almighty God 
 has left them entirely to their own efforts." (P.164.) 
 God has given us his Word, and reason where- 
 with to understand it, and he has promised the 
 teaching of his Holy Spirit to all who ask it ; how 
 then can he be said to have left any who receive all 
 this, although in religion they receive nothing else, 
 to themselves ? Why should they put their trust in 
 the Church ; can the Church save them ? 
 
 It is doubtless true that " men continually mis- 
 interpret Scripture" (p. 166.) ; but the chief reason 
 why they do so is not given, which is, because they 
 do not study it in a right spirit ; and we know from 
 Scripture that the condition of mind which Scrip- 
 ture requires is given at least as often to " the 
 foolish things of the world" as to those who think 
 themselves the wise, " for it is written, he taketh 
 the wise in their own craftiness." Mr. Newman 
 rightly objects to the Romanists, that, because men 
 may misinterpret, they are not therefore without all 
 power of interpreting, any more than it follows that, 
 
because men may and do argue falsely, that they 
 therefore cannot argue justly. Yet this is the 
 fallacy of all those who childishly argue against the 
 use of argument, against the use of any thing from 
 the abuse of it. We agree then with the premises, 
 but assuredly they will bear a much stronger con- 
 clusion than that which our author derives from 
 them, viz., " that we think no harm can come from 
 putting the Scriptures into the hands of the laity." 
 " No harm" ! and is this all Mr. Newman has to 
 say for the pure word of the All-wise God ? the only 
 religious book in the world which we know to be 
 absolutely and infallibly true ; which teaches truths 
 above man's knowledge, in words above man's elo- 
 quence ; which contains the purest morality the 
 world has ever seen ; " which is able to make us wise 
 unto salvation, through Christ Jesus ! " Not merely 
 is it " no harm " to read it, but to neglect it wilfully 
 is a deadly sin. What will it avail any one at the 
 great day of accoutt, when he stands before Him 
 who was his Creator, who might have been his Re- 
 deemer, but who will then be his Judge, charged 
 with having " loved darkness rather than light," to 
 answer, that he trusted not God but man ? 
 
 But " the general reading of the Bible has brought 
 into our country and Church all kinds of heresies 
 and extravagances." (P. 167.) Again, we say, that 
 if men may and have perverted the Bible, so they 
 
78 
 
 may, and have perverted every thing else. Would 
 the dishonest men who perverted the Bible, (for a 
 truly honest mind, by God's assistance, cannot per- 
 vert it fatally,) have found nothing else to pervert if 
 the Bible had been denied them ? The Bible was 
 denied to men for many centuries, and what was 
 then the state of society? "The earth was filled with 
 violence." And when the rich and powerful became 
 at length susceptible of remorse, how did they think 
 to atone for their crimes? Not by restitution to those 
 they had wronged ; not by repentance and faith in 
 Christ ; but by barren pilgrimages, building mon- 
 asteries, and murdering those whom they called 
 heretics, but whose creed was usually purer than 
 their own. They were taught to atone for blood by 
 blood. 
 
 By withholding the Bible, even unity of opinion 
 is not obtained ; for what were the disputes between 
 Jesuits and Dominicans, Jesuits and Jansenists, but 
 differences of opinion ? and religion, under such cir- 
 cumstances, either degenerates into superstition, 
 which is heresy, or is wholly blotted out by infi- 
 delity, which is worse. Notwithstanding our many 
 differences, is there any Popish country where so 
 many truly religious persons are to be found as in 
 England ? 
 
 One cause of schism then is a dishonest spirit in 
 the schismatic ; another cause, we shall soon see, 
 
79 
 
 but we are wholly at issue with Mr. Newman both as 
 to the cause and the remedy. " If Scripture read- 
 ing has, in England, been the cause of schism, it is 
 because we are deprived of the power of excom- 
 municating, which, in the revealed scheme, is the 
 formal antagonist and curb of private judgment." 
 (P. 168.) 
 
 There is here an ambiguity in the word " excom- 
 munication," which it is necessary to point out. 
 Every society of men, whether religious, moral, or 
 for whatever object it may be formed, has neces- 
 sarily in itself an inherent power of excluding any 
 of its members for such conduct as either the 
 whole body, or the representatives of that body, 
 duly authorised, may disapprove. We claim for 
 " a congregation of faithful men *," which is the 
 definition of the visible Church given by the Church 
 of England, the same power which other societies 
 possess ; but we claim no more ; and the word ex- 
 communication may mean a great deal more. The 
 Church of Rome, by excommunication, intends the 
 exclusion of the excommunicated from heaven, a 
 sentence which it is abominable presumption and 
 blasphemy for any man or men, whether individu- 
 ally or collectively, to suppose that they are able to 
 pass. This is another of the many wicked additions 
 to Scripture of that apostate Church. The man 
 * Art. XIX. 
 
80 
 
 excommunicating may err as well as the man ex- 
 communicated : nay, he may be, for any thing we 
 can tell, a much more hateful object in the sight of 
 God than his fellow. The apostles held " the keys 
 of the kingdom of heaven '' * only when they were 
 infallible, only when they read men's hearts, as in 
 the case of Ananias and Sapphira, because " they 
 were filled with the Holy Ghost;" but no such 
 power is any where promised to fallible men, and it 
 is monstrous to suppose it. 
 
 One of the greatest defects of the Church of 
 England is certainly a good system of discipline, 
 which implies the power of excluding the erring 
 members of its own body. But it may be that the 
 very men who are most anxious to exercise this 
 power against others may have most reason to dread 
 it themselves. 
 
 But if schism be a sin, which we do not deny, is it 
 not schismatical in men to require of others, as 
 matter of faith, what God has not required ? Is 
 not the guilt of schism incurred not by him who 
 rejects, but by him who " teaches for doctrines the 
 commandments of men? " Let those who maintain 
 the contrary answer Chillingworth : " For whoso- 
 ever requires harder or heavier conditions of men 
 than God requires of them, he it is that is properly 
 an enemy of the Church's universality, by hindering 
 * Matt. xvi. 19. xviii. 18. 
 
81 
 
 either men or countries from adjoining themselves 
 to it ; which, were it not for these unnecessary and 
 therefore unlawful conditions, in probability would 
 have made them members of it." (Vol. i. p. 384.) 
 
 Mr. Newman would have "a Church which 
 taught the truth boldly and in system." (P. 168.) 
 All these requisites he cannot have, but as to two 
 of them, such a Church there is, and it is that of 
 Rome, which teaches " boldly and in system/' but 
 not the truth. Boldness and systematising are the 
 very objections he has himself made to Rome, in 
 his Lecture on Infallibility. The boldness of Ro- 
 manists "intruding into those things which they 
 have not seen, vainly puffed up by their fleshly 
 mind," is condemned by St. Paul, no less dis- 
 tinctly than their forbidding to marry, and pray- 
 ing in a tongue not understood of the people. 
 From such boldness we trust the Church of Eng- 
 land will be preserved ; and as to teaching the 
 truth as a system, Mr. Newman has already 
 shewn in the same lecture, that the Church does 
 not know the truth as a system, and therefore can- 
 not so teach it. Religion is not a system at all, 
 and they who have succeeded in giving it in some 
 degree a systematic appearance, have only done so 
 because they have not scrupulously adhered to truth. 
 
 u One chief cause of sects among us is," not 
 " that the Church's voice is not heard clearly and 
 
 G 
 
82 
 
 forcibly," but because the Church is, in some 
 matters, " too bold and peremptory," and requires 
 from men what God has not required. The Church 
 of England is free from the sin of schism as regards 
 Romanists, but she is not free from the sin of 
 schism, nor yet from blood-guiltiness, witness the 
 atrocious persecution of the Scotch Covenanters, as 
 regards Protestants. 
 
 Mr. Newman manifests the usual inconsistency 
 of all irrationalists at p. 169. He admits that the 
 clergy do not " think alike," but he conceives they 
 would, if they studied antiquity ; when, as it is clear 
 even from his own book, men did not think alike 
 either, and moreover were not always even con- 
 sistent with themselves, any more than they are 
 now. There is not a single age since the apostles, 
 in which it can be proved that the clergy all thought 
 alike, nor is it probable that they ever will, while 
 human nature remains the same. " Men differ 
 from each other," much more from internal than 
 from external causes, because their minds are dif- 
 ferent as well as their faces, and therefore the same 
 matters do not affect different minds in the same 
 way. Men must be content to differ, or employ 
 force, and force may produce hypocritical uni- 
 formity, but never real unity, as Chillingworth has 
 clearly proved ; and they who are ambitious to 
 thrust upon the public their mischievous and obso- 
 
83 
 
 lete sophisms, had better first study the arguments 
 of that closest of reasoners, and answer them if they 
 can. Force is a carnal, and not a Christian weapon, 
 and all that it can do for men is to make narrower 
 the narrow way to Heaven, and broader the broad 
 way to Hell. 
 
 It is, perhaps, true, that men can hardly engage 
 in controversy without sustaining some moral injury, 
 and yet controversy is necessary, for without it 
 our interest languishes, and we grow indifferent to 
 truth. A really honest mind, unless weak or igno- 
 rant, will be slow to theorise; but if we concede 
 honesty to an ardent theorist, we must not be too 
 ready to condemn him for resorting occasionally 
 to artifices, of which, perhaps, in the heat of his 
 argument, he is himself unconscious. Of such arti- 
 fices, one of the most familiar is the mis-represent- 
 ing the opinions of opponents, and arguing against 
 the assumed opinion, as if it were the real one. 
 We cannot acquit our author of this charge in the 
 following passage (p. 173.) : 
 
 " There is something so very strange and wild in 
 maintaining that every individual Christian, rich and 
 poor, learned and unlearned, young and old, in order 
 to have an intelligent faith, must have formally ex- 
 amined, deliberated, and passed sentence upon the 
 meaning of Scripture for himself, and that in the 
 highest and most delicate and mysterious matters 
 g 2 
 
84 
 
 of faith, that I am unable either to discuss, or even 
 to impute such an opinion to another, in spite of 
 the large and startling declarations which men 
 make on the subject." 
 
 Now we do contend, not only for the right, but 
 also for the duty of private judgment, but certainly 
 not for the preposterous notion that all men must 
 examine to the same extent, however various the 
 character of their minds, their capacities, or endow- 
 ments, whether natural or acquired. If any persons 
 have put forth such wild notions on the subject of 
 private judgment, it would have been but candid in 
 Mr. Newman to have told us who they are. Any 
 man who has reflected but ever so little on the 
 matter must surely see that the standard of private 
 judgment, like the standard of essentials, must vary 
 according to the character and capacity of the in- 
 dividual who is to exercise it ; and it is just as rea- 
 sonable to say that nothing is essential, because the 
 standard of essentials is admitted to be variable, 
 as to say that the duty of private judgment does not 
 exist, because it cannot be exercised by all to the 
 same extent. The question is, not whether all per- 
 sons can exercise private judgment to the same ex- 
 tent, for we maintain no such absurdity, but whether 
 any persons, capable of being responsible agents, 
 are justified in refusing to exercise private judgment 
 to any the least extent. This last proposition Mr. 
 
85 
 
 Newman has not proved, and so far is he from being 
 able to prove it, that he cannot do so without 
 maintaining, what is necessarily implied in the denial 
 of the duty of private judgment on the part of a 
 responsible agent, and yet manifestly absurd, viz., 
 that the responsibility of men is less than their 
 power. 
 
 That all responsible agents have the power of ex- 
 amining to some extent, we shall endeavour to shew. 
 In this country, at the present day, there are it is 
 to be hoped few, if any families, of which some one 
 member at the least is not able to read, and occa- 
 sionally, if not constantly, to attend some place of 
 divine worship. They who neglect to attend any 
 place of divine worship, in so doing, sin, and for 
 such sin they are responsible. There are, I trust, 
 few places of worship in England, where the Bible 
 is not frequently mentioned and referred to. Any 
 person, however ignorant, if only an attendant at a 
 place of worship, and hearing the Bible mentioned 
 with reverence, if in earnest about religion, and if 
 not in earnest, it matters little what he is, would 
 naturally feel anxious to become better acquainted 
 with it, and the facilities now afforded for such an 
 object, by the Church of England, and by the various 
 other Protestant Churches, are so great, that we are 
 warranted in saying, that all persons, whom the law 
 treats as responsible agents, may become acquainted 
 
 kG 3 
 
86 
 
 with the Bible if they choose. An uneducated man 
 must take for granted that the Bible is true, and 
 rightly translated, but the best educated man must 
 take some things for granted also ; the difference 
 between them is of degree only, not of kind. We 
 will suppose, then, an uneducated man reading the 
 Bible, or, if he cannot read, hearing it read to him, 
 not as a form merely, but earnestly desiring to 
 know the truth, can he so read, or so listen, without 
 sometimes comparing in his own mind what the 
 Bible says, with what he has heard from others on 
 the subject of religion ? and if he so compares, 
 must he not, to some extent, for the more or the 
 less is not the question, exercise private judgment? 
 To some extent he has the power, and wherever 
 there is power, there must be duty. The difference 
 between men's minds is great, doubtless, but yet 
 not so vast as the arrogant suppose. 
 
 What has been said hitherto would apply to any 
 book not scientific, and written for the most part 
 in clear language. But the Bible appeals at least 
 as much to the heart, the will, the affections, or by 
 whatever other name we choose to designate the 
 same thing, as to the understanding ; and all men 
 have hearts. " With the heart man believeth unto 
 righteousness ;" an expression no less philosophically 
 accurate than divinely true; for faith in Scripture, 
 excepting in the Epistle of St. James, where it 
 
87 
 
 clearly signifies belief only, such as that of devils, 
 without trust, wherever it is spoken of as justifying, 
 means both belief and trust ; and though we believe 
 with the understanding, we trust with the will. 
 Therefore is it said in another passage, " My son, 
 give me thy heart ; w that is, a heart which desires 
 what God desires, and which entirely trusts that 
 what He has promised He will perform ; and such 
 a heart, we say, on most clear scriptural authority, 
 is a divine gift, though we deny not that men may 
 11 resist the Holy Ghost," as the Jews did of old. 
 There is nothing mystical in this doctrine, but it is 
 humbling to human pride ; for its effect is to place 
 Christianity within the reach of all, rich or poor, 
 learned or unlearned, young or old, of all to whom 
 God has given " an understanding heart," which he 
 has promised he will give to all who ask it with a 
 real love of truth, humility, and prayer. 
 
 How far the inhabitants of Popish, Mahometan, 
 and Heathen countries, are responsible for believing 
 falsehood, is a question which can be answered only 
 by determining how far they are incapacitated by 
 character or circumstances from believing the truth. 
 As far as they are really incapacitated, I cannot 
 think that they are responsible, but whether their 
 incapacities are absolutely invincible or only ima- 
 ginary, is a question between their Creator and 
 their own souls. Any man may unwittingly believe 
 g 4 
 
88 
 
 a lie, but no man need love a lie ; all such are 
 " without," with " murderers and idolaters." 
 
 Mr. Newman would maintain that " accuracy of 
 mind" is the chief requisite for understanding 
 Scripture (p. 175.) ; we say, "truth in the inward 
 parts." Men who would understand the Bible, 
 whether learned or unlearned, must love truth for 
 its own sake ; if they do so love truth, by God's 
 grace they will understand the Bible, though un- 
 learned ; if they do not, however great their learning, 
 or powerful their intellects, they never will. The 
 doctrine of the atonement for instance, we do 
 maintain to be the very foundation of Christianity ; 
 we cannot admit the title of any who deny it to 
 the name of Christian, yet what is it but an entire 
 trust in the merits and sacrifice of Christ alone for 
 salvation ? We believe that no person whom the 
 law of England considers a responsible agent is 
 incapable of understanding and believing thus much, 
 and that every person who can so embrace the 
 atonement will be saved. But, it must be ob- 
 served, that so to embrace the atonement neces- 
 sarily implies a deep conviction and a forsaking of 
 sin, and that it involves justification by faith only, 
 which last doctrine is, perhaps, really received in 
 their hearts by many who scruple to confess it in 
 words. Neither is it at all probable that a man who 
 has once advanced thus far in religion will pro- 
 
89 
 
 ceed no farther; if we follow the light, we shall 
 come to the light ; and the more earnestly we follow 
 the light, the more gloriously will our light shine. 
 
 Our author, as is usual with theorists, overstates 
 the difficulty which he objects to his opponents. 
 " What even is so scarce in the multitude of men 
 as the power of stating any simple matter of fact 
 as they witnessed it?" (P. 176.) If Mr. Newman 
 had been in the habit of attending courts of justice, 
 he would have found that such a power is by no 
 means scarce : on the contrary, there are very 
 few who are unable to state a simple matter of 
 fact as they witnessed it. Discrepances of tes- 
 timony, where the matter of fact is simple and the 
 witnesses equally honest, are rare. Where the 
 matter of fact is complicated, apparent discrepances 
 of testimony are doubtless frequent, and one reason 
 for this is, that the witnesses who differ, often do 
 so because they see distinct parts of the same 
 transaction. 
 
 Mr. Newman's argument is really sceptical, and 
 therefore cannot be fairly used by one who pro- 
 fesses himself a believer ; it is of little value, for it 
 proves too much ; but, such as it is, it may be urged 
 far more strongly against traditionists and irra- 
 tionalists than against Protestants ; for if there are 
 such " interminable confusions and misunderstand- 
 ings in controversy among the most earnest men," 
 
90 
 
 it follows that the less we meddle with any re- 
 ligious book besides the Bible, the better, for that 
 alone is inspired, as even Mr. Newman admits, and 
 therefore is the only book which can tell us nothing 
 but truth. However, we do not allow that there 
 are such " interminable confusions and misunder- 
 standings" among those who really love the truth ; 
 and it should not be forgotten that love of truth is 
 not always the reason why men are in earnest. 
 
 Enough, perhaps, has been said to prove that the 
 right of private judgment is not, as Mr. Newman 
 asserts, "a monopoly" (p. 177.) : but "it is one 
 thing to apprehend the Catholic doctrines, quite 
 another to ascertain how and where they are im- 
 plied in Scripture. Most men of fair education 
 can understand the sacred doctrine debated at 
 Nicea as fully as a professed theologian ; but few 
 have minds tutored into patient inquiry, attention, 
 and accuracy sufficient to prove it aright from 
 Scripture. Scripture is not so clear, in God's pro- 
 vidential arrangement, to which we submit, as to 
 hinder ordinary persons who read it for themselves 
 from being Sabellians, or Independents, or Wes- 
 leyans." (P. 178.) Now we do not maintain that 
 men are to be taught nothing in religion, and as 
 soon as they are old enough, to have a Bible put 
 into their hands, and to make out its meaning for 
 themselves as they can ; but that the Bible is the 
 
 
91 
 
 test whereby it is not only their right but their 
 duty to prove what they are taught. If, by " the 
 sacred doctrine debated at Nicea," be meant the 
 Nicene creed, though it is undoubtedly most clear 
 and express, and, as I think, by far the most va- 
 luable of the three Creeds, I cannot admit it to be 
 clearer than Scripture ; but an opportunity will 
 hereafter occur of considering this point. " A pro- 
 fessed theologian" may yet be " a natural man/' 
 and as such incapable of apprehending spiritual 
 truths ; for " the natural man receiveth not the 
 things of the Spirit of God : for they are foolishness 
 unto him : neither can he know them, because they 
 are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual 
 judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no 
 man."* 
 
 It is true that men differ as to the meaning of 
 Scripture ; but do they agree as to the meaning of 
 any book of sufficient importance to render its mean- 
 ing a matter of much discussion ? We believe that 
 Scripture is not less, but, to a great extent, more 
 clear than other books ; certain it is that its mean- 
 ing has been tortured in a manner which men would 
 not have ventured upon in the case of any other 
 book. The Bible is simple enough to be appre- 
 hended, as far as is necessary to salvation, by the 
 
 * 1 Cor. ii. 14, 15. 
 
92 
 
 meanest intellect, and too comprehensive to be 
 every where fathomed by the mightiest ; and men 
 who have a vast opinion of their own intellects would 
 do well to remember that " God resisteth the proud, 
 and giveth grace unto the humble.' , 
 
 As to " orthodoxy, in its fullest range, being the 
 one and only sense of Scripture," although Scripture 
 is doubtless consistent in all its parts, we answer, 
 that absolute orthodoxy does not exist. There are, 
 indeed, and have always been, many who call what- 
 ever they think, orthodoxy, and whatever they do 
 not think, heresy ; but, since the inspired apostles, 
 there never lived one man, much less one Church, 
 unerring in matters of faith. Who that has thought 
 has never doubted, and how can doubt be compatible 
 with absolute orthodoxy? To think otherwise is 
 only to think meanly of Christian perfection, to 
 think very differently from that great, good, wise, 
 and humble man, who, perhaps, approached absolute 
 orthodoxy as near as any, who yet assuredly will 
 not be held unerring by any of his rational admirers, 
 and who would have been the last to claim an un- 
 erring judgment for himself, or he would not have 
 written thus : " Every error in things appertaining 
 unto God is repugnant unto faith ; every fearful 
 cogitation, unto hope ; unto love, every straggling 
 inordinate desire ; unto holiness, every blemish 
 whereby either the inward thoughts of our minds, 
 
93 
 
 or the outward actions of our lives, are stained." * 
 If none think absolutely aright, how can we expect 
 to find absolute agreement among men? Never- 
 theless, among those who love the truth, there is 
 agreement to a very great extent ; for the chief 
 doctrines of Christianity are sufficiently clear, and 
 with this we must be satisfied. 
 
