An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine

he following pages were not in the first instance written to prove the

2 divinity of the Catholic Religion, though ultimately they furnish a

3 positive argument in its behalf, but to explain certain difficulties in

4 its history, felt before now by the author himself, and commonly

5 insisted on by Protestants in controversy, as serving to blunt the force

6 of its *primâ facie* and general claims on our recognition.

7 However beautiful and promising that Religion is in theory, its history,

8 we are told, is its best refutation; the inconsistencies, found age

9 after age in its teaching, being as patent as the simultaneous

10 contrarieties of religious opinion manifest in the High, Low, and Broad

11 branches of the Church of England.

12 In reply to this specious objection, it is maintained in this Essay

13 that, granting that some large variations of teaching in its long course

14 of 1800 years exist, nevertheless, these, on examination, will be found

15 to arise from the nature of the case, and to proceed on a law, and with

16 a harmony and a definite drift, and with an analogy to Scripture

17 revelations, which, instead of telling to their disadvantage, actually

18 constitute an argument in their favour, as witnessing to a

19 superintending Providence and a great Design in the mode and in the

20 circumstances of their occurrence.

21 Perhaps his confidence in the truth and availableness of this view has

22 sometimes led the author to be careless and over-liberal in his

23 concessions to Protestants of historical fact.

24 If this be so anywhere, he begs the reader in such cases to understand

25 him as speaking hypothetically, and in the sense of an *argumentum ad

26 hominem* and *à fortiori*. Nor is such hypothetical reasoning out of

27 place in a publication which is addressed, not to theologians, but to

28 those who as yet are not even Catholics, and who, as they read history,

29 would scoff at any defence of Catholic doctrine which did not go the

30 length of covering admissions in matters of fact as broad as those which

31 are here ventured on.

32 In this new Edition of the Essay various important alterations have been

33 made in the arrangement of its separate parts, and some, not indeed in

34 its matter, but in its text.

35 *February 2, 1878.*

ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FIRST EDITION.

4 (Texto do capítulo)

OCULI MEI DEFECERUNT IN SALUTARE TUUM.

7 It is now above eleven years since the writer of the following pages, in

8 one of the early Numbers of the Tracts for the Times, expressed himself

9 thus:—

10 "Considering the high gifts, and the strong claims of the

11 Church of Rome and her dependencies on our admiration,

12 reverence, love, and gratitude, how could we withstand her, as

13 we do; how could we refrain from being melted into tenderness,

14 and rushing into communion with her, but for the words of

15 Truth, which bid us prefer Itself to the whole world? 'He that

16 loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me.'

17 How could we learn to be severe, and execute judgment, but for

18 the warning of Moses against even a divinely-gifted teacher

19 who should preach new gods, and the anathema of St. Paul even

20 against Angels and Apostles who should bring in a new

21 doctrine?"[ix:1]

22 He little thought, when he so wrote, that the time would ever come when

23 he should feel the obstacle, which he spoke of as lying in the way of

24 communion with the Church of Rome, to be destitute of solid foundation.

25 The following work is directed towards its removal.

26 Having, in former publications, called attention to the supposed

27 difficulty, he considers himself bound to avow his present belief that

28 it is imaginary.

29 He has neither the ability to put out of hand a finished composition,

30 nor the wish to make a powerful and moving representation, on the great

31 subject of which he treats. His aim will be answered, if he succeeds in

32 suggesting thoughts, which in God's good time may quietly bear fruit, in

33 the minds of those to whom that subject is new; and which may carry

34 forward inquirers, who have already put themselves on the course.

35 If at times his tone appears positive or peremptory, he hopes this will

36 be imputed to the scientific character of the Work, which requires a

37 distinct statement of principles, and of the arguments which recommend

38 them.

39 He hopes too he shall be excused for his frequent quotations from

40 himself; which are necessary in order to show how he stands at present

41 in relation to various of his former Publications. * * *

42 Littlemore,

43 *October 6, 1845*.

44 POSTSCRIPT.

45 Since the above was written, the Author has joined the Catholic Church.

46 It was his intention and wish to have carried his Volume through the

47 Press before deciding finally on this step. But when he had got some

48 way in the printing, he recognized in himself a conviction of the truth

49 of the conclusion to which the discussion leads, so clear as to

50 supersede further deliberation. Shortly afterwards circumstances gave

51 him the opportunity of acting upon it, and he felt that he had no

52 warrant for refusing to do so.

53 His first act on his conversion was to offer his Work for revision to

54 the proper authorities; but the offer was declined on the ground that it

55 was written and partly printed before he was a Catholic, and that it

56 would come before the reader in a more persuasive form, if he read it as

57 the author wrote it.

58 It is scarcely necessary to add that he now submits every part of the

59 book to the judgment of the Church, with whose doctrine, on the subjects

60 of which he treats, he wishes all his thoughts to be coincident.

FOOTNOTES:

10 [ix:1] Records of the Church, xxiv. p. 7.

INTRODUCTION.

13 Christianity has been long enough in the world to justify us in dealing

14 with it as a fact in the world's history. Its genius and character, its

15 doctrines, precepts, and objects cannot be treated as matters of private

16 opinion or deduction, unless we may reasonably so regard the Spartan

17 institutions or the religion of Mahomet. It may indeed legitimately be

18 made the subject-matter of theories; what is its moral and political

19 excellence, what its due location in the range of ideas or of facts

20 which we possess, whether it be divine or human, whether original or

21 eclectic, or both at once, how far favourable to civilization or to

22 literature, whether a religion for all ages or for a particular state of

23 society, these are questions upon the fact, or professed solutions of

24 the fact, and belong to the province of opinion; but to a fact do they

25 relate, on an admitted fact do they turn, which must be ascertained as

26 other facts, and surely has on the whole been so ascertained, unless the

27 testimony of so many centuries is to go for nothing. Christianity is no

28 theory of the study or the cloister. It has long since passed beyond the

29 letter of documents and the reasonings of individual minds, and has

30 become public property. Its "sound has gone out into all lands," and its

31 "words unto the ends of the world." It has from the first had an

32 objective existence, and has thrown itself upon the great concourse of

33 men. Its home is in the world; and to know what it is, we must seek it

34 in the world, and hear the world's witness of it.

35 2.

36 The hypothesis, indeed, has met with wide reception in these latter

37 times, that Christianity does not fall within the province of

38 history,—that it is to each man what each man thinks it to be, and

39 nothing else; and thus in fact is a mere name for a cluster or family of

40 rival religions all together, religions at variance one with another,

41 and claiming the same appellation, not because there can be assigned any

42 one and the same doctrine as the common foundation of all, but because

43 certain points of agreement may be found here and there of some sort or

44 other, by which each in its turn is connected with one or other of the

45 rest. Or again, it has been maintained, or implied, that all existing

46 denominations of Christianity are wrong, none representing it as taught

47 by Christ and His Apostles; that the original religion has gradually

48 decayed or become hopelessly corrupt; nay that it died out of the world

49 at its birth, and was forthwith succeeded by a counterfeit or

50 counterfeits which assumed its name, though they inherited at best but

51 some fragments of its teaching; or rather that it cannot even be said

52 either to have decayed or to have died, because historically it has no

53 substance of its own, but from the first and onwards it has, on the

54 stage of the world, been nothing more than a mere assemblage of

55 doctrines and practices derived from without, from Oriental, Platonic,

56 Polytheistic sources, from Buddhism, Essenism, Manicheeism; or that,

57 allowing true Christianity still to exist, it has but a hidden and

58 isolated life, in the hearts of the elect, or again as a literature or

59 philosophy, not certified in any way, much less guaranteed, to come from

60 above, but one out of the various separate informations about the

61 Supreme Being and human duty, with which an unknown Providence had

62 furnished us, whether in nature or in the world.

63 3.

64 All such views of Christianity imply that there is no sufficient body of

65 historical proof to interfere with, or at least to prevail against, any

66 number whatever of free and independent hypotheses concerning it. But

67 this surely is not self-evident, and has itself to be proved. Till

68 positive reasons grounded on facts are adduced to the contrary, the most

69 natural hypotheses, the most agreeable to our mode of proceeding in

70 parallel cases, and that which takes precedence of all others, is to

71 consider that the society of Christians, which the Apostles left on

72 earth, were of that religion to which the Apostles had converted them;

73 that the external continuity of name, profession, and communion, argues

74 a real continuity of doctrine; that, as Christianity began by

75 manifesting itself as of a certain shape and bearing to all mankind,

76 therefore it went on so to manifest itself; and that the more,

77 considering that prophecy had already determined that it was to be a

78 power visible in the world and sovereign over it, characters which are

79 accurately fulfilled in that historical Christianity to which we

80 commonly give the name. It is not a violent assumption, then, but rather

81 mere abstinence from the wanton admission of a principle which would

82 necessarily lead to the most vexatious and preposterous scepticism, to

83 take it for granted, before proof to the contrary, that the Christianity

84 of the second, fourth, seventh, twelfth, sixteenth, and intermediate

85 centuries is in its substance the very religion which Christ and His

86 Apostles taught in the first, whatever may be the modifications for good

87 or for evil which lapse of years, or the vicissitudes of human affairs,

88 have impressed upon it.

89 Of course I do not deny the abstract possibility of extreme changes.

90 The substitution is certainly, in idea, supposable of a counterfeit

91 Christianity,—superseding the original, by means of the adroit

92 innovations of seasons, places, and persons, till, according to the

93 familiar illustration, the "blade" and the "handle" are alternately

94 renewed, and identity is lost without the loss of continuity. It is

95 possible; but it must not be assumed. The *onus probandi* is with those

96 who assert what it is unnatural to expect; to be just able to doubt is

97 no warrant for disbelieving.

98 4.

99 Accordingly, some writers have gone on to give reasons from history for

100 their refusing to appeal to history. They aver that, when they come to

101 look into the documents and literature of Christianity in times past,

102 they find its doctrines so variously represented, and so inconsistently

103 maintained by its professors, that, however natural it be *à priori*, it

104 is useless, in fact, to seek in history the matter of that Revelation

105 which has been vouchsafed to mankind; that they cannot be historical

106 Christians if they would. They say, in the words of Chillingworth,

107 "There are popes against popes, councils against councils, some fathers

108 against others, the same fathers against themselves, a consent of

109 fathers of one age against a consent of fathers of another age, the

110 Church of one age against the Church of another age:"—Hence they are

111 forced, whether they will or not, to fall back upon the Bible as the

112 sole source of Revelation, and upon their own personal private judgment

113 as the sole expounder of its doctrine. This is a fair argument, if it

114 can be maintained, and it brings me at once to the subject of this

115 Essay. Not that it enters into my purpose to convict of misstatement, as

116 might be done, each separate clause of this sweeping accusation of a

117 smart but superficial writer; but neither on the other hand do I mean

118 to deny everything that he says to the disadvantage of historical

119 Christianity. On the contrary, I shall admit that there are in fact

120 certain apparent variations in its teaching, which have to be explained;

121 thus I shall begin, but then I shall attempt to explain them to the

122 exculpation of that teaching in point of unity, directness, and

123 consistency.

124 5.

125 Meanwhile, before setting about this work, I will address one remark to

126 Chillingworth and his friends:—Let them consider, that if they can

127 criticize history, the facts of history certainly can retort upon them.

128 It might, I grant, be clearer on this great subject than it is. This is

129 no great concession. History is not a creed or a catechism, it gives

130 lessons rather than rules; still no one can mistake its general teaching

131 in this matter, whether he accept it or stumble at it. Bold outlines and

132 broad masses of colour rise out of the records of the past. They may be

133 dim, they may be incomplete; but they are definite. And this one thing

134 at least is certain; whatever history teaches, whatever it omits,

135 whatever it exaggerates or extenuates, whatever it says and unsays, at

136 least the Christianity of history is not Protestantism. If ever there

137 were a safe truth, it is this.

138 And Protestantism has ever felt it so. I do not mean that every writer

139 on the Protestant side has felt it; for it was the fashion at first, at

140 least as a rhetorical argument against Rome, to appeal to past ages, or

141 to some of them; but Protestantism, as a whole, feels it, and has felt

142 it. This is shown in the determination already referred to of dispensing

143 with historical Christianity altogether, and of forming a Christianity

144 from the Bible alone: men never would have put it aside, unless they had

145 despaired of it. It is shown by the long neglect of ecclesiastical

146 history in England, which prevails even in the English Church. Our

147 popular religion scarcely recognizes the fact of the twelve long ages

148 which lie between the Councils of Nicæa and Trent, except as affording

149 one or two passages to illustrate its wild interpretations of certain

150 prophesies of St. Paul and St. John. It is melancholy to say it, but the

151 chief, perhaps the only English writer who has any claim to be

152 considered an ecclesiastical historian, is the unbeliever Gibbon. To be

153 deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant.

154 6.

155 And this utter incongruity between Protestantism and historical

156 Christianity is a plain fact, whether the latter be regarded in its

157 earlier or in its later centuries. Protestants can as little bear its

158 Ante-nicene as its Post-tridentine period. I have elsewhere observed on

159 this circumstance: "So much must the Protestant grant that, if such a

160 system of doctrine as he would now introduce ever existed in early

161 times, it has been clean swept away as if by a deluge, suddenly,

162 silently, and without memorial; by a deluge coming in a night, and

163 utterly soaking, rotting, heaving up, and hurrying off every vestige of

164 what it found in the Church, before cock-crowing: so that 'when they

165 rose in the morning' her true seed 'were all dead corpses'—Nay dead and

166 buried—and without gravestone. 'The waters went over them; there was

167 not one of them left; they sunk like lead in the mighty waters.' Strange

168 antitype, indeed, to the early fortunes of Israel!—then the enemy was

169 drowned, and 'Israel saw them dead upon the sea-shore.' But now, it

170 would seem, water proceeded as a flood 'out of the serpent's mouth,' and

171 covered all the witnesses, so that not even their dead bodies lay in the

172 streets of the great city.' Let him take which of his doctrines he will,

173 his peculiar view of self-righteousness, of formality, of superstition;

174 his notion of faith, or of spirituality in religious worship; his denial

175 of the virtue of the sacraments, or of the ministerial commission, or

176 of the visible Church; or his doctrine of the divine efficacy of the

177 Scriptures as the one appointed instrument of religious teaching; and

178 let him consider how far Antiquity, as it has come down to us, will

179 countenance him in it. No; he must allow that the alleged deluge has

180 done its work; yes, and has in turn disappeared itself; it has been

181 swallowed up by the earth, mercilessly as itself was merciless."[9:1]

182 That Protestantism, then, is not the Christianity of history, it is easy

183 to determine, but to retort is a poor reply in controversy to a question

184 of fact, and whatever be the violence or the exaggeration of writers

185 like Chillingworth, if they have raised a real difficulty, it may claim

186 a real answer, and we must determine whether on the one hand

187 Christianity is still to represent to us a definite teaching from above,

188 or whether on the other its utterances have been from time to time so

189 strangely at variance, that we are necessarily thrown back on our own

190 judgment individually to determine, what the revelation of God is, or

191 rather if in fact there is, or has been, any revelation at all.

192 7.

193 Here then I concede to the opponents of historical Christianity, that

194 there are to be found, during the 1800 years through which it has

195 lasted, certain apparent inconsistencies and alterations in its doctrine

196 and its worship, such as irresistibly attract the attention of all who

197 inquire into it. They are not sufficient to interfere with the general

198 character and course of the religion, but they raise the question how

199 they came about, and what they mean, and have in consequence supplied

200 matter for several hypotheses.

201 Of these one is to the effect that Christianity has even changed from

202 the first and ever accommodates itself to the circumstances of times and

203 seasons; but it is difficult to understand how such a view is compatible

204 with the special idea of revealed truth, and in fact its advocates more

205 or less abandon, or tend to abandon the supernatural claims of

206 Christianity; so it need not detain us here.

207 A second and more plausible hypothesis is that of the Anglican divines,

208 who reconcile and bring into shape the exuberant phenomena under

209 consideration, by cutting off and casting away as corruptions all

210 usages, ways, opinions, and tenets, which have not the sanction of

211 primitive times. They maintain that history first presents to us a pure

212 Christianity in East and West, and then a corrupt; and then of course

213 their duty is to draw the line between what is corrupt and what is pure,

214 and to determine the dates at which the various changes from good to bad

215 were introduced. Such a principle of demarcation, available for the

216 purpose, they consider they have found in the *dictum* of Vincent of

217 Lerins, that revealed and Apostolic doctrine is "quod semper, quod

218 ubique, quod ab omnibus," a principle infallibly separating, on the

219 whole field of history, authoritative doctrine from opinion, rejecting

220 what is faulty, and combining and forming a theology. That "Christianity

221 is what has been held always, everywhere, and by all," certainly

222 promises a solution of the perplexities, an interpretation of the

223 meaning, of history. What can be more natural than that divines and

224 bodies of men should speak, sometimes from themselves, sometimes from

225 tradition? what more natural than that individually they should say many

226 things on impulse, or under excitement, or as conjectures, or in

227 ignorance? what more certain than that they must all have been

228 instructed and catechized in the Creed of the Apostles? what more

229 evident than that what was their own would in its degree be peculiar,

230 and differ from what was similarly private and personal in their

231 brethren? what more conclusive than that the doctrine that was common to

232 all at once was not really their own, but public property in which they

233 had a joint interest, and was proved by the concurrence of so many

234 witnesses to have come from an Apostolical source? Here, then, we have a

235 short and easy method for bringing the various informations of

236 ecclesiastical history under that antecedent probability in its favour,

237 which nothing but its actual variations would lead us to neglect. Here

238 we have a precise and satisfactory reason why we should make much of the

239 earlier centuries, yet pay no regard to the later, why we should admit

240 some doctrines and not others, why we refuse the Creed of Pius IV. and

241 accept the Thirty-nine Articles.

242 8.

243 Such is the rule of historical interpretation which has been professed

244 in the English school of divines; and it contains a majestic truth, and

245 offers an intelligible principle, and wears a reasonable air. It is

246 congenial, or, as it may be said, native to the Anglican mind, which

247 takes up a middle position, neither discarding the Fathers nor

248 acknowledging the Pope. It lays down a simple rule by which to measure

249 the value of every historical fact, as it comes, and thereby it provides

250 a bulwark against Rome, while it opens an assault upon Protestantism.

251 Such is its promise; but its difficulty lies in applying it in

252 particular cases. The rule is more serviceable in determining what is

253 not, than what is Christianity; it is irresistible against

254 Protestantism, and in one sense indeed it is irresistible against Rome

255 also, but in the same sense it is irresistible against England. It

256 strikes at Rome through England. It admits of being interpreted in one

257 of two ways: if it be narrowed for the purpose of disproving the

258 catholicity of the Creed of Pope Pius, it becomes also an objection to

259 the Athanasian; and if it be relaxed to admit the doctrines retained by

260 the English Church, it no longer excludes certain doctrines of Rome

261 which that Church denies. It cannot at once condemn St. Thomas and St.

262 Bernard, and defend St. Athanasius and St. Gregory Nazianzen.

263 This general defect in its serviceableness has been heretofore felt by

264 those who appealed to it. It was said by one writer; "The Rule of

265 Vincent is not of a mathematical or demonstrative character, but moral,

266 and requires practical judgment and good sense to apply it. For

267 instance, what is meant by being 'taught *always*'? does it mean in

268 every century, or every year, or every month? Does '*everywhere*' mean

269 in every country, or in every diocese? and does 'the *Consent of

270 Fathers*' require us to produce the direct testimony of every one of

271 them? How many Fathers, how many places, how many instances, constitute

272 a fulfilment of the test proposed? It is, then, from the nature of the

273 case, a condition which never can be satisfied as fully as it might have

274 been. It admits of various and unequal application in various instances;

275 and what degree of application is enough, must be decided by the same

276 principles which guide us in the conduct of life, which determine us in

277 politics, or trade, or war, which lead us to accept Revelation at all,

278 (for which we have but probability to show at most,) nay, to believe in

279 the existence of an intelligent Creator."[12:1]

280 9.

281 So much was allowed by this writer; but then he added:—

282 "This character, indeed, of Vincent's Canon, will but recommend it to

283 the disciples of the school of Butler, from its agreement with the

284 analogy of nature; but it affords a ready loophole for such as do not

285 wish to be persuaded, of which both Protestants and Romanists are not

286 slow to avail themselves."

287 This surely is the language of disputants who are more intent on

288 assailing others than on defending themselves; as if similar loopholes

289 were not necessary for Anglican theology.

290 He elsewhere says: "What there is not the shadow of a reason for saying

291 that the Fathers held, what has not the faintest pretensions of being a

292 Catholic truth, is this, that St. Peter or his successors were and are

293 universal Bishops, that they have the whole of Christendom for their one

294 diocese in a way in which other Apostles and Bishops had and have

295 not."[13:1] Most true, if, in order that a doctrine be considered

296 Catholic, it must be formally stated by the Fathers generally from the

297 very first; but, on the same understanding, the doctrine also of the

298 apostolical succession in the episcopal order "has not the faintest

299 pretensions of being a Catholic truth."

300 Nor was this writer without a feeling of the special difficulty of his

301 school; and he attempted to meet it by denying it. He wished to maintain

302 that the sacred doctrines admitted by the Church of England into her

303 Articles were taught in primitive times with a distinctness which no one

304 could fancy to attach to the characteristic tenets of Rome.

305 "We confidently affirm," he said in another publication, "that there is

306 not an article in the Athanasian Creed concerning the Incarnation which

307 is not anticipated in the controversy with the Gnostics. There is no

308 question which the Apollinarian or the Nestorian heresy raised, which

309 may not be decided in the words of Ignatius, Irenæus and

310 Tertullian."[13:2]

311 10.