 Mr. Newman gives "undervaluing the sacra- 
 ments," as an instance of departure from orthodoxy ; 
 but overvaluing them is a departure likewise ; and 
 who is to decide between the parties ? -Any given 
 Church or congregation may exclude men profess- 
 ing certain opinions, but none can say with absolute 
 certainty what is the truth, since all Churches are, 
 alike composed of fallible men. If men are allowed 
 to take their faith from Scripture, our author asks 
 with great simplicity, as if all orthodoxy were con- 
 centrated in his own person, " What is to secure 
 their stopping at the very point we wish ? " (P. 179.) 
 We ask him, in our turn, what is to secure his being 
 always in the right? Certainly he is not here in the 
 right in putting the scriptural evidence for transub- 
 stantiation and that for the divinity of the Holy 
 Spirit on the same level. Our Lord calls the 
 sacramental cup a this fruit of the vine t/' after he 
 had called it " my blood : " besides, it is a monstrous 
 
 * Hooker, vol. iii. p. 645. ed. 1836. 
 
 f Matt. xxvi. 29. I am indebted to Dr. Shuttle worth for 
 this remark. 
 
94 
 
 absurdity to suppose the disciples literally drinking 
 our Lord' s blood before it was shed. No man can 
 believe transubstantiation without depriving himself 
 pro tanto of the use both of his understanding and 
 his senses. But the Holy Spirit is repeatedly called 
 " the Spirit of God," and how can " the Spirit of 
 God " be less than divine ? 
 
 We fully agree with Mr. Newman, that prejudices 
 disqualify men from searching Scripture (p. 180.); 
 and we call upon him to admit the converse of the 
 proposition, that men are qualified to search Scrip- 
 ture by the love of truth. We know not that " pro- 
 fessed theologians" are freer from prejudice, or love 
 truth better than other men. As to the faith taught 
 by the Church Catholic being '< ascertainable as a 
 matter of fact, beyond the influence of prejudice," 
 we take issue with our author on every point. 
 If by the Church Catholic be meant the Church 
 visible, we answer, that the Church visible, of which 
 the Romanists are a large portion, has taught 
 and continues to teach falsehood ; that what 
 the Church has taught is not a matter of fact, but 
 a matter of opinion, to be ascertained as we ascer- 
 tain the sense of Scripture, by the use of our under- 
 standings ; that what the Church has taught from 
 authority, Mr. Newman cannot tell, since, among 
 our teachers from authority, he does not know 
 whether to include or not all the theological writers 
 
95 
 
 of more than four centuries; that we have no reason 
 for holding any man, or Church, since the apostles, 
 a teacher from authority, and that no man or Church, 
 in any subsequent age of the Church, can be proved 
 to have been either infallible or inspired. 
 
 Mr. Newman proceeds to give many instances of 
 what he considers misinterpretations, or contradic- 
 tory interpretations of Scripture. If he or any other 
 man, from antiquity or any other source, can put 
 forth an infallible interpretation of Scripture, let 
 them do so ; in the mean time, without considering 
 any interpretation infallible, we are content to use 
 what helps we have. We are charged with going 
 " by no rule " in interpreting Scripture ; the answer 
 is we know of none equally applicable in all cases. 
 If there be such a rule, let those who know it pro- 
 duce it. True it is we interpret Scripture generally 
 by the context, and by comparison with itself; we 
 consider some passages figurative, others literal ; we 
 consider some precepts temporary only, and some 
 repealed by subsequent scriptural revelation ; and 
 we ask who has ever commented on Scripture with- 
 out doing as much? Whether, when we say we " go 
 by common sense" we "really go by prejudice " 
 (p. 183.), is more than Mr. Newman or any other 
 man can tell : sufficient for him is his own respon- 
 sibility. We deny that we can determine when 
 Scripture is figurative, and when it is literal, by 
 
96 
 
 seeing " how the early Church understood it." If 
 so, let Mr. Newman or his friends publish a com- 
 mentary, extracted from the early writers, and giv- 
 ing a fair outline of their general opinions, not of 
 those only which they held in common with our- 
 selves. Would many modern commentaries suffer 
 much by comparison with the fanciful speculations 
 of Origen, or the argument of Clement of Rome 
 for the truth of the resurrection, or the notions of 
 Justin Martyr on the origin of evil, or of Irenaeus 
 on the wonderful fertility of the vines of the Mil- 
 lennium ? 
 
 When Mr. Newman objects to us that " the 
 Protestant, in his exposition of justification by faith 
 only, may be indulged in contradicting St. James, 
 without agreeing with St. Paul" (p. 183.), he is 
 more than commonly unfortunate. " Except," says 
 Hooker, in his invaluable sermon on justification, 
 " there be an ambiguity in some term, St. Paul and 
 St. James do contradict each other ; which cannot 
 be." Now it is clear, that St. Paul, by a saving faith 
 does not mean the faith of devils, or belief without 
 trust ; it is also clear that St. James does. " Devils 
 know the same things which we believe, and the 
 minds of the most ungodly may be fully persuaded 
 of the truth ; which knowledge in the one, and per- 
 suasion in the other, is sometimes termed faith, 
 being indeed no such faith as that whereby a Chris- 
 
97 
 
 tian man is justified. It is the Spirit of adoption 
 which worketh faith in us, in them not ; the things 
 which we believe, are by us apprehended, not only 
 as true, but also as good, and that to us : as good, 
 they are not by them apprehended ; as true, they 
 are. Whereupon followeth a third difference ; the 
 Christian man, the more he increaseth in faith, the 
 more his joy and comfort aboundeth : but they, the 
 more sure they are of the truth, the more they quake 
 and tremble at it." And again, " There are two 
 kinds of Christian righteousness : the one without 
 us, which we have by imputation ; the other in us, 
 which consisteth of faith, hope, and charity, and 
 other Christian virtues ; and St. James doth prove 
 that Abraham had not only the one, because the 
 thing he believed was imputed unto him for right- 
 eousness ; but also the other, because he offered up 
 his son. God giveth us both the one justice and the 
 other : the one by accepting us for righteous in 
 Christ ; the other by working Christian righteous- 
 ness in us." * 
 
 It is remarkable that, although the doctrine of 
 justification by faith only is not found in any of the 
 three creeds, it is of greater antiquity in the Church, 
 independent of Scripture, than all of them; yet we 
 see those who are loudest in their profession of 
 reverence for antiquity rejecting it. 
 
 * Hooker, vol. iii. p. 631 641. 
 H 
 
98 
 
 Clement of Rome, in his first, and I believe only 
 epistlewhich is undoubtedly genuine,writes thus*: 
 
 " And we therefore being called by his will in 
 Christ Jesus, are not justified by ourselves, or by 
 our own wisdom, or knowledge, or piety, or works 
 which we have done in holiness of heart ; but by 
 faith, whereby Almighty God hath justified all those 
 elect from the beginning." 
 
 Polycarp f also says, in part quoting from the 
 second chapter of Ephesians," Knowing that by 
 grace ye are saved, not by works, but by the will of 
 God through Jesus Christ." 
 
 These passages are surely most clear, yet we 
 cannot admit either of them to be clearer than the 
 
 * Kal Tjfxeis ovv dia &eA7]/xaTos avrov 4v Xpiarc^ 'Irjaov k\tj- 
 Btvres, ov Si' kavTwv diKaiovfiida, ovbe 8ta rqs TjfxeTepas o~o<pia.s 7 ^ 
 tnweVecos, 4) evaeSeias, f) %pyuv wv Kareipyaadfx^Qa iu 6o~i6tt]tl 
 Kaphas' a\\a 5ia rijs ttI(ttws, W ^s TrdvTas robs car' aluvos 6 
 iramoKpaTup Qehs iStKaiuaci/. (s. 32.) Patres Apostolici, ed. 
 Cotelerius. Amstelaedami, 1724. vol. i. p. 166. 
 
 Lest some should be induced from this passage to attach too 
 much weight to Clement's authority, it is proper to observe 
 that, in the same epistle, he relates the fable of the Phcenix 
 with undoubting credulity, and uses it as an argument for the 
 truth of the resurrection, (s. 25.) Origen, Tertullian, Gregory 
 Nazianzen, Jerome, Ambrose, and other Fathers do* the same, 
 according to the annotator on the passage, who himself, in the 
 true spirit of the " errare mallem," believes the fable on their 
 authority. 
 
 t E&ores on x&piri core ceawafAtvoi. ovk e| tpywv, aA\a 
 ^e^/xuTi ov, Sia 'lrjadv Xpiarov. Patres Apostolici, vol. ii. 
 p. 187. 
 
99 
 
 words of St. Paul, " By grace are ye saved through 
 faith ; and that not of yourselves : it is the gift of 
 God : not of works, lest any man should boast." * 
 
 The words of the Church of England in the 
 eleventh article, are equally clear, " That we are 
 justified by faith only is a most wholesome doc- 
 trine, and very full of comfort." If all these passages 
 are not plain, and many others might be quoted, 
 we ask those who deny the doctrine, to put it if they 
 can in plainer language ; if they cannot, they are 
 bound in honesty to secede from the Church of 
 England, not to eat her bread and betray her princi- 
 ples, to teach doctrines which the Church denounces, 
 in the Church's name. For is it less than treachery 
 to the Church of England to teach as her doctrine 
 that " the sacraments are the immediate, faith is 
 the secondary, subordinate, or representative in- 
 strument of justification? " f {Newman onJustifica- 
 tion, p. 260.) Justification by faith only is not a 
 barren opinion, but an energic principle, and there- 
 fore did Luther write it as an undying scroll on the 
 Protestant banner, as the Christian's only triumphant 
 answer to his accusing Foe. 
 
 tWhen Mr. Newman says, that " the popular reli- 
 * Eph. ii. 8. 
 f The absurdity of this position is evident, for the sacra- 
 ments are external, and faith is internal. That which is in- 
 ward cannot represent that which is outward, but that which is 
 outward may represent that which is inward. 
 H 2 
 
100 
 
 gion of the day is a slave to traditions of men, and 
 interprets Scripture in a spirit of caprice," after 
 the specimen we have just had of his mode of in- 
 terpreting Scripture, the apostolical Fathers, and the 
 Church of England, we could smile, if such gross 
 self-delusion were not rather a subject of pity. 
 That Scripture, interpreted in the spirit we inter- 
 pret it, " might be made to prove Romanism quite 
 as well " (p. 184.), we deny ; if it can, it is open to 
 Mr. Newman to do it. If Romanists can prove 
 their faith from Scripture, why do they add to it ? 
 
 We do not profess to understand every passage 
 in Scripture ; on the contrary, we confess that we 
 are not able to understand many : who is able to 
 understand all ? nevertheless, we feel little difficulty 
 as to the passage in the second chapter of the second 
 epistle to the Thessalonians, with which Mr. New- 
 man presses us, " Stand fast, and hold the tradi- 
 tions/' We conceive St. Paul here to command 
 the Thessalonians to hold fast whatever they had 
 been taught, whether by word or writing ; not that 
 any doctrine had been taught them, " too sacred or 
 too subtle to record in words" (p. 249.) ; a supersti- 
 tious notion, for which we have no scriptural 
 warrant whatever. We consider that in holding 
 fast what St. Paul wrote, we hold fast also what he 
 preached ; that he delivered no more orally than 
 Scripture contains, and that if St. Paul delivered to 
 
101 
 
 the Thessalonians any traditions not contained in 
 Scripture, before we can hold them fast, we must 
 know what they are ; a question which Mr. Newman 
 and the Romanists are well aware that they cannot 
 answer. That St. Paul in his preaching held back 
 nothing, we know ; for he says in the Acts, xx. 27., 
 I have not shunned to decla^ unto you all the 
 counsel of God," and therefore does the holy 
 apostle declare himself " pure from the blood of 
 all men," which those ministers, who wilfully hold 
 back any thing cannot be. 
 
 "Anointing them with oil in the name of the 
 Lord," mentioned by St. James, is a rite or cere- 
 mony, and we have already seen that " the Church 
 has power to decree rites and ceremonies," and that 
 all apostolical rites are not observed by Mr. Newman 
 and the Romanists. 
 
 As to the Unitarians, whose perversions of 
 Scripture are somewhat insidiously objected to 
 us (p. 185.), it is sufficient to remark, what our 
 author must surely know, that the Unitarians deny 
 the plenary inspiration of Scripture ; and as they 
 have no means of determining inspired passages from 
 those which they assume to be uninspired, when 
 pressed by any text, they have only to deny its 
 inspiration, and they are furnished with a ready 
 answer. This instance, therefore, does not prove 
 Mr. Newman's point, "that Scripture does not 
 h 3 
 
102 
 
 teach doctrine as the Athanasian creed teaches it " 
 (p. 187.)* Why should not the Unitarians receive 
 the Athanasian creed in the same spirit in which 
 they receive the Bible ? 
 
 The words, u the Church of the living God, the 
 pillar and ground of the truth'* (1 Tim. iii. 15.), 
 cannot apply to the visible Church in all ages, 
 because the visible Church, far from being a pillar 
 of truth, has often taught falsehood. Hooker 
 restricts all promises to the mystical Church, as we 
 have already seen. The text would seem to declare 
 what every particular Church ought to be, not what 
 any Church is. 
 
 We do not consider that the words, " thou art 
 Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church," 
 apply to St. Peter only, but to all the apostles, for 
 the Church is said, in another passage, to be built 
 " upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, 
 Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone." 
 
 Mr. Newman's argument is truly Popish : the 
 same argument and the same texts are urged by 
 the Jesuit Knott, and answered by Chillingworth. 
 To say " that Scripture was never intended to teach 
 doctrine to the many "(p. 189.), is nothing more than 
 a groundless assertion, which our author proceeds 
 to argue upon without any proof, as if it were an 
 axiom. What shadow of an argument is there for 
 restricting the words of St. John, xx. 31., to those 
 
103 
 
 only who are "already instructed in doctrine ?'' 
 " These are written, that ye might believe that 
 Jesus is the Christ, the son of God ; and that believ- 
 ing ye might have life through his name." 
 
 We approach at length very nearly to infallibility : 
 between infallibility and private judgment there is, 
 in fact, no middle course. " The Church truly 
 maybe said almost infallibly to interpret Scripture " 
 (p. 190.) : then why is not the almost infallible inter- 
 pretation produced? Until we have it, we are 
 warranted in retorting upon whatever Mr. Newman 
 means by the Church, which he superstitiously calls 
 "the Prophet of God " (p. 191.), a prophet which 
 can foretell nothing, the same objections which 
 he makes to Protestant commentators. The Church 
 cannot " embrace the whole Bible ; " the Church 
 cannot " interpret the whole ; " the Church has no 
 " key which will revolve through the entire compass 
 of the wards which lie within ;" the Church cannot 
 " solve the great secret and utter the mystery of 
 its pages." 
 
 We trust, then, that we have already proved 
 what we are charged with receiving without proof, 
 that under the guidance of the Holy Ghost, " Scrip- 
 ture is the only divine instrument given us ; that 
 every thing else is human ; that the Church is 
 human ; that rites are human ; that teachers are 
 human ; that the Fathers are but fallible men ; that 
 h 4 
 
101 
 
 creeds and confessions, primitive faith, are human 
 systems and doctrines of men" (p. 191.). Sacra- 
 ments we do not hold to be of human origin, but 
 that " they have a wholesome effect or operation 
 in such only as rightly, worthily, and with faith 
 receive them* ;" and "apostolical traditions," as 
 universally imperative upon Christians, we deny to 
 exist. 
 
 Mr. Newman, at p. 194., calls upon us to follow 
 the opinion of the multitude. Then we ought to 
 be Papists, for Popery has been professed by a 
 greater number of men than any other Christian 
 sect. Our author would follow the multitude, just 
 as he follows antiquity, that is, as we have seen, as 
 far as suits his convenience. What man of any re- 
 flection, or of any information, believes the multitude 
 always right on religion, or on any other subject ? 
 " Fallible men may convey truth infallible" (p. 195.). 
 Doubtless, but they may also convey falsehood. 
 We do not derive our religion from fallible men, 
 but from infallible Scripture, which we receive, not 
 from men, but through men. What men have said 
 or written on religion, as on all other moral subjects, 
 we believe to be a mixture of truth and falsehood. 
 
 Mr. Newman challenges us to produce a text to 
 establish the point, " that Scripture is the sole 
 necessary instrument of the Holy Ghost for guiding 
 * Art. XXV. XXVII. XXVIII. 
 

 105 
 
 the individual Christian into saving truth " (p. 196.). 
 Here is one (2Tim. iii. 15.) "The Holy Scriptures, 
 which are able to make thee wise unto salvation 
 through faith which is in Christ Jesus." Mr. 
 Newman quotes the next verse as insufficient to 
 establish the point, but omits this which is sufficient ; 
 for how can the Scriptures make us " wise unto 
 salvation," if some other teaching must be added ? 
 If other means are absolutely required, it follows 
 that the Scriptures are unable. Neither do such 
 texts as, " Ask and it shall be given unto you, seek 
 and ye shall find," prove that (i no external means 
 at all is necessary, not even Scripture ; for Scripture 
 is not mentioned" (p. 197.). Without Scripture 
 we should not know what to ask. As we have 
 said already, we reject no external means, but we 
 deny the absolute and universal necessity of any 
 means beyond Scripture, the Spirit, and prayer. Of 
 other means we hold the "foolishness of preaching" 
 to be more efficacious than antiquity and catho- 
 licity, whatever is meant by those vague words. 
 
 Mr. Newman here indulges in a great deal of 
 hypothesis, a most reprehensible mode of insi- 
 nuating what he dares not assert, and more dan- 
 gerous than a sneer, which has little effect on men 
 really in earnest. 
 
 We do not receive doctrines on tradition, as 
 asserted, p. 198. " Tradition," like " Church," is a 
 
106 
 
 convenient word for controversialists. It may be 
 oral ; it may be written; it may mean whatever one 
 man delivers to another. In this last sense only do 
 we receive Scripture on tradition, just as we receive 
 the poems of Horace on tradition. That the Fathers 
 had the same Scriptures with ourselves is a matter 
 of fact ; that they held the same doctrines is a 
 matter of opinion, at least as far as the meaning 
 of Scripture is a matter of opinion. If we doubt 
 what Scripture means, so we may doubt with at 
 least as much, nay far greater reason, what the 
 Fathers mean, for the difficulties in interpreting 
 them are infinitely greater than those in interpreting 
 Scripture ; as they do not agree among themselves. 
 Besides, the internal evidence for the truth of 
 Scripture is irresistible. 
 
 We ask our hypothetical author, does he or does 
 he not mean to refer the text, " Search the Scrip- 
 tures" to the Jews only? Is this the doctrine of 
 antiquity ? It is sufficient to observe, in answer to 
 such reasoning, that whatever God has spoken to 
 men, above all other knowledge it must concern 
 men to know. The passage, 2 Peter, i. 19., cannot 
 refer to the Jews only, "We have also a more 
 sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye do well that 
 ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a 
 dark place." The apostle adds, " There were false 
 
107 
 
 prophets also among the people, even as there shall 
 be false teachers among you." 
 
 If by " the creed" Mr. Newman means that com- 
 monly called the Apostles' Creed, we deny that it 
 contains all doctrine ssufficient for salvation, for it 
 does not contain the atonement. But, for discussing 
 this point, a fitter opportunity will presently arise. 
 
 We conclude then, that there is "natural pro- 
 bability," and " supernatural promise, that indi- 
 viduals reading Scripture for themselves," and we 
 know of none such who neglect all other means, 
 will, if they earnestly pray for God's assistance, 
 and really desire to know the truth, be led into a 
 saving knowledge of the true faith of a Christian ; 
 and that our author has not produced, and cannot 
 produce, satisfactory evidence or arguments to the 
 contrary. 
 
 Mr. Newman proceeds to give instances of the 
 abuse of private judgment. Among errors in 
 matters of fact which " now improperly go by the 
 name of traditions, whereas they seem really to 
 have originated in a misunderstanding of Scripture" 
 (p. 203.), he mentions, " the report recorded by 
 Irenseus, that our Saviour lived to be forty or fifty." 
 Now, will Mr. Newman venture not to insinuate, 
 but to assert, that this report of Irenaeus did so 
 originate in a misunderstanding of Scripture ? and 
 will he furnish us with a test for discriminating 
 
108 
 
 true from false traditions? In the mean time, 
 nothing is easier than to ascribe the origin of any tra- 
 dition subsequently rejected, to " mis-construction 
 of Scripture." It is remarkable, that two tra- 
 ditions, according to Chillingworth, better attested 
 than any others in the primitive Church, have been 
 both subsequently rejected. These are, that re- 
 lating to the Millennium, now believed by many, 
 not on the authority of tradition, but because they 
 consider it a scriptural revelation, although it ap- 
 pears to be rejected by Mr. Newman ; and the 
 communicating of infants, now rejected alike by 
 both Papists and Protestants. I cannot discover 
 that Mr. Newman has once mentioned this last 
 tradition throughout his work. 
 
 It must be observed, that it affects not the va- 
 lidity of the argument, whether these two traditions 
 were held by the primitive Church as traditions 
 only, or as doctrines derived from Scripture. If 
 they were so held as traditions, and it can be shewn 
 that they have all the marks of a genuine tradition, 
 then their subsequent rejection is fatal to the au- 
 thority of the primitive Church as a witness of 
 traditions; if they were held by the primitive 
 Church as scriptural doctrines, according to the 
 same rule whereby we judge other doctrines to 
 have been so held, then their subsequent rejection 
 
109 
 
 is fatal to the authority of the primitive Church as 
 an interpreter of Scripture. 
 
 The marks of a true and catholic tradition or 
 doctrine are thus given by Chillingworth, from 
 Cardinal Perron : first, 
 
 " Whatsoever doctrine is believed and taught by 
 the most eminent Fathers of any age of the Church, 
 and by none of their contemporaries opposed or 
 condemned, that is to be esteemed the catholic 
 doctrine of the Church of those times ; but the 
 doctrine of the Millenaries was believed and taught 
 by the most eminent Fathers of the age next after 
 the Apostles, and by none of that age opposed or 
 condemned ; therefore it was the catholic doctrine 
 of the Church of those times." (Vol. iiL p. 370.) 
 
 He proceeds to give several authorities, and then 
 states the second rule from the same theologian 
 thus, adding as before the consequence (p. 373.): 
 
 " Whatsoever doctrine is taught by the Fathers 
 of any age, not as doctors, but as witnesses of the 
 tradition of the Church, that is, not as their own 
 opinion, but as the doctrine of the Church of their 
 times, that is undoubtedly to be so esteemed, espe- 
 cially if none contradicted them in it; but the 
 Fathers above cited teach this doctrine, not as their 
 own private opinion, but as the Christian tradition, 
 and as the doctrine of the Church, neither did any 
 
110 
 
 contradict them in it ; ergo it is undoubtedly to be 
 so esteemed. 
 