312 This may be considered as true. It may be true also, or at least shall

313 here be granted as true, that there is also a *consensus* in the

314 Ante-nicene Church for the doctrines of our Lord's Consubstantiality and

315 Coeternity with the Almighty Father. Let us allow that the whole circle

316 of doctrines, of which our Lord is the subject, was consistently and

317 uniformly confessed by the Primitive Church, though not ratified

318 formally in Council. But it surely is otherwise with the Catholic

319 doctrine of the Trinity. I do not see in what sense it can be said that

320 there is a *consensus* of primitive divines in its favour, which will

321 not avail also for certain doctrines of the Roman Church which will

322 presently come into mention. And this is a point which the writer of the

323 above passages ought to have more distinctly brought before his mind and

324 more carefully weighed; but he seems to have fancied that Bishop Bull

325 proved the primitiveness of the Catholic doctrine concerning the Holy

326 Trinity as well as that concerning our Lord.

327 Now it should be clearly understood what it is which must be shown by

328 those who would prove it. Of course the doctrine of our Lord's divinity

329 itself partly implies and partly recommends the doctrine of the Trinity;

330 but implication and suggestion belong to another class of arguments

331 which has not yet come into consideration. Moreover the statements of a

332 particular father or doctor may certainly be of a most important

333 character; but one divine is not equal to a Catena. We must have a whole

334 doctrine stated by a whole Church. The Catholic Truth in question is

335 made up of a number of separate propositions, each of which, if

336 maintained to the exclusion of the rest, is a heresy. In order then to

337 prove that all the Ante-nicene writers taught the dogma of the Holy

338 Trinity, it is not enough to prove that each still has gone far enough

339 to be only a heretic—not enough to prove that one has held that the

340 Son is God, (for so did the Sabellian, so did the Macedonian), and

341 another that the Father is not the Son, (for so did the Arian), and

342 another that the Son is equal to the Father, (for so did the Tritheist),

343 and another that there is but One God, (for so did the Unitarian),—not

344 enough that many attached in some sense a Threefold Power to the idea of

345 the Almighty, (for so did almost all the heresies that ever existed, and

346 could not but do so, if they accepted the New Testament at all); but we

347 must show that all these statements at once, and others too, are laid

348 down by as many separate testimonies as may fairly be taken to

349 constitute a "*consensus* of doctors." It is true indeed that the

350 subsequent profession of the doctrine in the Universal Church creates a

351 presumption that it was held even before it was professed; and it is

352 fair to interpret the early Fathers by the later. This is true, and

353 admits of application to certain other doctrines besides that of the

354 Blessed Trinity in Unity; but there is as little room for such

355 antecedent probabilities as for the argument from suggestions and

356 intimations in the precise and imperative *Quod semper, quod ubique,

357 quod ab omnibus*, as it is commonly understood by English divines, and

358 is by them used against the later Church and the see of Rome. What we

359 have a right to ask, if we are bound to act upon Vincent's rule in

360 regard to the Trinitarian dogma, is a sufficient number of Ante-nicene

361 statements, each distinctly anticipating the Athanasian Creed.

362 11.

363 Now let us look at the leading facts of the case, in appealing to which

364 I must not be supposed to be ascribing any heresy to the holy men whose

365 words have not always been sufficiently full or exact to preclude the

366 imputation. First, the Creeds of that early day make no mention in

367 their letter of the Catholic doctrine at all. They make mention indeed

368 of a Three; but that there is any mystery in the doctrine, that the

369 Three are One, that They are coequal, coeternal, all increate, all

370 omnipotent, all incomprehensible, is not stated, and never could be

371 gathered from them. Of course we believe that they imply it, or rather

372 intend it. God forbid we should do otherwise! But nothing in the mere

373 letter of those documents leads to that belief. To give a deeper meaning

374 to their letter, we must interpret them by the times which came after.

375 Again, there is one and one only great doctrinal Council in Ante-nicene

376 times. It was held at Antioch, in the middle of the third century, on

377 occasion of the incipient innovations of the Syrian heretical school.

378 Now the Fathers there assembled, for whatever reason, condemned, or at

379 least withdrew, when it came into the dispute, the word "Homoüsion,"

380 which was afterwards received at Nicæa as the special symbol of

381 Catholicism against Arius.[16:1]

382 Again, the six great Bishops and Saints of the Ante-nicene Church were

383 St. Irenæus, St. Hippolytus, St. Cyprian, St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, St.

384 Dionysius of Alexandria, and St. Methodius. Of these, St. Dionysius is

385 accused by St. Basil of having sown the first seeds of Arianism;[16:2]

386 and St. Gregory is allowed by the same learned Father to have used

387 language concerning our Lord, which he only defends on the plea of an

388 economical object in the writer.[16:3] St. Hippolytus speaks as if he

389 were ignorant of our Lord's Eternal Sonship;[17:1] St. Methodius speaks

390 incorrectly at least upon the Incarnation;[17:2] and St. Cyprian does

391 not treat of theology at all. Such is the incompleteness of the extant

392 teaching of these true saints, and, in their day, faithful witnesses of

393 the Eternal Son.

394 Again, Athenagoras, St. Clement, Tertullian, and the two SS. Dionysii

395 would appear to be the only writers whose language is at any time exact

396 and systematic enough to remind us of the Athanasian Creed. If we limit

397 our view of the teaching of the Fathers by what they expressly state,

398 St. Ignatius may be considered as a Patripassian, St. Justin arianizes,

399 and St. Hippolytus is a Photinian.

400 Again, there are three great theological authors of the Ante-nicene

401 centuries, Tertullian, Origen, and, we may add, Eusebius, though he

402 lived some way into the fourth. Tertullian is heterodox on the doctrine

403 of our Lord's divinity,[17:3] and, indeed, ultimately fell altogether

404 into heresy or schism; Origen is, at the very least, suspected, and must

405 be defended and explained rather than cited as a witness of orthodoxy;

406 and Eusebius was a Semi-Arian.

407 12.

408 Moreover, it may be questioned whether any Ante-nicene father

409 distinctly affirms either the numerical Unity or the Coequality of the

410 Three Persons; except perhaps the heterodox Tertullian, and that chiefly

411 in a work written after he had become a Montanist:[18:1] yet to satisfy

412 the Anti-roman use of *Quod semper, &c.*, surely we ought not to be left

413 for these great articles of doctrine to the testimony of a later age.

414 Further, Bishop Bull allows that "nearly all the ancient Catholics who

415 preceded Arius have the appearance of being ignorant of the invisible

416 and incomprehensible (*immensam*) nature of the Son of God;"[18:2] an

417 article expressly taught in the Athanasian Creed under the sanction of

418 its anathema.

419 It must be asked, moreover, how much direct and literal testimony the

420 Ante-nicene Fathers give, one by one, to the divinity of the Holy

421 Spirit? This alone shall be observed, that St. Basil, in the fourth

422 century, finding that, if he distinctly called the Third Person in the

423 Blessed Trinity by the Name of God, he should be put out of the Church

424 by the Arians, pointedly refrained from doing so on an occasion on which

425 his enemies were on the watch; and that, when some Catholics found fault

426 with him, St. Athanasius took his part.[18:3] Could this possibly have

427 been the conduct of any true Christian, not to say Saint, of a later

428 age? that is, whatever be the true account of it, does it not suggest to

429 us that the testimony of those early times lies very unfavourably for

430 the application of the rule of Vincentius?

431 13.

432 Let it not be for a moment supposed that I impugn the orthodoxy of the

433 early divines, or the cogency of their testimony among *fair* inquirers;

434 but I am trying them by that *unfair* interpretation of Vincentius,

435 which is necessary in order to make him available against the Church of

436 Rome. And now, as to the positive evidence which those Fathers offer in

437 behalf of the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity, it has been drawn out by

438 Dr. Burton and seems to fall under two heads. One is the general

439 *ascription of glory* to the Three Persons together, both by fathers and

440 churches, and that on continuous tradition and from the earliest times.

441 Under the second fall certain *distinct statements* of *particular*

442 fathers; thus we find the word "Trinity" used by St. Theophilus, St.

443 Clement, St. Hippolytus, Tertullian, St. Cyprian, Origen, St. Methodius;

444 and the Divine *Circumincessio*, the most distinctive portion of the

445 Catholic doctrine, and the unity of power, or again, of substance, are

446 declared with more or less distinctness by Athenagoras, St. Irenæus, St.

447 Clement, Tertullian, St. Hippolytus, Origen, and the two SS. Dionysii.

448 This is pretty much the whole of the evidence.

449 14.

450 Perhaps it will be said we ought to take the Ante-nicene Fathers as a

451 whole, and interpret one of them by another. This is to assume that they

452 are all of one school, which of course they are, but which in

453 controversy is a point to be proved; but it is even doubtful whether, on

454 the whole, such a procedure would strengthen the argument. For instance,

455 as to the second head of the positive evidence noted by Dr. Burton,

456 Tertullian is the most formal and elaborate of these Fathers in his

457 statements of the Catholic doctrine. "It would hardly be possible," says

458 Dr. Burton, after quoting a passage, "for Athanasius himself, or the

459 compiler of the Athanasian Creed, to have delivered the doctrine of the

460 Trinity in stronger terms than these."[19:1] Yet Tertullian must be

461 considered heterodox on the doctrine of our Lord's eternal

462 generation.[20:1] If then we are to argue from his instance to that of

463 the other Fathers, we shall be driven to the conclusion that even the

464 most exact statements are worth nothing more than their letter, are a

465 warrant for nothing beyond themselves, and are consistent with

466 heterodoxy where they do not expressly protest against it.

467 And again, as to the argument derivable from the Doxologies, it must not

468 be forgotten that one of the passages in St. Justin Martyr includes the

469 worship of the Angels. "We worship and adore," he says, "Him, and the

470 Son who came from Him and taught us these things, and the host of those

471 other good Angels, who follow and are like Him, and the Prophetic

472 Spirit."[20:2] A Unitarian might argue from this passage that the glory

473 and worship which the early Church ascribed to our Lord was not more

474 definite than that which St. Justin was ready to concede to creatures.

475 15.

476 Thus much on the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Let us proceed to another

477 example. There are two doctrines which are generally associated with the

478 name of a Father of the fourth and fifth centuries, and which can show

479 little definite, or at least but partial, testimony in their behalf

480 before his time,—Purgatory and Original Sin. The dictum of Vincent

481 admits both or excludes both, according as it is or is not rigidly

482 taken; but, if used by Aristotle's "Lesbian Rule," then, as Anglicans

483 would wish, it can be made to admit Original Sin and exclude Purgatory.

484 On the one hand, some notion of suffering, or disadvantage, or

485 punishment after this life, in the case of the faithful departed, or

486 other vague forms of the doctrine of Purgatory, has in its favour almost

487 a *consensus* of the four first ages of the Church, though some Fathers

488 state it with far greater openness and decision than others. It is, as

489 far as words go, the confession of St. Clement of Alexandria,

490 Tertullian, St. Perpetua, St. Cyprian, Origen, Lactantius, St. Hilary,

491 St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Ambrose, St. Basil, St. Gregory of

492 Nazianzus, and of Nyssa, St. Chrysostom, St. Jerome, St. Paulinus, and

493 St. Augustine. And so, on the other hand, there is a certain agreement

494 of Fathers from the first that mankind has derived some disadvantage

495 from the sin of Adam.

496 16.

497 Next, when we consider the two doctrines more distinctly,—the doctrine

498 that between death and judgment there is a time or state of punishment;

499 and the doctrine that all men, naturally propagated from fallen Adam,

500 are in consequence born destitute of original righteousness,—we find,

501 on the one hand, several, such as Tertullian, St. Perpetua, St. Cyril,

502 St. Hilary, St. Jerome, St. Gregory Nyssen, as far as their words go,

503 definitely declaring a doctrine of Purgatory: whereas no one will say

504 that there is a testimony of the Fathers, equally strong, for the

505 doctrine of Original Sin, though it is difficult here to make any

506 definite statement about their teaching without going into a discussion

507 of the subject.

508 On the subject of Purgatory there were, to speak generally, two schools

509 of opinion; the Greek, which contemplated a trial of fire at the last

510 day through which all were to pass; and the African, resembling more

511 nearly the present doctrine of the Roman Church. And so there were two

512 principal views of Original Sin, the Greek and the African or Latin. Of

513 the Greek, the judgment of Hooker is well known, though it must not be

514 taken in the letter: "The heresy of freewill was a millstone about those

515 Pelagians' neck; shall we therefore give sentence of death inevitable

516 against all those Fathers in the Greek Church which, being mispersuaded,

517 died in the error of freewill?"[22:1] Bishop Taylor, arguing for an

518 opposite doctrine, bears a like testimony: "Original Sin," he says, "as

519 it is at this day commonly explicated, was not the doctrine of the

520 primitive Church; but when Pelagius had puddled the stream, St. Austin

521 was so angry that he stamped and disturbed it more. And truly . . I do

522 not think that the gentlemen that urged against me St. Austin's opinion

523 do well consider that I profess myself to follow those Fathers who were

524 before him; and whom St. Austin did forsake, as I do him, in the

525 question."[22:2] The same is asserted or allowed by Jansenius, Petavius,

526 and Walch,[22:3] men of such different schools that we may surely take

527 their agreement as a proof of the fact. A late writer, after going

528 through the testimonies of the Fathers one by one, comes to the

529 conclusion, first, that "the Greek Church in no point favoured

530 Augustine, except in teaching that from Adam's sin came death, and,

531 (after the time of Methodius,) an extraordinary and unnatural sensuality

532 also;" next, that "the Latin Church affirmed, in addition, that a

533 corrupt and contaminated soul, and that, by generation, was carried on

534 to his posterity;"[22:4] and, lastly, that neither Greeks nor Latins

535 held the doctrine of imputation. It may be observed, in addition, that,

536 in spite of the forcible teaching of St. Paul on the subject, the

537 doctrine of Original Sin appears neither in the Apostles' nor the Nicene

538 Creed.

539 17.

540 One additional specimen shall be given as a sample of many others:—I

541 betake myself to one of our altars to receive the Blessed Eucharist; I

542 have no doubt whatever on my mind about the Gift which that Sacrament

543 contains; I confess to myself my belief, and I go through the steps on

544 which it is assured to me. "The Presence of Christ is here, for It

545 follows upon Consecration; and Consecration is the prerogative of

546 Priests; and Priests are made by Ordination; and Ordination comes in

547 direct line from the Apostles. Whatever be our other misfortunes, every

548 link in our chain is safe; we have the Apostolic Succession, we have a

549 right form of consecration: therefore we are blessed with the great

550 Gift." Here the question rises in me, "Who told you about that Gift?" I

551 answer, "I have learned it from the Fathers: I believe the Real Presence

552 because they bear witness to it. St. Ignatius calls it 'the medicine of

553 immortality:' St. Irenæus says that 'our flesh becomes incorrupt, and

554 partakes of life, and has the hope of the resurrection,' as 'being

555 nourished from the Lord's Body and Blood;' that the Eucharist 'is made

556 up of two things, an earthly and an heavenly:'[23:1] perhaps Origen, and

557 perhaps Magnes, after him, say that It is not a type of our Lord's Body,

558 but His Body: and St. Cyprian uses language as fearful as can be spoken,

559 of those who profane it. I cast my lot with them, I believe as they."

560 Thus I reply, and then the thought comes upon me a second time, "And do

561 not the same ancient Fathers bear witness to another doctrine, which

562 you disown? Are you not as a hypocrite, listening to them when you will,

563 and deaf when you will not? How are you casting your lot with the

564 Saints, when you go but half-way with them? For of whether of the two do

565 they speak the more frequently, of the Real Presence in the Eucharist,

566 or of the Pope's supremacy? You accept the lesser evidence, you reject

567 the greater."

568 18.

569 In truth, scanty as the Ante-nicene notices may be of the Papal

570 Supremacy, they are both more numerous and more definite than the

571 adducible testimonies in favour of the Real Presence. The testimonies to

572 the latter are confined to a few passages such as those just quoted. On

573 the other hand, of a passage in St. Justin, Bishop Kaye remarks, "Le

574 Nourry infers that Justin maintained the doctrine of Transubstantiation;

575 it might in my opinion be more plausibly urged in favour of

576 Consubstantiation, since Justin calls the consecrated elements Bread and

577 Wine, though not common bread and wine.[24:1] . . . We may therefore

578 conclude that, when he calls them the Body and Blood of Christ, he

579 speaks figuratively." "Clement," observes the same author, "says that

580 the Scripture calls wine a mystic *symbol* of the holy blood. . . . Clement

581 gives various interpretations of Christ's expressions in John vi.

582 respecting His flesh and blood; but in no instance does he interpret

583 them literally. . . . . His notion seems to have been that, by partaking of

584 the bread and wine in the Eucharist, the soul of the believer is united

585 to the Spirit, and that by this union the principle of immortality is

586 imparted to the flesh."[24:2] "It has been suggested by some," says

587 Waterland, "that Tertullian understood John vi. merely of faith, or

588 doctrine, or spiritual actions; and it is strenuously denied by others."

589 After quoting the passage, he adds, "All that one can justly gather

590 from this confused passage is that Tertullian interpreted the bread of

591 life in John vi. of the Word, which he sometimes makes to be vocal, and

592 sometimes substantial, blending the ideas in a very perplexed manner; so

593 that he is no clear authority for construing John vi. of doctrines, &c.

594 All that is certain is that he supposes the Word made flesh, the Word

595 incarnate to be the heavenly bread spoken of in that chapter."[25:1]

596 "Origen's general observation relating to that chapter is, that it must

597 not be literally, but figuratively understood."[25:2] Again, "It is

598 plain enough that Eusebius followed Origen in this matter, and that both

599 of them favoured the same mystical or allegorical construction; whether

600 constantly and uniformly I need not say."[25:3] I will but add the

601 incidental testimony afforded on a late occasion:—how far the Anglican

602 doctrine of the Eucharist depends on the times before the Nicene

603 Council, how far on the times after it, may be gathered from the

604 circumstance that, when a memorable Sermon[25:4] was published on the

605 subject, out of about one hundred and forty passages from the Fathers

606 appended in the notes, not in formal proof, but in general illustration,

607 only fifteen were taken from Ante-nicene writers.

608 With such evidence, the Ante-nicene testimonies which may be cited in

609 behalf of the authority of the Holy See, need not fear a comparison.

610 Faint they may be one by one, but at least we may count seventeen of

611 them, and they are various, and are drawn from many times and countries,

612 and thereby serve to illustrate each other, and form a body of proof.

613 Whatever objections may be made to this or that particular fact, and I

614 do not think any valid ones can be raised, still, on the whole, I

615 consider that a cumulative argument rises from them in favour of the

616 ecumenical and the doctrinal authority of Rome, stronger than any

617 argument which can be drawn from the same period for the doctrine of the

618 Real Presence. I shall have occasion to enumerate them in the fourth

619 chapter of this Essay.

620 19.

621 If it be said that the Real Presence appears, by the Liturgies of the

622 fourth or fifth century, to have been the doctrine of the earlier, since

623 those very forms probably existed from the first in Divine worship, this

624 is doubtless an important truth; but then it is true also that the

625 writers of the fourth and fifth centuries fearlessly assert, or frankly

626 allow that the prerogatives of Rome were derived from apostolic times,

627 and that because it was the See of St. Peter.

628 Moreover, if the resistance of St. Cyprian and Firmilian to the Church

629 of Rome, in the question of baptism by heretics, be urged as an argument

630 against her primitive authority, or the earlier resistance of Polycrates

631 of Ephesus, let it be considered, first, whether all authority does not

632 necessarily lead to resistance; next, whether St. Cyprian's own

633 doctrine, which is in favour of Rome, is not more weighty than his act,

634 which is against her; thirdly, whether he was not already in error in

635 the main question under discussion, and Firmilian also; and lastly,

636 which is the chief point here, whether, in like manner, we may not

637 object on the other hand against the Real Presence the words of

638 Tertullian, who explains, "This is my Body," by "a figure of my Body,"

639 and of Origen, who speaks of "our drinking Christ's Blood not only in

640 the rite of the Sacraments, but also when we receive His

641 discourses,"[26:1] and says that "that Bread which God the Word

642 acknowledges as His Body is the Word which nourishes

643 souls,"[26:2]—passages which admit of a Catholic interpretation when

644 the Catholic doctrine is once proved, but which *primâ facie* run

645 counter to that doctrine.

646 It does not seem possible, then, to avoid the conclusion that, whatever

647 be the proper key for harmonizing the records and documents of the early

648 and later Church, and true as the dictum of Vincentius must be

649 considered in the abstract, and possible as its application might be in

650 his own age, when he might almost ask the primitive centuries for their

651 testimony, it is hardly available now, or effective of any satisfactory

652 result. The solution it offers is as difficult as the original problem.

653 20.

654 Another hypothesis for accounting for a want of accord between the early

655 and the late aspects of Christianity is that of the *Disciplina Arcani*,

656 put forward on the assumption that there has been no variation in the

657 teaching of the Church from first to last. It is maintained that

658 doctrines which are associated with the later ages of the Church were

659 really in the Church from the first, but not publicly taught, and that

660 for various reasons: as, for the sake of reverence, that sacred subjects

661 might not be profaned by the heathen; and for the sake of catechumens,

662 that they might not be oppressed or carried away by a sudden

663 communication of the whole circle of revealed truth. And indeed the fact

664 of this concealment can hardly be denied, in whatever degree it took the

665 shape of a definite rule, which might vary with persons and places. That

666 it existed even as a rule, as regards the Sacraments, seems to be

667 confessed on all hands. That it existed in other respects, as a

668 practice, is plain from the nature of the case, and from the writings of

669 the Apologists. Minucius Felix and Arnobius, in controversy with Pagans,

670 imply a denial that then the Christians used altars; yet Tertullian

671 speaks expressly of the *Ara Dei* in the Church. What can we say, but

672 that the Apologists deny altars *in the sense* in which they ridicule

673 them; or, that they deny that altars *such as* the Pagan altars were

674 tolerated by Christians? And, in like manner, Minucius allows that there

675 were no temples among Christians; yet they are distinctly recognized in

676 the edicts of the Dioclesian era, and are known to have existed at a

677 still earlier date. It is the tendency of every dominant system, such as

678 the Paganism of the Ante-nicene centuries, to force its opponents into

679 the most hostile and jealous attitude, from the apprehension which they

680 naturally feel, lest if they acted otherwise, in those points in which

681 they approximate towards it, they should be misinterpreted and overborne

682 by its authority. The very fault now found with clergymen of the

683 Anglican Church, who wish to conform their practices to her rubrics, and

684 their doctrines to her divines of the seventeenth century, is, that,

685 whether they mean it or no, whether legitimately or no, still, in matter

686 of fact, they will be sanctioning and encouraging the religion of Rome,

687 in which there are similar doctrines and practices, more definite and

688 more influential; so that, at any rate, it is inexpedient at the moment

689 to attempt what is sure to be mistaken. That is, they are required to

690 exercise a *disciplina arcani*; and a similar reserve was inevitable on

691 the part of the Catholic Church, at a time when priests and altars and

692 rites all around it were devoted to malignant and incurable

693 superstitions. It would be wrong indeed to deny, but it was a duty to

694 withhold, the ceremonial of Christianity; and Apologists might be

695 sometimes tempted to deny absolutely what at furthest could only be

696 denied under conditions. An idolatrous Paganism tended to repress the

697 externals of Christianity, as, at this day, the presence of

698 Protestantism is said to repress, though for another reason, the

699 exhibition of the Roman Catholic religion.

700 On various grounds, then, it is certain that portions of the Church

701 system were held back in primitive times, and of course this fact goes

702 some way to account for that apparent variation and growth of doctrine,

703 which embarrasses us when we would consult history for the true idea of

704 Christianity; yet it is no key to the whole difficulty, as we find it,

705 for obvious reasons:—because the variations continue beyond the time

706 when it is conceivable that the discipline was in force, and because

707 they manifest themselves on a law, not abruptly, but by a visible growth

708 which has persevered up to this time without any sign of its coming to

709 an end.[29:1]

710 21.

711 The following Essay is directed towards a solution of the difficulty

712 which has been stated,—the difficulty, as far as it exists, which lies

713 in the way of our using in controversy the testimony of our most natural

714 informant concerning the doctrine and worship of Christianity, viz. the

715 history of eighteen hundred years. The view on which it is written has

716 at all times, perhaps, been implicitly adopted by theologians, and, I

717 believe, has recently been illustrated by several distinguished writers

718 of the continent, such as De Maistre and Möhler: viz. that the increase

719 and expansion of the Christian Creed and Ritual, and the variations

720 which have attended the process in the case of individual writers and

721 Churches, are the necessary attendants on any philosophy or polity which

722 takes possession of the intellect and heart, and has had any wide or

723 extended dominion; that, from the nature of the human mind, time is

724 necessary for the full comprehension and perfection of great ideas; and

725 that the highest and most wonderful truths, though communicated to the

726 world once for all by inspired teachers, could not be comprehended all

727 at once by the recipients, but, as being received and transmitted by

728 minds not inspired and through media which were human, have required

729 only the longer time and deeper thought for their full elucidation. This

730 may be called the *Theory of Development of Doctrine*; and, before

731 proceeding to treat of it, one remark may be in place.

732 It is undoubtedly an hypothesis to account for a difficulty; but such

733 too are the various explanations given by astronomers from Ptolemy to

734 Newton of the apparent motions of the heavenly bodies, and it is as

735 unphilosophical on that account to object to the one as to object to the

736 other. Nor is it more reasonable to express surprise, that at this time

737 of day a theory is necessary, granting for argument's sake that the

738 theory is novel, than to have directed a similar wonder in disparagement

739 of the theory of gravitation, or the Plutonian theory in geology.

740 Doubtless, the theory of the Secret and the theory of doctrinal

741 Developments are expedients, and so is the dictum of Vincentius; so is

742 the art of grammar or the use of the quadrant; it is an expedient to

743 enable us to solve what has now become a necessary and an anxious

744 problem. For three hundred years the documents and the facts of

745 Christianity have been exposed to a jealous scrutiny; works have been

746 judged spurious which once were received without a question; facts have

747 been discarded or modified which were once first principles in argument;

748 new facts and new principles have been brought to light; philosophical

749 views and polemical discussions of various tendencies have been

750 maintained with more or less success. Not only has the relative

751 situation of controversies and theologies altered, but infidelity itself

752 is in a different,—I am obliged to say in a more hopeful position,—as

753 regards Christianity. The facts of Revealed Religion, though in their

754 substance unaltered, present a less compact and orderly front to the

755 attacks of its enemies now than formerly, and allow of the introduction

756 of new inquiries and theories concerning its sources and its rise. The

757 state of things is not as it was, when an appeal lay to the supposed

758 works of the Areopagite, or to the primitive Decretals, or to St.

759 Dionysius's answers to Paul, or to the Cœna Domini of St. Cyprian.

760 The assailants of dogmatic truth have got the start of its adherents of

761 whatever Creed; philosophy is completing what criticism has begun; and

762 apprehensions are not unreasonably excited lest we should have a new

763 world to conquer before we have weapons for the warfare. Already

764 infidelity has its views and conjectures, on which it arranges the facts

765 of ecclesiastical history; and it is sure to consider the absence of any

766 antagonist theory as an evidence of the reality of its own. That the

767 hypothesis, here to be adopted, accounts not only for the Athanasian

768 Creed, but for the Creed of Pope Pius, is no fault of those who adopt

769 it. No one has power over the issues of his principles; we cannot manage

770 our argument, and have as much of it as we please and no more. An

771 argument is needed, unless Christianity is to abandon the province of

772 argument; and those who find fault with the explanation here offered of

773 its historical phenomena will find it their duty to provide one for

774 themselves.

775 And as no special aim at Roman Catholic doctrine need be supposed to

776 have given a direction to the inquiry, so neither can a reception of

777 that doctrine be immediately based on its results. It would be the work

778 of a life to apply the Theory of Developments so carefully to the

779 writings of the Fathers, and to the history of controversies and

780 councils, as thereby to vindicate the reasonableness of every decision

781 of Rome; much less can such an undertaking be imagined by one who, in

782 the middle of his days, is beginning life again. Thus much, however,

783 might be gained even from an Essay like the present, an explanation of

784 so many of the reputed corruptions, doctrinal and practical, of Rome, as

785 might serve as a fair ground for trusting her in parallel cases where

786 the investigation had not been pursued.

FOOTNOTES:

16 [9:1] Church of the Fathers [Hist. Sketches, vol. i. p. 418].

17 [12:1] Proph. Office [Via Media, vol. i. pp. 55, 56].

18 [13:1] [Ibid. p. 181.]

19 [13:2] [British Critic, July, 1836, p. 193. Vid. supr. vol. i.

20 p. 130.]

21 [16:1] This of course has been disputed, as is the case with

22 almost all facts which bear upon the decision of controversies. I shall

23 not think it necessary to notice the possibility or the fact of

24 objections on questions upon which the world may now be said to be

25 agreed; *e. g.* the arianizing tone of Eusebius.

26 [16:2] *σχεδὸν ταυτησὶ τῆς νῦν περιθυλλουμένης

27 ἀσεβείας, τῆς κατὰ τὸ Ἀνόμοιον λέγω, οὗτος ἐστὶν, ὅσα γε ἡμεῖς

28 ἴσμεν, ὁ πρῶτος ἀνθρώποις τὰ σπέρματα παρασχών. Ep. ix. 2.

29 [16:3] Bull, Defens. F. N. ii. 12, § 6.

30 [17:1] "The authors who make the generation temporary, and

31 speak not expressly of any other, are these following: Justin,

32 Athenagoras, Theophilus, Tatian, Tertullian, and

33 Hippolytus."—Waterland*, vol. i. part 2, p. 104.

34 [17:2] "Levia sunt," says Maran in his defence, "quæ in

35 Sanctissimam Trinitatem hic liber peccare dicitur, paulo graviora quæ in

36 mysterium Incarnationis."—*Div. Jes. Christ.* p. 527. Shortly after, p.

37 530, "In tertiâ oratione nonnulla legimus Incarnationem Domini

38 spectantia, quæ subabsurdè dicta fateor, nego impiè cogitata."

39 [17:3] Bishop Bull, who is tender towards him, allows, "Ut quod

40 res est dicam, cum Valentinianis hic et reliquo gnosticorum grege

41 aliquatenus locutus est Tertullianus; in re ipsâ tamen cum Catholicis

42 omninò sensit."—*Defens. F. N.* iii. 10, § 15.

43 [18:1] Adv. Praxeam.

44 [18:2] Defens. F. N. iv. 3, § 1.

45 [18:3] Basil, ed. Ben. vol. 3, p. xcvi.

46 [19:1] Ante-nicene Test, to the Trinity, p. 69.

47 [20:1] "Quia et Pater Deus est, et judex Deus est, non tamen

48 ideo Pater et judex semper, quia Deus semper. Nam nec Pater potuit esse

49 ante Filium, nec judex ante delictum. Fuit autem tempus, cum et delictum

50 et Filius non fuit, quod judicem, et qui Patrem Dominum

51 faceret."—*Contr. Herm.* 3.

52 [20:2] Vid. infra, towards the end of the Essay, ch. x., where

53 more will be said on the passage.

54 [22:1] Of Justification, 26.

55 [22:2] Works, vol. ix. p. 396.

56 [22:3] "Quamvis igitur quam maximè fallantur Pelagiani, quum

57 asserant, peccatum originale ex Augustini profluxisse ingenio, antiquam

58 vero ecclesiam illud plane nescivisse; diffiteri tamen nemo potest, apud

59 Græcos patres imprimis inveniri loca, quæ Pelagianismo favere videntur.

60 Hinc et C. Jansenius, 'Græci,' inquit, 'nisi caute legantur et

61 intelligantur, præbere possunt occasionem errori Pelagiano;' et D.

62 Petavius dicit, 'Græci originalis fere criminis raram, nec disertam,

63 mentionem scriptis suis attigerunt.'"—*Walch*, *Miscell. Sacr.* p.

64 607.

65 [22:4] Horn, Comment. de Pecc. Orig. 1801, p. 98.

66 [23:1] Hær. iv. 18, § 5.

67 [24:1] Justin Martyr, ch. 4.

68 [24:2] Clem. Alex. ch. 11.

69 [25:1] Works, vol. vii. p. 118-120.

70 [25:2] Ibid. p. 121.

71 [25:3] Ibid. p. 127.

72 [25:4] [Dr. Pusey's University Sermon of 1843.]

73 [26:1] Numer. Hom. xvi. 9.

74 [26:2] Interp. Com. in Matt. 85.

75 [29:1] [*Vid.* Apolog., p. 198, and Difficulties of Angl. vol.

76 i. xii. 7.]

CHAPTER I.

19 (Texto do capítulo)

ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF IDEAS.

22 #### SECTION I.

23 ##### ON THE PROCESS OF DEVELOPMENT IN IDEAS.

24 It is the characteristic of our minds to be ever engaged in passing

25 judgment on the things which come before us. No sooner do we apprehend

26 than we judge: we allow nothing to stand by itself: we compare,

27 contrast, abstract, generalize, connect, adjust, classify: and we view

28 all our knowledge in the associations with which these processes have

29 invested it.

30 Of the judgments thus made, which become aspects in our minds of the

31 things which meet us, some are mere opinions which come and go, or which

32 remain with us only till an accident displaces them, whatever be the

33 influence which they exercise meanwhile. Others are firmly fixed in our

34 minds, with or without good reason, and have a hold upon us, whether

35 they relate to matters of fact, or to principles of conduct, or are

36 views of life and the world, or are prejudices, imaginations, or

37 convictions. Many of them attach to one and the same object, which is

38 thus variously viewed, not only by various minds, but by the same. They

39 sometimes lie in such near relation, that each implies the others; some

40 are only not inconsistent with each other, in that they have a common

41 origin: some, as being actually incompatible with each other, are, one

42 or other, falsely associated in our minds with their object, and in any

43 case they may be nothing more than ideas, which we mistake for things.

44 Thus Judaism is an idea which once was objective, and Gnosticism is an

45 idea which was never so. Both of them have various aspects: those of

46 Judaism were such as monotheism, a certain ethical discipline, a

47 ministration of divine vengeance, a preparation for Christianity: those

48 of the Gnostic idea are such as the doctrine of two principles, that of

49 emanation, the intrinsic malignity of matter, the inculpability of

50 sensual indulgence, or the guilt of every pleasure of sense, of which

51 last two one or other must be in the Gnostic a false aspect and

52 subjective only.

53 2.

54 The idea which represents an object or supposed object is commensurate

55 with the sum total of its possible aspects, however they may vary in the

56 separate consciousness of individuals; and in proportion to the variety

57 of aspects under which it presents itself to various minds is its force

58 and depth, and the argument for its reality. Ordinarily an idea is not

59 brought home to the intellect as objective except through this variety;

60 like bodily substances, which are not apprehended except under the

61 clothing of their properties and results, and which admit of being

62 walked round, and surveyed on opposite sides, and in different

63 perspectives, and in contrary lights, in evidence of their reality. And,

64 as views of a material object may be taken from points so remote or so

65 opposed, that they seem at first sight incompatible, and especially as

66 their shadows will be disproportionate, or even monstrous, and yet all

67 these anomalies will disappear and all these contrarieties be adjusted,

68 on ascertaining the point of vision or the surface of projection in each

69 case; so also all the aspects of an idea are capable of coalition, and

70 of a resolution into the object to which it belongs; and the *primâ

71 facie* dissimilitude of its aspects becomes, when explained, an argument

72 for its substantiveness and integrity, and their multiplicity for its

73 originality and power.

74 3.

75 There is no one aspect deep enough to exhaust the contents of a real

76 idea, no one term or proposition which will serve to define it; though

77 of course one representation of it is more just and exact than another,

78 and though when an idea is very complex, it is allowable, for the sake

79 of convenience, to consider its distinct aspects as if separate ideas.

80 Thus, with all our intimate knowledge of animal life and of the

81 structure of particular animals, we have not arrived at a true

82 definition of any one of them, but are forced to enumerate properties

83 and accidents by way of description. Nor can we inclose in a formula

84 that intellectual fact, or system of thought, which we call the Platonic

85 philosophy, or that historical phenomenon of doctrine and conduct, which

86 we call the heresy of Montanus or of Manes. Again, if Protestantism were

87 said to lie in its theory of private judgment, and Lutheranism in its

88 doctrine of justification, this indeed would be an approximation to the

89 truth; but it is plain that to argue or to act as if the one or the

90 other aspect were a sufficient account of those forms of religion

91 severally, would be a serious mistake. Sometimes an attempt is made to

92 determine the "leading idea," as it has been called, of Christianity, an

93 ambitious essay as employed on a supernatural work, when, even as

94 regards the visible creation and the inventions of man, such a task is

95 beyond us. Thus its one idea has been said by some to be the restoration

96 of our fallen race, by others philanthropy, by others the tidings of

97 immortality, or the spirituality of true religious service, or the

98 salvation of the elect, or mental liberty, or the union of the soul with

99 God. If, indeed, it is only thereby meant to use one or other of these

100 as a central idea for convenience, in order to group others around it,

101 no fault can be found with such a proceeding: and in this sense I should

102 myself call the Incarnation the central aspect of Christianity, out of

103 which the three main aspects of its teaching take their rise, the

104 sacramental, the hierarchical, and the ascetic. But one aspect of

105 Revelation must not be allowed to exclude or to obscure another; and

106 Christianity is dogmatical, devotional, practical all at once; it is

107 esoteric and exoteric; it is indulgent and strict; it is light and dark;

108 it is love, and it is fear.

109 4.

110 When an idea, whether real or not, is of a nature to arrest and possess

111 the mind, it may be said to have life, that is, to live in the mind

112 which is its recipient. Thus mathematical ideas, real as they are, can

113 hardly properly be called living, at least ordinarily. But, when some

114 great enunciation, whether true or false, about human nature, or present

115 good, or government, or duty, or religion, is carried forward into the

116 public throng of men and draws attention, then it is not merely received

117 passively in this or that form into many minds, but it becomes an active

118 principle within them, leading them to an ever-new contemplation of

119 itself, to an application of it in various directions, and a propagation

120 of it on every side. Such is the doctrine of the divine right of kings,

121 or of the rights of man, or of the anti-social bearings of a priesthood,

122 or utilitarianism, or free trade, or the duty of benevolent enterprises,

123 or the philosophy of Zeno or Epicurus, doctrines which are of a nature

124 to attract and influence, and have so far a *primâ facie* reality, that

125 they may be looked at on many sides and strike various minds very

126 variously. Let one such idea get possession of the popular mind, or the

127 mind of any portion of the community, and it is not difficult to

128 understand what will be the result. At first men will not fully realize

129 what it is that moves them, and will express and explain themselves

130 inadequately. There will be a general agitation of thought, and an

131 action of mind upon mind. There will be a time of confusion, when

132 conceptions and misconceptions are in conflict, and it is uncertain

133 whether anything is to come of the idea at all, or which view of it is

134 to get the start of the others. New lights will be brought to bear upon

135 the original statements of the doctrine put forward; judgments and

136 aspects will accumulate. After a while some definite teaching emerges;

137 and, as time proceeds, one view will be modified or expanded by another,

138 and then combined with a third; till the idea to which these various

139 aspects belong, will be to each mind separately what at first it was

140 only to all together. It will be surveyed too in its relation to other

141 doctrines or facts, to other natural laws or established customs, to the

142 varying circumstances of times and places, to other religions, polities,

143 philosophies, as the case may be. How it stands affected towards other

144 systems, how it affects them, how far it may be made to combine with

145 them, how far it tolerates them, when it interferes with them, will be

146 gradually wrought out. It will be interrogated and criticized by

147 enemies, and defended by well-wishers. The multitude of opinions formed

148 concerning it in these respects and many others will be collected,

149 compared, sorted, sifted, selected, rejected, gradually attached to it,

150 separated from it, in the minds of individuals and of the community. It

151 will, in proportion to its native vigour and subtlety, introduce itself

152 into the framework and details of social life, changing public opinion,

153 and strengthening or undermining the foundations of established order.

154 Thus in time it will have grown into an ethical code, or into a system

155 of government, or into a theology, or into a ritual, according to its

156 capabilities: and this body of thought, thus laboriously gained, will

157 after all be little more than the proper representative of one idea,

158 being in substance what that idea meant from the first, its complete

159 image as seen in a combination of diversified aspects, with the

160 suggestions and corrections of many minds, and the illustration of many

161 experiences.

162 5.

163 This process, whether it be longer or shorter in point of time, by which

164 the aspects of an idea are brought into consistency and form, I call its

165 development, being the germination and maturation of some truth or

166 apparent truth on a large mental field. On the other hand this process

167 will not be a development, unless the assemblage of aspects, which

168 constitute its ultimate shape, really belongs to the idea from which

169 they start. A republic, for instance, is not a development from a pure

170 monarchy, though it may follow upon it; whereas the Greek "tyrant" may

171 be considered as included in the idea of a democracy. Moreover a

172 development will have this characteristic, that, its action being in the

173 busy scene of human life, it cannot progress at all without cutting

174 across, and thereby destroying or modifying and incorporating with

175 itself existing modes of thinking and operating. The development then of

176 an idea is not like an investigation worked out on paper, in which each

177 successive advance is a pure evolution from a foregoing, but it is

178 carried on through and by means of communities of men and their leaders

179 and guides; and it employs their minds as its instruments, and depends

180 upon them, while it uses them. And so, as regards existing opinions,

181 principles, measures, and institutions of the community which it has

182 invaded; it developes by establishing relations between itself and

183 them; it employs itself, in giving them a new meaning and direction, in

184 creating what may be called a jurisdiction over them, in throwing off

185 whatever in them it cannot assimilate. It grows when it incorporates,

186 and its identity is found, not in isolation, but in continuity and

187 sovereignty. This it is that imparts to the history both of states and

188 of religions, its specially turbulent and polemical character. Such is

189 the explanation of the wranglings, whether of schools or of parliaments.

190 It is the warfare of ideas under their various aspects striving for the

191 mastery, each of them enterprising, engrossing, imperious, more or less

192 incompatible with the rest, and rallying followers or rousing foes,

193 according as it acts upon the faith, the prejudices, or the interest of

194 parties or classes.

195 6.

196 Moreover, an idea not only modifies, but is modified, or at least

197 influenced, by the state of things in which it is carried out, and is

198 dependent in various ways on the circumstances which surround it. Its

199 development proceeds quickly or slowly, as it may be; the order of

200 succession in its separate stages is variable; it shows differently in a

201 small sphere of action and in an extended; it may be interrupted,

202 retarded, mutilated, distorted, by external violence; it may be

203 enfeebled by the effort of ridding itself of domestic foes; it may be

204 impeded and swayed or even absorbed by counter energetic ideas; it may

205 be coloured by the received tone of thought into which it comes, or

206 depraved by the intrusion of foreign principles, or at length shattered

207 by the development of some original fault within it.

208 7.