 " The communicating infants, by the confession 
 of Cardinal Perron, Maldonate, and Binnius, was 
 the custom of the Church for six hundred years at 
 least ; it is expressly and in terms vouched by St. 
 Austin for the doctrine of the Church, and an apos- 
 tolic tradition ; it was never instituted by a general 
 council, but in the use of the Church as long before 
 the first general council, as St. Cyprian before that 
 council ; there is no known author nor beginning of 
 it ; all which are the catholic marks of an apostolic 
 tradition ; and yet this you (Romanists) say is not 
 so, or if it be, why have you abolished it ? The 
 opinion of the Chiliasts (Millenaries) lineally de- 
 rives its pedigree from our Saviour to St. John ; 
 from St. John to Papias ; from Papias to Justin 
 Martyr, Irenaeus, Melito Sardensis, Tertullian, and 
 others of the two first ages; who as they generally 
 agree in the affirmation of this doctrine, and are 
 not contradicted by any of their predecessors, so 
 some of them at least speak to the point, not as 
 doctors, but witnesses, and deliver it for the doc- 
 trine of the Church and apostolic tradition, and 
 condemn the contrary as heresy. And therefore, 
 if there be any unwritten traditions, these certainly 
 must be admitted first." (Vol. iii. p. 358, 359. 412.) 
 
 Is it candid or honest then in Mr, Newman to 
 
Ill 
 
 class this tradition as to the Millennium among "local 
 rumours about matters of fact ? " (p. 203.) The tra- 
 dition of the Millennium is not a matter of fact, 
 but a doctrine, a subject of which we can know 
 nothing but by revelation. 
 
 But this is not the only argument against tradi- 
 tion. St. John says (xx. 30.), " And many other 
 signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disci- 
 ples, which are not written in this book." Now 
 there is not, I believe, one of these many signs or 
 miracles thus wrought, and not recorded in Scrip- 
 ture, preserved by tradition ; yet what was more 
 likely to have been so preserved ? There are indeed 
 some sayings attributed to our Lord which are pre- 
 served, but I think not one on such strong evidence 
 as the tradition of the Millenaries, and that for ad- 
 ministering the sacrament to infants. 
 
 Mr. Newman gives several instances of erroneous 
 interpretations of Scripture, in default of tradition: 
 it is hardly necessary to consider them all ; but as 
 to some of them, and one such we have mentioned 
 already, it is any thing but clear that they are 
 merely misinterpretations of Scripture, and not 
 traditions ; but whether one or the other, our point, 
 that the ancient writers were all fallible, and there- 
 fore cannot be of authority, is equally proved. 
 
 Mr. Newman says of Arianism, that, " when its 
 history is examined, this peculiarity will be found 
 
112 
 
 respecting it, that it appealed only to Scripture, 
 not to catholic tradition " (p. 205.). The inference 
 from this passage is, that Arianism was a pure 
 novelty ; but is it not the fact, and if so why is it 
 concealed, that, before the council of Nice, the 
 synod of seventy or eighty bishops which con- 
 demned the heresy of Paul of Samosata, denied that 
 the Son was of one substance with the Father?* 
 This therefore, is not an instance in point. Arian- 
 ism had something besides Scripture to appeal to. 
 
 The opinions of Augustine on predestination are 
 given as an instance of misinterpretation of Scrip- 
 ture, and disregard of tradition, with no better 
 success. It is impossible to separate predestin- 
 ation from election, and election, as we have seen, 
 was the doctrine of Clement of Rome (p. 98.). Be- 
 sides, in the very passage quoted from Augustine, he 
 refers to Cyprian, Ambrose, and Gregory, as agree- 
 ing with himself. Augustine may have been incon- 
 sistent in following tradition at one time and disre- 
 garding it at another ; if so, his inconsistencies are 
 a stumbling-block to traditionists, but nothing to us. 
 It is scarcely necessary to remark that predestin- 
 ation is the doctrine; of the seventeenth article of 
 ;."the Church of England, and also of Hooker's noble 
 sermon on " The Certainty and Perpetuity of 
 
 * Chillingworth, vol. i. p. xxi. 
 
113 
 
 Faith in the Elect ;" beyond the Church of England 
 and Hooker, in this matter, we do not go. 
 
 A still less successful instance is the doctrine of 
 purgatory. " I think/' says Mr. Newman, " it may 
 be shewn that its existence is owing to the same 
 indulgence of human reason and of private judg- 
 ment upon Scripture, in default of catholic tradi- 
 tion " (p. 209.). Certain it is, on his own shewing, 
 that passages strongly in favour of purgatory may 
 be found in the Fathers, though not in the most 
 ancient, and that no passage in favour of it is to be 
 found in Scripture ; on the contrary, it is not only 
 an addition to Scripture, but against it. The texts 
 quoted by Mr. Newman, as, " The fire shall try 
 every man's work," " He shall baptize you with the 
 Holy Ghost and with fire," are admitted to be ob- 
 scure, though elucidated by Scripture, as in Jude, 23., 
 " Others save with fear, pulling them out of the 
 fire," which obviously does not refer to a future 
 state ; but does it therefore follow that they are 
 favourable to purgatory ? Many interpretations 
 might be given ; one of the simplest is the fire of 
 temptation, whereby all Christians are tried. The 
 passage from 1 Cor. iii. 13. shews also the danger 
 of building on any other foundation than Christ. 
 But purgatory is directly contrary to the text, 
 " Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord : Yea, 
 saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their 
 i 
 
114 
 
 labours." If purgatory were true, they would not 
 rest. Mr. Newman states " the custom of praying 
 for the dead to have been universal," he adds the 
 mischievous words, " and apparently apostolical " 
 (p. 216.), which he well knows he cannot prove; 
 it is clearly an addition to Scripture, and therefore 
 " accursed." If purgatory be not true, there is no 
 meaning in praying for the dead. What Mr. New- 
 man's object may be, he best knows, but what he 
 has here written on the subject of purgatory is cer- 
 tainly calculated to insinuate doubts whether it may 
 not be true. 
 
 It is impossible to refute purgatory from the 
 Fathers, when the early custom of praying for the 
 dead, and such passages as the following, quoted 
 by our author, may be urged against us. 
 
 " Lactantius says, When He judges the just, He 
 shall try them in the fire. Then they whose sins 
 prevail in weight or number, will be tortured in the 
 fire, and burnt in the extremities ; but they who 
 are mature in righteousness and ripeness of virtue 
 shall not feel that flame, for they have somewhat of 
 God within them, to repel and throw off the force 
 of it. Such is the power of innocence, that from it 
 that fire recoils without harm, as having received a 
 mission from God to burn the irreligious, to retire 
 from the righteous : ' 
 
 "And Augustine, * Such a suffering, too, it is not 
 
115 
 
 incredible, may happen after this life ; and it is a fair 
 question, whether it can be settled or not, whether 
 some Christians, according to their love of the 
 perishing goods of this world, attain salvation more 
 slowly or speedily through a certain purgatorial 
 fire? '"(p. 214, 215.) 
 
 Where shall we arrive if we follow these " blind 
 guides ? " 
 
 Another instance of what Mr. Newman calls 
 " an error introduced professedly on grounds of 
 Scripture without the safeguard of catholic tra- 
 dition, is the doctrine of the pope's universal 
 bishoprick " (p. 217.). This is really a notion too ab- 
 surd to argue against. Neither the pope or his bishop- 
 rick are once mentioned in Scripture. Mr. Newman 
 admits that passages may be alleged from the Fathers 
 in support of the notion of the supremacy of St. 
 Peter over the other apostles. If so, they who rely 
 on the Fathers must "see to that ;" we rely on Scrip- 
 ture only, and are prepared to meet the Romanists 
 on the sole ground of Scripture, on this as on every 
 other point ; the errors of the Fathers concern not 
 us. It is clear, however, that the notion of the 
 supremacy of St. Peter has nothing to do with the 
 pope's supremacy ; the latter is no consequence of 
 the former, although Mr. Newman seems to think 
 it no easy matter to prove whether the pope is 
 I 2 
 
116 
 
 " honorary primate of Christendom," or not. How 
 can an idolater be the honorary primate of Chris- 
 tendom ? 
 
 The Romanists found their doctrine of the su- 
 premacy of St. Peter over the other apostles on the 
 well-known text, " 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." (Matt. xvi. 
 18, 19.) Now we answer to the first part of the 
 text, that the Church is built " upon the foundation 
 of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself 
 being the chief corner-stone ; " and to the second, 
 the words of our Lord, a little after, to all the 
 apostles; (Matt, xviii. 18.) " Whatsoever ye shall 
 bind on earth shall be bound in heaven : and what- 
 soever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in 
 heaven." We say, therefore, that this famous text 
 cannot refer to St. Peter only, but to all the apostles, 
 and that he is here addressed, not individually, but 
 as the representative of the whole body. 
 
 But, again, there is no scriptural ground for claim- 
 ing a superiority for St. Peter over St. Paul. It 
 was St. Paul who said of himself, that he was " not 
 a whit behind the very chiefest apostles," who " la- 
 boured more abundantly than they all." It was St. 
 Paul who " withstood " St. Peter " to the face be- 
 cause he was to be blamed ; " who yet alive " was 
 
117 
 
 caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable 
 words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter."* 
 
 Again, St. John was " the disciple whom Jesus' 
 loved:" it was St. John to whose care our Lord com- 
 mended his mother, when expiring on the cross ; it 
 was St. John who was favoured with a revelation of 
 the future condition of the Church to the end of the 
 world ; and much larger portions of Scripture were 
 written both by St. John and St. Paul than by St. 
 Peter. 
 
 We say not this from any desire to exalt St. John 
 or St. Paul above St. Peter, nor do we exalt these 
 three more prominent apostles above the rest ; we 
 deny only that we have any scriptural warrant for 
 such supremacy, and we seek not u to be wise above 
 what is written/ 
 
 Mr. Newman has given six instances of what he 
 terms " the abuse of private judgment in inter- 
 preting Scripture ; " we have seen that five of them, 
 with at least as much reason, may be termed in- 
 stances of the use of tradition ; and if we grant his 
 remaining instance to be an abuse of private judg- 
 ment, the notion of Cyprian f, viz. that baptism by 
 
 * 2 Cor. xii. 4. 
 
 f It is remarkable that Hooker, vol. i. p. 433., states this 
 error to have arisen, not from the abuse of private judg- 
 ment, but from neglect of the distinction between the mys- 
 tical and visible Church, the very error of Mr. Newman him- 
 self. 
 
118 
 
 heretics is invalid, what has he proved ? Who as- 
 serts that private judgment is not often abused? 
 What is there which may not be and has not been 
 often abused ? We say also, " the practical con- 
 clusion is obvious. Let those whom it concerns" 
 beware how they substitute for private judgment, 
 because they dread its abuse, traditions or authority 
 of antiquity, which may carry them they know not 
 where, and countenance they know not what. 
 
119 
 
 CHAP. III. 
 
 The next question is " the indefectibility of the 
 Church Catholic," which, following Mr. Newman, 
 who does not confine himself to one branch of his 
 subject at a time, we have been obliged to consider 
 in part beforehand. The following argument is but 
 a repetition of what has been already advanced. 
 " The Church enforces, on her own responsibility, 
 what is an historical fact, and ascertainable as other 
 facts, and obvious to the intelligence of inquirers as 
 other facts ; viz. the doctrine of the apostles ; and 
 private judgment has as little exercise here as in 
 any matters of sense or experience. It may as well 
 claim the right of denying that the apostles ex- 
 isted, or that the Bible exists, as that that doctrine 
 existed and exists " (p. 224.). The obvious fallacy 
 here has been noticed already (p. 35.). The answer 
 is, that points of doctrine are not matters of fact, 
 but conclusions of reason ; and that it is not a con- 
 sequence, because we admit the Fathers as witnesses 
 to prove that they had the same Scriptures with 
 ourselves, that therefore we must receive their au- 
 thority as interpreters of what the Scriptures mean. 
 i 4 
 
120 
 
 The distinction between matter of law and matter 
 of fact, familiar to every lawyer, and one would have 
 supposed to every reflecting man, since it has its 
 foundation in the nature of things, is exactly in 
 point. We will suppose a witness served with the 
 writ termed a " subpoena duces tecum/' which 
 means, that he is to appear in court with a writing 
 in his custody, and give evidence. How does it 
 follow, that because we admit him as a witness to 
 prove how the writing came into his possession, and 
 that it is in all respects the same writing as when 
 it was first intrusted to him, that therefore we must 
 admit him as an interpreter of the meaning of the 
 writing ? The meaning of the writing is matter of 
 law, its genuineness and authenticity are matters of 
 fact. So it is with the Fathers and the Bible. The 
 distinction is so obvious that they who cannot see 
 it must have an inaccurate mind ; they who will not, 
 a dishonest one. 
 
 The question whether any given doctrine existed 
 at any given period is not the point at issue, it is 
 much more complicated. Doctrines which we know 
 to have existed at certain periods we do not receive. 
 It is quite clear that the Fathers, like ourselves, 
 held true and false opinions, and no practicable test 
 can be given, besides the Bible, whereby we can 
 certainly discriminate their true opinions from their 
 false. Besides, we must have some reason for sub- 
 
121 
 
 mitting ourselves unconditionally on any point to 
 the judgment of men, not one of whom can be 
 proved infallible any more than ourselves. If we 
 so gratuitously abandon the use of our understand- 
 ings, what security have we that we shall believe 
 the truth ? The service of God is " a reasonable 
 service." I cannot forbear here giving the words of 
 Chillingworth, which are so clear that none can 
 mistake them, and so true that none can answer 
 them ; 
 
 " For my part, I am certain that God hath given 
 us our reason, to discern between truth and false- 
 hood ; and he that will not m ake this use of it, but 
 believes things he knows not why, I say it is by 
 chance that he believes the truth, and not by 
 choice ; and that I cannot but fear that God will not 
 accept of ' this sacrifice of fools ! ' " (Vol. i. p. 238.) 
 
 The only semblance of a reason for thus divesting 
 ourselves of our understandings is the assumed ne^ 
 cessity for an absolute union of opinion, a self-con- 
 tradictory assumption of an impossibility : self-con- 
 tradictory, because the extent of the authority of 
 the Fathers or the Church, or the point where 
 authority may cease, and private judgment may 
 begin, is confessed to be indeterminate ; an assump- 
 tion, because unsupported by argument ; and an 
 impossibility, because it is admitted that the minds 
 of men are differently constituted, and therefore, as 
 
122 
 
 the medium through which objects are viewed 
 varies somewhat in every case, the same objects 
 cannot to all appear the same. 
 
 When Mr. Newman says the " Church enforces 
 a fact on its own responsibility " (p. 225.), he uses a 
 phrase without meaning. The Church is a col- 
 lective body, composed of men, each individually 
 responsible for every thought, every word, and 
 every act ; and beyond this, responsibility cannot 
 go. There is a constant attempt throughout this 
 book to raise up an unreal abstraction between 
 man and his Maker. 
 
 " Not only," says our author, " is the Church Ca- 
 tholic bound to teach the truth, but she is ever 
 divinely guided to teach it ;" and again (p. 227.) ; 
 " Our reception of the Athanasian creed is another 
 proof of our holding the infallibility of the Church, 
 as some of our divines express it, in matters of 
 saving faith." The Athanasian creed will be con- 
 sidered hereafter; but strip this doctrine of indeter- 
 minate infallibility of all verbal incumbrances, and 
 it amounts only to this ; that as far, and as long, as 
 the Church teaches the truth, she cannot err ; which 
 is a truism, applicable not only to the Church, but 
 to every Christian man in every Christian country. 
 To the visible Church no promises are made in 
 Scripture, beyond continuance, or the maintenance 
 of some truths ; the " promises of love, mercy, and 
 
123 
 
 blessedness belong to the mystical Church," as we 
 have seen, according to Hooker ; but the promises 
 made to individual members of Christ's body are in 
 Scripture many and great. It does not follow, that, 
 because continuance is prophesied of the visible 
 Church, she is therefore "divinely guided;" on the 
 contrary, the visible Church, in every country nomi- 
 nally Christian, is the world, wherein tares and 
 wheat are mingled together ; and it is expressly said, 
 that "the Spirit of truth the world cannot receive." 
 Mr. Newman says that " the Church not only 
 transmits the faith by human means, but has a 
 supernatural gift for that purpose; that doctrine, 
 which is true considered as an historical fact, is 
 true also because she teaches it." (p. 226.) This is 
 plainly a contradiction of the scriptural passage just 
 quoted, unless the visible Church can be distin- 
 guished from the world in some other way than by 
 the lives of many of her members. But who will 
 say, after this, that it is unjust to impute Popery 
 to Mr. Newman ; what can a Papist require more ? 
 All is made to depend upon the Church. That 
 we do not receive doctrines as historical facts, we 
 have seen ; also, that we reject many things which 
 the Fathers of old taught, and that we have no suffi- 
 cient test for ascertaining when they were right and 
 when they were wrong ; and if therefore the Church 
 is to be the foundation of Christianity, the practical 
 
124 
 
 result must be, that every man must take his reli- 
 gion from the mouth of his priest, although he can 
 have no security that his priest and the Church 
 agree. Besides, according to this principle, what 
 the Church teaches is true, as well as what the 
 Church taught, because she so taught and teaches ; 
 and yet it appears, that what the Church teaches 
 is not true, unless it agrees with what the Church 
 taught ; therefore it is not true, because she 
 teaches it, but because she taught it ; and the prin- 
 ciple is not only too extensive and complicated to 
 be used, but also self-contradictory. It is true that 
 Mr. Newman repudiates many Popish doctrines, but 
 he maintains the principle which leads to them all. 
 Yet he afterwards says, with what consistency 
 let the reader judge, "Tradition," that is, what the 
 Church taught, " without Scripture warrant, does 
 not convey to us any article necessary to salvation ; 
 it is not a rule distinct and co-ordinate, but subordi- 
 nate and ministrative " (p. 370.). But the phrase 
 " Scripture warrant," which has a Protestant sound, 
 is reduced to nothing by making the Church the 
 judge of what is " Scripture warrant ; " the Protest- 
 antism of the book lies on the surface, Popery is at 
 the core. 
 
 i Mr. Newman, in quoting the 20th article, has 
 given the sentence only which is most favourable to 
 his own views ; he has omitted to observe how 
 
125 
 
 studiously that sentence is guarded and qualified : 
 we give the article entire : 
 
 "The Church hath power to decree rites or cere- 
 monies, and authority in controversies of faith : and 
 yet it is not lawful for the Church to ordain any 
 thing that is contrary to God's Word written ; 
 neither may it so expound one place of Scripture 
 that it be repugnant to another. Wherefore, although 
 the Church be a witness and a keeper of Holy Writ, 
 yet as it ought not to decree any thing against the 
 same ; so besides the same ought it not to enforce 
 any thing to be believed for necessity of salvation." 
 
 The Church, therefore, can ordain nothing against 
 Scripture ; she must so interpret Scripture as to 
 make it consistent with itself; she can require 
 nothing to be believed as necessary to salvation 
 besides Scripture ; and whether she does all this, she 
 cannot herself be the judge, for this would be to 
 make her judge in her own cause ; and this article, 
 as well as the sixth, would be nugatory, as we have 
 seen ; the party required to believe is necessarily 
 the judge, as far as his own salvation is concerned. 
 How much then is the residuum of authority, 
 beyond matters relating to rites and ceremonies, 
 belonging to the Church ? When controversies 
 arise among her members, it is obvious that the 
 power of determining them is inherent in the 
 Church, through her duly authorised representatives; 
 
126 
 
 not the power of determining absolutely what is 
 true and what is false, as Mr. Newman contends, 
 for this is contrary to the 21st article, but the 
 power of admitting or rejecting members professing 
 certain opinions. Any Church attempting to 
 extend this power beyond what Scripture warrants, 
 is guilty of schism ; and the Church of England, 
 more especially, in such a case, would stand con- 
 victed by her own articles. 
 
 Mr. Newman admits that the Church " can have 
 no authority in declaring a lie " (p. 227.) ; then the 
 question of her authority is to be determined by 
 ascertaining whether she ever has declared a lie or 
 not. Now the most solemn declarations of the 
 Church have been made in general councils; and the 
 second Nicene council, a. d. 787, decreed the wor- 
 ship of images, which is a lie. So also the Ante- 
 Nicene synod, which condemned Paul of Samosata, 
 denied that the Son was of one substance with the 
 Father, which was directly contradicted by the 
 council of Nice. Errors, now recognised as such, 
 have been repeatedly declared by the visible Church, 
 not only in modern, but also in ancient times. It is 
 no answer to say that these errors were made by 
 the visible, and not by the Catholic Church; the 
 visible and the Catholic Church must first be dis- 
 tinguished, which cannot be done. The distinction 
 of Hooker between the visible and mystical Church, 
 
127 
 
 the last not outwardly perceptible, is nowhere re- 
 cognised by Mr. Newman. 
 
 The various passages of Scripture * quoted by our 
 author in support of his theory, we refer, with 
 Hooker, to the mystical Church. Chillingworth t has 
 shewn, as is indeed obvious on reading them, that 
 they cannot refer to the visible Church, otherwise 
 some of the most atrocious monsters that ever defiled 
 the earth must be supposed to have been under the 
 direct influence of the Holy Spirit. Mr. Newman's 
 triumph is therefore premature, when he exclaims, 
 " How Protestant sectaries understand these pas- 
 sages, I know not " (p. 229.). It concerns him more 
 to know how Hooker and Chillingworth understood 
 them, whom he will not venture to call sectaries, 
 although we fully admit, that if they are orthodox, 
 it is not easy to see how he can be so likewise. 
 
 Mr. Newman, however, feels the difficulty, and 
 his mode of extricating himself from it is most pre- 
 sumptuous. 
 