209 But whatever be the risk of corruption from intercourse with the world

210 around, such a risk must be encountered if a great idea is duly to be

211 understood, and much more if it is to be fully exhibited. It is elicited

212 and expanded by trial, and battles into perfection and supremacy. Nor

213 does it escape the collision of opinion even in its earlier years, nor

214 does it remain truer to itself, and with a better claim to be considered

215 one and the same, though externally protected from vicissitude and

216 change. It is indeed sometimes said that the stream is clearest near the

217 spring. Whatever use may fairly be made of this image, it does not apply

218 to the history of a philosophy or belief, which on the contrary is more

219 equable, and purer, and stronger, when its bed has become deep, and

220 broad, and full. It necessarily rises out of an existing state of

221 things, and for a time savours of the soil. Its vital element needs

222 disengaging from what is foreign and temporary, and is employed in

223 efforts after freedom which become more vigorous and hopeful as its

224 years increase. Its beginnings are no measure of its capabilities, nor

225 of its scope. At first no one knows what it is, or what it is worth. It

226 remains perhaps for a time quiescent; it tries, as it were, its limbs,

227 and proves the ground under it, and feels its way. From time to time it

228 makes essays which fail, and are in consequence abandoned. It seems in

229 suspense which way to go; it wavers, and at length strikes out in one

230 definite direction. In time it enters upon strange territory; points of

231 controversy alter their bearing; parties rise and fall around it;

232 dangers and hopes appear in new relations; and old principles reappear

233 under new forms. It changes with them in order to remain the same. In a

234 higher world it is otherwise, but here below to live is to change, and

235 to be perfect is to have changed often.

236 #### SECTION II.

237 ON THE KINDS OF DEVELOPMENT IN IDEAS.

238 To attempt an accurate analysis or complete enumeration of the processes

239 of thought, whether speculative or practical, which come under the

240 notion of development, exceeds the pretensions of an Essay like the

241 present; but, without some general view of the various mental exercises

242 which go by the name we shall have no security against confusion in our

243 reasoning and necessary exposure to criticism.

244 1. First, then, it must be borne in mind that the word is commonly used,

245 and is used here, in three senses indiscriminately, from defect of our

246 language; on the one hand for the process of development, on the other

247 for the result; and again either generally for a development, true or

248 not true, (that is, faithful or unfaithful to the idea from which it

249 started,) or exclusively for a development deserving the name. A false

250 or unfaithful development is more properly to be called a corruption.

251 2. Next, it is plain that *mathematical* developments, that is, the

252 system of truths drawn out from mathematical definitions or equations,

253 do not fall under our present subject, though altogether analogous to

254 it. There can be no corruption in such developments, because they are

255 conducted on strict demonstration; and the conclusions in which they

256 terminate, being necessary, cannot be declensions from the original

257 idea.

258 3. Nor, of course, do *physical* developments, as the growth of animal

259 or vegetable nature, come into consideration here; excepting that,

260 together with mathematical, they may be taken as illustrations of the

261 general subject to which we have to direct our attention.

262 4. Nor have we to consider *material* developments, which, though

263 effected by human contrivance, are still physical; as the development,

264 as it is called, of the national resources. We speak, for instance, of

265 Ireland, the United States, or the valley of the Indus, as admitting of

266 a great development; by which we mean, that those countries have fertile

267 tracts, or abundant products, or broad and deep rivers, or central

268 positions for commerce, or capacious and commodious harbours, the

269 materials and instruments of wealth, and these at present turned to

270 insufficient account. Development in this case will proceed by

271 establishing marts, cutting canals, laying down railroads, erecting

272 factories, forming docks, and similar works, by which the natural riches

273 of the country may be made to yield the largest return and to exert the

274 greatest influence. In this sense, art is the development of nature,

275 that is, its adaptation to the purposes of utility and beauty, the human

276 intellect being the developing power.

277 2.

278 5. When society and its various classes and interests are the

279 subject-matter of the ideas which are in operation, the development may

280 be called *political*; as we see it in the growth of States or the

281 changes of a Constitution. Barbarians descend into southern regions from

282 cupidity, and their warrant is the sword: this is no intellectual

283 process, nor is it the mode of development exhibited in civilized

284 communities. Where civilization exists, reason, in some shape or other,

285 is the incentive or the pretence of development. When an empire

286 enlarges, it is on the call of its allies, or for the balance of power,

287 or from the necessity of a demonstration of strength, or from a fear for

288 its frontiers. It lies uneasily in its territory, it is ill-shaped, it

289 has unreal boundary-lines, deficient communication between its principal

290 points, or defenceless or turbulent neighbours. Thus, of old time,

291 Eubœa was necessary for Athens, and Cythera for Sparta; and Augustus

292 left his advice, as a legacy, to confine the Empire between the

293 Atlantic, the Rhine and Danube, the Euphrates, and the Arabian and

294 African deserts. In this day, we hear of the Rhine being the natural

295 boundary of France, and the Indus of our Eastern empire; and we predict

296 that, in the event of a war, Prussia will change her outlines in the map

297 of Europe. The development is material; but an idea gives unity and

298 force to its movement.

299 And so to take a case of national politics, a late writer remarks of the

300 Parliament of 1628-29, in its contest with Charles, that, so far from

301 encroaching on the just powers of a limited monarch, it never hinted at

302 the securities which were necessary for its measures. However, "twelve

303 years more of repeated aggressions," he adds, "taught the Long

304 Parliament what a few sagacious men might perhaps have already

305 suspected; that they must recover more of their ancient constitution,

306 from oblivion; that they must sustain its partial weakness by new

307 securities; that, in order to render the existence of monarchy

308 compatible with that of freedom, they must not only strip it of all it

309 had usurped, but of something that was its own."[43:1] Whatever be the

310 worth of this author's theory, his facts or representations are an

311 illustration of a political development.

312 Again, at the present day, that Ireland should have a population of one

313 creed, and a Church of another, is felt to be a political arrangement so

314 unsatisfactory, that all parties seem to agree that either the

315 population will develope in power or the Establishment in influence.

316 Political developments, though really the growth of ideas, are often

317 capricious and irregular from the nature of their subject-matter. They

318 are influenced by the character of sovereigns, the rise and fall of

319 statesmen, the fate of battles, and the numberless vicissitudes of the

320 world. "Perhaps the Greeks would be still involved in the heresy of the

321 Monophysites," says Gibbon, "if the Emperor's horse had not fortunately

322 stumbled. Theodosius expired, his orthodox sister succeeded to the

323 throne."[44:1]

324 3.

325 Again, it often happens, or generally, that various distinct and

326 incompatible elements are found in the origin or infancy of politics, or

327 indeed of philosophies, some of which must be ejected before any

328 satisfactory developments, if any, can take place. And they are commonly

329 ejected by the gradual growth of the stronger. The reign of Charles the

330 First, just referred to, supplies an instance in point.

331 Sometimes discordant ideas are for a time connected and concealed by a

332 common profession or name. Such is the case of coalitions in politics

333 and comprehensions in religion, of which commonly no good is to be

334 expected. Such is an ordinary function of committees and boards, and the

335 sole aim of conciliations and concessions, to make contraries look the

336 same, and to secure an outward agreement where there is no other unity.

337 Again, developments, reactions, reforms, revolutions, and changes of

338 various kinds are mixed together in the actual history of states, as of

339 philosophical sects, so as to make it very difficult to exhibit them in

340 any scientific analysis.

341 Often the intellectual process is detached from the practical, and

342 posterior to it. Thus it was after Elizabeth had established the

343 Reformation that Hooker laid down his theory of Church and State as one

344 and the same, differing only in idea; and, after the Revolution and its

345 political consequences, that Warburton wrote his "Alliance." And now

346 again a new theory is needed for the constitutional lawyer, in order to

347 reconcile the existing political state of things with the just claims

348 of religion. And so, again, in Parliamentary conflicts, men first come

349 to their conclusions by the external pressure of events or the force of

350 principles, they do not know how; then they have to speak, and they look

351 about for arguments: and a pamphlet is published on the subject in

352 debate, or an article appears in a Review, to furnish common-places for

353 the many.

354 Other developments, though political, are strictly subjected and

355 consequent to the ideas of which they are the exhibitions. Thus Locke's

356 philosophy was a real guide, not a mere defence of the Revolution era,

357 operating forcibly upon Church and Government in and after his day. Such

358 too were the theories which preceded the overthrow of the old regime in

359 France and other countries at the end of the last century.

360 Again, perhaps there are polities founded on no ideas at all, but on

361 mere custom, as among the Asiatics.

362 4.

363 6. In other developments the intellectual character is so prominent that

364 they may even be called *logical*, as in the Anglican doctrine of the

365 Royal Supremacy, which has been created in the courts of law, not in the

366 cabinet or on the field. Hence it is carried out with a consistency and

367 minute application which the history of constitutions cannot exhibit. It

368 does not only exist in statutes, or in articles, or in oaths, it is

369 realized in details: as in the *congé d'élire* and letter-missive on

370 appointment of a Bishop;—in the forms observed in Privy Council on the

371 issuing of State Prayers;—in certain arrangements observed in the

372 Prayer-book, where the universal or abstract Church precedes the King,

373 but the national or really existing body follows him; in printing his

374 name in large capitals, while the Holiest Names are in ordinary type,

375 and in fixing his arms in churches instead of the Crucifix; moreover,

376 perhaps, in placing "sedition, privy conspiracy, and rebellion," before

377 "false doctrine, heresy, and schism" in the Litany.

378 Again, when some new philosophy or its instalments are introduced into

379 the measures of the Legislature, or into the concessions made to a

380 political party, or into commercial or agricultural policy, it is often

381 said, "We have not seen the end of this;" "It is an earnest of future

382 concessions;" "Our children will see." We feel that it has unknown

383 bearings and issues.

384 The admission of Jews to municipal offices has lately been

385 defended[46:1] on the ground that it is the introduction of no new

386 principle, but a development of one already received; that its great

387 premisses have been decided long since; and that the present age has but

388 to draw the conclusion; that it is not open to us to inquire what ought

389 to be done in the abstract, since there is no ideal model for the

390 infallible guidance of nations; that change is only a question of time,

391 and that there is a time for all things; that the application of

392 principles ought not to go beyond the actual case, neither preceding nor

393 coming after an imperative demand; that in point of fact Jews have

394 lately been chosen for offices, and that in point of principle the law

395 cannot refuse to legitimate such elections.

396 5.

397 7. Another class of developments may be called *historical*; being the

398 gradual formation of opinion concerning persons, facts, and events.

399 Judgments, which were at one time confined to a few, at length spread

400 through a community, and attain general reception by the accumulation

401 and concurrence of testimony. Thus some authoritative accounts die away;

402 others gain a footing, and are ultimately received as truths. Courts of

403 law, Parliamentary proceedings, newspapers, letters and other

404 posthumous documents, the industry of historians and biographers, and

405 the lapse of years which dissipates parties and prejudices, are in this

406 day the instruments of such development. Accordingly the Poet makes

407 Truth the daughter of Time.[47:1] Thus at length approximations are made

408 to a right appreciation of transactions and characters. History cannot

409 be written except in an after-age. Thus by development the Canon of the

410 New Testament has been formed. Thus public men are content to leave

411 their reputation to posterity; great reactions take place in opinion;

412 nay, sometimes men outlive opposition and obloquy. Thus Saints are

413 canonized in the Church, long after they have entered into their rest.

414 6.

415 8. *Ethical* developments are not properly matter for argument and

416 controversy, but are natural and personal, substituting what is

417 congruous, desirable, pious, appropriate, generous, for strictly logical

418 inference. Bishop Butler supplies us with a remarkable instance in the

419 beginning of the Second Part of his "Analogy." As principles imply

420 applications, and general propositions include particulars, so, he tells

421 us, do certain relations imply correlative duties, and certain objects

422 demand certain acts and feelings. He observes that, even though we were

423 not enjoined to pay divine honours to the Second and Third Persons of

424 the Holy Trinity, what is predicated of Them in Scripture would be an

425 abundant warrant, an indirect command, nay, a ground in reason, for

426 doing so. "Does not," he asks, "the duty of religious regards to both

427 these Divine Persons as immediately arise, to the view of reason, out of

428 the very nature of these offices and relations, as the inward good-will

429 and kind intention which we owe to our fellow-creatures arises out of

430 the common relations between us and them?" He proceeds to say that he is

431 speaking of the inward religious regards of reverence, honour, love,

432 trust, gratitude, fear, hope. "In what external manner this inward

433 worship is to be expressed, is a matter of pure revealed command; . .

434 but the worship, the internal worship itself, to the Son and Holy Ghost,

435 is no further matter of pure revealed command than as the relations they

436 stand in to us are matter of pure revelation; for, the relations being

437 known, the obligations to such internal worship are obligations of

438 reason, arising out of those relations themselves." Here is a

439 development of doctrine into worship, of which parallel instances are

440 obviously to be found in the Church of Rome.

441 7.

442 A development, converse to that which Butler speaks of, must next be

443 mentioned. As certain objects excite certain emotions and sentiments, so

444 do sentiments imply objects and duties. Thus conscience, the existence

445 of which we cannot deny, is a proof of the doctrine of a Moral Governor,

446 which alone gives it a meaning and a scope; that is, the doctrine of a

447 Judge and Judgment to come is a development of the phenomenon of

448 conscience. Again, it is plain that passions and affections are in

449 action in our minds before the presence of their proper objects; and

450 their activity would of course be an antecedent argument of extreme

451 cogency in behalf of the real existence of those legitimate objects,

452 supposing them unknown. And so again, the social principle, which is

453 innate in us, gives a divine sanction to society and to civil

454 government. And the usage of prayers for the dead implies certain

455 circumstances of their state upon which such devotions bear. And rites

456 and ceremonies are natural means through which the mind relieves itself

457 of devotional and penitential emotions. And sometimes the cultivation

458 of awe and love towards what is great, high, and unseen, has led a man

459 to the abandonment of his sect for some more Catholic form of doctrine.

460 Aristotle furnishes us with an instance of this kind of development in

461 his account of the happy man. After showing that his definition of

462 happiness includes in itself the pleasurable, which is the most obvious

463 and popular idea of happiness, he goes on to say that still external

464 goods are necessary to it, about which, however, the definition said

465 nothing; that is, a certain prosperity is by moral fitness, not by

466 logical necessity, attached to the happy man. "For it is impossible," he

467 observes, "or not easy, to practise high virtue without abundant means.

468 Many deeds are done by the instrumentality of friends, wealth and

469 political power; and of some things the absence is a cloud upon

470 happiness, as of noble birth, of hopeful children, and of personal

471 appearance: for a person utterly deformed, or low-born, or bereaved and

472 childless, cannot quite be happy: and still less if he have very

473 worthless children or friends, or they were good and died."[49:1]

474 8.

475 This process of development has been well delineated by a living French

476 writer, in his Lectures on European civilization, who shall be quoted at

477 some length. "If we reduce religion," he says, "to a purely religious

478 sentiment . . . it appears evident that it must and ought to remain a

479 purely personal concern. But I am either strangely mistaken, or this

480 religious sentiment is not the complete expression of the religious

481 nature of man. Religion is, I believe, very different from this, and

482 much more extended. There are problems in human nature, in human

483 destinies, which cannot be solved in this life, which depend on an

484 order of things unconnected with the visible world, but which

485 unceasingly agitate the human mind with a desire to comprehend them. The

486 solution of these problems is the origin of all religion; her primary

487 object is to discover the creeds and doctrines which contain, or are

488 supposed to contain it.

489 "Another cause also impels mankind to embrace religion . . . From whence

490 do morals originate? whither do they lead? is this self-existing

491 obligation to do good, an isolated fact, without an author, without an

492 end? does it not conceal, or rather does it not reveal to man, an

493 origin, a destiny, beyond this world? The science of morals, by these

494 spontaneous and inevitable questions, conducts man to the threshold of

495 religion, and displays to him a sphere from whence he has not derived

496 it. Thus the certain and never-failing sources of religion are, on the

497 one hand, the problems of our nature; on the other, the necessity of

498 seeking for morals a sanction, an origin, and an aim. It therefore

499 assumes many other forms beside that of a pure sentiment; it appears a

500 union of doctrines, of precepts, of promises. This is what truly

501 constitutes religion; this is its fundamental character; it is not

502 merely a form of sensibility, an impulse of the imagination, a variety

503 of poetry.

504 "When thus brought back to its true elements, to its essential nature,

505 religion appears no longer a purely personal concern, but a powerful and

506 fruitful principle of association. Is it considered in the light of a

507 system of belief, a system of dogmas? Truth is not the heritage of any

508 individual, it is absolute and universal; mankind ought to seek and

509 profess it in common. Is it considered with reference to the precepts

510 that are associated with its doctrines? A law which is obligatory on a

511 single individual, is so on all; it ought to be promulgated, and it is

512 our duty to endeavour to bring all mankind under its dominion. It is

513 the same with respect to the promises that religion makes, in the name

514 of its creeds and precepts; they ought to be diffused; all men should be

515 incited to partake of their benefits. A religious society, therefore,

516 naturally results from the essential elements of religion, and is such a

517 necessary consequence of it that the term which expresses the most

518 energetic social sentiment, the most intense desire to propagate ideas

519 and extend society, is the word *proselytism*, a term which is

520 especially applied to religious belief, and in fact consecrated to it.

521 "When a religious society has ever been formed, when a certain number of

522 men are united by a common religious creed, are governed by the same

523 religious precepts, and enjoy the same religious hopes, some form of

524 government is necessary. No society can endure a week, nay more, no

525 society can endure a single hour, without a government. The moment,

526 indeed, a society is formed, by the very fact of its formation, it calls

527 forth a government,—a government which shall proclaim the common truth

528 which is the bond of the society, and promulgate and maintain the

529 precepts that this truth ought to produce. The necessity of a superior

530 power, of a form of government, is involved in the fact of the existence

531 of a religious, as it is in that of any other society.

532 "And not only is a government necessary, but it naturally forms

533 itself. . . . When events are suffered to follow their natural laws, when

534 force does not interfere, power falls into the hands of the most able,

535 the most worthy, those who are most capable of carrying out the

536 principles on which the society was founded. Is a warlike expedition in

537 agitation? The bravest take the command. Is the object of the

538 association learned research, or a scientific undertaking? The best

539 informed will be the leader. . . . The inequality of faculties and

540 influence, which is the foundation of power in civil life, has the same

541 effect in a religious society. . . Religion has no sooner arisen in the

542 human mind than a religious society appears; and immediately a religious

543 society is formed, it produces its government."[52:1]

544 9.

545 9. It remains to allude to what, unless the word were often so vaguely

546 and variously used, I should be led to call *metaphysical* developments;

547 I mean such as are a mere analysis of the idea contemplated, and

548 terminate in its exact and complete delineation. Thus Aristotle draws

549 the character of a magnanimous or of a munificent man; thus Shakspeare

550 might conceive and bring out his Hamlet or Ariel; thus Walter Scott

551 gradually enucleates his James, or Dalgetty, as the action of his story

552 proceeds; and thus, in the sacred province of theology, the mind may be

553 employed in developing the solemn ideas, which it has hitherto held

554 implicitly and without subjecting them to its reflecting and reasoning

555 powers.

556 I have already treated of this subject at length, with a reference to

557 the highest theological subject, in a former work, from which it will be

558 sufficient here to quote some sentences in explanation:—

559 "The mind which is habituated to the thought of God, of Christ, of the

560 Holy Spirit, naturally turns with a devout curiosity to the

561 contemplation of the object of its adoration, and begins to form

562 statements concerning it, before it knows whither, or how far, it will

563 be carried. One proposition necessarily leads to another, and a second

564 to a third; then some limitation is required; and the combination of

565 these opposites occasions some fresh evolutions from the original idea,

566 which indeed can never be said to be entirely exhausted. This process is

567 its development, and results in a series, or rather body, of dogmatic

568 statements, till what was an impression on the Imagination has become a

569 system or creed in the Reason.

570 "Now such impressions are obviously individual and complete above other

571 theological ideas, because they are the impressions of Objects. Ideas

572 and their developments are commonly not identical, the development being

573 but the carrying out of the idea into its consequences. Thus the

574 doctrine of Penance may be called a development of the doctrine of

575 Baptism, yet still is a distinct doctrine; whereas the developments in

576 the doctrines of the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation are mere portions

577 of the original impression, and modes of representing it. As God is one,

578 so the impression which He gives us of Himself is one; it is not a thing

579 of parts; it is not a system; nor is it anything imperfect and needing a

580 counterpart. It is the vision of an object. When we pray, we pray, not

581 to an assemblage of notions or to a creed, but to One Individual Being;

582 and when we speak of Him, we speak of a Person, not of a Law or

583 Manifestation . . . Religious men, according to their measure, have an

584 idea or vision of the Blessed Trinity in Unity, of the Son Incarnate,

585 and of His Presence, not as a number of qualities, attributes, and

586 actions, not as the subject of a number of propositions, but as one and

587 individual, and independent of words, like an impression conveyed

588 through the senses . . . . Creeds and dogmas live in the one idea which

589 they are designed to express, and which alone is substantive; and are

590 necessary, because the human mind cannot reflect upon that idea except

591 piecemeal, cannot use it in its oneness and entireness, or without

592 resolving it into a series of aspects and relations."[53:1]

593 10.

594 So much on the development of ideas in various subject matters: it may

595 be necessary to add that, in many cases, *development* simply stands

596 for *exhibition*, as in some of the instances adduced above. Thus both

597 Calvinism and Unitarianism may be called developments, that is,

598 exhibitions, of the principle of Private Judgment, though they have

599 nothing in common, viewed as doctrines.

600 As to Christianity, supposing the truths of which it consists to admit

601 of development, that development will be one or other of the last five

602 kinds. Taking the Incarnation as its central doctrine, the Episcopate,

603 as taught by St. Ignatius, will be an instance of political development,

604 the *Theotokos* of logical, the determination of the date of our Lord's

605 birth of historical, the Holy Eucharist of moral, and the Athanasian

606 Creed of metaphysical.

FOOTNOTES:

25 [43:1] Hallam's Constit. Hist. ch. vii. p. 572.