 " So solemn are the promises made to the Church ; 
 so ample is the grace pledged to her ; so intelligible 
 are the human provisions appointed for their ful- 
 filment, that there surely is no antecedent reason 
 why Almighty God should not have designed to 
 bestow on the Church that perfect purity which the 
 
 * 1 Tim. iii. 15. Eph. iv. 1114. Isa. lix. 21. 
 j- Vol. i. p. 397. et seq. 
 
128 
 
 Romanist claims for her. All through the inspired 
 history we have traces of divine intentions myste- 
 riously frustrated " (p. 233.). And again, " God's 
 promises depend on man's co-operation for their ful- 
 filment in detail." 
 
 There cannot be a moment's hesitation as to the 
 answer to this wretched trash. u God is not a man, 
 that he should lie ; neither the son of man, that he 
 should repent : hath he said, and shall he not do it ? 
 or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?" 
 (Numb, xxiii. 19.) 
 
 But " the parallel of Judaism is a positive argu- 
 ment in favour of such a supposition " (p. 235.). 
 We say, directly against it, the blessings promised 
 to the Jews were made to depend upon their obe- 
 dience; curses were as clearly made to depend 
 upon their disobedience. (Deut.xxviii.xxxii.) Their 
 disobedience is expressly foretold in the fifteenth 
 and following verses of the last-mentioned chapter. 
 As to the prophecies, " Thy people also shall be all 
 righteous ;" " The wolf also shall dwell with the 
 lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid ;" 
 we doubt not that they will be fulfilled in their 
 season, when " the earth shall be filled with the 
 knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the 
 sea ;" but that day has not yet arrived. " God can- 
 not lie," and therefore it is impossible that any 
 prophecy should be fulfilled otherwise than He in- 
 
129 
 
 tended, or that His intentions should be " frus- 
 trated," for He is " the Lord, and there is none 
 else." Did not our Saviour on the cross say, " I 
 thirst, that the Scripture might be fulfilled ?" 
 
 But the errors of the visible Church are expressly 
 foretold. Thus we read in 2 Thess. ii. 7., " For the 
 mystery of iniquity doth already work : only he 
 who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the 
 way. And then shall that Wicked be revealed, 
 whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his 
 mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his 
 coming : even him, whose coming is after the work- 
 ing of Satan with all power and signs and lying 
 wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteous- 
 ness in them that perish ; because they received not 
 the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And 
 for this cause God shall send them strong delusion 
 that they should believe a lie : that they all might 
 be damned who believed not the truth, but had 
 pleasure in unrighteousness. But we are bound 
 to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren be- 
 loved of the Lord, because God hath from the 
 beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctifi- 
 cation of the Spirit and belief of the truth." This 
 passage clearly relates to the visible Church ; it 
 foretells that the visible Church would become cor- 
 rupted ; nay, that in part it already was so, during 
 the very lives of the apostles ; " for the mystery of 
 
130 
 
 iniquity doth already work ;" and it makes a plain 
 distinction between the visible and mystical Church. 
 There is a prophecy also to the same effect in the 
 second epistle of St. Peter, ii. ; and what else is 
 the Apocalypse ? What then is the consequence 
 but that the passages alleged by Mr. Newman can- 
 not refer to the visible Church, because, if so, they 
 would contradict other prophecies, and, as it is ad- 
 mitted, be contrary to fact, neither of which con- 
 clusions are possible if the Bible is true ; the only 
 remaining inference is, that Mr. Newman's inter- 
 pretation is entirely wrong. How far will blind 
 attachment to a theory carry us ? 
 
 Mr. Newman contends that the Church has for- 
 feited the promises made to her by want of unity 
 (p. 236.), as if this were her greatest sin. Unity of 
 spirit is indeed insisted upon in Scripture, but not 
 absolute unity of opinion, although we believe that 
 among those who really love the truth, and are 
 content to receive in all humility whatever they 
 find in Scripture because it is God's Word, differ- 
 ences of opinion are small. If, however, men are 
 sincere in desiring Christian unity both of spirit 
 and opinion, the first step towards it is to require 
 nothing of others which God has not required; 
 until they do this, they may honour unity with 
 their lips, but they are far from it in their hearts. 
 Divisions are most clearly foretold in Scripture : 
 
131 
 
 " Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on 
 earth?" says our Lord ; " I tell you nay, but rather 
 division : for from henceforth there shall be five in 
 one house divided, three against two, and two 
 against three." (Luke, xii. 51, 52.) 
 
 " Higher measures of truth," says Mr. Newman, 
 " may be attached to a unity of jurisdiction and ex- 
 ternal order ; while the highest of all, amounting 
 to a continual infallibility, were it ever intended, 
 might require the presence of a superhuman cha- 
 rity and peace which has never been witnessed 
 since the time when * the disciples continued stead- 
 fastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship.'" 
 (p. 240.) Yet St. Paul tells us that he was " in perils 
 among false brethren :" this absolute unity, there- 
 fore, if the scriptural passage referred to is to be 
 so interpreted, did not last long. 
 
 It is obvious that the notion that " the Church 
 was destined," or may have been destined, to give 
 our author the benefit of his favourite mood, " to an 
 authoritative ministry which has never been real- 
 ized'* (p. 235.), is contrary to the entire analogy 
 of God's dealings with us, and moreover useless, 
 unless the Church, like the apostles, could discern 
 men's hearts ; for what can outward uniformity 
 avail without inward obedience ? But the words 
 of our Lord are wholly incompatible with the hy^ 
 pothesis " Be not ye called Rabbi, for one is your 
 k 2 
 
132 
 
 master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren." The 
 drift of this hypothesis is plain : unless you agree 
 with us, you are guilty of schism ; if you agree 
 with us, according to our principles you must be- 
 lieve us *' almost infallible/' In due time would 
 not the " almost" be omitted? 
 
 Mr. Newman's notion that schism and the cor- 
 ruption of doctrine were contemporaneous (p. 242.), 
 is another pure hypothesis, entirely unsupported 
 by facts. We know from Scripture that all Chris- 
 tians did not agree in opinion even in the apostolic 
 age ; still less have we any ground for supposing 
 that they so agreed in any subsequent age ; and it 
 is incumbent on those who make an assertion so 
 preposterous and improbable, to prove, and not to 
 assume the point. But, although our author at- 
 taches such important consequences to schism, he 
 contends that he is not bound to assign any period 
 for its commencement. Now as it is clear that the 
 Romanists, when they claim infallibility, are bound 
 to tell us who or what is infallible, and why, so it is 
 obvious that before we can be sure that we are 
 right in attaching such important consequences to 
 schism, we must know when it began. Whether 
 the corruption of doctrine produced schism, or 
 schism the corruption of doctrine, it is not easy to 
 determine; the probability is, that each waa al- 
 ternately cause and effect ; but the tacit assumption 
 
133 
 
 that one side was always entirely in the right, and 
 the other entirely in the wrong, is neither war- 
 ranted by ecclesiastical history or common sense. 
 One party, doubtless, but not always that in au- 
 thority, in every case approached truth more nearly 
 than the other, but neither can be shewn to have 
 held it absolutely in all respects. 
 
 Mr. Newman follows the example of the Romish 
 controversialists in resorting to insidious and scep- 
 tical arguments. There is, in truth, a natural con- 
 nection between superstition and infidelity. Thus, 
 Mr. Newman and the Romanists may both allege, 
 the first for his hypothesis of schism, the second 
 for their assumption of infallibility, that it is as 
 preposterous to object to the one that he cannot 
 tell us when schism began, to the others that they 
 cannot tell us who or what is infallible, " as it would 
 be to object to the received interpretations" of the 
 prophecies of Jeremiah and Daniel, because dif- 
 ficulties attend their adjustment in detail, (p. 243.) 
 The allegation in either case is nothing to the 
 purpose. The prophecies are fulfilled as God in- 
 tended that they should be fulfilled ; for " with the 
 Father of lights is no variableness, neither shadow 
 of turning." Before Mr. Newman, the Romanists, 
 and Infidels, for in this instance these last will be 
 ready allies, can reasonably object to us what they 
 consider an inadequate fulfilment of any prophecy, 
 K 3 
 
134 
 
 they must shew how God intended it to be ful- 
 filled. There is no necessity that any prophecy 
 should be fulfilled precisely as they please. 
 
 The remainder of the argument in this lecture, 
 has been already considered {ante, p. 51.). As to 
 the assertion, that "century after century the Church 
 Catholic has become more and more disunited, dis- 
 cordant, and corrupt" (p. 249.), we answer that the 
 Church was far more corrupt in the eleventh and 
 twelfth centuries than at present ; and that such 
 unity as then existed, which, however, through the 
 divine grace, was not absolute, was a unity in the 
 belief of many most vile and pernicious falsehoods. 
 There was indeed a time, when, to use the words of 
 one of the most learned writers of our own or of 
 any age, " Popery and Monkery had well-nigh 
 extinguished Christianity .*'* 
 
 We deny also that " unbroken succession is 
 pledged to the ministry of the Church." We deny 
 that any such pledge can be produced, or any such 
 fact as "unbroken succession" proved in any one 
 instance (ante, p. 15.). W r hat does Mr. Newman 
 mean by " that creed which St. Paul committed 
 to Timothy" ? (p. 249.) He well knows, that what 
 is now called the Apostles' Creed is not mentioned 
 by any writer for centuries afterwards, yet the 
 insinuation is, that the Creed was committed to 
 * The Doctor, vol. iv. 
 
135 
 
 Timothy. St. Paul committed to Timothy what he 
 committed to all those to whom he preached, viz. 
 the Gospel of Christ : we have not the slightest 
 warrant for assuming that he committed any thing 
 more. " The form of sound words" is contained 
 in the Bible, and there only. As to the " rich 
 but unsorted and uncatalogued treasures/' whose 
 existence is insinuated, as usual, under the pro- 
 tection of an hypothesis, where are they? when 
 did they exist? how were they lost? how do 
 we know that they ever existed at all ? 
 
 It is true that the visible Church, in the worst of 
 times, has never wholly departed from the pro- 
 fession of Christianity; yet the false doctrines 
 mixed up with the true have too often been made 
 the more prominent, and the true so held back or 
 neglected as to be little more than an empty pro- 
 fession. What will it avail men charged with 
 having received themselves, and imposed upon others 
 what they knew or might have known to be false, 
 to answer, that together with the falsehood they 
 held some truths ? Some mixture of truth is ne- 
 cessary to enable any falsehood to succeed. In- 
 fallibility is not promised to the Church, because 
 continuance is ; it is contradicted by facts in every 
 page of ecclesiastical history ; it cannot be proved 
 by the Church itself, for this would be to argue in 
 a circle, I am infallible because I am infallible ; and 
 k 4 
 
136 
 
 extrinsic proofs there are none. The notion, there- 
 fore, of Mr. Newman and the Romanists, " that the 
 Church Catholic," which he cannot distinguish from 
 the Church visible, " is unerring in its declarations 
 of faith, or saving doctrine" (p. 252.), is a " vain 
 deceit," based upon the truism, that as far and as 
 long as the Church holds the truth she cannot err, 
 equally applicable to any man who holds any truth. 
 
 We see then what Mr. Newman means by inde- 
 fectibility, and where he arrives at last. 
 
 Mr. Newman asks himself the question, " What 
 doctrines the Church Catholic will teach inde- 
 fectibly;" and the answer he gives is, that the " es- 
 sential doctrines are those which are contained in 
 the Creed." (p. 259.) This is the most favourable 
 ground he can take whereupon to build his inde- 
 fectible abstraction the Church, because it would 
 be difficult to shew that any doctrines have been 
 more constantly taught in the visible Church than 
 those contained in the Creed ; but what becomes of 
 the indefectibility of the visible Church, if it shall 
 appear that the Creed does not contain what is 
 absolutely necessary to salvation ? 
 
 We maintain that there has always existed on 
 earth not only a visible, but also a mystical Church; 
 and that the members of that Church, though not 
 absolutely united in opinion, have always taught 
 what is essential to salvation. We deny that the 
 
137 
 
 visible Church has always taught saving truth, 
 although we admit that her doctrines, and indeed, 
 in some degree, those of all religions, however 
 corrupt and fabulous, have ever contained some 
 mixture of truth with falsehood. 
 
 " It is known," says Mr. Newman, " to all who 
 are acquainted with Christian antiquity, that at 
 baptism the candidate made a confession of his faith, 
 before he was admissible to it. Here, then, we have 
 one of our inquiries answered at once. Whatever 
 that confession might contain, it was, by the force 
 of the terms, the primitive condition of communion, 
 or fundamental faith." (p. 260.) So far we agree with 
 Mr. Newman, excepting that it is quite unnecessary 
 to go beyond Scripture for the fact that a con- 
 fession of faith was made before baptism by the 
 primitive Christians. He says, " This confession 
 was what we now call the Creed." We say, it was 
 the doctrine of the atonement, which is not con- 
 tained in the Creed. There is no conversion men- 
 tioned in the Acts of the Apostles, from which this 
 is not the legitimate inference, but more especially 
 from the detailed narrative of the conversion of the 
 eunuch by Philip, in the eighth chapter. It appears 
 that Philip found the eunuch reading the fifty-third 
 chapter of Isaiah ; of all the prophecies in the Old 
 Testament the most precise and remarkable, and 
 where the doctrine of the atonement is declared in 
 
138 
 
 the most positive terms : " But he was wounded 
 for our transgressions, he was bruised for our ini- 
 quities : the chastisement of our peace was upon 
 him ; and with his stripes we are healed." When, 
 therefore, we read in the Acts, that Philip "began at 
 the same Scripture, and preached unto him Jesus," 
 there can be no doubt that what he preached was 
 the atonement ; as it appears also from what follows : 
 " And the eunuch said, See, here is water ; what 
 doth hinder me to be baptized? And Philip said, If 
 thou c believest with all thine heart thou mayest. 
 And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus 
 Christ is the Son of God." A barren assent of the 
 understanding was not sufficient, he was required to 
 believe with all his heart ; that is, to trust, and in 
 what could he trust but in the atonement of Christ? 
 But, it may be said, the words of the Creed, " I 
 believe in Jesus Christ," on the same principle, im- 
 ply the atonement. They may certainly, but they 
 need not ; the more natural conclusion is the con- 
 trary one. In the scriptural narratives of conver- 
 sions, we have not an account of all that passed, but 
 the simple confessions of faith have a profound 
 meaning. Besides, the Bible is a whole in itself, 
 and we are always at liberty to call in the assistance 
 of one passage to elucidate another: but the Creed 
 also professes to be a whole ; and what is its value 
 if it leaves the most important doctrine of Chris- 
 
139 
 
 tianity, at the best, to be obscurely and doubtfully 
 inferred from it ? and that, too, when a single 
 sentence would have removed all doubt, such as the 
 one we find in the Nicene Creed, "Who for us men, 
 and for our salvation, came down from heaven .... 
 and was crucified also for us ! " It is true that in 
 another part of the Creed it is said, " I believe in 
 the forgiveness of sins;" but this rather strengthens 
 the argument for the omission of the atonement, 
 because " the forgiveness of sins." is in no way 
 connected with Christ. 
 
 Again, the Creed requires belief in " the com- 
 munion of saints," confessedly an obscure ex- 
 pression, which may have many meanings ; and 
 whatever its meaning may be, we are quite unable 
 to ascertain it from the Creed itself, which is there- 
 fore not a whole. 
 
 Many have been taught to feel a reverence for 
 the pseudo-apostolic Creed, to which it is wholly 
 unentitled ; we say pseudo-apostolic, because there 
 is not a shadow of proof that it was written by 
 the apostles ; and the first author who mentions it 
 by name is Ruffinus*, about the end of the fourth 
 
 * Tomline (Theology, vol. ii. p. 225, 226.) says, " The pri- 
 mitive fathers often speak of an apostolical creed : but by that 
 name they do not mean a determinate form of words drawn 
 up by the apostles, but a creed containing the doctrines which 
 they preached ; and this is what we are to understand by the 
 creed, commonly called the Apostles' Creed." 
 
140 
 
 century. What can be the value of a belief in the 
 communion of saints, without holding justification 
 by faith only, a doctrine which, if antiquity be of 
 any weight, has claims inferior to none, since it was 
 maintained, as we have seen, by Clement of Rome, 
 the contemporary of the apostles ! 
 
 We blame not the so-called Apostles' Creed for 
 its contents for we receive all that it contains 
 but for its deficiencies, which, there is great reason 
 to fear, have been a snare and a stumbling-block 
 to many. 
 
 Mr. Newman proceeds : " At first, indeed, that 
 is, during the first years of the apostles, while the 
 Church itself was forming, the Creed was but par- 
 tially developed too; nor, indeed, was there any 
 imperative necessity that any part of the system 
 should be reduced to rule, while infallible guides 
 were present/' This hypothesis of a partial de- 
 velopment of the creed or faith of a Christian, at 
 first, is directly at variance with Scripture ; for 
 St. Paul says, " I have not shunned to declare unto 
 you all the counsel of God." The true and entire 
 faith was clearly preached from the very first ; the 
 controversy as to circumcision related to a rite or 
 ceremony, not to a matter of faith. It will be ob- 
 served that Mr. Newman so uses the word creed 
 here, as to leave it doubtful whether he means the 
 faith of a Christian, or the so-called Apostles' Creed. 
 
141 
 
 There is also an attempt to insinuate that Chris- 
 tianity was a gradually perfected system, which is 
 the Popish view of it, although scarcely compatible 
 with the extravagant respect professed for antiquity. 
 We come to a more insidious passage : " This ele- 
 mentary confession," viz. such as that of the eu- 
 nuch, " thus brief and incomplete as far as the 
 express words went, seems, even before the apostles' 
 death, to have been expanded and moulded into 
 form ; and in that form it has remained up to this 
 day in the baptismal service. I say this was done 
 in the apostles' days, because history bears witness 
 to the fact, calling it < The Creed/ ' The Apostles' 
 Creed/ the treasure and legacy of faith which the 
 apostles had left to their converts, and which was 
 to be preserved in the Church to the end. Indeed, 
 St. Paul, in his first epistle to the Corinthians, so 
 speaks of it, when quoting part of it, viz. as that 
 which had been committed to him, and which he 
 had committed in turn to his converts." (p. 261.) 
 
 The word creed means belief; and availing him- 
 self of this circumstance, Mr. Newman has so used 
 it throughout this passage, that it may mean either 
 " the Creed," or the faith of a Christian, This is 
 the familiar fallacy of a doubtful middle terra, 
 which it is hard to believe that Mr. Newman was 
 not aware of when he used it. He begins with 
 an insinuation in his usual manner; this confession 
 
142 
 
 seems to have been expanded into form before the 
 apostles* death ; he ends with an assertion that 
 St. Paul quotes it. If St. Paul does quote it, it 
 must have been expanded into form before the 
 apostles* death, and the seeming is raised to cer- 
 tainty. Whether St. Paul does so quote it, let the 
 reader judge : the passage referred to is 1 Cor. xv. 3. 
 " For I delivered unto you first of all that which 
 I also received, how that Christ died for our sins 
 according to the Scriptures." Now the words 
 " died for our sins," which are surely of no little 
 importance, since they include the doctrine of the 
 atonement, are not to be found in "the Creed ;" 
 how then can St. Paul be said to quote it? 
 
 But this is not all. St. Paul delivered only what 
 he first received, and that not from man but from 
 God, for St. Paul was not converted through the 
 agency of man. It follows, then, that if St. Paul 
 here alludes to the so-called Apostles* Creed, he 
 must have received it from God himself, a con- 
 clusion which even Mr. Newman will shrink from. 
 He well knows that what St. Paul here alludes to 
 is the true Christian faith, not necessary to be always 
 expressed in the same determinate form of words, 
 but in substance, like its author and finisher, Jesus 
 Christ, fi the same yesterday, and to-day, and for 
 ever." 
 
 How is it possible in this instance to acquit Mr. 
 
143 
 
 Newman of a deliberate intention to deceive ! He 
 stands convicted out of his own mouth, for he him- 
 self quotes the creeds of Irenaeus and Tertullian, 
 which differ both from each other, and from the 
 so-called Apostles' Creed; a sufficient proof that 
 a determinate form of words, as an apostolic " le- 
 gacy of faith," did not exist in their days ; for if 
 it had, it would of course have been generally 
 adopted. It is not the so-called Apostles' Creed 
 which Irenaeus, Tertullian, and others cite, but 
 a creed, a portion of the articles of the Christian 
 faith ; and the distinction is important when a su- 
 perstitious value is sought to be attached to " the 
 Creed." According to Mr. Newman's argument, 
 nearly half the New Testament might be called 
 a quotation from the Creed, with just as much 
 reason as the text in the first Corinthians. Yet he 
 admits that " the words of the Creed were not in- 
 spired." (p. 269.) He quotes also the following 
 passage from Cyril of Jerusalem, which it is not 
 easy to reconcile with his own notions of the au- 
 thority of tradition, antiquity, or the Creed. " < As 
 regards the divine and holy mysteries of faith, it 
 is necessary that not even a chance word should be 
 delivered in our tradition, without the warrant of 
 divine Scripture, to the exclusion of mere proba- 
 bilities, or skilfully contrived arguments. Neither 
 give credence to my mere words, unless they are 
 
144 
 
 demonstrated from the Scriptures. For this is the 
 saving principle of our faith, being derived, not 
 from our inventions, but from proofs of Holy Scrip- 
 tures. What makes this passage the stronger, is, 
 that Cyril speaks thus with reference to the Creed, 
 which, if any statement of doctrine, might surely 
 depend on tradition. " (p. 378.) 
 
 The creed, or rather creeds of the early Church, 
 were not then, as Mr. Newman asserts, " one and 
 the same every where" (p. 265.); even verbal va- 
 riations are sufficient to refute this position. But 
 the variations in these creeds were substantial, and 
 not merely verbal, as appears from Mr. Newman 
 himself. Thus the Creed of Irenaeus contains the 
 words " incarnate for our salvation," which the so- 
 called Apostles' Creed does not. The African 
 Creed speaks of " forgiveness of sins through the 
 Holy Church," which Mr. Newman quotes and ap- 
 proves of (p. 276.), apparently without a suspicion 
 of its orthodoxy, although it is the very heresy 
 called "accursed" in the eighteenth article of the 
 Church of England. " They also are to be had ac- 
 cursed, that presume to say, that every man shall 
 be saved by the law or sect which he professeth ; 
 so that he be diligent to frame his life according to 
 that law, and the light of nature. For Holy Scrip- 
 ture doth set out unto us only the name of Jesus 
 Christ, whereby men must be saved." Again, the 
 
145 
 
 Creed of Tertullian differs from that of Irenaeus, 
 the Nicene, the pseudo-apostolic, and the pseudo- 
 Athanasian creeds, in declaring the appearances of 
 God recorded in the Old Testament, to have been 
 those of the second person in the Trinity. 
 
 Mr. Newman is himself compelled to admit that 
 the word Homoousion, or co-essential, in the Nicene 
 Creed, is an addition to the pseudo-apostolic 
 (p. 271, 272.) But how can this be called the only 
 addition ? Is not the atonement an addition ? Is not 
 the joint procession of the Holy Ghost from the 
 Father and the Son, an addition ? Is not the crea- 
 tion of all things by Jesus Christ, an addition ? And, 
 lastly, is not "the communion of saints" omitted? 
 Not that we would insinuate for a moment that any 
 thing in the Nicene Creed is a substantial addition 
 to Scripture ; on the contrary, we believe it to be 
 the most scriptural, and therefore the most valu- 
 able, of all the creeds ; but additions to Scripture, 
 and additions to the so-called Apostles' Creed, are 
 very different matters. 
 
 Having assumed that the language of Scripture 
 and of the Fathers refers, not to a creed or the 
 faith of a Christian, but to " the Creed," Mr. New- 
 man, to extricate himself from the labyrinth of dif- 
 ficulties in which such an assumption involves him, 
 is driven to the argument a priori, that doctrines, 
 "such as the divinity of the Holy Ghost, must 
 
 L 
 
14-6 
 
 have been implied and virtually contained in the 
 Creed, if the Creed had any title to the name 
 of a symbol, or rule, or summary of Christian doc- 
 trine " (p. 265.). The very point to be proved is, 
 that " the Creed" is such a rule or summary. A 
 summary of the leading doctrines of Christianity, if 
 it is intended to be of use, must contain those lead- 
 ing doctrines clearly and explicitly : if it contains 
 some of the chief Christian doctrines implicitly 
 only, it ceases to be a rule or summary, by the very 
 force of the terms. Now "the Creed" does not 
 contain the doctrine of the atonement clearly and 
 explicitly ; but the doctrine of the atonement is the 
 very foundation of Christianity, therefore " the 
 Creed" cannot be such a rule or summary. 
 
 When Mr. Newman speaks of the Creed as " the 
 formal symbol which the apostles adopted and be- 
 queathed to the Church' ' (p. 270.), we call upon him 
 to prove his words. How does he know that the 
 apostles adopted it ? when did they adopt it ? and to 
 whom did they bequeath it ? Until he has answered 
 these questions, he might as well say at once that 
 the apostles adopted the creed of Pope Pius. 
 
 Mr. Newman admits, that after the adoption of 
 the Nicene Creed, u new heresies as to our Lord's 
 nature arose ; but in spite of them, Athanasius, its 
 illustrious champion, was firm against the attempt, 
 which was made by some parties, to add further 
 explanations to the Creed " (p. 272.). Is it not then 
 
147 
 
 glaring dishonesty to call by the name of Athana- 
 sius a creed which is known not have been in ex- 
 istence until long after his death, and to which on 
 principle he was opposed ? The assertion, that 
 from the time of the fourth General Council there 
 was no " interference with the Creed till the era of 
 the Council of Trent," is directly contrary to the 
 fact: the introduction of the pseudo-Athanasian 
 Creed into the Church, about the year 930*, was 
 such an interference, and also contrary to the de- 
 cree of the third General Council, quoted by Mr. 
 Newman, " that it should not be lawful for any to 
 publish or compose another faith or creed than 
 that which was defined by the Nicene Council" 
 (p. 274.). 
 
 It is for Mr. Newman to reconcile the introduc- 
 tion of the pseudo-Athanasian Creed with his own 
 position, that " to guard and transmit, not to re- 
 model the rule of faith, is the sole duty of the 
 Church " (p. 267.). Protestants, who admit no 
 creed to be binding unless scriptural, are in no 
 such difficulty. Their conclusion is the legitimate 
 one from his own language, "the words of the 
 Creed were not inspired," and from the passage he 
 has himself quoted from Cyril of Jerusalem, which 
 in substance agrees entirely with the sixth article of 
 the Church of England. 
 
 * Mant's Prayer Book. 
 L 2 
 
us 
 
 It is sufficient here to shew that Mr. Newman's 
 view of the creeds is untenable ; it is fairer, how- 
 ever, and more favourable to the elucidation of 
 truth, to add our own. The position, then, we main- 
 tain as to the three creeds is this, that the so-called 
 Apostles' Creed falls short of Scripture ; that the 
 Nicene Creed may be proved from Scripture ; and 
 that the so-called Athanasian Creed goes beyond 
 Scripture. Of the so-called Apostles' Creed enough 
 has been said ; that the Nicene Creed is scriptural 
 is not disputed by Mr. Newman, and therefore a 
 point not necessary here to discuss, we deny only 
 that we have any warrant for assuming the Nicene 
 or any other creed, or any book but the Bible, to 
 contain all essential doctrines : the remaining point 
 is, that the Athanasian Creed is unscriptural. 
 
 The eighth article of the Church of England, 
 relating to the creeds, is in the following words : 
 
 " The three creeds, Nice Creed, Athanasius's 
 Creed, and that which is commonly called the 
 Apostles' Creed, ought thoroughly to be received 
 and believed: for they may be proved by most 
 certain warrants of holy Scripture." The reason 
 why they are to be received is, because they can 
 be proved from Scripture ; the Church of England 
 recognises no other ground for the reception of any 
 doctrine, as we know from the sixth and twentieth 
 articles. The question then is, whether the so- 
 
149 
 
 called Athanasian Creed can be proved from Scrip- 
 ture, or not? That creed begins thus : " Who- 
 soever will be saved : before all things it is neces- 
 sary that he hold the Catholic faith. Which faith, 
 except every one do keep whole and undefiled : 
 without doubt he shall perish everlastingly." Among 
 the doctrines of the faith which are to be thus 
 kept whole and undefiled is the following : " The 
 Holy Ghost is of the Father, and of the Son : 
 neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceed- 
 ing." Now it is well known that the Greek Church 
 denies the joint procession of the Holy Ghost from 
 the Father and the Son ; the Greek Church there- 
 fore does not keep the Catholic faith whole and 
 undefiled ; and, according to this creed, all its 
 members will, without doubt, perish everlastingly. 
 Now we do say, although we believe the joint pro- 
 cession of the Holy Ghost to be scriptural, that we 
 have no scriptural warrant whatever for making 
 salvation impossible to all those who deny it ; and, 
 if no scriptural warrant can be produced for it, the 
 maintenance of such a creed is clearly schismatical. 
 The supporters of this creed are guilty of the very 
 sin objected by Mr. Newman to the Romanists ; 
 they have " cursed those whom God has not 
 cursed." What possible warrant can men have 
 for annexing damnatory clauses to creeds at all? 
 In so doing they invade the province of God, to 
 x< 3 
 
150 
 
 whom alone it belongs to judge. It is to be ob- 
 served, that this arrogant and presumptuous creed 
 omits justification by faith altogether, and barely 
 mentions the atonement. That it should have been 
 sanctioned by the Church of England has been 
 regretted by many. 
 
 Whether the visible Church is justified in adopt- 
 ing from time to time additions, or, as Mr. New- 
 man mildly calls them, explanations, of the creed 
 or faith of a Christian, is a difficult question. If 
 we concede that the Church, or a body of unin- 
 spired men, was justified in the first instance in 
 introducing as a creed a determinate form of words 
 not to be found in Scripture, although scriptural in 
 substance, it is hard to contend that the Church 
 or men might not explain or add to what the 
 Church or men originally composed. Certain it is 
 that a most dangerous principle, the germ of innu- 
 merable heresies and corruptions, was admitted, 
 when the plain words of Scripture were rejected, as 
 not clear enough to form a creed. Every true Pro- 
 testant will deny the assumption. Whether the 
 words of Scripture on the leading doctrines of 
 Christianity are not as clear as any that language 
 affords, is a matter which will unquestionably ad- 
 mit of argument. But we are not concerned to 
 prove so much. Let our opponents, the Unitarians 
 and Papists, put the doctrines, for instance, of the 
 
151 
 
 atonement, and of justification by faith only, in the 
 most precise and positive terms they can devise, 
 we will give the same doctrines in scriptural words; 
 and even if they can then shew that their words are 
 more plain and certain than those of the Bible, 
 they will not prove enough ; to justify themselves, 
 they must shew that the language of the Bible is 
 less certain than what they are in the constant 
 habit of acting upon in the daily affairs of life. If 
 they cannot do this, to talk of reverence for the 
 Bible is, in the phrase of Chillingworth, " nothing 
 else but talk." The supposed uncertainty of the 
 Bible is not the cause of heresy. 
 
 Mr. Newman would have us esteem " the Creed" 
 " almost sacred, from being the chief remains left us 
 of apostolical truth " (p. 277.). As we have seen, 
 there is no proof that it is apostolical ; and the as- 
 sumption on which he would have us ground our 
 superstitious reverence for it, " that the living 
 power of truth has declined," is an assumption, and 
 nothing more, incompatible with ecclesiastical his- 
 tory, and with the last lecture " On the Fortunes 
 of the Church," in his own book. 
 
 The Church of England is justifiable in imposing 
 articles of religion upon her members, on precisely 
 the same ground on which the early Church was 
 justifiable in imposing a creed not expressed in 
 scriptural words. It may be questioned whether 
 l 4 
 
152 
 
 either can be justified, but both must stand or fall 
 together. Mr. Newman eludes the difficulty thus : 
 " The thirty-nine Articles are i articles of reli- 
 gion/ not * of faith/ We do not consider the belief 
 in them necessary to salvation, except so far as 
 they embody in them the articles of the Creed " 
 (p. 278.). This is, in the words of Chillingworth, 
 " an empty, unintelligible, nonsense distinction." 
 Mr. Newman cannot contend, without contradicting 
 himself, that the Nicene and so-called Apostles* 
 Creed each contains all that is essential to salvation, 
 or that all contained in each is equally essential ; 
 because the one contains what the other does not, 
 as " the communion of saints," for instance; and if 
 he agrees with his own quotation from Cyril of 
 Jerusalem, neither contains what is essential, unless 
 it can be proved from Scripture so to be ; and the 
 same thing, neither more or less, may be said for 
 the Articles of the Church of England. 
 
 As to " the power of the keys" (p. 280.), let 
 Mr. Newman define it. If by this expression he 
 means that any one man, or body of men, has the 
 power of excluding a fellow-creature from heaven, 
 it has been already considered ; at all events, it is 
 not to be found in " the Creed." 
 
 When Mr. Newman talks of doctrines lying " hid 
 in the Creed," he has conceded the point at issue, 
 viz. that the Creed is not clearer than the Bible; 
 
153 
 
 and, indeed, granted more than we require for we 
 do not interpret the Bible, nor should we be justi- 
 fied in interpreting it, by indeterminate implication, 
 whereby any meaning may be given to any form of 
 words : our best mode of interpreting the Bible is 
 by comparing it with itself; but no light can be 
 thrown on the Creed by so interpreting it. 
 
 The insinuation (p. 281.), that the Articles of 
 our Church " are partially drawn from traditionary 
 sources," is of the same dishonest character with 
 many other passages in this book already noticed. 
 The authority of tradition is nowhere recognised in 
 the Articles ; on the contrary, in the thirty-fourth 
 article it is said, "It is not necessary that tra- 
 ditions and ceremonies be in all places one, or utterly 
 like ; for at all times they have been divers, and may 
 be changed.'' The article proceeds to declare that 
 traditions and ceremonies " not repugnant to the 
 Word of God " should not be broken by private in- 
 dividuals; and what man who has any regard for 
 order would desire that they should ? Some cere- 
 monies every Church must have. 
 
 Mr. Newman would perhaps give the reception of 
 infant baptism as an acknowledgment of the author- 
 ity of tradition ; but our Church receives it on no 
 such ground, but because it is " most agreeable 
 with the institution of Christ." The time of bap- 
 tism is not expressly appointed in Scripture, as that 
 
15* 
 
 of circumcision was; it is clearly, therefore, a 
 matter within the province of the Church. If infant 
 baptism had been received on the authority of tra- 
 dition, it would not have been consistent to reject 
 infant communion, which is supported, as we have 
 seen, by the highest traditional authority. 
 
 His assertion, that " we do not receive the 
 Articles from individuals but as recommended to us 
 by our Church itself" (p. 281.), is wholly unmean- 
 ing. The Articles were drawn up by individuals, 
 and the Church consists of individuals ; therefore, 
 take it either way, from individuals we must receive 
 them. The Articles must be either human or 
 divine ; they cannot be something between both. 
 A man may profess extravagant reverence for the 
 Articles, and yet contradict them in the most direct 
 and positive manner, as we have seen in Mr. New- 
 man's own case. His views of justification are di- 
 rectly at variance with the eleventh article, and 
 with the Homilies of the Church of England. 
 
 As to the words of our author (p. 281, 282.), 
 the Church " intends us to receive them," the Ar- 
 ticles, "as portions of Catholic teaching, as express- 
 ing and representing that ancient religion which 
 of old time found voice, and attained consistency in 
 Athanasius, Basil, Augustine, Chrysostom, and other 
 primitive doctors;" we ask him, how the Church 
 can speak otherwise than by the mouths of her 
 
156 
 
 members; and how he can know her intentions the 
 intentions of an abstraction better than other men? 
 The intentions of the body of men who formed the 
 Church of England can only be inferred from what 
 they have collectively and authoritatively said; and 
 we consider that they have nowhere spoken so 
 authoritatively, consistently, and scripturally, as in 
 the Articles; but their authority was human only, 
 not divine. We cannot admit the canon of 1571, 
 or any other canon, to be of equal authority with 
 the Articles on matters of doctrine. If the Canons 
 merely agree with the Articles, we do not want 
 them ; if they add to the Articles on matters of doc- 
 trine, why were such additions excluded from the 
 Articles? It is obvious that, as terms of commu- 
 nion, the Articles must be considered amply suffi- 
 cient, otherwise they are useless ; if they are not 
 " necessary for communion," what is ? 
 
 But the canon of 1571 > as quoted by himself, will 
 avail Mr. Newman but little. It enjoins, that 
 preachers " should be careful that they never teach 
 aught in a sermon, to be religiously held and 
 believed by the people, except that which is agree- 
 able to the doctrine of the Old and New Testament, 
 and which the Catholic fathers and ancient bishops 
 have collected from that very doctrine/' The object 
 of this canon appears to be to guard against novelties, 
 although, when we consider that Christianity had then 
 
156 
 
 lasted more than 1500 years, and that, during that 
 period, all the energies of minds of every order and 
 character had been devoted to the study and con- 
 templation of religion and of the Bible, it is difficult 
 to see how any thing new could remain to be said. 
 If, however, it is contended that the writings of 
 " the Catholic fathers and ancient bishops " are to 
 be taken as a test of truth jointly with the Bible, we 
 must first know why we are to take them as such a 
 test ; a point which cannot be proved by their own 
 words; we must know who they are, determine their 
 number, and know why it is to be so determined ; 
 and lastly, we must be certain that they agree, both 
 with Scripture and among themselves, which we 
 know not to be uniformly the case. Neither can 
 any man call upon others, in all respects, to follow 
 the authority of antiquity, without first doing so 
 himself; and this no man now does, certainly not 
 the Articles of the Church of England. 
 
 " The Protestantism of the day," says Mr. New- 
 man (p. 284.), " considers it a hardship to have any 
 thing clearly and distinctly told it in elucidation of 
 Scripture doctrine, an infringement on its right of 
 doubting, and mistaking, and labouring in vain. 
 And the violent effort to keep itself in this state of 
 ignorance, * this unnatural stopping of its ears/ 
 and < throwing dust into the air,' after the pattern 
 of those Jews who would not hear the voice of 
 
157 
 
 apostles and martyrs, all this it dignifies by the 
 title of defending the sacred right of private judg- 
 ment ; calls it a holy cause, a righteous battle, and 
 other large and senseless epithets." 
 
 An entire mis-statement of the point at issue, 
 and a consequent misrepresentation of the opinions 
 of opponents, is a common artifice of sophists, as, 
 by arguing against the assumed opinion as if it were 
 the real one, they succeed in obtaining a temporary 
 advantage ; but, like all other artifices, it generally 
 recoils in the end on those who have resorted to it. 
 
 As Protestants, we are willing to receive any 
 thing from any man in elucidation of Scripture, but 
 we will receive nothing as of authority from any 
 man, for these reasons, first, because we have no 
 warrant for so doing : secondly, because Scripture 
 has itself expressly forbidden all additions to Scrip- 
 ture, as we have seen ; and if we consent to receive 
 the words of men as of authority, we do so add to 
 Scripture, and raise human words to an equality 
 with divine : thirdly, because the words of men are 
 contradictory ; and if we once consent to receive 
 them as of authority, we cannot tell where to stop, 
 and involve ourselves in endless difficulties. In 
 one word, if we abandon the exercise of our under- 
 standings, we have no security that we shall believe 
 the truth. 
 
 Mr. Newman proceeds, "We do boast and 
 
158 
 
 exult in bearing Christ's yoke, whether of faith or 
 of obedience ; and we consider his creed, not as a 
 tyrannical infliction (God forbid!), or a jealous 
 test, but as a glorious privilege." To the yoke of 
 Christ we do indeed submit ourselves : if we have 
 advanced any thing repugnant thereunto, let such 
 repugnance be proved, and we will abjure it at once ; 
 but we will not submit ourselves, without a reason, 
 to the capricious yoke of the Fathers, to the yoke of 
 superstitious, credulous, inconsistent, and injudicious 
 men. If " the Creed," or any creed, can be proved 
 to be scriptural, we will receive it; if not, we will 
 reject it : we put the matter entirely on that issue. 
 If the Creed were, as Mr. Newman asserts, Christ's 
 creed, it would be inspired ; but he has himself 
 denied its inspiration : besides, as far as I know, 
 it never was maintained by any man, that our Lord 
 himself was the author of "the Creed;" Mr. 
 Newman's language, therefore, is either very loose 
 and inaccurate, or very dishonest. 
 
 Our " low, carnal, and despicable license to 
 reject " the Creed, amounts only to this ; that we do 
 not attribute a mysterious value to any creed or 
 ordinance without scriptural warrant. That Mr. 
 Newman does attribute a superstitious value to 
 the Creed, is plain from his own words ; after 
 maintaining that it is the prerogative of every 
 Christian to defend the Creed, he adds, " All that 
 
159 
 
 learning has to do for him is to ascertain the fact, 
 what is the meaning of the Creed in particular points, 
 since matter of opinion it is not " (p. 285.). Here 
 is again the same confusion of matter of fact with 
 matter of law, already noticed ; and we say also, 
 that this view of the Creed is superstitious, because 
 Mr. Newman would have us interpret the Creed, 
 which is not inspired, just as he would have us in- 
 terpret the Bible, which is. But to what purpose 
 is it to tell a man that he has a right to maintain 
 and defend the Creed, when he must not ascertain 
 its meaning for himself! This is keeping a promise 
 to the ear, and breaking it to the sense. It is not, 
 in fact, the Creed which he has a right to maintain 
 for himself, but the ancient interpretation of it. 
 But an unlearned man cannot ascertain this for 
 himself; all, therefore, that he is really permitted to 
 do, is, to defend the modern construction of the 
 ancient interpretation of the Creed. But this is not 
 all. The words modern and ancient are very 
 vague : if an unlearned person asks who are the 
 moderns, and who are the ancients ; he will find 
 some difficulty in getting a satisfactory answer. 
 Besides, he may discover, without any learning, 
 that the moderns differ among themselves; and a 
 very little learning will enable him to discover, even 
 if not suggested to him by a very little reflection, 
 that the ancients differed likewise. What, then, is 
 
160 
 
 the unlearned person to do ? The practical result is 
 clear. If he be of a weak and superstitious cha- 
 racter, he will believe whatever his priest, or some 
 person on whose judgment he relies, tells him ; if he 
 possesses love of truth and courage, he will compare 
 what he hears with the Bible ; if indifferent to truth, 
 he will not trouble himself about the matter at all. 
 
 It is certainly " not true that the mass of serious 
 Christians derive their faith for themselves from the 
 Scriptures "(p-290.). They are taught it as children, 
 but this is not, properly speaking, deriving it l from 
 tradition/' a very ambiguous word ; and if they are 
 in earnest about the matter, they will verify their 
 faith for themselves, when they are able, by the 
 Scriptures. The same remark applies in the case of 
 heathen converts. That the " Church Catholic has 
 ever furnished " true tradition, we entirely deny ; 
 we know that the Church visible, which cannot be 
 distinguished from the Catholic, has taught gross 
 falsehoods for centuries together. 
 