26 [44:1] ch. xlvii.

27 [46:1] *Times* newspaper of March, 1845.

28 [47:1] Crabbe's Tales.

29 [49:1] Eth. Nic. i. 8.

30 [52:1] Guizot, Europ. Civil., Lect. v., Beckwith's

31 Translation.

32 [53:1] [Univ. Serm. xv. 20-23, pp. 329-332, ed. 3.]

CHAPTER II.

28 (Texto do capítulo)

ON THE ANTECEDENT ARGUMENT IN BEHALF OF

31 DEVELOPMENTS IN CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.

32 #### SECTION I.

33 ##### DEVELOPMENTS OF DOCTRINE TO BE EXPECTED.

34 1. If Christianity is a fact, and impresses an idea of itself on our

35 minds and is a subject-matter of exercises of the reason, that idea will

36 in course of time expand into a multitude of ideas, and aspects of

37 ideas, connected and harmonious with one another, and in themselves

38 determinate and immutable, as is the objective fact itself which is thus

39 represented. It is a characteristic of our minds, that they cannot take

40 an object in, which is submitted to them simply and integrally. We

41 conceive by means of definition or description; whole objects do not

42 create in the intellect whole ideas, but are, to use a mathematical

43 phrase, thrown into series, into a number of statements, strengthening,

44 interpreting, correcting each other, and with more or less exactness

45 approximating, as they accumulate, to a perfect image. There is no other

46 way of learning or of teaching. We cannot teach except by aspects or

47 views, which are not identical with the thing itself which we are

48 teaching. Two persons may each convey the same truth to a third, yet by

49 methods and through representations altogether different. The same

50 person will treat the same argument differently in an essay or speech,

51 according to the accident of the day of writing, or of the audience, yet

52 it will be substantially the same.

53 And the more claim an idea has to be considered living, the more various

54 will be its aspects; and the more social and political is its nature,

55 the more complicated and subtle will be its issues, and the longer and

56 more eventful will be its course. And in the number of these special

57 ideas, which from their very depth and richness cannot be fully

58 understood at once, but are more and more clearly expressed and taught

59 the longer they last,—having aspects many and bearings many, mutually

60 connected and growing one out of another, and all parts of a whole, with

61 a sympathy and correspondence keeping pace with the ever-changing

62 necessities of the world, multiform, prolific, and ever

63 resourceful,—among these great doctrines surely we Christians shall not

64 refuse a foremost place to Christianity. Such previously to the

65 determination of the fact, must be our anticipation concerning it from a

66 contemplation of its initial achievements.

67 2.

68 It may be objected that its inspired documents at once determine the

69 limits of its mission without further trouble; but ideas are in the

70 writer and reader of the revelation, not the inspired text itself: and

71 the question is whether those ideas which the letter conveys from writer

72 to reader, reach the reader at once in their completeness and accuracy

73 on his first perception of them, or whether they open out in his

74 intellect and grow to perfection in the course of time. Nor could it

75 surely be maintained without extravagance that the letter of the New

76 Testament, or of any assignable number of books, comprises a delineation

77 of all possible forms which a divine message will assume when submitted

78 to a multitude of minds.

79 Nor is the case altered by supposing that inspiration provided in behalf

80 of the first recipients of the Revelation, what the Divine Fiat effected

81 for herbs and plants in the beginning, which were created in maturity.

82 Still, the time at length came, when its recipients ceased to be

83 inspired; and on these recipients the revealed truths would fall, as in

84 other cases, at first vaguely and generally, though in spirit and in

85 truth, and would afterwards be completed by developments.

86 Nor can it fairly be made a difficulty that thus to treat of

87 Christianity is to level it in some sort to sects and doctrines of the

88 world, and to impute to it the imperfections which characterize the

89 productions of man. Certainly it is a sort of degradation of a divine

90 work to consider it under an earthly form; but it is no irreverence,

91 since our Lord Himself, its Author and Guardian, bore one also.

92 Christianity differs from other religions and philosophies, in what is

93 superadded to earth from heaven; not in kind, but in origin; not in its

94 nature, but in its personal characteristics; being informed and

95 quickened by what is more than intellect, by a divine spirit. It is

96 externally what the Apostle calls an "earthen vessel," being the

97 religion of men. And, considered as such, it grows "in wisdom and

98 stature;" but the powers which it wields, and the words which proceed

99 out of its mouth, attest its miraculous nativity.

100 Unless then some special ground of exception can be assigned, it is as

101 evident that Christianity, as a doctrine and worship, will develope in

102 the minds of recipients, as that it conforms in other respects, in its

103 external propagation or its political framework, to the general methods

104 by which the course of things is carried forward.

105 3.

106 2. Again, if Christianity be an universal religion, suited not simply to

107 one locality or period, but to all times and places, it cannot but vary

108 in its relations and dealings towards the world around it, that is, it

109 will develope. Principles require a very various application according

110 as persons and circumstances vary, and must be thrown into new shapes

111 according to the form of society which they are to influence. Hence all

112 bodies of Christians, orthodox or not, develope the doctrines of

113 Scripture. Few but will grant that Luther's view of justification had

114 never been stated in words before his time: that his phraseology and his

115 positions were novel, whether called for by circumstances or not. It is

116 equally certain that the doctrine of justification defined at Trent was,

117 in some sense, new also. The refutation and remedy of errors cannot

118 precede their rise; and thus the fact of false developments or

119 corruptions involves the correspondent manifestation of true ones.

120 Moreover, all parties appeal to Scripture, that is, argue from

121 Scripture; but argument implies deduction, that is, development. Here

122 there is no difference between early times and late, between a Pope *ex

123 cathedrâ* and an individual Protestant, except that their authority is

124 not on a par. On either side the claim of authority is the same, and the

125 process of development.

126 Accordingly, the common complaint of Protestants against the Church of

127 Rome is, not simply that she has added to the primitive or the

128 Scriptural doctrine, (for this they do themselves,) but that she

129 contradicts it, and moreover imposes her additions as fundamental truths

130 under sanction of an anathema. For themselves they deduce by quite as

131 subtle a method, and act upon doctrines as implicit and on reasons as

132 little analyzed in time past, as Catholic schoolmen. What prominence has

133 the Royal Supremacy in the New Testament, or the lawfulness of bearing

134 arms, or the duty of public worship, or the substitution of the first

135 day of the week for the seventh, or infant baptism, to say nothing of

136 the fundamental principle that the Bible and the Bible only is the

137 religion of Protestants? These doctrines and usages, true or not, which

138 is not the question here, are surely not gained by the direct use and

139 immediate application of Scripture, nor by a mere exercise of argument

140 upon words and sentences placed before the eyes, but by the unconscious

141 growth of ideas suggested by the letter and habitual to the mind.

142 4.

143 3. And, indeed, when we turn to the consideration of particular

144 doctrines on which Scripture lays the greatest stress, we shall see that

145 it is absolutely impossible for them to remain in the mere letter of

146 Scripture, if they are to be more than mere words, and to convey a

147 definite idea to the recipient. When it is declared that "the Word

148 became flesh," three wide questions open upon us on the very

149 announcement. What is meant by "the Word," what by "flesh," what by

150 "became"? The answers to these involve a process of investigation, and

151 are developments. Moreover, when they have been made, they will suggest

152 a series of secondary questions; and thus at length a multitude of

153 propositions is the result, which gather round the inspired sentence of

154 which they come, giving it externally the form of a doctrine, and

155 creating or deepening the idea of it in the mind.

156 It is true that, so far as such statements of Scripture are mysteries,

157 they are relatively to us but words, and cannot be developed. But as a

158 mystery implies in part what is incomprehensible or at least unknown, so

159 does it in part imply what is not so; it implies a partial

160 manifestation, or a representation by economy. Because then it is in a

161 measure understood, it can so far be developed, though each result in

162 the process will partake of the dimness and confusion of the original

163 impression.

164 5.

165 4. This moreover should be considered,—that great questions exist in

166 the subject-matter of which Scripture treats, which Scripture does not

167 solve; questions too so real, so practical, that they must be answered,

168 and, unless we suppose a new revelation, answered by means of the

169 revelation which we have, that is, by development. Such is the question

170 of the Canon of Scripture and its inspiration: that is, whether

171 Christianity depends upon a written document as Judaism;—if so, on what

172 writings and how many;—whether that document is self-interpreting, or

173 requires a comment, and whether any authoritative comment or commentator

174 is provided;—whether the revelation and the document are commensurate,

175 or the one outruns the other;—all these questions surely find no

176 solution on the surface of Scripture, nor indeed under the surface in

177 the case of most men, however long and diligent might be their study of

178 it. Nor were these difficulties settled by authority, as far as we know,

179 at the commencement of the religion; yet surely it is quite conceivable

180 that an Apostle might have dissipated them all in a few words, had

181 Divine Wisdom thought fit. But in matter of fact the decision has been

182 left to time, to the slow process of thought, to the influence of mind

183 upon mind, the issues of controversy, and the growth of opinion.

184 6.

185 To take another instance just now referred to:—if there was a point on

186 which a rule was desirable from the first, it was concerning the

187 religious duties under which Christian parents lay as regards their

188 children. It would be natural indeed in any Christian father, in the

189 absence of a rule, to bring his children for baptism; such in this

190 instance would be the practical development of his faith in Christ and

191 love for his offspring; still a development it is,—necessarily

192 required, yet, as far as we know, not provided for his need by direct

193 precept in the Revelation as originally given.

194 Another very large field of thought, full of practical considerations,

195 yet, as far as our knowledge goes, but only partially occupied by any

196 Apostolical judgment, is that which the question of the effects of

197 Baptism opens upon us. That they who came in repentance and faith to

198 that Holy Sacrament received remission of sins, is undoubtedly the

199 doctrine of the Apostles; but is there any means of a second remission

200 for sins committed after it? St. Paul's Epistles, where we might expect

201 an answer to our inquiry, contain no explicit statement on the subject;

202 what they do plainly say does not diminish the difficulty:—viz., first,

203 that baptism is intended for the pardon of sins before it, not in

204 prospect; next, that those who have received the gift of Baptism in fact

205 live in a state of holiness, not of sin. How do statements such as these

206 meet the actual state of the Church as we see it at this day?

207 Considering that it was expressly predicted that the Kingdom of Heaven,

208 like the fisher's net, should gather of every kind, and that the tares

209 should grow with the wheat until the harvest, a graver and more

210 practical question cannot be imagined than that which it has pleased the

211 Divine Author of the Revelation to leave undecided, unless indeed there

212 be means given in that Revelation of its own growth or development. As

213 far as the letter goes of the inspired message, every one who holds that

214 Scripture is the rule of faith, as all Protestants do, must allow that

215 "there is not one of us but has exceeded by transgression its revealed

216 Ritual, and finds himself in consequence thrown upon those infinite

217 resources of Divine Love which are stored in Christ, but have not been

218 drawn out into form in the appointments of the Gospel."[62:1] Since then

219 Scripture needs completion, the question is brought to this issue,

220 whether defect or inchoateness in its doctrines be or be not an

221 antecedent probability in favour of a development of them.

222 7.

223 There is another subject, though not so immediately practical, on which

224 Scripture does not, strictly speaking, keep silence, but says so little

225 as to require, and so much as to suggest, information beyond its

226 letter,—the intermediate state between death and the Resurrection.

227 Considering the long interval which separates Christ's first and second

228 coming, the millions of faithful souls who are waiting it out, and the

229 intimate concern which every Christian has in the determination of its

230 character, it might have been expected that Scripture would have spoken

231 explicitly concerning it, whereas in fact its notices are but brief and

232 obscure. We might indeed have argued that this silence of Scripture was

233 intentional, with a view of discouraging speculations upon the subject,

234 except for the circumstance that, as in the question of our

235 post-baptismal state, its teaching seems to proceed upon an hypothesis

236 inapplicable to the state of the Church after the time when it was

237 delivered. As Scripture contemplates Christians, not as backsliders, but

238 as saints, so does it apparently represent the Day of Judgment as

239 immediate, and the interval of expectation as evanescent. It leaves on

240 our minds the general impression that Christ was returning on earth at

241 once, "the time short," worldly engagements superseded by "the present

242 distress," persecutors urgent, Christians, as a body, sinless and

243 expectant, without home, without plan for the future, looking up to

244 heaven. But outward circumstances have changed, and with the change, a

245 different application of the revealed word has of necessity been

246 demanded, that is, a development. When the nations were converted and

247 offences abounded, then the Church came out to view, on the one hand as

248 a temporal establishment, on the other as a remedial system, and

249 passages of Scripture aided and directed the development which before

250 were of inferior account. Hence the doctrine of Penance as the

251 complement of Baptism, and of Purgatory as the explanation of the

252 Intermediate State. So reasonable is this expansion of the original

253 creed, that, when some ten years since the true doctrine of Baptism was

254 expounded among us without any mention of Penance, our teacher was

255 accused by many of us of Novatianism; while, on the other hand,

256 heterodox divines have before now advocated the doctrine of the sleep of

257 the soul because they said it was the only successful preventive of

258 belief in Purgatory.

259 8.

260 Thus developments of Christianity are proved to have been in the

261 contemplation of its Divine Author, by an argument parallel to that by

262 which we infer intelligence in the system of the physical world. In

263 whatever sense the need and its supply are a proof of design in the

264 visible creation, in the same do the gaps, if the word may be used,

265 which occur in the structure of the original creed of the Church, make

266 it probable that those developments, which grow out of the truths which

267 lie around it, were intended to fill them up.

268 Nor can it be fairly objected that in thus arguing we are contradicting

269 the great philosopher, who tells us, that "upon supposition of God

270 affording us light and instruction by revelation, additional to what He

271 has afforded us by reason and experience, we are in no sort judges by

272 what methods, and in what proportion, it were to be expected that this

273 supernatural light and instruction would be afforded us,"[64:1] because

274 he is speaking of our judging before a revelation is given. He observes

275 that "we have no principles of reason upon which to judge *beforehand*,

276 how it were to be expected Revelation should have been left, or what was

277 most suitable to the divine plan of government," in various respects;

278 but the case is altogether altered when a Revelation is vouchsafed, for

279 then a new precedent, or what he calls "principle of reason," is

280 introduced, and from what is actually put into our hands we can form a

281 judgment whether more is to be expected. Butler, indeed, as a well-known

282 passage of his work shows, is far from denying the principle of

283 progressive development.

284 9.

285 5. The method of revelation observed in Scripture abundantly confirms

286 this anticipation. For instance, Prophecy, if it had so happened, need

287 not have afforded a specimen of development; separate predictions might

288 have been made to accumulate as time went on, prospects might have

289 opened, definite knowledge might have been given, by communications

290 independent of each other, as St. John's Gospel or the Epistles of St.

291 Paul are unconnected with the first three Gospels, though the doctrine

292 of each Apostle is a development of their matter. But the prophetic

293 Revelation is, in matter of fact, not of this nature, but a process of

294 development: the earlier prophecies are pregnant texts out of which the

295 succeeding announcements grow; they are types. It is not that first one

296 truth is told, then another; but the whole truth or large portions of it

297 are told at once, yet only in their rudiments, or in miniature, and they

298 are expanded and finished in their parts, as the course of revelation

299 proceeds.

300 The Seed of the woman was to bruise the serpent's head; the sceptre was

301 not to depart from Judah till Shiloh came, to whom was to be the

302 gathering of the people. He was to be Wonderful, Counsellor, the Prince

303 of Peace. The question of the Ethiopian rises in the reader's mind, "Of

304 whom speaketh the Prophet this?" Every word requires a comment.

305 Accordingly, it is no uncommon theory with unbelievers, that the

306 Messianic idea, as they call it, was gradually developed in the minds of

307 the Jews by a continuous and traditional habit of contemplating it, and

308 grew into its full proportions by a mere human process; and so far seems

309 certain, without trenching on the doctrine of inspiration, that the

310 books of Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus are developments of the writings of

311 the Prophets, expressed or elicited by means of current ideas in the

312 Greek philosophy, and ultimately adopted and ratified by the Apostle in

313 his Epistle to the Hebrews.

314 10.

315 But the whole Bible, not its prophetical portions only, is written on

316 the principle of development. As the Revelation proceeds, it is ever

317 new, yet ever old. St. John, who completes it, declares that he writes

318 no "new commandment unto his brethren," but an old commandment which

319 they "had from the beginning." And then he adds, "A new commandment I

320 write unto you." The same test of development is suggested in our Lord's

321 words on the Mount, as has already been noticed, "Think not that I am

322 come to destroy the Law and the Prophets; I am not come to destroy, but

323 to fulfil." He does not reverse, but perfect, what has gone before. Thus

324 with respect to the evangelical view of the rite of sacrifice, first the

325 rite is enjoined by Moses; next Samuel says, "to obey is better than

326 sacrifice;" then Hosea, "I will have mercy and not sacrifice;" Isaiah,

327 "Incense is an abomination onto me;" then Malachi, describing the times

328 of the Gospel, speaks of the "pure offering" of wheatflour; and our Lord

329 completes the development, when He speaks of worshipping "in spirit and

330 in truth." If there is anything here left to explain, it will be found

331 in the usage of the Christian Church immediately afterwards, which shows

332 that sacrifice was not removed, but truth and spirit added.

333 Nay, the *effata* of our Lord and His Apostles are of a typical

334 structure, parallel to the prophetic announcements above mentioned, and

335 predictions as well as injunctions of doctrine. If then the prophetic

336 sentences have had that development which has really been given them,

337 first by succeeding revelations, and then by the event, it is probable

338 antecedently that those doctrinal, political, ritual, and ethical

339 sentences, which have the same structure, should admit the same

340 expansion. Such are, "This is My Body," or "Thou art Peter, and upon

341 this Rock I will build My Church," or "The meek shall inherit the

342 earth," or "Suffer little children to come unto Me," or "The pure in

343 heart shall see God."

344 11.

345 On this character of our Lord's teaching, the following passage may

346 suitably be quoted from a writer already used. "His recorded words and

347 works when on earth . . . come to us as the declarations of a Lawgiver. In

348 the Old Covenant, Almighty God first of all spoke the Ten Commandments

349 from Mount Sinai, and afterwards wrote them. So our Lord first spoke His

350 own Gospel, both of promise and of precept, on the Mount, and His

351 Evangelists have recorded it. Further, when He delivered it, He spoke by

352 way of parallel to the Ten Commandments. And His style, moreover,

353 corresponds to the authority which He assumes. It is of that solemn,

354 measured, and severe character, which bears on the face of it tokens of

355 its belonging to One who spake as none other man could speak. The

356 Beatitudes, with which His Sermon opens, are an instance of this

357 incommunicable style, which befitted, as far as human words could befit,

358 God Incarnate.

359 "Nor is this style peculiar to the Sermon on the Mount. All through the

360 Gospels it is discernible, distinct from any other part of Scripture,

361 showing itself in solemn declarations, canons, sentences, or sayings,

362 such as legislators propound, and scribes and lawyers comment on. Surely

363 everything our Saviour did and said is characterized by mingled

364 simplicity and mystery. His emblematical actions, His typical miracles,

365 His parables, His replies, His censures, all are evidences of a

366 legislature in germ, afterwards to be developed, a code of divine truth

367 which was ever to be before men's eyes, to be the subject of

368 investigation and interpretation, and the guide in controversy. 'Verily,

369 verily, I say unto you,'—'But, I say unto you,'—are the tokens of a

370 supreme Teacher and Prophet.

371 "And thus the Fathers speak of His teaching. 'His sayings,' observes St.

372 Justin, 'were short and concise; for He was no rhetorician, but His word

373 was the power of God.' And St. Basil, in like manner, 'Every deed and

374 every word of our Saviour Jesus Christ is a canon of piety and virtue.

375 When then thou hearest word or deed of His, do not hear it as by the

376 way, or after a simple and carnal manner, but enter into the depth of

377 His contemplations, become a communicant in truths mystically delivered

378 to thee.'"[67:1]

379 12.

380 Moreover, while it is certain that developments of Revelation proceeded

381 all through the Old Dispensation down to the very end of our Lord's

382 ministry, on the other hand, if we turn our attention to the beginnings

383 of Apostolical teaching after His ascension, we shall find ourselves

384 unable to fix an historical point at which the growth of doctrine

385 ceased, and the rule of faith was once for all settled. Not on the day

386 of Pentecost, for St. Peter had still to learn at Joppa that he was to

387 baptize Cornelius; not at Joppa and Cæsarea, for St. Paul had to write

388 his Epistles; not on the death of the last Apostle, for St. Ignatius had

389 to establish the doctrine of Episcopacy; not then, nor for centuries

390 after, for the Canon of the New Testament was still undetermined. Not in

391 the Creed, which is no collection of definitions, but a summary of

392 certain *credenda*, an incomplete summary, and, like the Lord's Prayer

393 or the Decalogue, a mere sample of divine truths, especially of the more

394 elementary. No one doctrine can be named which starts complete at first,

395 and gains nothing afterwards from the investigations of faith and the

396 attacks of heresy. The Church went forth from the old world in haste, as

397 the Israelites from Egypt "with their dough before it was leavened,

398 their kneading troughs being bound up in their clothes upon their

399 shoulders."

400 13.

401 Further, the political developments contained in the historical parts of

402 Scripture are as striking as the prophetical and the doctrinal. Can any

403 history wear a more human appearance than that of the rise and growth of

404 the chosen people to whom I have just referred? What had been determined

405 in the counsels of the Lord of heaven and earth from the beginning, what

406 was immutable, what was announced to Moses in the burning bush, is

407 afterwards represented as the growth of an idea under successive

408 emergencies. The Divine Voice in the bush had announced the Exodus of

409 the children of Israel from Egypt and their entrance into Canaan; and

410 added, as a token of the certainty of His purpose, "When thou hast

411 brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this

412 mountain." Now this sacrifice or festival, which was but incidental and

413 secondary in the great deliverance, is for a while the ultimate scope of

414 the demands which Moses makes upon Pharaoh. "Thou shalt come, thou and

415 the elders of Israel unto the King of Egypt, and ye shall say unto him,

416 The Lord God of the Hebrews hath met with us, and now let us go, we

417 beseech thee, three days' journey into the wilderness, that we may

418 sacrifice to the Lord our God." It had been added that Pharaoh would

419 first refuse their request, but that after miracles he would let them go

420 altogether, nay with "jewels of silver and gold, and raiment."