 Mr. Newman speaks of the notion as most ex- 
 travagant, " that belief in the Bible is the sole or 
 main condition for a man being considered a Chris- 
 tian ! " (p. 29 L) But I know not who maintains 
 it, as he appears to understand it ; that is, a belief 
 in the Bible, without believing what it contains. 
 People who do not believe doctrines clearly con- 
 tained in the Bible, do not believe the Bible, let 
 
 
161 
 
 them profess what they will. Mr. Newman seems 
 to look upon the Bible as if it had no meaning at 
 all, or might be made to mean any thing. We deny 
 that the Nicene Creed is more certain than the 
 Bible, the so-called Apostles' Creed we maintain to 
 be less so. Men differ, doubtless, as to the mean- 
 ing of the Bible, and no creeds or formularies can 
 be devised, which will exclude all difference, whe- 
 ther any can be devised more certain than the 
 Bible is very questionable : we maintain that men, 
 equally anxious to receive the truth, whatever it is, 
 differ but little as to their opinion of what the Bible 
 means. How does it follow, that if we maintain 
 the famous principle, that "the Bible only is the 
 religion of Protestants," we cannot at the same 
 time "hold definite essentials of faith? " Does not 
 Mr. Newman himself say, that "words have a 
 meaning in spite of sophistry ?" and do they cease to 
 have a meaning, because they are used in the Bible ? 
 But it may be said, the Bible is a book of consider- 
 able extent, and all men, nay, all true Christians, 
 cannot have an equal knowledge of it ; there must 
 then be some essential doctrine, which, at the least, 
 all true Christians must believe as absolutely ne- 
 cessary to salvation. Now, there is an analogy be- 
 tween the Bible and the physical world in this, that 
 as in the physical world nothing created has an 
 absolutely independent, self-sufficient existence, s@ 
 
162 
 
 that it can be completely separated without de- 
 struction from all around it, so also in the Bible 
 there is no absolutely independent doctrine, capable 
 of being torn up, as it were, without discovering 
 both vigorous roots and delicate fibres, connecting 
 it with many other doctrines, whereby the whole 
 is perceived to be one compact and intertangled 
 mass. For instance, we believe the doctrine of the 
 atonement to be truly essential ; that no man who 
 denies it has any title even to the name of a 
 Christian ; yet it necessarily involves the divinity of 
 Christ ; for an angel, the only intermediate class of 
 pure beings, we read of in Scripture, between God 
 and man, could not atone for sin, because it is 
 written, " He chargeth his angels with folly,'' and 
 because they are inferior to Christ, for, " when he 
 bringeth in the first begotten into the world, he 
 saith, and let all the angels of God worship him ; " 
 and worship we know to be due to God alone. 
 Again, the doctrine of justification by faith only is 
 no more than the personal application of the atone- 
 ment to every man who receives it with all his 
 heart. 
 
 When it is said that texts such as that just 
 quoted " may imply the Catholic doctrine, yet they 
 need not," we answer that the same objection may 
 be made to the Creed, to the Fathers, to any form 
 of words in which the Catholic doctrine can be ex- 
 
163 
 
 pressed. Thus the word Homoousion, of one sub- 
 stance, or rather of one essence, used in the Nicene 
 Creed to express the unity of the Father and the 
 Son, is, it will be admitted, as strong as any which 
 language affords, yet what is it but a verbal variation 
 of the language of our Lord *, " Before Abraham 
 was, I AM ! " It is to be observed, that however 
 Unitarians, or other sceptics, may affect at the pre- 
 sent day to doubt the meaning of these words, the 
 Jews who heard them had no doubt whatever, for 
 " then took they up stones to cast at him," which 
 was the punishment of blasphemy by their law; 
 they must therefore have agreed with us in under- 
 standing our Lord to refer to that most solemn de- 
 claration of God in the third chapter of Exodus : 
 " And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come 
 unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, 
 The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you ; 
 and they shall say to me, What is his name ? what 
 shall I say unto them ? And God said*unto Moses, 
 I AM THAT I AM; and he said, Thus shalt thou 
 say unto the children, I AM hath sent me unto 
 you." The conclusion is irresistible, that the I AM 
 of the New Testament is the same one and eternal 
 God, of the same essence or being with the I AM 
 of the Old. Strong as it is, we cannot admit the 
 word Homoousion to be stronger or more positive 
 
 * John viii. 58. 
 M 2 
 
164 
 
 than those used by our Lord, or that there is any 
 reason why men, who profess to be unconvinced by 
 them, should have been necessarily convinced by 
 the word Homoousion, if it had been found in 
 Scripture. 
 
 " Our Articles," it is said, " undeniably contain 
 doctrines not developed out of the Creed, but added 
 to it " (p. 294.). The Articles of the Church of 
 England are not Mr. Newman's articles, for he re- 
 peatedly contradicts them; but the inference he 
 would have us derive here is, that doctrines may 
 be distinguished into primary and secondary; that 
 the first are all contained in the Creed, and the 
 second only added in the Articles. Granting that 
 doctrines may be so distinguished, the position is 
 wholly untenable, for this reason, that the doc- 
 trines of the Creed itself may, nay must, be dis- 
 tinguished into primary and secondary likewise. 
 Who will contend that the belief in one God, and in 
 the communion of saints, whatever is meant by that 
 obscure expression, are of equal importance? Be- 
 sides, it is a legitimate conclusion, that those articles 
 of faith not expressed in the Creed, granting even 
 that they may be inferred from it, are yet of less 
 importance than those which are expressed ; there- 
 fore it follows, that according to the Creed it is 
 more essential to believe in the communion of 
 saints than to believe in the atonement. We say 
 
165 
 
 then, that to take the Creed as the standard of es- 
 sentials, notwithstanding the great names which 
 may be advanced in support of the position, and 
 among these we regret to say that of Chillingworth 
 must be included, is a mischievous error, adopted 
 without warrant, and like other notions in religion 
 so adopted, containing in it the germ of " the mys- 
 tery of iniquity." 
 
 Before we can receive " the Creed," on what 
 Mr. Newman calls " Episcopal Tradition" (p. 297.), 
 the fact that the Creed was so handed down by 
 bishops must be proved. The Creed, as we have 
 seen, is not mentioned by name till near the end of 
 the fourth century, and therefore cannot be proved 
 to have been handed down by episcopal or any 
 other tradition. The scriptural u form of sound 
 words " was not " the Creed,'' if so, it would be 
 inspired, which Mr. Newman denies, but the faith 
 of a Christian, which is to be found in Scripture it- 
 self; it is not safe to rest our faith on any other 
 foundation. 
 
 Mr. Newman having determined that the passage 
 in Ephesians iv. 11. " And he gave some, apostles ; 
 and some, prophets ; and some, evangelists," must 
 refer to the visible church, is forced to alter the 
 meaning of the word " prophet " to make it suit, 
 since the gift of prophecy, confessedly, does not 
 now exist According to him, prophets are not 
 M 3 
 
166 
 
 men who foretell things to come, but merely inter- 
 preters (p. 298.). If the meaning of one word or 
 of one passage in Scripture may be changed with- 
 out warrant, so may others ; and where are we to 
 stop ; or rather, if we have any regard to truth, why 
 are we to begin ? If there are any authorised inter- 
 preters of Scripture, we ask, Who are they ? Who 
 authorised them ? Do they uniformly agree among 
 themselves? if not, they cannot be authorised. 
 Until these questions are satisfactorily answered, we 
 will hold fast by the word of God, who " cannot 
 lie," and not follow what, for any thing we can tell, 
 may be no better than " profane and vain bab- 
 blings," whether dignified by the title of" Episcopal" 
 or Prophetical Tradition," or any other high-sound- 
 ing term. All that St. Paul " committed " to 
 Timothy we believe to be contained in the Bible ; 
 we are quite certain that no man living can prove 
 that he committed any thing else. 
 
 But " for a time, the whole church agreed in one 
 and the same account of it," viz. Prophetical Tra- 
 dition (p. 300.). If so, this agreement did not last 
 long, for " the mystery of iniquity " had already 
 begun when St. Paul wrote his second epistle to the 
 Thessalonians. Mr. Newman has much to say on 
 the subject of Tradition, but it is sufficient to reply 
 to his speculations, for they are nothing better, in 
 the words he has himself quoted from Athanasius* 
 
167 
 
 p. 387. s " Either then deny the Holy Scriptures, 
 or, if you acknowledge them, do not indulge specu- 
 lations beyond what is written, which will do irre- 
 parable mischief." 
 
 The notion, " that there are matters of doctrine 
 true, yet not necessary" (p. 301.), as so stated, is 
 inaccurate. No man can be safe in rejecting any 
 doctrine, which he really believes the Bible to con- 
 tain ; for the Bible is the word of God, and ei he 
 that believeth not God, hath made him a liar:" 
 neither can it be maintained, that God has spoken to 
 men more truths than are necessary, for this is to 
 deny his wisdom ; but there may be, and doubtless 
 are, truths contained in the Bible, which many men 
 do not perceive. We maintain, that it is the duty of 
 all men to " search the Scriptures " as far as they 
 are able ; whether they do so search with a desire 
 to know the truth or not, is a matter between their 
 creator and their own souls. 
 
 To tolerate " private judgment " only " in lesser 
 matters, so that our conclusions be not pertinaci- 
 ously urged " (p. 302.), is merely to tolerate hypo- 
 crisy. A man who has a real regard for truth will 
 urge his conclusions pertinaciously, and it is better 
 for society that he should do so ; how else is truth 
 to be elicited ? It is apparent, that the unity on 
 which Mr. Newman and the Romanists insist so 
 much, is uniformity only. There never yet was a 
 m 4 
 
168 
 
 stifler of thought who did not at the same time 
 inculcate meanness of soul. It seems strange, that 
 it should be necessary now to remind men of what 
 the wisest and best of all ages, both by precept and 
 example have taught, that the search of truth is the 
 noblest and most peculiar prerogative of man. 
 
 Mr. Newman, having contended that the creed is 
 to be interpreted implicitly as well as explicitly^ 
 asks himself the natural question, " Is there any 
 limit to that faith which the Creed represents ? I 
 answer, there is no precise limit ; nor is it necessary 
 there should be" (p. 303.). But we have a question 
 to ask also, that is, Why the words used in the Creed 
 are to mean so much more than the same words 
 used any where else ? If the words of the Creed 
 may be interpreted to mean any thing, they may as 
 well be interpreted to mean nothing ; and its useful- 
 ness as a summary of faith is at an end. 
 
 " It is the duty of every one," says Mr. Newman 
 (p. 304.), " either to believe and love what he hears, 
 or to wish to do so, or at least, not to oppose, but 
 to be silent." " Prove all things ; hold fast that which 
 is good," says St. Paul. (1. Thess. v. 21.) 
 
 As to the " right of opposing'* the truth (p. 305.), 
 I know not who contends for it, though many act 
 upon it, more especially the Church of Rome. That 
 < f the church catholic is more likely to be right 
 than a private individual," is not a proposition uni- 
 
169 
 
 versally true. Luther dissented from the church 
 visible, which cannot be distinguished from the 
 church catholic, and all Protestants hold Luther 
 to have been right and the church wrong. Truth 
 dwells in the hearts of good men, not in that of a 
 tyrannical Gregory, a murderous Innocent, or an 
 Alexander polluted with every crime. 
 
 The text, " the pillar and ground of the truth,'' 
 we understand to refer to the church mystical, not 
 to the church visible, which was a pillar of false- 
 hood for centuries together. 
 
 We are tired of noticing Mr. Newman's flimsy 
 sophistries, inconsistencies, and insinuations. Will 
 nothing open the eyes of his deluded followers ? 
 Thus, in the following passage, he calls the Creed 
 revelation a notion, as he is well aware, wholly 
 without proof, and inconsistent with his own denial 
 of its inspiration ! How is it possible that the Creed 
 can be revealed and not inspired ? 
 
 " Every word of revelation has a deep meaning. 
 It is the outward form of a heavenly truth, and in 
 this sense a mystery, or sacrament. We may read 
 it ; confess it ; but there is something in it which 
 we cannot fathom, which we only more or less, as 
 the case may be, not perfectly, enter into. Ac- 
 cordingly, when a candidate for baptism repeats 
 the articles of the Creed, he is confessing some- 
 thing incomprehensible in its depth, and indefinite 
 
170 
 
 in its extent" (p. 306.). That the faith of a Christian 
 is incomprehensible in its depth, we readily admit ; 
 but again we repeat, this is distinct from the Creed. 
 We have no warrant for taking the Creed, or any 
 book but the Bible, to contain the Christian faith. 
 They who comprise the Christian faith, in any com- 
 pilation of merely human authority, do so at their 
 peril. 
 
 Mr. Newman would have us receive the teaching 
 of the church catholic, as a child receives the 
 teaching of its mother ; but there is no analogy be- 
 tween the cases. A child knows its mother, and 
 when it hears her words, knows that* they are its 
 mother's. Unless the church catholic be the same 
 with the church visible (and if it be the same, it has 
 both taught and teaches falsehood), we cannot tell 
 which is the church catholic, except by the test of 
 Scripture only, a test necessarily implying private 
 judgment. As Protestants we refuse to listen to no 
 man, but we will " prove all things " by the word 
 of God. We see no safety in any other course. 
 
 Mr. Newman says, the church " does not force a 
 way by violence '' (p. 308.). Yet he would have 
 " troublers of the Christian community," as he calls 
 them, "silenced, or put out of it" (p. 5.). Among 
 the most prominent of such troublers at the present 
 time, we include himself and his followers, and 
 therefore we would have them, as heretics, put out 
 
171 
 
 of the Church of England, but not " silenced ;" let 
 them talk their fill ; we think not so meanly of the 
 power of truth as to dread discussion. 
 
 Mr. Newman indulges in much declamation, in 
 describing the character and privileges of the 
 church. We answer, the privileges of the church, 
 that is, of Christian men, must depend upon the 
 purity of their faith and lives : " Not that we are 
 sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of our- 
 selves ; but our sufficiency is of God;' Mr. New- 
 man's church is an unmeaning abstraction, which 
 cannot be proved ever to have existed. 
 
 Mr. Newman asks himself the questions, " What 
 is meant by the church catholic at this day ? 
 Where is she? how does she speak ?" (p. 310.) 
 But he does not answer them. It is a miserable 
 substitute for an answer to talk of " the difficulty 
 of applying the test," and that " men evade what 
 they do not like," and so on. If by " the test " he 
 meant the test of Vincentius, that we must believe 
 what was taught " always, every where, and by all," 
 the exceptions are so large as to swallow up the 
 rule, and still we are without a reason why we are 
 to adopt it. 
 
 The assertion, that " in the primitive church all 
 Christians every where spoke one and the same 
 doctrine *", is really monstrous, and repeatedly 
 * See the quotation from Hilary, post, p. 203, 
 
172 
 
 disproved by Mr. Newman himself. " The mystery 
 of iniquity " began in St. Paul's life-time, and there- 
 fore all Christians did not every where speak the 
 same doctrine even then, much less afterwards. 
 Neither were novelties formerly stifled at once, any 
 more than they are now. Was the heresy of 
 Arius " at once stifled?" It was " denounced," 
 doubtless, and so are heresies now, but that denun- 
 ciation did not prevent it from prevailing for a long 
 period, and to a great extent, throughout the 
 Christian world. 
 
 Mr. Newman comes very rapidly to the con- 
 clusion, that " to follow the church, in this day, 
 is to follow the Prayer-book" (p. 313.). We say, 
 that to follow the true church, the mystical body 
 of Christ, is to follow the Bible, to which the Prayer- 
 book is, in some respects, contradictory, as in con- 
 founding regeneration with baptism, and in claiming 
 for priests the power of forgiving and retaining 
 sins. We say also, that to follow the Church of 
 England is to follow the Articles, and the articles on 
 the sacraments are, as we have seen, irreconcileable 
 with the baptismal service. 
 
 " Did we receive the Creed as our gospel," as 
 Mr. Newman would have us (p. 314.), we should be 
 guilty both of superstition and of impiety : of su- 
 perstition by over-valuing the words of man, and of 
 impiety by degrading the words of God. 
 
173 
 
 Mr, Newman is schismatical as well as heretical 
 He would exclude from the church those who are 
 more truly members of it than himself. Thus he 
 says, " Nor is there any thing in the profession of the 
 sects around us to disturb us. They contradict 
 each other, or rather themselves. They pretend to 
 no antiquity, they have no stability, no consistency* 
 .... They have taken a different line, and occupy 
 a different province " (p. 314.). 
 
 Doubtless the differences between Mr. Newman 
 and the Romanists on the one side, and the orthodox 
 Protestant Dissenters on the other, are great and 
 serious ; but the differences between these last and 
 the Church of England relate chiefly, if not wholly, 
 to matters of rites, ceremonies, and church govern- 
 ment. The true members of the Church of Eng- 
 land differ much more from Mr. Newman than 
 from the orthodox Dissenters. As to the antiquity 
 of Dissenters, if they teach the doctrines of the 
 Bible, they are older than the Romanists and 
 Mr. Newman, whatever these last may pretend. 
 It is greatly to be regretted, that any who really 
 love the Gospel of Christ should allow themselves 
 to be separated by mere " carnal ordinances," or to 
 speak with harshness, and even with bitterness of 
 each other for such a cause. Can the real ministers 
 of the Church of England deny that there are in- 
 
174 
 
 deed those among the Dissenters who truly preach 
 Christ crucified," who faithfully testify against 
 " the corruption that is in the world through lust ? " 
 Why then are you "ashamed to call them brethren ?" 
 Not so did our Lord, not so did Moses, not so 
 did St. Paul. Thus it is written, " And John 
 answered and said, Master, we saw one casting out 
 devils in thy name ; and we forbad him, because he 
 followeth not with us. And Jesus said unto him, 
 Forbid him not : for he that is not against us is for 
 us." * (Luke ix. 49.) And again, " And there ran a 
 young man, and told Moses, and said, Eldad and 
 Medad do prophesy in the camp. And Joshua the 
 son of Nun, the servant of Moses, one of his young 
 men, answered and said, My lord Moses, forbid 
 them. And Moses said unto him, Enviest thou for 
 my sake? would God that all the Lord's people 
 were prophets, and that the Lord would put his 
 Spirit upon them ! M (Numbers xi. 27.) So also St. 
 Paul, " Some indeed preach Christ even of envy 
 and strife ; and some also of good will : the one 
 preach Christ of contention, not sincerely, suppos- 
 ing to add affliction to my bonds : but the other of 
 love, knowing that I am set for the defence of the 
 
 * It is true that it is elsewhere said, " He that is not with 
 me is against me;" but these passages cannot be contra- 
 dictory ; the former obviously refers to attack, and the latter 
 to defence, 
 
175 
 
 Gospel. What then ? notwithstanding, every way, 
 whether in pretence, or in truth, Christ is preached ; 
 and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice/ 
 (Philip, i. 15.) Can we read these passages and 
 mistake the spurious Catholicism for the true ? 
 
 It is natural that men who recoil from Protest- 
 antism, should lean to Romanism ; but they must 
 not be suffered to betray the church to which in 
 name only they belong, by representing her doc- 
 trines as identical with their own. Thus we deny, 
 most unequivocally, that the Church of England 
 agrees with that of Rome in maintaining " the ap- 
 plication of Christ's merits through external rites" 
 (p. 316.). On the contrary, we charge the Roman- 
 ists and Mr. Newman with heresy on this very 
 ground. The doctrine of the Church of England 
 is, that the holiest of rites, viz. sacraments, have 
 " a wholesome effect" in such only " as rightly, 
 worthily, and with faith receive" them ; and the 
 eleventh article expressly declares, that we are 
 "justified by faith only," which is incompatible 
 with the application of Christ's merits through 
 rites. 
 
 The distinction is fundamental, and the very 
 corner-stone of Protestantism itself. The right of 
 private judgment is, as it were, the external badge 
 of Protestantism; "justification by faith only" is 
 its very essence. To those who have not embraced 
 
176 
 
 this doctrine, Romanism is a mere corruption of 
 Christianity ; to those who have, it is a foul and 
 most pernicious heresy. 
 
 There are three opinions as to the mode in which 
 men may obtain eternal happiness. The first is, 
 by obedience to God's law ; but this is a condition 
 which no man has fulfilled ; none can examine their 
 own hearts, without feeling that there is something 
 to be repented of in the very best things they do. 
 Will they make themselves more holy than the 
 prophet Isaiah, who has called " all our righteousness 
 filthy rags," or than the apostle Paul, who has said, 
 " that in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good 
 thing" ? Whatever men may heedlessly say, who 
 is there that will dare, at the last day, to challenge 
 acceptance with his Maker as a right? 
 
 The second opinion is, that men are saved by 
 rites and ceremonies, penances, and such like. 
 Now, although the atonement of Christ is here 
 nominally introduced, it is in reality irrelevant and 
 may be rejected, since the purpose of its intro- 
 duction does not appear. There is no necessary 
 relation between the atonement and outward rites. 
 The application of the atonement is within, invi- 
 sible ; its effect is exclusively on the will and the 
 understanding. Rites are outward, visible, mate- 
 rial. They who maintain the inherent efficacy of 
 rites, are in this difficulty, that unless they will 
 
177 
 
 consent to involve themselves in the most revolting 
 absurdities, they must somewhere draw a line, and 
 this, confessedly, they cannot do. The doctrine of 
 the Romanists and that of the Hindoos is sub- 
 stantially the same. Take the extreme Romanist 
 opinion, that of those 
 
 " who, to be sure of Paradise, 
 Dying put on the weeds of Dominic, 
 Or in Franciscan thought to pass disguised;"* 
 
 And we ask how much less absurd is it than the 
 notion of the Hindoos, that a man might become 
 equal to the gods, by standing for a hundred years 
 on one leg ! If rites have an inherent efficacy, it 
 must be applied to all who participate in them in- 
 discriminately, for so far all are equal ; yet carry 
 out this position to its legitimate consequences, and 
 all goodness is rooted out from among men* It is 
 repugnant to almost every page of the Bible and 
 to the character of God as a moral judge. And 
 this is no baseless theory, but a fact confirmed by 
 history ; for during the dark ages, when the Church 
 of Rome bore unlimited sway, gross wickedness 
 was the practical consequence of attributing an 
 inherent efficacy to rites and ceremonies. To 
 take a determinate period, I will venture to assert 
 as an historical fact, which may be proved if dis- 
 puted, that men were generally more wicked during 
 
 * Milton. 
 
 N 
 
178 
 
 the eleventh and twelfth centuries than during the 
 better ages of the Grecian and Roman republics- 
 Conscience, among the men who then called them- 
 selves Christians, was more blinded and perverted 
 than among Heathens. 
 
 There is indeed an intermediate opinion, which 
 is a sort of mixture of the other three, that men 
 are saved partly by works, partly by rites, and 
 partly by faith. Now, when we speak of good 
 works, we must be understood to speak relatively 
 only, as between man and man, not absolutely, as 
 between man and God. There is in this notion a 
 secret degradation of the infinite purity of the 
 divine nature to the level of our own. Even sins 
 of ignorance could not be forgiven without ex- 
 piation, as we find in Leviticus^ iv. 2. Strictly 
 speaking, we have no good works, and therefore we 
 cannot in any degree be justified by them. As to 
 rites, either they have an inherent efficacy or they 
 have not; if they have, it applies equally to all 
 men, good or bad, infidels or believers ; if they 
 have not, their efficacy must be determined by the 
 inward disposition of the recipient. This dispo- 
 sition we call faith, and we maintain that " it is the 
 gift of God." 
 
 We come then to the third, or Protestant doc- 
 trine, that " we are accounted righteous before 
 God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour 
 
179 
 
 Jesus Christ, by faith." * The great objection to 
 this doctrine is included in the question asked by 
 St. Paul, " Shall we continue in sin that grace may 
 abound ? God forbid." The fallacy lies in the as- 
 sumption, that justification by faith is an opinion 
 only, and not a principle of action. Because, to 
 take the distinction of an old writer, they who are 
 so justified " work from life, not for life," it is 
 assumed that they do not work at all. If we do not 
 abhor and forsake sin, if we do not delight in God's 
 law, we have not faith, and are not justified. By 
 our unassisted reason we may discern divine things 
 to be true, for God hath " not left himself without 
 witness ;" as good we can discern them only by 
 " the Spirit of adoption," as Hooker observes. If 
 we have true faith, we shall not think " His com- 
 mandments grievous," but strive to fulfil them, 
 although our perception of our own unworthiness, 
 and of God's purity, will be greatly increased. 
 
 But it may be said, to maintain "justification 
 by faith only," is to deny all efficacy to the sacra- 
 ments. We answer, not so; the sacraments are 
 both badges of our Christian profession, and pow- 
 erful means of grace, if rightly received ; but they 
 are only " generally necessary to salvation," not 
 absolutely and in all cases ; the thief on the cross 
 was not baptized. Righteousness was imputed to 
 * Art. XI. 
 N 2 
 
180 
 
 Abraham, " not in circumcision, but in uncircum- 
 cision ;" the sins of the "woman which was a sinner" 
 were forgiven before baptism. If baptism is to be 
 held absolutely necessary to salvation in the case of 
 every Christian, it would follow that a heathen con- 
 vert, dying suddenly before baptism could be ad- 
 ministered to him, would be in a worse condition 
 than if he had remained unconverted, since it cannot 
 be maintained that the salvation of the virtuous 
 heathen is impossible. It is clear, therefore, that 
 rites cannot be held absolutely and universally ne- 
 cessary ; but " without faith it is impossible to 
 please God." The case put is of the nature of a 
 crucial instance. 
 
 There is no doctrine in the Church of Christ 
 older, or better supported by authority, than that of 
 " justification by faith only." It is, as we have 
 seen, the doctrine of Clement of Rome and Poly- 
 carp, two fathers whose antiquity and authority are 
 inferior to none ; it is the cardinal doctrine of 
 Luther and the great reformers ; it is the doctrine 
 of the eleventh article and of the Homilies of the 
 Church of England ; it is the doctrine of Hooker, 
 the highest authority among English divines, and 
 developed by him at length in an elaborate sermon, 
 perhaps unequalled in our language in profound 
 piety, dignity of expression, and force of reasoning. 
 But we deny that any or all of these are or can be 
 
181 
 
 clearer than the Bible, of which the doctrine of the 
 atonement is throughout the great theme, and justi- 
 fication by faith alone the personal application of it, 
 " By grace are ye saved through faith ; and that 
 not of yourselves: it is the gift of God; not of 
 works, lest any man should boast." 
 
 " Then what," says Hooker, " is the fault of the 
 Church of Rome ? Not that she requireth works at 
 their hands that will be saved ; but that she attri- 
 buted unto works a power of satisfying God for sin ; 
 and a virtue to merit both grace here, and in heaven 
 glory. That this overthroweth the foundation of 
 faith, I grant willingly; that it is a direct denial 
 thereof, I utterly deny." * If indeed it were a direct 
 denial, we could not admit Rome to be even a visible 
 Church. But let us see where this notion of works 
 will carry us. The more a man works, the more 
 grace he necessarily receives ; and the more grace 
 again, the more he works ; so that grace and works 
 mutually increase in a sort of geometrical progres- 
 sion, until at length he has more than he wants for 
 his own use. Yet here, even if we concede that any 
 works may be in themselves absolutely meritorious, 
 it is not enough ; their merit must be retrospective 
 as well as prospective to enable them to save the 
 soul ; and that they are so retrospective is an assump- 
 tion only. Works and grace becoming thus redund* 
 * Vol. iii. p. 661. 
 N 3 
 
182 
 
 ant, the Church seizes, by what title it is hard to 
 say, upon the superfluities of the saint, locks them 
 up in her spiritual chest, and sells them to the sinner 
 for money ! thus, in addition to all the rest, com- 
 mitting the very sin of Simon Magus. The moral 
 and religious are not the only objections to this 
 monstrous mass of folly and wickedness. There 
 is a philosophical objection which alone is fatal to 
 indulgences. Money is material, visible ; the merit 
 of good works, even if absolute, is not a thing which 
 we can see or touch. The deluded man who gives 
 money for an indulgence or pardon has, and can 
 have, no assurance beyond the bare word of his 
 priest that he receives any thing in return. If " a 
 good legal hope " be confessedly difficult (we say it 
 is unattainable), what is a bought legal hope, where 
 the seller can prove no title, and the purchaser no 
 transfer ? We say, then, that Romanism is a heresy, 
 and not a mere corruption of Christianity. It is not, 
 as some may fondly imagine, a beautiful statue, in- 
 crusted over with the slime of antiquity, but reveal- 
 ing, through every incumbrance, the various har- 
 mony of proportion, the careless simplicity of grace ; 
 it is rather a barbarous idol, mimicking with its de- 
 formed contortions the serene majesty of the fabu- 
 lous god of life and light. 
 
183 
 
 CHAP. IV. 
 
 Of the eleventh Lecture " on Scripture as the 
 Record of Faith," a considerable portion has been 
 already considered. We proceed therefore to a 
 question of great importance, wherein we charge 
 Mr. Newman with maintaining heresy no less dis- 
 tinctly than we so charge him on the ground of his 
 opinions as to justification. He says, that " Pro- 
 testant sectaries " believe individuals " to have a 
 direct power over Scripture, to contemplate ques- 
 tions of what is true and false in opinion, to have 
 a special gift by divine illumination, a gift gua- 
 ranteed by promise, of discerning the Scripture 
 sense without perceptible ^ human Media , to act 
 under a guidance, and as if inspired, though not 
 really so. Whether any such gift was once des- 
 tined for mankind or not, it avails not to inquire ; 
 we consider it is not given in fact, and both Roman- 
 ists and Protestants hold it is given" (p. 321.). 
 
 Now the doctrine in question, which is as much 
 that of the Church of England as it can be of 
 " Protestant sectaries," is not fairly stated. We 
 do not maintain that any men " have a direct power 
 over Scripture;" but that all who "search the 
 V 4 
 
184 
 
 Scriptures" with humility, prayer, and an earnest 
 desire to know the truth, will be led by the Spirit 
 into all truth necessary for their salvation. We 
 distinguish, and the distinction must be familiar to 
 Mr. Newman, between the extraordinary and the 
 ordinary operations of the Spirit; the extraor- 
 dinary, described with such nervous fervour by the 
 prophet Jeremiah, " His word was in mine heart 
 as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was 
 weary with forbearing, and I could not stay ;" and 
 the ordinary, in the words of Hooker, " common to 
 all true Christian men." 
 
 But this is not the only office of the Spirit. It 
 is held by divines, and by Chillingworth among 
 others, certainly neither a sectary or a fanatic, that 
 each of the Three Persons in the Holy Trinity has 
 a peculiar office in the redemption of every Christian 
 soul ; and that of sanctification is generally ascribed 
 to the Spirit. We trust to shew that these two 
 doctrines, as to the personal agency of the Spirit, 
 rest on most sure scriptural ground, and also that 
 they are both the doctrine of the Church of 
 England. The gift of the Spirit is expressly pro- 
 mised to all believers. " If ye being evil," says 
 our Lord, " know how to give good gifts unto your 
 children, how much rather shall my heavenly 
 Father give his Holy Spirit to them that ask him." 
 There is no restriction in this promise ; it is clearly 
 
185 
 
 made to all believers in all ages. But, without the 
 Spirit salvation is impossible, for " no man can say 
 that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost ;" 
 and, " if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he 
 is none of his." Also it is said in the same 
 chapter wherein we find the last text, the eighth of 
 Romans, " For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall 
 die : but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the 
 deeds of the body ye shall live. For as many as 
 are led by the Spirit of God they are the sons of 
 God. For ye have not received the spirit of 
 bondage again to fear; but ye have received the 
 Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. 
 The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, 
 that we are the children of God." And afterwards, 
 " Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities ; 
 for we know not what we should pray for as we 
 ought." And again, in 2 Thess.ii. 13. " But we 
 are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, 
 brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath 
 from the beginning chosen you to salvation through 
 sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth." 
 It is plain, then, that the offices of leading into the 
 truth and sanctifying every believer, are in Scripture 
 peculiarly and emphatically applied to the Holy 
 Spirit. 
 
 The doctrine of the Church of England on these 
 points, may be thus given in the words of Hooker ; 
 
186 
 
 " That saving truth, which is far above the reacb 
 of human reason, cannot otherwise, than by the 
 Spirit of the Almighty be conceived;" and "the 
 proper and most immediate efficient cause in us of 
 Christian righteousness, is, the Spirit of adoption 
 which we have received into our hearts." * The 
 seventeenth article is to the same effect " Where- 
 fore they which be endued with so excellent a 
 benefit of God, be called according to God's purpose 
 by his Spirit working in due season : they through 
 grace obey the calling : they be justified freely : 
 they be made sons of God by adoption : they be 
 made like the image of his only-begotten Son Jesus 
 Christ : they walk religiously in good works, and 
 at length by God's mercy, they attain everlasting 
 felicity." 
 
 It will be remembered that Mr. Newman pro- 
 fesses peculiar reverence for the Prayer Book. On 
 this subject the Prayer Book entirely agrees with 
 the Articles. Thus, the Collect for Quinquagesima 
 Sunday ascribes the gift of charity or sanctification 
 to the Holy Spirit: 
 
 " O Lord, who hast taught us that all our doings 
 without charity are nothing worth ; send thy Holy 
 Ghost, and pour into our hearts that most excellent 
 gift of charity, the very bond of peace, and of all 
 virtues ; without which whosoever liveth is counted 
 * Vol. iii. 642. 631. 
 
187 
 
 dead before thee. Grant this for thine only Son 
 Jesus Christ's sake." 
 
 The Collect for Whit-Sunday ascribes the gift 
 of right judgment to the Holy Spirit : 
 
 " God, who as at this time didst teach the hearts 
 of thy faithful people, by sending to them the light 
 of thy Holy Spirit ; grant us by the same Spirit 
 to have a right judgment in all things, and ever- 
 more to rejoice in his holy comfort, through the 
 merits of Christ Jesus our Saviour ; who liveth and 
 reigneth with thee in the unity of the same Spirit, 
 one God, world without end." 
 
 We say, then, that Mr. Newman's denial of a spe- 
 cial divine gift to all true believers is heretical, 
 and contrary to the doctrine of the Church of 
 England. 
 
 The doctrine of sanctification by the Holy Spirit 
 is necessarily connected with that of justification 
 by faith only, inasmuch as it wholly excludes jus- 
 tification by works. 
 
 The words of Mr. Newman, C6 Scripture is an 
 infringement on our right of private judgment," 
 (p. 325.), are a childish mis-statement of a point 
 already discussed. Without Scripture we should 
 have nothing to judge. Scripture is our only in- 
 formant in matters of doctrine, because, according 
 to himself, " Scripture only is inspired." Not that 
 we contend that no knowledge is attainable by the 
 
188 
 
 light of nature ; that is not the question here, al- 
 though it may be remarked that there is this essen- 
 tial distinction between natural and revealed know- 
 ledge ; that we can know nothing of God but through 
 God, we can know only from Him what He is. 
 
 Scripture " demands our assent " undoubtedly, 
 but we must exercise our understandings as to what 
 Scripture means ; and this, together with the genu- 
 ineness and authenticity of Scripture, is the whole 
 question of private judgment, and nothing more. If 
 men are not to exercise their understandings as to the 
 meaning of Scripture, they must as to the meaning 
 of its interpreters ; and how are they to know that 
 the interpreters may not be wrong, and why are 
 they not to begin at the fountain-head ? 
 
 It is very easy to get over the difficulty by saying, 
 " How the Church and the individual adjust their 
 respective judgments, is a mere case of relative 
 duties, as that between a master and scholar, or 
 parent and child." (p. 326.) The scholar knows 
 his master ; and the child knows his parent ; but the 
 Church Catholic is not so easily determined. Mr. 
 Newman, not satisfied, as we are, with the Bible, has 
 tried to furnish us with another test, but he has 
 entirely failed ; his test is as indeterminate as the 
 thing to be tested. His test of " matters of inferior 
 moment " is of precisely the same character ; they 
 are within the cognisance of private judgment, but, 
 
189 
 
 as it appears, in conjunction only with that indeter- 
 minate body the Church ; and, as if the difficulty of 
 adjusting the indeterminate claims of an indeter- 
 minate body were not enough, neither the Church 
 nor the individual can know whether such are infe- 
 rior matters or not, unless " Scripture or tradition 
 is obscure, indeterminate, or silent." (p. 325.) Can 
 a better scheme be devised for rendering truth im- 
 possible to be ascertained I It is sufficient for us 
 to receive the Bible only as our authority, without 
 involving ourselves, and that too gratuitously, in such 
 a maze of absurdities. 
 
 As we do not admit the pseudo-Athanasian Creed 
 to be scriptural, we care not for any argument as to 
 what is " catholic/' which may be adduced there- 
 from. " Physician, heal thyself." That the author or 
 authors of the so-called Athanasian Creed were 
 more anxious to determine what they considered 
 " catholic " than what was scriptural, may well be; 
 if so, Protestants will not on that account be more 
 disposed to acknowledge it. 
 
 Mr. Newman objects to the words of Chilling- 
 worth, that " nothing is necessary to be believed but 
 what is plainly revealed." (p. 329.) He should 
 also have objected to Augustine, Chrysostom, and 
 other fathers on the same ground.* His answer, 
 
 * See the opinions of the fathers on this point, collected by 
 Tillotson, at the end of his "Rule of Faith." 
 
190 
 
 u I cannot allow that a revelation, if made, must 
 necessarily be plain, or that faith requires clear 
 knowledge," is ambiguous, and not to the point. 
 Chillingworth does not pretend to determine dpriori 
 what a revelation must be, but only that men must 
 know what they are to believe before they can be- 
 lieve ; for how is it possible they can do otherwise ? 
 and that whatever is generally necessary to salva- 
 tion is plainly revealed. Mr. Newman's words seem 
 to imply that Chillingworth required entire compre- 
 hension of the whole matter to be believed before 
 belief, but nothing was further from the opinions of 
 that great man than the childish and atheistical 
 sophism that we can believe nothing without tho- 
 roughly understanding it, as if it were a mathemati- 
 cal problem. There is much, doubtless, in religion 
 that is most mysterious; but so there is in the physi- 
 cal world around us. All that Chillingworth requires 
 is that the matter of belief shall be clearly pro- 
 pounded, not comprehended by our narrow under- 
 standings in all its parts. 
 
 Certainly it would be very presumptuous to say, 
 that there is an antecedent necessity that the word 
 of God should be written ; an opinion which Hooker 
 and Butler most justly condemn, and which is also 
 contrary to many passages in Chillingworth. We 
 are not to limit His power, or to prescribe for Him 
 
191 
 
 in what manner truth shall be preserved in the 
 hearts of men : but who says it ? 
 
 Chillingworth does not say, " I will believe no- 
 thing unless I am told it in the clearest conceivable 
 form;" this is, a much stronger expression than 
 " plainly revealed." There are many degrees of 
 certainty: certainty not less than what men habitu- 
 ally act upon, we maintain to be also a sufficient 
 warrant for religious belief; and, it may be added, if 
 men who reject the Bible, habitually act upon evi- 
 dence less certain than that for the Bible, they 
 condemn themselves, and prove that insufficient 
 evidence is not their motive for rejecting revelation. 
 Our warrant for rejecting all unwritten doctrines is 
 not antecedent necessity, but Scripture itself. 
 
 We cannot admit that " the abolition of the se- 
 venth day comes to us upon tradition." (p. 330.) 
 The substitution of the first day of the week for 
 the seventh may he collected from Scripture. " Let 
 no man judge you in respect of the sabbath days*," 
 says St. Paul ; and we read of the disciples being 
 together on the first day of the week. There is a 
 reason also for the change, because our Lord rose 
 from the dead on that day. Neither is it strictly 
 speaking a matter of doctrine, which day of the 
 seven shall be observed ; certainly not more so than 
 the rejected practice of administering the commu- 
 * Coloss. ii. 16. 
 
192 
 
 ftion to infants. We do not consider that the prin- 
 ciple, which we hold to be sound both in religion 
 and politics, that every thing is to be received which 
 we find established, unless we can give a reason for 
 rejecting it, has any thing to do with tradition in 
 the Popish sense of the word. 
 
 Our real grounds for holding the sufficiency and 
 perfection of Scripture in matters of doctrine are 
 in the first place Scripture itself; and secondly, the 
 impossibility of verifying our faith by any other 
 means, which, as I trust, has been already shewn. 
 The first point only then remains to be considered. 
 
 " Scripture " says Mr. Newman, p. 331., no where 
 says that it, by itself, contains all necessary doc- 
 trine ; " yet, St. Paul says to Timothy, " the Holy 
 Scriptures are able to make thee wise unto salva- 
 tion through faith which is in Christ Jesus." If 
 they are so able, they must contain all that is ne- 
 cessary. They must also contain all that is neces- 
 sary, because no other revelation can be proved, 
 and because all addition to them is expressly for- 
 bidden. Of what books the Scriptures consist, is 
 not the point here ; that we ascertain by evidence 
 internal and external. But having once ascertained 
 the canon, which, be it remembered, the Church of 
 England has done, and declared, that it " containeth 
 all things necessary to salvation/ 7 where Scripture 
 speaks generally of itself, we give its language a 
 
193 
 
 general interpretation : thus the text in 2 Tim. 
 iii. 16., "All Scripture is given by inspiration of 
 God," must refer to all written revelation, antece- 
 dent and subsequent, when ascertained, because it 
 is all equally Scripture ; but the books of Scripture 
 are certainly not ascertainable by this text. Mr. 
 Newman, in referring this text to the Old Testament 
 only, because the New was not then completed, is 
 plainly unsound. What possible warrant can there 
 be for limiting the passage in Proverbs, xxx. 5., to the 
 Scriptures then written ? " Every word of God is 
 pure : he is a shield unto them that put their trust 
 in him. Add thou not unto his words, lest he re- 
 prove thee, and thou be found a liar." It is the 
 "word of God" which is here spoken of; and the 
 New Testament is as much the " word of God " as 
 the Old. Neither do we limit the passages in 
 Deuteronomy, iv.2., andxii. 32., to the Jews only: 
 " Ye shall not add unto the word which I command 
 you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it : " 
 " What thing soever I command you, observe to 
 do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish 
 from it." The Jewish ceremonial law was indeed 
 repealed, but it was by divine authority. These 
 texts clearly apply to all the words and command- 
 ments of God, whether antecedent or subsequent, 
 and nothing can be proved to be his word which 
 is not written. " The last words of the Apocalypse," 
 o 
 
 
194 
 
 if u the sole declaration in the books of the New 
 Testament of an exclusive character " (p. 332.), are 
 certainly not the sole declaration to that effect 
 in the Bible, although the most awful and im- 
 pressive ; and we give them a general, and not a 
 particular interpretation, on the grounds already 
 mentioned, and because, if we were to interpret 
 them of the book of Revelations only, that book 
 would be placed under a more solemn sanction than 
 any other books in the Bible; which must be equal 
 to each other, if all are alike God's word. " If any 
 man shall add unto these things, God shall add 
 unto him the plagues that are written in this book : 
 and if any man shall take away from the words of 
 the book of this prophecy, God shall take away 
 his part out of the book of life." 
 
 Because we believe " that the text of Scripture 
 is not to be taken literally, concerning our washing 
 one another's feet" (p. 334.), it is contended, that 
 our interpretation must be traditive. But there 
 are many passages of Scripture which we do not 
 interpret literally ; as, " If thine eye offend thee, 
 pluck it out and cast it from thee ; " " And unto 
 him that smiteth thee on the one cheek, offer also 
 the other." Is our interpretation of all these pas- 
 sages traditive ? Is there any traditive interpreta- 
 tion of any scriptural passage ? If so, what is it, 
 how is it proved? who delivered it, and to whom ? 
 
195 
 
 To say, that because all agree that some scriptural 
 texts are not to be taken literally, the interpreta- 
 tion must be traditive, is no consequence. That all 
 texts are not to be taken literally is clear from 
 Scripture itself. 
 
 " But our divines, such as Bramhall, Bull, Pearson, 
 and Patrick, believe that the blessed Mary was 
 < Ever Virgin,' as the Church has called her ; but 
 tradition was their only informant on the subject : 
 thus there are true traditions still remaining to 
 us " (p. 335.). 
 
 Mr. Newman has passed through the schools of 
 Oxford ; did he there learn that a true syllogism 
 admits of a doubtful middle term, or, that a uni- 
 versal conclusion can be derived from particular 
 premises ? To make the conclusion legitimate, the 
 major premiss should stand thus : Whatever Bram- 
 hall, Bull, Pearson, and Patrick, believed, is true ; or, 
 Whatever Bramhall, Bull, Pearson, and Patrick, 
 believed on tradition, is true. To the first, " I deny 
 your major," is a sufficient answer : the second 
 assumes the point to be proved, viz., the truth of 
 tradition. 
 