421 Accordingly the first request of Moses was, "Let us go, we pray thee,

422 three days' journey into the desert, and sacrifice unto the Lord our

423 God." Before the plague of frogs the warning is repeated, "Let My people

424 go that they may serve Me;" and after it Pharaoh says, "I will let the

425 people go, that they may do sacrifice unto the Lord." It occurs again

426 before the plague of flies; and after it Pharaoh offers to let the

427 Israelites sacrifice in Egypt, which Moses refuses on the ground that

428 they will have to "sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians before

429 their eyes." "We will go three days' journey into the wilderness," he

430 proceeds, "and sacrifice to the Lord our God;" and Pharaoh then concedes

431 their sacrificing in the wilderness, "only," he says, "you shall not go

432 very far away." The demand is repeated separately before the plagues of

433 murrain, hail, and locusts, no mention being yet made of anything beyond

434 a service or sacrifice in the wilderness. On the last of these

435 interviews, Pharaoh asks an explanation, and Moses extends his claim:

436 "We will go with our young and with our old, with our sons and with our

437 daughters, with our flocks and with our herds will we go, for we must

438 hold a feast unto the Lord." That it was an extension seems plain from

439 Pharaoh's reply: "Go now ye that are men, and serve the Lord, for that

440 ye did desire." Upon the plague of darkness Pharaoh concedes the

441 extended demand, excepting the flocks and herds; but Moses reminds him

442 that they were implied, though not expressed in the original wording:

443 "Thou must give us also sacrifices and burnt offerings, that we may

444 sacrifice unto the Lord our God." Even to the last, there was no

445 intimation of their leaving Egypt for good; the issue was left to be

446 wrought out by the Egyptians. "All these thy servants," says Moses,

447 "shall come down unto me, and bow down themselves unto me, saying, Get

448 thee out and all the people that follow thee, and after that I will go

449 out;" and, accordingly, after the judgment on the first-born, they were

450 thrust out at midnight, with their flocks and herds, their kneading

451 troughs and their dough, laden, too, with the spoils of Egypt, as had

452 been fore-ordained, yet apparently by a combination of circumstances, or

453 the complication of a crisis. Yet Moses knew that their departure from

454 Egypt was final, for he took the bones of Joseph with him; and that

455 conviction broke on Pharaoh soon, when he and his asked themselves, "Why

456 have we done this, that we have let Israel go from serving us?" But this

457 progress of events, vague and uncertain as it seemed to be,

458 notwithstanding the miracles which attended it, had been directed by Him

459 who works out gradually what He has determined absolutely; and it ended

460 in the parting of the Red Sea, and the destruction of Pharaoh's host, on

461 his pursuing them.

462 Moreover, from what occurred forty years afterwards, when they were

463 advancing upon the promised land, it would seem that the original grant

464 of territory did not include the country east of Jordan, held in the

465 event by Reuben, Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh; at least they

466 undertook at first to leave Sihon in undisturbed possession of his

467 country, if he would let them pass through it, and only on his refusing

468 his permission did they invade and appropriate it.

469 14.

470 6. It is in point to notice also the structure and style of Scripture, a

471 structure so unsystematic and various, and a style so figurative and

472 indirect, that no one would presume at first sight to say what is in it

473 and what is not. It cannot, as it were, be mapped, or its contents

474 catalogued; but after all our diligence, to the end of our lives and to

475 the end of the Church, it must be an unexplored and unsubdued land, with

476 heights and valleys, forests and streams, on the right and left of our

477 path and close about us, full of concealed wonders and choice treasures.

478 Of no doctrine whatever, which does not actually contradict what has

479 been delivered, can it be peremptorily asserted that it is not in

480 Scripture; of no reader, whatever be his study of it, can it be said

481 that he has mastered every doctrine which it contains. Butler's remarks

482 on this subject were just now referred to. "The more distinct and

483 particular knowledge," he says, "of those things, the study of which the

484 Apostle calls 'going on unto perfection,'" that is, of the more

485 recondite doctrines of the Gospel, "and of the prophetic parts of

486 revelation, like many parts of natural and even civil knowledge, may

487 require very exact thought and careful consideration. The hindrances too

488 of natural and of supernatural light and knowledge have been of the same

489 kind. And as it is owned the whole scheme of Scripture is not yet

490 understood, so, if it ever comes to be understood, before the

491 'restitution of all things,' and without miraculous interpositions, it

492 must be in the same way as natural knowledge is come at, by the

493 continuance and progress of learning and of liberty, and by particular

494 persons attending to, comparing, and pursuing intimations scattered up

495 and down it, which are overlooked and disregarded by the generality of

496 the world. For this is the way in which all improvements are made, by

497 thoughtful men tracing on obscure hints, as it were, dropped us by

498 nature accidentally, or which seem to come into our minds by chance. Nor

499 is it at all incredible that a book, which has been so long in the

500 possession of mankind, should contain many truths as yet undiscovered.

501 For all the same phenomena, and the same faculties of investigation,

502 from which such great discoveries in natural knowledge have been made in

503 the present and last age, were equally in the possession of mankind

504 several thousand years before. And possibly it might be intended that

505 events, as they come to pass, should open and ascertain the meaning of

506 several parts of Scripture."[72:1] Butler of course was not

507 contemplating the case of new articles of faith, or developments

508 imperative on our acceptance, but he surely bears witness to the

509 probability of developments taking place in Christian doctrine

510 considered in themselves, which is the point at present in question.

511 15.

512 It may be added that, in matter of fact, all the definitions or received

513 judgments of the early and medieval Church rest upon definite, even

514 though sometimes obscure sentences of Scripture. Thus Purgatory may

515 appeal to the "saving by fire," and "entering through much tribulation

516 into the kingdom of God;" the communication of the merits of the Saints

517 to our "receiving a prophet's reward" for "receiving a prophet in the

518 name of a prophet," and "a righteous man's reward" for "receiving a

519 righteous man in the name of a righteous man;" the Real Presence to

520 "This is My Body;" Absolution to "Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are

521 remitted;" Extreme Unction to "Anointing him with oil in the Name of the

522 Lord;" Voluntary poverty to "Sell all that thou hast;" obedience to "He

523 was in subjection to His parents;" the honour paid to creatures, animate

524 or inanimate, to *Laudate Dominum in sanctis Ejus*, and *Adorate

525 scabellum pedum Ejus*; and so of the rest.

526 16.

527 7. Lastly, while Scripture nowhere recognizes itself or asserts the

528 inspiration of those passages which are most essential, it distinctly

529 anticipates the development of Christianity, both as a polity and as a

530 doctrine. In one of our Lord's parables "the Kingdom of Heaven" is even

531 compared to "a grain of mustard-seed, which a man took and hid in his

532 field; which indeed is the least of all seeds, but when it is grown it

533 is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree," and, as St. Mark

534 words it, "shooteth out great branches, so that the birds of the air

535 come and lodge in the branches thereof." And again, in the same chapter

536 of St. Mark, "So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed

537 into the ground, and should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed

538 should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how; for the earth bringeth

539 forth fruit of herself." Here an internal element of life, whether

540 principle or doctrine, is spoken of rather than any mere external

541 manifestation; and it is observable that the spontaneous, as well as the

542 gradual, character of the growth is intimated. This description of the

543 process corresponds to what has been above observed respecting

544 development, viz. that it is not an effect of wishing and resolving, or

545 of forced enthusiasm, or of any mechanism of reasoning, or of any mere

546 subtlety of intellect; but comes of its own innate power of expansion

547 within the mind in its season, though with the use of reflection and

548 argument and original thought, more or less as it may happen, with a

549 dependence on the ethical growth of the mind itself, and with a reflex

550 influence upon it. Again, the Parable of the Leaven describes the

551 development of doctrine in another respect, in its active, engrossing,

552 and interpenetrating power.

553 17.

554 From the necessity, then, of the case, from the history of all sects and

555 parties in religion, and from the analogy and example of Scripture, we

556 may fairly conclude that Christian doctrine admits of formal,

557 legitimate, and true developments, that is, of developments contemplated

558 by its Divine Author.

559 The general analogy of the world, physical and moral, confirms this

560 conclusion, as we are reminded by the great authority who has already

561 been quoted in the course of this Section. "The whole natural world and

562 government of it," says Butler, "is a scheme or system; not a fixed, but

563 a progressive one; a scheme in which the operation of various means

564 takes up a great length of time before the ends they tend to can be

565 attained. The change of seasons, the ripening of the fruits of the

566 earth, the very history of a flower is an instance of this; and so is

567 human life. Thus vegetable bodies, and those of animals, though possibly

568 formed at once, yet grow up by degrees to a mature state. And thus

569 rational agents, who animate these latter bodies, are naturally directed

570 to form each his own manners and character by the gradual gaining of

571 knowledge and experience, and by a long course of action. Our existence

572 is not only successive, as it must be of necessity, but one state of our

573 life and being is appointed by God to be a preparation for another; and

574 that to be the means of attaining to another succeeding one: infancy to

575 childhood, childhood to youth, youth to mature age. Men are impatient,

576 and for precipitating things; but the Author of Nature appears

577 deliberate throughout His operations, accomplishing His natural ends by

578 slow successive steps. And there is a plan of things beforehand laid

579 out, which, from the nature of it, requires various systems of means, as

580 well as length of time, in order to the carrying on its several parts

581 into execution. Thus, in the daily course of natural providence, God

582 operates in the very same manner as in the dispensation of Christianity,

583 making one thing subservient to another; this, to somewhat farther; and

584 so on, through a progressive series of means, which extend, both

585 backward and forward, beyond our utmost view. Of this manner of

586 operation, everything we see in the course of nature is as much an

587 instance as any part of the Christian dispensation."[75:1]

588 #### SECTION II.

589 ##### AN INFALLIBLE DEVELOPING AUTHORITY TO BE EXPECTED.

590 It has now been made probable that developments of Christianity were but

591 natural, as time went on, and were to be expected; and that these

592 natural and true developments, as being natural and true, were of course

593 contemplated and taken into account by its Author, who in designing the

594 work designed its legitimate results. These, whatever they turn out to

595 be, may be called absolutely "the developments" of Christianity. That,

596 beyond reasonable doubt, there are such is surely a great step gained in

597 the inquiry; it is a momentous fact. The next question is, *What* are

598 they? and to a theologian, who could take a general view, and also

599 possessed an intimate and minute knowledge, of its history, they would

600 doubtless on the whole be easily distinguishable by their own

601 characters, and require no foreign aid to point them out, no external

602 authority to ratify them. But it is difficult to say who is exactly in

603 this position. Considering that Christians, from the nature of the case,

604 live under the bias of the doctrines, and in the very midst of the

605 facts, and during the process of the controversies, which are to be the

606 subject of criticism, since they are exposed to the prejudices of birth,

607 education, place, personal attachment, engagements, and party, it can

608 hardly be maintained that in matter of fact a true development carries

609 with it always its own certainty even to the learned, or that history,

610 past or present, is secure from the possibility of a variety of

611 interpretations.

612 2.

613 I have already spoken on this subject, and from a very different point

614 of view from that which I am taking at present:—

615 "Prophets or Doctors are the interpreters of the revelation; they unfold

616 and define its mysteries, they illuminate its documents, they harmonize

617 its contents, they apply its promises. Their teaching is a vast system,

618 not to be comprised in a few sentences, not to be embodied in one code

619 or treatise, but consisting of a certain body of Truth, pervading the

620 Church like an atmosphere, irregular in its shape from its very

621 profusion and exuberance; at times separable only in idea from Episcopal

622 Tradition, yet at times melting away into legend and fable; partly

623 written, partly unwritten, partly the interpretation, partly the

624 supplement of Scripture, partly preserved in intellectual expressions,

625 partly latent in the spirit and temper of Christians; poured to and fro

626 in closets and upon the housetops, in liturgies, in controversial works,

627 in obscure fragments, in sermons, in popular prejudices, in local

628 customs. This I call Prophetical Tradition, existing primarily in the

629 bosom of the Church itself, and recorded in such measure as Providence

630 has determined in the writings of eminent men. Keep that which is

631 committed to thy charge, is St. Paul's injunction to Timothy; and for

632 this reason, because from its vastness and indefiniteness it is

633 especially exposed to corruption, if the Church fails in vigilance. This

634 is that body of teaching which is offered to all Christians even at the

635 present day, though in various forms and measures of truth, in different

636 parts of Christendom, partly being a comment, partly an addition upon

637 the articles of the Creed."[77:1]

638 If this be true, certainly some rule is necessary for arranging and

639 authenticating these various expressions and results of Christian

640 doctrine. No one will maintain that all points of belief are of equal

641 importance. "There are what may be called minor points, which we may

642 hold to be true without imposing them as necessary;" "there are greater

643 truths and lesser truths, points which it is necessary, and points which

644 it is pious to believe."[77:2] The simple question is, How are we to

645 discriminate the greater from the less, the true from the false.

646 3.

647 This need of an authoritative sanction is increased by considering,

648 after M. Guizot's suggestion, that Christianity, though represented in

649 prophecy as a kingdom, came into the world as an idea rather than an

650 institution, and has had to wrap itself in clothing and fit itself with

651 armour of its own providing, and to form the instruments and methods of

652 its prosperity and warfare. If the developments, which have above been

653 called *moral*, are to take place to any great extent, and without them

654 it is difficult to see how Christianity can exist at all, if only its

655 relations towards civil government have to be ascertained, or the

656 qualifications for the profession of it have to be defined, surely an

657 authority is necessary to impart decision to what is vague, and

658 confidence to what is empirical, to ratify the successive steps of so

659 elaborate a process, and to secure the validity of inferences which are

660 to be made the premisses of more remote investigations.

661 Tests, it is true, for ascertaining the correctness of developments in

662 general may be drawn out, as I shall show in the sequel; but they are

663 insufficient for the guidance of individuals in the case of so large and

664 complicated a problem as Christianity, though they may aid our inquiries

665 and support our conclusions in particular points. They are of a

666 scientific and controversial, not of a practical character, and are

667 instruments rather than warrants of right decisions. Moreover, they

668 rather serve as answers to objections brought against the actual

669 decisions of authority, than are proofs of the correctness of those

670 decisions. While, then, on the one hand, it is probable that some means

671 will be granted for ascertaining the legitimate and true developments of

672 Revelation, it appears, on the other, that these means must of necessity

673 be external to the developments themselves.

674 4.

675 Reasons shall be given in this Section for concluding that, in

676 proportion to the probability of true developments of doctrine and

677 practice in the Divine Scheme, so is the probability also of the

678 appointment in that scheme of an external authority to decide upon them,

679 thereby separating them from the mass of mere human speculation,

680 extravagance, corruption, and error, in and out of which they grow. This

681 is the doctrine of the infallibility of the Church; for by infallibility

682 I suppose is meant the power of deciding whether this, that, and a

683 third, and any number of theological or ethical statements are true.

684 5.

685 1. Let the state of the case be carefully considered. If the Christian

686 doctrine, as originally taught, admits of true and important

687 developments, as was argued in the foregoing Section, this is a strong

688 antecedent argument in favour of a provision in the Dispensation for

689 putting a seal of authority upon those developments. The probability of

690 their being known to be true varies with that of their truth. The two

691 ideas indeed are quite distinct, I grant, of revealing and of

692 guaranteeing a truth, and they are often distinct in fact. There are

693 various revelations all over the earth which do not carry with them the

694 evidence of their divinity. Such are the inward suggestions and secret

695 illuminations granted to so many individuals; such are the traditionary

696 doctrines which are found among the heathen, that "vague and unconnected

697 family of religious truths, originally from God, but sojourning, without

698 the sanction of miracle or a definite home, as pilgrims up and down the

699 world, and discernible and separable from the corrupt legends with which

700 they are mixed, by the spiritual mind alone."[79:1] There is nothing

701 impossible in the notion of a revelation occurring without evidences

702 that it is a revelation; just as human sciences are a divine gift, yet

703 are reached by our ordinary powers and have no claim on our faith. But

704 Christianity is not of this nature: it is a revelation which comes to us

705 as a revelation, as a whole, objectively, and with a profession of

706 infallibility; and the only question to be determined relates to the

707 matter of the revelation. If then there are certain great truths, or

708 duties, or observances, naturally and legitimately resulting from the

709 doctrines originally professed, it is but reasonable to include these

710 true results in the idea of the revelation itself, to consider them

711 parts of it, and if the revelation be not only true, but guaranteed as

712 true, to anticipate that they too will come under the privilege of that

713 guarantee. Christianity, unlike other revelations of God's will, except

714 the Jewish, of which it is a continuation, is an objective religion, or

715 a revelation with credentials; it is natural, I say, to view it wholly

716 as such, and not partly *sui generis*, partly like others. Such as it

717 begins, such let it be considered to continue; granting that certain

718 large developments of it are true, they must surely be accredited as

719 true.

720 6.

721 2. An objection, however, is often made to the doctrine of infallibility

722 *in limine*, which is too important not to be taken into consideration.

723 It is urged that, as all religious knowledge rests on moral evidence,

724 not on demonstration, our belief in the Church's infallibility must be

725 of this character; but what can be more absurd than a probable

726 infallibility, or a certainty resting on doubt?—I believe, because I am

727 sure; and I am sure, because I suppose. Granting then that the gift of

728 infallibility be adapted, when believed, to unite all intellects in one

729 common confession, the fact that it is given is as difficult of proof as

730 the developments which it is to prove, and nugatory therefore, and in

731 consequence improbable in a Divine Scheme. The advocates of Rome, it has

732 been urged, "insist on the necessity of an infallible guide in religious

733 matters, as an argument that such a guide has really been accorded. Now

734 it is obvious to inquire how individuals are to know with certainty that

735 Rome *is* infallible . . . how any ground can be such as to bring home

736 to the mind infallibly that she is infallible; what conceivable proof

737 amounts to more than a probability of the fact; and what advantage is an

738 infallible guide, if those who are to be guided have, after all, no

739 more than an opinion, as the Romanists call it, that she is

740 infallible?"[81:1]

741 7.

742 This argument, however, except when used, as is intended in this

743 passage, against such persons as would remove all imperfection in the

744 proof of Religion, is certainly a fallacious one. For since, as all

745 allow, the Apostles were infallible, it tells against their

746 infallibility, or the infallibility of Scripture, as truly as against

747 the infallibility of the Church; for no one will say that the Apostles

748 were made infallible for nothing, yet we are only morally certain that

749 they were infallible. Further, if we have but probable grounds for the

750 Church's infallibility, we have but the like for the impossibility of

751 certain things, the necessity of others, the truth, the certainty of

752 others; and therefore the words *infallibility*, *necessity*, *truth*,

753 and *certainty* ought all of them to be banished from the language. But

754 why is it more inconsistent to speak of an uncertain infallibility than

755 of a doubtful truth or a contingent necessity, phrases which present

756 ideas clear and undeniable? In sooth we are playing with words when we

757 use arguments of this sort. When we say that a person is infallible, we

758 mean no more than that what he says is always true, always to be

759 believed, always to be done. The term is resolvable into these phrases

760 as its equivalents; either then the phrases are inadmissible, or the

761 idea of infallibility must be allowed. A probable infallibility is a

762 probable gift of never erring; a reception of the doctrine of a probable

763 infallibility is faith and obedience towards a person founded on the

764 probability of his never erring in his declarations or commands. What is

765 inconsistent in this idea? Whatever then be the particular means of

766 determining infallibility, the abstract objection may be put

767 aside.[81:2]

768 8.

769 3. Again, it is sometimes argued that such a dispensation would destroy

770 our probation, as dissipating doubt, precluding the exercise of faith,

771 and obliging us to obey whether we wish it or no; and it is urged that a

772 Divine Voice spoke in the first age, and difficulty and darkness rest

773 upon all subsequent ones; as if infallibility and personal judgment were

774 incompatible; but this is to confuse the subject. We must distinguish

775 between a revelation and a reception of it, not between its earlier and

776 later stages. A revelation, in itself divine, and guaranteed as such,

777 may from first to last be received, doubted, argued against, perverted,

778 rejected, by individuals according to the state of mind of each.

779 Ignorance, misapprehension, unbelief, and other causes, do not at once

780 cease to operate because the revelation is in itself true and in its

781 proofs irrefragable. We have then no warrant at all for saying that an

782 accredited revelation will exclude the existence of doubts and

783 difficulties on the part of those whom it addresses, or dispense with

784 anxious diligence on their part, though it may in its own nature tend

785 to do so. Infallibility does not interfere with moral probation; the two

786 notions are absolutely distinct. It is no objection then to the idea of

787 a peremptory authority, such as I am supposing, that it lessens the task

788 of personal inquiry, unless it be an objection to the authority of

789 Revelation altogether. A Church, or a Council, or a Pope, or a Consent

790 of Doctors, or a Consent of Christendom, limits the inquiries of the

791 individual in no other way than Scripture limits them: it does limit

792 them; but, while it limits their range, it preserves intact their

793 probationary character; we are tried as really, though not on so large a

794 field. To suppose that the doctrine of a permanent authority in matters

795 of faith interferes with our free-will and responsibility is, as before,

796 to forget that there were infallible teachers in the first age, and

797 heretics and schismatics in the ages subsequent. There may have been at

798 once a supreme authority from first to last, and a moral judgment from

799 first to last. Moreover, those who maintain that Christian truth must be

800 gained solely by personal efforts are bound to show that methods,

801 ethical and intellectual, are granted to individuals sufficient for

802 gaining it; else the mode of probation they advocate is less, not more,

803 perfect than that which proceeds upon external authority. On the whole,

804 then, no argument against continuing the principle of objectiveness into

805 the developments of Revelation arises out of the conditions of our moral

806 responsibility.

807 9.

808 4. Perhaps it will be urged that the Analogy of Nature is against our

809 anticipating the continuance of an external authority which has once

810 been given; because in the words of the profound thinker who has already

811 been cited, "We are wholly ignorant what degree of new knowledge it were

812 to be expected God would give mankind by revelation, upon supposition

813 of His affording one; or how far, and in what way, He would interpose

814 miraculously to qualify them to whom He should originally make the

815 revelation for communicating the knowledge given by it, and to secure

816 their doing it to the age in which they should live, and to secure its

817 being transmitted to posterity;" and because "we are not in any sort

818 able to judge whether it were to be expected that the revelation should

819 have been committed to writing, or left to be handed down, and

820 consequently corrupted, by verbal tradition, and at length sunk under

821 it."[84:1] But this reasoning does not apply here, as has already been

822 observed; it contemplates only the abstract hypothesis of a revelation,

823 not the fact of an existing revelation of a particular kind, which may

824 of course in various ways modify our state of knowledge, by settling

825 some of those very points which, before it was given, we had no means of

826 deciding. Nor can it, as I think, be fairly denied that the argument

827 from analogy in one point of view tells against anticipating a

828 revelation at all, for an innovation upon the physical order of the

829 world is by the very force of the terms inconsistent with its ordinary

830 course. We cannot then regulate our antecedent view of the character of

831 a revelation by a test which, applied simply, overthrows the very notion

832 of a revelation altogether. Any how, Analogy is in some sort violated by

833 the fact of a revelation, and the question before us only relates to the

834 extent of that violation.

835 10.

836 I will hazard a distinction here between the facts of revelation and its

837 principles:—the argument from Analogy is more concerned with its

838 principles than with its facts. The revealed facts are special and

839 singular, not analogous, from the nature of the case: but it is

840 otherwise with the revealed principles; these are common to all the

841 works of God: and if the Author of Nature be the Author of Grace, it may

842 be expected that, while the two systems of facts are distinct and

843 independent, the principles displayed in them will be the same, and form

844 a connecting link between them. In this identity of principle lies the

845 Analogy of Natural and Revealed Religion, in Butler's sense of the word.

846 The doctrine of the Incarnation is a fact, and cannot be paralleled by

847 anything in nature; the doctrine of Mediation is a principle, and is

848 abundantly exemplified in its provisions. Miracles are facts;

849 inspiration is a fact; divine teaching once for all, and a continual

850 teaching, are each a fact; probation by means of intellectual

851 difficulties is a principle both in nature and in grace, and may be

852 carried on in the system of grace either by a standing ordinance of

853 teaching or by one definite act of teaching, and that with an analogy

854 equally perfect in either case to the order of nature; nor can we

855 succeed in arguing from the analogy of that order against a standing

856 guardianship of revelation without arguing also against its original

857 bestowal. Supposing the order of nature once broken by the introduction

858 of a revelation, the continuance of that revelation is but a question of

859 degree; and the circumstance that a work has begun makes it more

860 probable than not that it will proceed. We have no reason to suppose

861 that there is so great a distinction of dispensation between ourselves

862 and the first generation of Christians, as that they had a living

863 infallible guidance, and we have not.

864 The case then stands thus:—Revelation has introduced a new law of

865 divine governance over and above those laws which appear in the natural

866 course of the world; and in consequence we are able to argue for the

867 existence of a standing authority in matters of faith on the analogy of

868 Nature, and from the fact of Christianity. Preservation is involved in

869 the idea of creation. As the Creator rested on the seventh day from the

870 work which He had made, yet He "worketh hitherto;" so He gave the Creed

871 once for all in the beginning, yet blesses its growth still, and

872 provides for its increase. His word "shall not return unto Him void, but

873 accomplish" His pleasure. As creation argues continual governance, so

874 are Apostles harbingers of Popes.

875 11.

876 5. Moreover, it must be borne in mind that, as the essence of all

877 religion is authority and obedience, so the distinction between natural

878 religion and revealed lies in this, that the one has a subjective

879 authority, and the other an objective. Revelation consists in the

880 manifestation of the Invisible Divine Power, or in the substitution of

881 the voice of a Lawgiver for the voice of conscience. The supremacy of

882 conscience is the essence of natural religion; the supremacy of Apostle,

883 or Pope, or Church, or Bishop, is the essence of revealed; and when such

884 external authority is taken away, the mind falls back again of necessity

885 upon that inward guide which it possessed even before Revelation was

886 vouchsafed. Thus, what conscience is in the system of nature, such is

887 the voice of Scripture, or of the Church, or of the Holy See, as we may

888 determine it, in the system of Revelation. It may be objected, indeed,

889 that conscience is not infallible; it is true, but still it is ever to

890 be obeyed. And this is just the prerogative which controversialists

891 assign to the See of St. Peter; it is not in all cases infallible, it

892 may err beyond its special province, but it has in all cases a claim on

893 our obedience. "All Catholics and heretics," says Bellarmine, "agree in

894 two things: first, that it is possible for the Pope, even as pope, and

895 with his own assembly of councillors, or with General Council, to err in

896 particular controversies of fact, which chiefly depend on human

897 information and testimony; secondly, that it is possible for him to err

898 as a private Doctor, even in universal questions of right, whether of

899 faith or of morals, and that from ignorance, as sometimes happens to

900 other doctors. Next, all Catholics agree in other two points, not,

901 however, with heretics, but solely with each other: first, that the Pope

902 with General Council cannot err, either in framing decrees of faith or

903 general precepts of morality; secondly, that the Pope when determining

904 anything in a doubtful matter, whether by himself or with his own

905 particular Council, *whether it is possible for him to err or not, is to

906 be obeyed* by all the faithful."[87:1] And as obedience to conscience,

907 even supposing conscience ill-informed, tends to the improvement of our

908 moral nature, and ultimately of our knowledge, so obedience to our

909 ecclesiastical superior may subserve our growth in illumination and

910 sanctity, even though he should command what is extreme or inexpedient,

911 or teach what is external to his legitimate province.

912 12.

913 6. The common sense of mankind does but support a conclusion thus forced

914 upon us by analogical considerations. It feels that the very idea of

915 revelation implies a present informant and guide, and that an infallible

916 one; not a mere abstract declaration of Truths unknown before to man, or

917 a record of history, or the result of an antiquarian research, but a

918 message and a lesson speaking to this man and that. This is shown by the

919 popular notion which has prevailed among us since the Reformation, that

920 the Bible itself is such a guide; and which succeeded in overthrowing

921 the supremacy of Church and Pope, for the very reason that it was a

922 rival authority, not resisting merely, but supplanting it. In

923 proportion, then, as we find, in matter of fact, that the inspired

924 Volume is not adapted or intended to subserve that purpose, are we

925 forced to revert to that living and present Guide, who, at the era of

926 our rejection of her, had been so long recognized as the dispenser of

927 Scripture, according to times and circumstances, and the arbiter of all

928 true doctrine and holy practice to her children. We feel a need, and she

929 alone of all things under heaven supplies it. We are told that God has

930 spoken. Where? In a book? We have tried it and it disappoints; it

931 disappoints us, that most holy and blessed gift, not from fault of its

932 own, but because it is used for a purpose for which it was not given.

933 The Ethiopian's reply, when St. Philip asked him if he understood what

934 he was reading, is the voice of nature: "How can I, unless some man

935 shall guide me?" The Church undertakes that office; she does what none

936 else can do, and this is the secret of her power. "The human mind," it

937 has been said, "wishes to be rid of doubt in religion; and a teacher who

938 claims infallibility is readily believed on his simple word. We see this

939 constantly exemplified in the case of individual pretenders among

940 ourselves. In Romanism the Church pretends to it; she rids herself of

941 competitors by forestalling them. And probably, in the eyes of her

942 children, this is not the least persuasive argument for her

943 infallibility, that she alone of all Churches dares claim it, as if a

944 secret instinct and involuntary misgivings restrained those rival

945 communions which go so far towards affecting it."[88:1] These sentences,

946 whatever be the errors of their wording, surely express a great truth.

947 The most obvious answer, then, to the question, why we yield to the

948 authority of the Church in the questions and developments of faith, is,

949 that some authority there must be if there is a revelation given, and

950 other authority there is none but she. A revelation is not given, if

951 there be no authority to decide what it is that is given. In the words

952 of St. Peter to her Divine Master and Lord, "To whom shall we go?" Nor

953 must it be forgotten in confirmation, that Scripture expressly calls the

954 Church "the pillar and ground of the Truth," and promises her as by

955 covenant that "the Spirit of the Lord that is upon her, and His words

956 which He has put in her mouth shall not depart out of her mouth, nor out

957 of the mouth of her seed, nor out of the mouth of her seed's seed, from

958 henceforth and for ever."[89:1]

959 13.

960 7. And if the very claim to infallible arbitration in religious disputes

961 is of so weighty importance and interest in all ages of the world, much

962 more is it welcome at a time like the present, when the human intellect

963 is so busy, and thought so fertile, and opinion so manifold. The

964 absolute need of a spiritual supremacy is at present the strongest of

965 arguments in favour of the fact of its supply. Surely, either an

966 objective revelation has not been given, or it has been provided with

967 means for impressing its objectiveness on the world. If Christianity be

968 a social religion, as it certainly is, and if it be based on certain

969 ideas acknowledged as divine, or a creed, (which shall here be assumed,)

970 and if these ideas have various aspects, and make distinct impressions

971 on different minds, and issue in consequence in a multiplicity of

972 developments, true, or false, or mixed, as has been shown, what power

973 will suffice to meet and to do justice to these conflicting conditions,

974 but a supreme authority ruling and reconciling individual judgments by a

975 divine right and a recognized wisdom? In barbarous times the will is

976 reached through the senses; but in an age in which reason, as it is

977 called, is the standard of truth and right, it is abundantly evident to

978 any one, who mixes ever so little with the world, that, if things are

979 left to themselves, every individual will have his own view of them, and

980 take his own course; that two or three will agree to-day to part company

981 to-morrow; that Scripture will be read in contrary ways, and history,

982 according to the apologue, will have to different comers its silver

983 shield and its golden; that philosophy, taste, prejudice, passion,

984 party, caprice, will find no common measure, unless there be some

985 supreme power to control the mind and to compel agreement.

986 There can be no combination on the basis of truth without an organ of

987 truth. As cultivation brings out the colours of flowers, and

988 domestication changes the character of animals, so does education of

989 necessity develope differences of opinion; and while it is impossible to

990 lay down first principles in which all will unite, it is utterly

991 unreasonable to expect that this man should yield to that, or all to

992 one. I do not say there are no eternal truths, such as the poet

993 proclaims,[90:1] which all acknowledge in private, but that there are

994 none sufficiently commanding to be the basis of public union and action.

995 The only general persuasive in matters of conduct is authority; that is,

996 (when truth is in question,) a judgment which we feel to be superior to

997 our own. If Christianity is both social and dogmatic, and intended for

998 all ages, it must humanly speaking have an infallible expounder. Else

999 you will secure unity of form at the loss of unity of doctrine, or unity

1000 of doctrine at the loss of unity of form; you will have to choose

1001 between a comprehension of opinions and a resolution into parties,

1002 between latitudinarian and sectarian error. You may be tolerant or

1003 intolerant of contrarieties of thought, but contrarieties you will have.

1004 By the Church of England a hollow uniformity is preferred to an

1005 infallible chair; and by the sects of England, an interminable

1006 division. Germany and Geneva began with persecution, and have ended in

1007 scepticism. The doctrine of infallibility is a less violent hypothesis

1008 than this sacrifice either of faith or of charity. It secures the

1009 object, while it gives definiteness and force to the matter, of the

1010 Revelation.

1011 14.

1012 8. I have called the doctrine of Infallibility an hypothesis: let it be

1013 so considered for the sake of argument, that is, let it be considered to

1014 be a mere position, supported by no direct evidence, but required by the

1015 facts of the case, and reconciling them with each other. That hypothesis

1016 is indeed, in matter of fact, maintained and acted on in the largest

1017 portion of Christendom, and from time immemorial; but let this

1018 coincidence be accounted for by the need. Moreover, it is not a naked or

1019 isolated fact, but the animating principle of a large scheme of doctrine

1020 which the need itself could not simply create; but again, let this

1021 system be merely called its development. Yet even as an hypothesis,

1022 which has been held by one out of various communions, it may not be

1023 lightly put aside. Some hypothesis, this or that, all parties, all

1024 controversialists, all historians must adopt, if they would treat of

1025 Christianity at all. Gieseler's "Text Book" bears the profession of

1026 being a dry analysis of Christian history; yet on inspection it will be

1027 found to be written on a positive and definite theory, and to bend facts

1028 to meet it. An unbeliever, as Gibbon, assumes one hypothesis, and an

1029 Ultra-montane, as Baronius, adopts another. The School of Hurd and

1030 Newton hold, as the only true view of history, that Christianity slept

1031 for centuries upon centuries, except among those whom historians call

1032 heretics. Others speak as if the oath of supremacy or the *congé

1033 d'élire* could be made the measure of St. Ambrose, and they fit the

1034 Thirty-nine Articles on the fervid Tertullian. The question is, which

1035 of all these theories is the simplest, the most natural, the most

1036 persuasive. Certainly the notion of development under infallible

1037 authority is not a less grave, a less winning hypothesis, than the

1038 chance and coincidence of events, or the Oriental Philosophy, or the

1039 working of Antichrist, to account for the rise of Christianity and the

1040 formation of its theology.

1041 #### SECTION III.

1042 ##### THE EXISTING DEVELOPMENTS OF DOCTRINE THE PROBABLE

1043 FULFILMENT OF THAT EXPECTATION.

1044 I have been arguing, in respect to the revealed doctrine, given to us

1045 from above in Christianity, first, that, in consequence of its

1046 intellectual character, and as passing through the minds of so many

1047 generations of men, and as applied by them to so many purposes, and as

1048 investigated so curiously as to its capabilities, implications, and

1049 bearings, it could not but grow or develope, as time went on, into a

1050 large theological system;—next, that, if development must be, then,

1051 whereas Revelation is a heavenly gift, He who gave it virtually has not

1052 given it, unless He has also secured it from perversion and corruption,

1053 in all such development as comes upon it by the necessity of its nature,

1054 or, in other words, that that intellectual action through successive

1055 generations, which is the organ of development, must, so far forth as it

1056 can claim to have been put in charge of the Revelation, be in its

1057 determinations infallible.

1058 Passing from these two points, I come next to the question whether in

1059 the history of Christianity there is any fulfilment of such anticipation

1060 as I have insisted on, whether in matter-of-fact doctrines, rites, and

1061 usages have grown up round the Apostolic Creed and have interpenetrated

1062 its Articles, claiming to be part of Christianity and looking like those

1063 additions which we are in search of. The answer is, that such additions

1064 there are, and that they are found just where they might be expected, in

1065 the authoritative seats and homes of old tradition, the Latin and Greek

1066 Churches. Let me enlarge on this point.

1067 2.

1068 I observe, then, that, if the idea of Christianity, as originally given

1069 to us from heaven, cannot but contain much which will be only partially

1070 recognized by us as included in it and only held by us unconsciously;

1071 and if again, Christianity being from heaven, all that is necessarily

1072 involved in it, and is evolved from it, is from heaven, and if, on the

1073 other hand, large accretions actually do exist, professing to be its

1074 true and legitimate results, our first impression naturally is, that

1075 these must be the very developments which they profess to be. Moreover,

1076 the very scale on which they have been made, their high antiquity yet

1077 present promise, their gradual formation yet precision, their harmonious

1078 order, dispose the imagination most forcibly towards the belief that a

1079 teaching so consistent with itself, so well balanced, so young and so

1080 old, not obsolete after so many centuries, but vigorous and progressive

1081 still, is the very development contemplated in the Divine Scheme. These

1082 doctrines are members of one family, and suggestive, or correlative, or

1083 confirmatory, or illustrative of each other. One furnishes evidence to

1084 another, and all to each of them; if this is proved, that becomes

1085 probable; if this and that are both probable, but for different reasons,

1086 each adds to the other its own probability. The Incarnation is the

1087 antecedent of the doctrine of Mediation, and the archetype both of the

1088 Sacramental principle and of the merits of Saints. From the doctrine of

1089 Mediation follow the Atonement, the Mass, the merits of Martyrs and

1090 Saints, their invocation and *cultus*. From the Sacramental principle

1091 come the Sacraments properly so called; the unity of the Church, and the

1092 Holy See as its type and centre; the authority of Councils; the sanctity

1093 of rites; the veneration of holy places, shrines, images, vessels,

1094 furniture, and vestments. Of the Sacraments, Baptism is developed into

1095 Confirmation on the one hand; into Penance, Purgatory, and Indulgences

1096 on the other; and the Eucharist into the Real Presence, adoration of the

1097 Host, Resurrection of the body, and the virtue of relics. Again, the

1098 doctrine of the Sacraments leads to the doctrine of Justification;

1099 Justification to that of Original Sin; Original Sin to the merit of

1100 Celibacy. Nor do these separate developments stand independent of each

1101 other, but by cross relations they are connected, and grow together

1102 while they grow from one. The Mass and Real Presence are parts of one;

1103 the veneration of Saints and their relics are parts of one; their

1104 intercessory power and the Purgatorial State, and again the Mass and

1105 that State are correlative; Celibacy is the characteristic mark of

1106 Monachism and of the Priesthood. You must accept the whole or reject the

1107 whole; attenuation does but enfeeble, and amputation mutilate. It is

1108 trifling to receive all but something which is as integral as any other

1109 portion; and, on the other hand, it is a solemn thing to accept any

1110 part, for, before you know where you are, you may be carried on by a

1111 stern logical necessity to accept the whole.

1112 3.

1113 Next, we have to consider that from first to last other developments

1114 there are none, except those which have possession of Christendom; none,

1115 that is, of prominence and permanence sufficient to deserve the name. In

1116 early times the heretical doctrines were confessedly barren and

1117 short-lived, and could not stand their ground against Catholicism. As to

1118 the medieval period I am not aware that the Greeks present more than a

1119 negative opposition to the Latins. And now in like manner the Tridentine

1120 Creed is met by no rival developments; there is no antagonist system.

1121 Criticisms, objections, protests, there are in plenty, but little of

1122 positive teaching anywhere; seldom an attempt on the part of any

1123 opposing school to master its own doctrines, to investigate their sense

1124 and bearing, to determine their relation to the decrees of Trent and

1125 their distance from them. And when at any time this attempt is by chance

1126 in any measure made, then an incurable contrariety does but come to view

1127 between portions of the theology thus developed, and a war of

1128 principles; an impossibility moreover of reconciling that theology with

1129 the general drift of the formularies in which its elements occur, and a

1130 consequent appearance of unfairness and sophistry in adventurous persons

1131 who aim at forcing them into consistency;[95:1] and, further, a

1132 prevalent understanding of the truth of this representation, authorities

1133 keeping silence, eschewing a hopeless enterprise and discouraging it in

1134 others, and the people plainly intimating that they think both doctrine

1135 and usage, antiquity and development, of very little matter at all; and,

1136 lastly, the evident despair of even the better sort of men, who, in

1137 consequence, when they set great schemes on foot, as for the conversion

1138 of the heathen world, are afraid to agitate the question of the

1139 doctrines to which it is to be converted, lest through the opened door

1140 they should lose what they have, instead of gaining what they have not.

1141 To the weight of recommendation which this contrast throws upon the

1142 developments commonly called Catholic, must be added the argument which

1143 arises from the coincidence of their consistency and permanence, with

1144 their claim of an infallible sanction,—a claim, the existence of which,

1145 in some quarter or other of the Divine Dispensation, is, as we have

1146 already seen, antecedently probable. All these things being considered,

1147 I think few persons will deny the very strong presumption which exists,

1148 that, if there must be and are in fact developments in Christianity, the

1149 doctrines propounded by successive Popes and Councils, through so many

1150 ages, are they.

1151 4.

1152 A further presumption in behalf of these doctrines arises from the

1153 general opinion of the world about them. Christianity being one, all its

1154 doctrines are necessarily developments of one, and, if so, are of

1155 necessity consistent with each other, or form a whole. Now the world

1156 fully enters into this view of those well-known developments which claim

1157 the name of Catholic. It allows them that title, it considers them to

1158 belong to one family, and refers them to one theological system. It is

1159 scarcely necessary to set about proving what is urged by their opponents

1160 even more strenuously than by their champions. Their opponents avow that

1161 they protest, not against this doctrine or that, but against one and

1162 all; and they seem struck with wonder and perplexity, not to say with

1163 awe, at a consistency which they feel to be superhuman, though they

1164 would not allow it to be divine. The system is confessed on all hands to

1165 bear a character of integrity and indivisibility upon it, both at first

1166 view and on inspection. Hence such sayings as the "Tota jacet Babylon"

1167 of the distich. Luther did but a part of the work, Calvin another

1168 portion, Socinus finished it. To take up with Luther, and to reject

1169 Calvin and Socinus, would be, according to that epigram, like living in

1170 a house without a roof to it. This, I say, is no private judgment of

1171 this man or that, but the common opinion and experience of all

1172 countries. The two great divisions of religion feel it, Roman Catholic

1173 and Protestant, between whom the controversy lies; sceptics and

1174 liberals, who are spectators of the conflict, feel it; philosophers feel

1175 it. A school of divines there is, I grant, dear to memory, who have not

1176 felt it; and their exception will have its weight,—till we reflect that

1177 the particular theology which they advocate has not the prescription of

1178 success, never has been realized in fact, or, if realized for a moment,

1179 had no stay; moreover, that, when it has been enacted by human

1180 authority, it has scarcely travelled beyond the paper on which it was

1181 printed, or out of the legal forms in which it was embodied. But,

1182 putting the weight of these revered names at the highest, they do not

1183 constitute more than an exception to the general rule, such as is found

1184 in every subject that comes into discussion.