 But if we grant, what cannot be proved, that 
 " there are true traditions still remaining to us/' 
 what then ? How do we know that there are not 
 false traditions also ? and how are we to discrimi- 
 nate the false traditions from the true ? Again, 
 o 2 
 
196 
 
 and again we say, that the moment we suffer our- 
 selves to wander beyond the Bible, we have no 
 security that we shall believe the truth. If " it so 
 happens that no doctrine coming from the apostles 
 is to be found any where " but in Scripture, it is 
 gratuitous and unphilosophical to take tradition as 
 an authority jointly with Scripture : it is to take 
 that as a joint cause which cannot be proved to be 
 more than an effect. 
 
 But it might be said, that " some books, as the 
 epistle to the Laodiceans, are altogether lost." This* 
 and much more might be said, doubtless, but can it 
 be proved that any inspired book has been lost? 
 And let it be remembered, that even if it could be 
 proved that any book written by an apostle had 
 been lost, this is not enough ; it must also be proved 
 to have been inspired ; which it is absurd in itself, 
 and contrary to Scripture, to suppose that every 
 writing of the apostles was. St. Paul expressly 
 declares, on one occasion, that he was not inspired : 
 " I have no commandment of the Lord : yet I give 
 my judgment, as one that hath obtained mercy of 
 the Lord to be faithful." (1 Cor. vii. 25.) 
 
 Again, we know not that " the book of Jasher," 
 mentioned in Joshua, x. 13., was inspired. Scrip- 
 ture is indeed expressly against such a sup- 
 position, or at least against the supposition that any 
 lost book could contain additional matter ; for all 
 
" 19 ? 
 
 Scripture is the word of God, and it is written, 
 "the word of our God shall stand for ever." (Isa. 
 xl. 8.) 
 
 In insidious insinuation Mr. Newman has little to 
 learn from any Jesuit. A Romanist is here supposed 
 to speak, but he is not answered. " The office of the 
 Church, as < the keeper of Holy Writ,' seems to 
 make it probable that she was intended to interpret, 
 perhaps to supply, what Scripture left irregular and 
 incomplete' , (p. 337.). " The keeper of Holy Writ" 
 is the true mystical Church, not the idolatrous Ro- 
 manists, who did indeed keep it as a sealed volume 
 as long as they could. But grant the Church to be 
 a keeper, is she therefore an interpreter ? Because 
 she is one thing, is she therefore another? That 
 Scripture is incomplete, is an assumption ; if any 
 Church, or any men, add to Scripture, we know 
 from Scripture that they are " accursed." Again, 
 " The circumstance that religious truths can be 
 conveyed by ordinances, or by Catholic tradition, 
 as well as by writing, seems an intimation that there 
 is such a second rule of faith, equally authoritative 
 and binding with Scripture itself." How can truths 
 be conveyed by ordinances ? But they may by tra- 
 dition. Be it so. Hear the conclusion insinuated by 
 our orthodox logician: Because they may be, there- 
 fore they are. 
 
 After the specimens of reasoning we have had, it 
 o 3 
 
198 
 
 is very natural that Mr. Newman should remark 
 that " the great discoverers of principles do not 
 reason" (p. 339.), and leave his readers to draw 
 the inference. 
 
 It is not necessary to consider Mr. Newman's 
 perpetual repetitions of the same sophisms. We 
 are not " content to accept the canonicity of Scrip- 
 ture on faith" (p. 343.). The canonicity of Scrip- 
 ture is not a subject of faith, but of reason, as 
 Hooker has shewn. We receive Scripture on evi- 
 dence, historical and internal ; we will reject neither. 
 If we received it without any reason, we should dis- 
 obey St. Paul, who commands us to " prove all 
 things ;" and St. Peter, who commands us to " be 
 ready always to give an answer to every man that 
 asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you." 
 
 Mr. Newman insidiously remarks, that " the Ar- 
 ticles contain no recognition of the inspiration of 
 Scripture" (p. 344.). The Articles recognise the 
 books of the canon, which is all we require. The 
 inspiration of Scripture is established by itself. We 
 deny that there are " great truths not in the 
 Articles ;" if so, what are they ? 
 
 The next Lecture " on Scripture, as the Record of 
 our Lord's Teaching," will not detain us long. It is 
 characterised by the same dangerously speculative 
 spirit which we have so often remarked in Mr. New- 
 man, and which appears also to have characterise 
 
199 
 
 the early heretics. That one portion of Scripture, 
 viz. " the words and works" of our Lord, is " sacred 
 beyond other portions ;" as Mr. Newman insinuates, 
 is a matter we have no warrant for believing. We 
 do not consider ourselves to have any warrant for 
 esteeming the words of the Son of higher authority 
 than those of the Holy Spirit. What warrant, in- 
 deed, can we have for such an opinion ? The final 
 revelation of Christianity was subsequent to our 
 Lord's crucifixion. That all Christianity is contained 
 in any one book or books of the New Testament is 
 a matter of pure speculation, entirely useless, and 
 which may be mischievous. The insinuation, that 
 " perhaps portions of such," viz. oral, " instructions" 
 of our Lord " remain among us " (p. 354.), is quite 
 in Mr. Newman's usual spirit. He is aware that 
 there is not satisfactory evidence for any. 
 
 Limiting the inspiration of the apostles to " un- 
 derstanding in our Lord's words, and the gift of 
 prophecy" (p. 363.), is another speculation, wholly 
 unwarrantable, and plainly mischievous. 
 
 Mr. Newman at length admits, " that tradition, 
 by itself, and without Scripture warrant, does not 
 convey to us any article necessary to salvation." 
 (p. 370.) How, then, on his own shewing, can he 
 be free from schism in excluding from the Church 
 Protestant dissenters who receive all Scripture, 
 and therefore all articles necessary to salvation ? 
 o 4 
 
200 
 
 The admission is specious, but, on examination, it 
 will be found " false and hollow ;" for tradition is 
 assumed to be the interpreter of Scripture, and the 
 interpretation is the whole question. That such 
 is Mr. Newmans view, is immediately apparent. 
 " Scripture/' he says in the next page, " does not 
 interpret itself, or answer objections to misinterpret- 
 ations. We must betake ourselves to the early 
 Church, and see how they understood it." Here 
 we are at issue on every point. We maintain that 
 Scripture is the best interpreter of Scripture ; we 
 see no necessity for betaking ourselves to the early 
 Church for an interpretation ; and if we do, we are 
 satisfied that an unanimous interpretation is not to 
 be found. Tertullian may observe, " that there is 
 no end of disputing if we go to Scripture, whereas 
 the joint testimony of the Catholic world is at once 
 clear and unanswerable " (p. 373.). Yet the same 
 Tertullian did not, even in his time, find this joint 
 testimony sufficiently clear, for he appeals to Scrip- 
 ture, and not to the Catholic world, in another quo- 
 tation in the same page: "Let the school of Her- 
 mogenes shew us that it is mentioned in Scripture; 
 if it is not in Scripture, let him fear the woe des- 
 tined for those who add or take away." We see 
 here that Tertullian obviously gave a general inter- 
 pretation to the curse in the Revelations, and there- 
 fore would condemn those who now build their faith 
 on the Prayer Book rather than on the Bible. But 
 
201 
 
 it was a much easier thing to ascertain the joint 
 testimony of the Catholic world in the time of Ter- 
 tullian than now : are we, therefore, to determine 
 the primitive ages with his death ? For this no 
 reason can be given ; and still we shall not escape 
 errors, for Tertullian was himself a Montanist. 
 
 Mr. Newman proceeds to quote many passages 
 from the Fathers, to shew that Scripture was " the 
 document of proof in the early Church ;" but 
 the Fathers are often inconsistent with each other, 
 and sometimes with themselves. Thus Chrysostom 
 and Athanasius contradict Tertullian : far from 
 thinking that " there is no end of disputing if we 
 go to Scripture/' the first says, " As a trusty door, 
 Scripture shuts out heretics, securing us from error 
 in whatsoever we desire; and unless we damage it 
 we are unassailable by our enemies" (p. 379.) : and 
 Athanasius, " But if ye desire to speak other things 
 beyond what is written, why do you contend with 
 us, who are determined neither to hear nor to speak 
 beyond what is written, the Lord having said, ' If 
 ye abide in my word ye shall be truly free ' " 
 (p. 388.). Again, Augustine thus emphatically con- 
 demns all traditions ; yet, as we have seen, he per- 
 mitted himself to speculate beyond the Bible, until 
 he very nearly approached the Romish doctrine of 
 purgatory : 
 
 " If any one, in matters relating to Christ, or His 
 Church, or any other thing which belongs to faith 
 
20 l 2 
 
 or our life, I will not say, if* we, but even (what 
 St. Paul has added) if an angel from Heaven shall 
 preach unto you, besides what ye have received in 
 the Scriptures of the Law and the Gospel, let him 
 be accursed" (p. 380.). 
 
 John of Damascus, notwithstanding his defence 
 of the worship of images, could write thus : " It 
 cannot be that we should preach, or at all know, 
 any thing about God, besides what the holy oracles 
 of the Old and New Testaments have set forth, 
 said, or manifested to us" (p. 381.). Where, in 
 the Bible, did he find any warrant for idolatry ? 
 Such mere mouth-honour as this costs nothing, and 
 is worth nothing. There is ample evidence that the 
 early Church was not purer or better than ours. 
 Thus Mr. Newman himself quotes Basil of Caesarea 
 to the following effect (p. 419.) :" 
 
 6i Our afflictions are well known without my tell- 
 ing ; the sound of them has gone forth over all 
 Christendom. The opinions of the Fathers are de- 
 spised ; apostolical traditions are set at nought; the 
 speculations of innovators hold sway in the churches. 
 Men have learned to be theorists instead of theo- 
 logians. The wisdom of the world has the place 
 of honour, having dispossessed the boasting of the 
 cross. The gravity of the sacred order has pe- 
 rished ; there are none to feed the Lord's flock 
 with knowledge ; ambitious men are ever spending, 
 
203 
 
 for purposes of self-indulgence and bribery, posses- 
 sions which they hold in trust for the poor. The 
 accurate observance of the Canons is no more ; 
 there is no restraint upon sin. The laity remain 
 unchastised ; the prelates have lost all freedom of 
 speech, for they are necessarily the slaves of those 
 by whose patronage they have gained their dignities. 
 
 Unbelievers laugh at what they see, and the 
 
 weak are unsettled ; no one can tell where the true 
 faith lies, because the adulterators of the word make 
 plausible pretences to be true. The better sort of 
 people keep silence ; but every railer speaks what 
 he will. Sacred things are profaned ; those of the 
 laity who are sound in faith avoid the places of 
 worship as schools of blasphemy, and raise their 
 voices in solitude with groans and tears to the God 
 of Heaven." 
 
 Was this the period when " all Christians every 
 where spoke one and the same doctrine ? " But 
 there is a yet more remarkable passage, not quoted 
 by Mr. Newman, in Hilary, bishop of Poictiers, in the 
 fourth century : " It is a thing equally deplorable 
 and dangerous, that there are at present as many 
 creeds as there are opinions among men, as many 
 doctrines as inclinations ; and as many sources of 
 blasphemy, as there are faults among us ; because 
 we make creeds arbitrarily, and explain them as 
 arbitrarily. And as there is but one faith ; so there 
 
204 
 
 is but one only God, one Lord, and one baptism. 
 We renounce this one faith, when we make so many 
 different creeds ; and that diversity is the reason why 
 we have no true faith among us. We cannot be ig- 
 norant that, since the Council of Nice, we have done 
 nothing but make creeds. And while we fight against 
 words, litigate about new questions, dispute about 
 equivocal terms, complain of authors, that every one 
 may make his own party triumph ; while we cannot 
 agree, while we anathematise one another, there is 
 hardly one that adheres to Jesus Christ. What 
 change was there not in the creed last year ! The 
 first council ordained a silence upon the Homoousion ; 
 the second established it, and would have us speak ; 
 the third excuses the fathers of the council, and pre- 
 tends they took the word ousia simply ; the fourth 
 condemns them, instead of excusing them. With 
 respect to the likeness of the Son of God to the 
 Father, which is the faith of our deplorable times, 
 they dispute whether he is like in whole, or in part. 
 These are rare folks to unravel the secrets of heaven. 
 Nevertheless it is for these creeds, about invisible 
 mysteries, that we calumniate one another, and for 
 our belief in God. We make creeds every year, nay 
 every moon ; we repent of what we have done ; we 
 defend those that repent, we anathematise those we 
 defended. So we condemn either the doctrine of 
 others in ourselves, or our own in that of others, and 
 
205 
 
 reciprocally tearing one another to pieces, we have 
 been the causes of each other's ruin." * 
 
 If the candid reader should think that there is 
 some rhetorical exaggeration in the language of 
 Basil and Hilary a supposition certainly in accord- 
 ance with the vicious taste of their times, but which 
 does not strengthen the case of the blind followers 
 of the Fathers still, after making every allowance, 
 it is sufficiently clear, that the early Church was not 
 Mr. Newman's miracle of concord. 
 
 But his system is contrary to Scripture, the 
 Church of England, antiquity, history, and common 
 sense. Thus he refers the text, "all her child- 
 ren are taught of the Lord, and great is the 
 peace of her children," to the Church generally. 
 It is plain enough to every man who will per- 
 mit himself to use his understanding unwarped 
 by a theory, that this passage cannot refer to the 
 visible Church, of which some of the worst men 
 that ever lived have been members. It is plain 
 from Scripture that it cannot ; for, in every country 
 nominally Christian, the visible Church is the 
 world, containing both wheat and tares ; and iC the 
 Spirit of truth the world cannot receive." Hooker 
 refers all such passages to the mystical Church 
 only. In order to reconcile his own view of the 
 scriptural promises really made to the mystical 
 
 * The original of this passage is quoted, and thus translated 
 by Locke in his " New Method of a Common-place Book." 
 
206 
 
 Church, with the existing condition of the visible 
 Church, Mr. Newman is driven to doubt " whether 
 or not there are cases in which a branch of the 
 Church, as an individual Christian, may utterly ex- 
 haust itself of grace, and become reprobate ; " 
 (p. 399.) to doubt; that is, whether a man may not 
 lead a life of sin, die without repentance, and yet 
 be saved because he has been baptized or made a 
 member of the Church ; for "if we have been 
 made God's children, we cannot unmake ourselves ; 
 we can never be mere natural men again." How 
 does he know that many baptized persons have ever 
 been other than natural men ? What proof of a 
 spiritual life do they give? How can men be 
 Christians indeed who live in habitual sin, and, as 
 far as human eyes can see, seldom or never think of 
 religion at all ? The difficulty is not evaded by call- 
 ing such men " apostates," they have not deserted 
 the true religion for the false. Either Mr. Newman's 
 notions of baptism are wholly unsound ; or all re- 
 ligion and all morality is concentrated in an outward 
 ordinance, which in very many instances cannot be 
 proved to have even any outward effect.* The 
 apostles must have been baptized before the cru- 
 cifixion, yet they were not wholly converted: 
 " When thou art converted," says our Lord to Peter, 
 " strengthen thy brethren. " t 
 
 * Ante, p. 65. | Lul e, xxii. 32. 
 
207 
 
 Another great source of Mr. Newman's errors is 
 " apostolical succession," or the assumed analogy 
 between the Christian ministry and the Jewish 
 priesthood. A regular succession of priests cannot 
 now be proved, either among the Jews or among 
 any other nation, for the priesthood is at an end ; 
 and if we had adhered strictly to the New Testa- 
 ment, the word priest would never among Christians 
 have been confounded with minister. It is a re- 
 lative term in its primary sense, and implies an 
 altar and a sacrifice. Its very use is dishonouring 
 to Christ, our great High- Priest, whose " holy 
 priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices," all true 
 Christians are. We therefore deny that the apos- 
 tles " bequeathed ' a formal succession at all a 
 point assumed by Mr. Newman, in his usual manner 
 (p. 406.), as if it were incontrovertible, but an as- 
 sumption which has led to most grievous errors and 
 superstitions in the Christian world. 
 
 The errors here are indeed substantially the same 
 with those relating to baptism, that " positive ob- 
 servances, not moral qualifications, are the conditions 
 of supernatural agency." (p. 412.) We deny that 
 such conditions exist. As members of the Church 
 of England, we abhor the sordid sophism that salva- 
 tion is a bargain between man and his Creator. 
 The Christian dispensation is a covenant of grace. 
 It is our glory to proclaim that we are "justified 
 
208 
 
 freely ;" that our salvation " is neither of him that 
 willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that 
 sheweth mercy." But if the Arminian notion, 
 that we are justified by works, which in truth we 
 have not done, is degrading to the purity of the 
 divine nature, what is the notion of Mr. Newman 
 and the Romanists, that ordinances are the condi- 
 tions of grace ? Can " grace reign," and yet be 
 bound to ordinances, which may be administered to 
 the most worthless of mankind? That ordinances 
 are conditions of divine agency may be Hindoo 
 mythology, but certainly not Christian divinity. 
 
 The doctrine of the Church of England, that the 
 unworthiness of ministers hinders not the effect of 
 sacraments, if rightly received, is wholly different 
 from this. Of ourselves, " we have no power to do 
 good works pleasant and acceptable to God ; " there- 
 fore, we cannot rightly receive ordinances without 
 " the grace of God, by Christ preventing us ; but 
 the unworthiness of ministers can be no obstacle 
 to divine grace. 
 
 When we turn to ecclesiastical history for proofs 
 of apostolical succession, we find irregularities of 
 every kind ; yet all that can be said of any orthodox 
 Protestant ministers, is, that their succession is 
 irregular. We fear, however, Mr. Newman and his 
 followers will not abandon their theory of formal 
 * Art. x. 
 
209 
 
 apostolical succession, however untenable, because 
 it furnishes them with an excuse for excluding 
 Dissenters from the visible church, and is the key- 
 stone of their system of ordinances ; neither will 
 they admit all faithful ministers to be real succes- 
 sors of the apostles, for so they would be convicted 
 of schism out of their own mouths. 
 
 That in the primitive church, " all the great points 
 of faith were thoroughly known by all, in a far 
 higher way than is at present vouchsafed to us " 
 (p. 417.), is a bare assertion, without proof, and com- 
 pletely at variance with the passage just quoted from 
 Hilary. 
 
 But enough has been said. How can we do other- 
 wise on the whole matter, than come to the con- 
 clusion of Protestantism, and Chillingworth, its most 
 famous defender, than whom few have ever investi- 
 gated any subject with knowledge more ample, with 
 a love of truth more ardent, with a reason more 
 clear and subtle, more forcible, or more victorious ! 
 
 " The Bible, I say, the Bible only, is the religion 
 of Protestants ! Whatsoever else they believe be- 
 sides it, and the plain, irrefragable, indubitable con- 
 sequences of it, well may they hold it as a matter of 
 opinion; but as matter of faith and religion, neither 
 can they with coherence to their own grounds believe 
 it themselves, nor require the belief of it of others 
 without most high and most schismatical presumption. 
 
212 
 
 that the Oxford Divines disclaim Popery, yet it is 
 no less true that Rome views them, she must view 
 them, as her forerunners, as useful auxiliaries to 
 assist in the execution of her evident and vast de- 
 signs. Who then, however obscure, if these things 
 indeed be so, will not call loudly upon the true 
 ministers of the church of Christ? Are you 
 stewards, and will you not be faithful? Are you 
 watchmen, and will you not give warning? Are 
 you shepherds, and will you suffer the flock of 
 Christ to be fed with that which profiteth not, 
 to be given up to " strong delusion, that they 
 should believe a lie " ? What are the words of 
 Ezekiel ? " If the watchman see the sword come 
 and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not 
 warned ; if the sword come, and take any person 
 from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity ; 
 but his blood will I require at the watchman's hand." 
 The way before you is indeed beset with difficulties, 
 but faithfulness and courage can find a remedy for 
 all evils. " Who art thou, that thou shouldest be 
 afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man 
 which shall be made as grassland forgettest the Lord 
 thy Maker, that hath stretched forth the heavens, 
 and laid the foundations of the earth ? " You are girt 
 about with fortresses and points of vantage ; you 
 have armour of a celestial temper, and a city with 
 strong walls and bulwarks. But " all inaccessible 
 
213 
 
 places become smooth and level, where are wanting 
 brave defenders." * If the bishops will not interfere ; 
 if the convocation cannot be summoned ; if the pas- 
 sages in the ordination and baptismal services, which 
 have favoured the introduction of these errors can- 
 not be altered ; if the orthodox Dissenters cannot 
 be united with the Church of England without im- 
 posing on their ministers the insult of re-ordination ; 
 if fresh life-blood, and more comprehensive charity 
 can by no means be infused into the church, threat- 
 ened as she is on every side by enemies, whose 
 hostility to her seems their only bond of union ; yet, 
 what can the true servants of Christ have really to 
 fear ? His ministers, if he grant them grace, can 
 effectually denounce and arrest the progress of the 
 worst errors. Who is against you, if God be for 
 you ? Why then will you not arise, and cast out 
 Ci the accursed thing?" So shall you escape in that 
 day, when the walls of Babylon shall be broken in 
 pieces, though their foundations were deep as Hell, 
 and broad as the sea or sky ! 
 
 * Ogni monte, ogni lago, ogni luogo inaccessibile diventa 
 piano, dove i forti difensori mancano. Macchiavellu 
 
London : 
 
 Printed by A. Spottiswoodb, 
 
 New-Street-Squarc. 
 
14 DAY USE 
 
 RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED 
 
 LOAN DEPT. 
 
 This book is due on the last date stamped below, 
 or on the date to which renewed. Renewals only: 
 
 Tel. No. 642-3405 
 Renewals may be made 4 days priod to date due. 
 Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. 
 
 > end of SUMMEITPenod q^. q'JQ jQ 
 subject to recall after- w " ' 
 
 REC'DLD OCT 5'" 
 
 .flAM0% 
 
 LD21A-60m-8,'70 TT{S2?llfrvS?Sri a 
 
 (N8837sl0)476 A-32 Umvetsg^of JMiforma