1185 5.

1186 And this general testimony to the oneness of Catholicism extends to its

1187 past teaching relatively to its present, as well as to the portions of

1188 its present teaching one with another. No one doubts, with such

1189 exception as has just been allowed, that the Roman Catholic communion of

1190 this day is the successor and representative of the Medieval Church, or

1191 that the Medieval Church is the legitimate heir of the Nicene; even

1192 allowing that it is a question whether a line cannot be drawn between

1193 the Nicene Church and the Church which preceded it. On the whole, all

1194 parties will agree that, of all existing systems, the present communion

1195 of Rome is the nearest approximation in fact to the Church of the

1196 Fathers, possible though some may think it, to be nearer still to that

1197 Church on paper. Did St. Athanasius or St. Ambrose come suddenly to

1198 life, it cannot be doubted what communion he would take to be his own.

1199 All surely will agree that these Fathers, with whatever opinions of

1200 their own, whatever protests, if we will, would find themselves more at

1201 home with such men as St. Bernard or St. Ignatius Loyola, or with the

1202 lonely priest in his lodging, or the holy sisterhood of mercy, or the

1203 unlettered crowd before the altar, than with the teachers or with the

1204 members of any other creed. And may we not add, that were those same

1205 Saints, who once sojourned, one in exile, one on embassy, at Treves, to

1206 come more northward still, and to travel until they reached another fair

1207 city, seated among groves, green meadows, and calm streams, the holy

1208 brothers would turn from many a high aisle and solemn cloister which

1209 they found there, and ask the way to some small chapel where mass was

1210 said in the populous alley or forlorn suburb? And, on the other hand,

1211 can any one who has but heard his name, and cursorily read his history,

1212 doubt for one instant how, in turn, the people of England, "we, our

1213 princes, our priests, and our prophets," Lords and Commons,

1214 Universities, Ecclesiastical Courts, marts of commerce, great towns,

1215 country parishes, would deal with Athanasius,—Athanasius, who spent his

1216 long years in fighting against sovereigns for a theological term?

FOOTNOTES:

34 [62:1] Doctrine of Justification, Lect. xiii.

35 [64:1] Butler's Anal. ii. 3.

36 [67:1] Proph. Office, Lect. xii. [Via Med. vol. i. pp. 292-3].

37 [72:1] ii. 3; vide also ii. 4, fin.

38 [75:1] Analogy, ii. 4, *ad fin.*

39 [77:1] Proph. Office, x. [Via Med. p. 250].

40 [77:2] [Ibid. pp. 247, 254.]

41 [79:1] Arians, ch. i. sect. 3 [p. 82, ed. 3].

42 [81:1] Proph. Office [Via Med. vol. i. p. 122].

43 [81:2] ["It is very common to confuse infallibility with

44 certitude, but the two words stand for things quite distinct from each

45 other. I remember for certain what I did yesterday, but still my memory

46 is not infallible. I am quite clear that two and two makes four, but I

47 often make mistakes in long addition sums. I have no doubt whatever that

48 John or Richard is my true friend; but I have before now trusted those

49 who failed me, and I may do so again before I die. I am quite certain

50 that Victoria is our sovereign, and not her father, the Duke of Kent,

51 without any claim myself to the gift of infallibility, as I may do a

52 virtuous action, without being impeccable. I may be certain that the

53 Church is infallible, while I am myself a fallible mortal; otherwise I

54 cannot be certain that the Supreme Being is infallible, unless I am

55 infallible myself. Certitude is directed to one or other definite

56 concrete proposition. I am certain of propositions one, two, three,

57 four, or five, one by one, each by itself. I can be certain of one of

58 them, without being certain of the rest: that I am certain of the first

59 makes it neither likely nor unlikely that I am certain of the second:

60 but, were I infallible, then I should be certain, not only of one of

61 them, but of all."—*Essay on Assent*, ch. vii. sect. 2.]

62 [84:1] Anal. ii. 3.

63 [87:1] De Rom. Pont. iv. 2. [Seven years ago, it is scarcely

64 necessary to say, the Vatican Council determined that the Pope, *ex

65 cathedrâ*, has the same infallibility as the Church. This does not

66 affect the argument in the text.]

67 [88:1] Proph. Office [Via Med. vol. i. p. 117].

68 [89:1] 1 Tim. iii. 16; Isa. lix. 21.

69 [90:1] *Οὐ γάρ τι νῦν γε κὰχθές, κ.τ.λ.

70 [95:1] [Vid.* Via Media, vol. ii. pp. 231-341.]

CHAPTER III.

37 (Texto do capítulo)

ON THE HISTORICAL ARGUMENT IN BEHALF OF THE

40 EXISTING DEVELOPMENTS.

41 #### SECTION I.

42 ##### METHOD OF PROOF.

43 It seems, then, that we have to deal with a case something like the

44 following: Certain doctrines come to us, professing to be Apostolic, and

45 possessed of such high antiquity that, though we are only able to assign

46 the date of their formal establishment to the fourth, or the fifth, or

47 the eighth, or the thirteenth century, as it may happen, yet their

48 substance may, for what appears, be coeval with the Apostles, and be

49 expressed or implied in texts of Scripture. Further, these existing

50 doctrines are universally considered, without any question, in each age

51 to be the echo of the doctrines of the times immediately preceding them,

52 and thus are continually thrown back to a date indefinitely early, even

53 though their ultimate junction with the Apostolic Creed be out of sight

54 and unascertainable. Moreover, they are confessed to form one body one

55 with another, so that to reject one is to disparage the rest; and they

56 include within the range of their system even those primary articles of

57 faith, as the Incarnation, which many an impugner of the said doctrinal

58 system, as a system, professes to accept, and which, do what he will,

59 he cannot intelligibly separate, whether in point of evidence or of

60 internal character, from others which he disavows. Further, these

61 doctrines occupy the whole field of theology, and leave nothing to be

62 supplied, except in detail, by any other system; while, in matter of

63 fact, no rival system is forthcoming, so that we have to choose between

64 this theology and none at all. Moreover, this theology alone makes

65 provision for that guidance of opinion and conduct, which seems

66 externally to be the special aim of Revelation; and fulfils the promises

67 of Scripture, by adapting itself to the various problems of thought and

68 practice which meet us in life. And, further, it is the nearest

69 approach, to say the least, to the religious sentiment, and what is

70 called *ethos*, of the early Church, nay, to that of the Apostles and

71 Prophets; for all will agree so far as this, that Elijah, Jeremiah, the

72 Baptist, and St. Paul are in their history and mode of life (I do not

73 speak of measures of grace, no, nor of doctrine and conduct, for these

74 are the points in dispute, but) in what is external and meets the eye

75 (and this is no slight resemblance when things are viewed as a whole and

76 from a distance),—these saintly and heroic men, I say, are more like a

77 Dominican preacher, or a Jesuit missionary, or a Carmelite friar, more

78 like St. Toribio, or St. Vincent Ferrer, or St. Francis Xavier, or St.

79 Alphonso Liguori, than to any individuals, or to any classes of men,

80 that can be found in other communions. And then, in addition, there is

81 the high antecedent probability that Providence would watch over His own

82 work, and would direct and ratify those developments of doctrine which

83 were inevitable.

84 2.

85 If this is, on the whole, a true view of the general shape under which

86 the existing body of developments, commonly called Catholic, present

87 themselves before us, antecedently to our looking into the particular

88 evidence on which they stand, I think we shall be at no loss to

89 determine what both logical truth and duty prescribe to us as to our

90 reception of them. It is very little to say that we should treat them as

91 we are accustomed to treat other alleged facts and truths and the

92 evidence for them, such as come to us with a fair presumption in their

93 favour. Such are of every day's occurrence; and what is our behaviour

94 towards them? We meet them, not with suspicion and criticism, but with a

95 frank confidence. We do not in the first instance exercise our reason

96 upon opinions which are received, but our faith. We do not begin with

97 doubting; we take them on trust, and we put them on trial, and that, not

98 of set purpose, but spontaneously. We prove them by using them, by

99 applying them to the subject-matter, or the evidence, or the body of

100 circumstances, to which they belong, as if they gave it its

101 interpretation or its colour as a matter of course; and only when they

102 fail, in the event, in illustrating phenomena or harmonizing facts, do

103 we discover that we must reject the doctrines or the statements which we

104 had in the first instance taken for granted. Again, we take the evidence

105 for them, whatever it be, as a whole, as forming a combined proof; and

106 we interpret what is obscure in separate portions by such portions as

107 are clear. Moreover, we bear with these in proportion to the strength of

108 the antecedent probability in their favour, we are patient with

109 difficulties in their application, with apparent objections to them

110 drawn from other matters of fact, deficiency in their comprehensiveness,

111 or want of neatness in their working, provided their claims on our

112 attention are considerable.

113 3.

114 Thus most men take Newton's theory of gravitation for granted, because

115 it is generally received, and use it without rigidly testing it first,

116 each for himself, (as it can be tested,) by phenomena; and if phenomena

117 are found which it does not satisfactorily solve, this does not trouble

118 us, for a way there must be of explaining them, consistently with that

119 theory, though it does not occur to ourselves. Again, if we found a

120 concise or obscure passage in one of Cicero's letters to Atticus, we

121 should not scruple to admit as its true explanation a more explicit

122 statement in his *Ad Familiares*. Æschylus is illustrated by Sophocles

123 in point of language, and Thucydides by Aristophanes, in point of

124 history. Horace, Persius, Suetonius, Tacitus, and Juvenal may be made to

125 throw light upon each other. Even Plato may gain a commentator in

126 Plotinus, and St. Anselm is interpreted by St. Thomas. Two writers,

127 indeed, may be already known to differ, and then we do not join them

128 together as fellow-witnesses to common truths; Luther has taken on

129 himself to explain St. Augustine, and Voltaire, Pascal, without

130 persuading the world that they have a claim to do so; but in no case do

131 we begin with asking whether a comment does not disagree with its text,

132 when there is a *primâ facie* congruity between them. We elucidate the

133 text by the comment, though, or rather because, the comment is fuller

134 and more explicit than the text.

135 4.

136 Thus too we deal with Scripture, when we have to interpret the

137 prophetical text and the types of the Old Testament. The event which is

138 the development is also the interpretation of the prediction; it

139 provides a fulfilment by imposing a meaning. And we accept certain

140 events as the fulfilment of prophecy from the broad correspondence of

141 the one with the other, in spite of many incidental difficulties. The

142 difficulty, for instance, in accounting for the fact that the dispersion

143 of the Jews followed upon their keeping, not their departing from their

144 Law, does not hinder us from insisting on their present state as an

145 argument against the infidel. Again, we readily submit our reason on

146 competent authority, and accept certain events as an accomplishment of

147 predictions, which seem very far removed from them; as in the passage,

148 "Out of Egypt have I called My Son." Nor do we find a difficulty, when

149 St. Paul appeals to a text of the Old Testament, which stands otherwise

150 in our Hebrew copies; as the words, "A body hast Thou prepared Me." We

151 receive such difficulties on faith, and leave them to take care of

152 themselves. Much less do we consider mere fulness in the interpretation,

153 or definiteness, or again strangeness, as a sufficient reason for

154 depriving the text, or the action to which it is applied, of the

155 advantage of such interpretation. We make it no objection that the words

156 themselves come short of it, or that the sacred writer did not

157 contemplate it, or that a previous fulfilment satisfies it. A reader who

158 came to the inspired text by himself, beyond the influence of that

159 traditional acceptation which happily encompasses it, would be surprised

160 to be told that the Prophet's words, "A virgin shall conceive," &c., or

161 "Let all the Angels of God worship Him," refer to our Lord; but assuming

162 the intimate connexion between Judaism and Christianity, and the

163 inspiration of the New Testament, we do not scruple to believe it. We

164 rightly feel that it is no prejudice to our receiving the prophecy of

165 Balaam in its Christian meaning, that it is adequately fulfilled in

166 David; or the history of Jonah, that it is poetical in character and has

167 a moral in itself like an apologue; or the meeting of Abraham and

168 Melchizedek, that it is too brief and simple to mean any great thing, as

169 St. Paul interprets it.

170 5.

171 Butler corroborates these remarks, when speaking of the particular

172 evidence for Christianity. "The obscurity or unintelligibleness," he

173 says, "of one part of a prophecy does not in any degree invalidate the

174 proof of foresight, arising from the appearing completion of those other

175 parts which are understood. For the case is evidently the same as if

176 those parts, which are not understood, were lost, or not written at all,

177 or written in an unknown tongue. Whether this observation be commonly

178 attended to or not, it is so evident that one can scarce bring one's

179 self to set down an instance in common matters to exemplify it."[104:1]

180 He continues, "Though a man should be incapable, for want of learning,

181 or opportunities of inquiry, or from not having turned his studies this

182 way, even so much as to judge whether particular prophecies have been

183 throughout completely fulfilled; yet he may see, in general, that they

184 have been fulfilled to such a degree, as, upon very good ground, to be

185 convinced of foresight more than human in such prophecies, and of such

186 events being intended by them. For the same reason also, though, by

187 means of the deficiencies in civil history, and the different accounts

188 of historians, the most learned should not be able to make out to

189 satisfaction that such parts of the prophetic history have been minutely

190 and throughout fulfilled; yet a very strong proof of foresight may arise

191 from that general completion of them which is made out; as much proof of

192 foresight, perhaps, as the Giver of prophecy intended should ever be

193 afforded by such parts of prophecy."

194 6.

195 He illustrates this by the parallel instance of fable and concealed

196 satire. "A man might be assured that he understood what an author

197 intended by a fable or parable, related without any application or

198 moral, merely from seeing it to be easily capable of such application,

199 and that such a moral might naturally be deduced from it. And he might

200 be fully assured that such persons and events were intended in a

201 satirical writing, merely from its being applicable to them. And,

202 agreeably to the last observation, he might be in a good measure

203 satisfied of it, though he were not enough informed in affairs, or in

204 the story of such persons, to understand half the satire. For his

205 satisfaction, that he understood the meaning, the intended meaning, of

206 these writings, would be greater or less, in proportion as he saw the

207 general turn of them to be capable of such application, and in

208 proportion to the number of particular things capable of it." And he

209 infers hence, that if a known course of events, or the history of a

210 person as our Lord, is found to answer on the whole to the prophetical

211 text, it becomes fairly the right interpretation of that text, in spite

212 of difficulties in detail. And this rule of interpretation admits of an

213 obvious application to the parallel case of doctrinal passages, when a

214 certain creed, which professes to have been derived from Revelation,

215 comes recommended to us on strong antecedent grounds, and presents no

216 strong opposition to the sacred text.

217 The same author observes that the first fulfilment of a prophecy is no

218 valid objection to a second, when what seems like a second has once

219 taken place; and, in like manner, an interpretation of doctrinal texts

220 may be literal, exact, and sufficient, yet in spite of all this may not

221 embrace what is really the full scope of their meaning; and that fuller

222 scope, if it so happen, may be less satisfactory and precise, as an

223 interpretation, than their primary and narrow sense. Thus, if the

224 Protestant interpretation of the sixth chapter of St. John were true and

225 sufficient for its letter, (which of course I do not grant,) that would

226 not hinder the Roman, which at least is quite compatible with the text,

227 being the higher sense and the only rightful. In such cases the

228 justification of the larger and higher interpretation lies in some

229 antecedent probability, such as Catholic consent; and the ground of the

230 narrow is the context, and the rules of grammar; and, whereas the

231 argument of the critical commentator is that the sacred text *need not*

232 mean more than the letter, those who adopt a deeper view of it maintain,

233 as Butler in the case of prophecy, that we have no warrant for putting a

234 limit to the sense of words which are not human but divine.

235 7.

236 Now it is but a parallel exercise of reasoning to interpret the previous

237 history of a doctrine by its later development, and to consider that it

238 contains the later *in posse* and in the divine intention; and the

239 grudging and jealous temper, which refuses to enlarge the sacred text

240 for the fulfilment of prophecy, is the very same that will occupy itself

241 in carping at the Ante-nicene testimonies for Nicene or Medieval

242 doctrines and usages. When "I and My Father are One" is urged in proof

243 of our Lord's unity with the Father, heretical disputants do not see why

244 the words must be taken to denote more than a unity of will. When "This

245 is My Body" is alleged as a warrant for the change of the Bread into the

246 Body of Christ, they explain away the words into a figure, because such

247 is their most obvious interpretation. And, in like manner, when Roman

248 Catholics urge St. Gregory's invocations, they are told that these are

249 but rhetorical; or St. Clement's allusion to Purgatory, that perhaps it

250 was Platonism; or Origen's language about praying to Angels and the

251 merits of Martyrs, that it is but an instance of his heterodoxy; or St.

252 Cyprian's exaltation of the *Cathedra Petri*, that he need not be

253 contemplating more than a figurative or abstract see; or the general

254 testimony to the spiritual authority of Rome in primitive times, that it

255 arose from her temporal greatness; or Tertullian's language about

256 Tradition and the Church, that he took a lawyer's view of those

257 subjects; whereas the early condition, and the evidence, of each

258 doctrine respectively, ought consistently to be interpreted by means of

259 that development which was ultimately attained.

260 8.

261 Moreover, since, as above shown, the doctrines all together make up one

262 integral religion, it follows that the several evidences which

263 respectively support those doctrines belong to a whole, and must be

264 thrown into a common stock, and all are available in the defence of any.

265 A collection of weak evidences makes up a strong evidence; again, one

266 strong argument imparts cogency to collateral arguments which are in

267 themselves weak. For instance, as to the miracles, whether of Scripture

268 or the Church, "the number of those which carry with them their own

269 proof now, and are believed for their own sake, is small, and they

270 furnish the grounds on which we receive the rest."[107:1] Again, no one

271 would fancy it necessary, before receiving St. Matthew's Gospel, to find

272 primitive testimony in behalf of every chapter and verse: when only part

273 is proved to have been in existence in ancient times, the whole is

274 proved, because that part is but part of a whole; and when the whole is

275 proved, it may shelter such parts as for some incidental reason have

276 less evidence of their antiquity. Again, it would be enough to show that

277 St. Augustine knew the Italic version of the Scriptures, if he quoted it

278 once or twice. And, in like manner, it will be generally admitted that

279 the proof of a Second Person in the Godhead lightens greatly the burden

280 of proof necessary for belief in a Third Person; and that, the Atonement

281 being in some sort a correlative of eternal punishment, the evidence for

282 the former doctrine virtually increases the evidence for the latter.

283 And so, a Protestant controversialist would feel that it told little,

284 except as an omen of victory, to reduce an opponent to a denial of

285 Transubstantiation, if he still adhered firmly to the Invocation of

286 Saints, Purgatory, the Seven Sacraments, and the doctrine of merit; and

287 little too for one of his own party to condemn the adoration of the

288 Host, the supremacy of Rome, the acceptableness of celibacy, auricular

289 confession, communion under one kind, and tradition, if he was zealous

290 for the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.

291 9.

292 The principle on which these remarks are made has the sanction of some

293 of the deepest of English Divines. Bishop Butler, for instance, who has

294 so often been quoted here, thus argues in behalf of Christianity itself,

295 though confessing at the same time the disadvantage which in consequence

296 the revealed system lies under. "Probable proofs," he observes, "by

297 being added, not only increase the evidence, but multiply it. Nor should

298 I dissuade any one from setting down what he thought made for the

299 contrary side. . . . The truth of our religion, like the truth of common

300 matters, is to be judged by all the evidence taken together. And unless

301 the whole series of things which may be alleged in this argument, and

302 every particular thing in it, can reasonably be supposed to have been by

303 accident (for here the stress of the argument for Christianity lies),

304 then is the truth of it proved; in like manner, as if, in any common

305 case, numerous events acknowledged were to be alleged in proof of any

306 other event disputed, the truth of the disputed event would be proved,

307 not only if any one of the acknowledged ones did of itself clearly imply

308 it, but though no one of them singly did so, if the whole of the

309 acknowledged events, taken together, could not in reason be supposed to

310 have happened, unless the disputed one were true.

311 "It is obvious how much advantage the nature of this evidence gives to

312 those persons who attack Christianity, especially in conversation. For

313 it is easy to show, in a short and lively manner, that such and such

314 things are liable to objection, that this and another thing is of little

315 weight in itself; but impossible to show, in like manner, the united

316 force of the whole argument in one view."[109:1]

317 In like manner, Mr. Davison condemns that "vicious manner of reasoning,"

318 which represents "any insufficiency of the proof, in its several

319 branches, as so much objection;" which manages "the inquiry so as to

320 make it appear that, if the divided arguments be inconclusive one by

321 one, we have a series of exceptions to the truths of religion instead of

322 a train of favourable presumptions, growing stronger at every step. The

323 disciple of Scepticism is taught that he cannot fully rely on this or

324 that motive of belief, that each of them is insecure, and the conclusion

325 is put upon him that they ought to be discarded one after another,

326 instead of being connected and combined."[109:2] No work perhaps affords

327 more specimens in a short compass of the breach of the principle of

328 reasoning inculcated in these passages, than Barrow's Treatise on the

329 Pope's Supremacy.

330 10.

331 The remarks of these two writers relate to the duty of combining

332 doctrines which belong to one body, and evidences which relate to one

333 subject; and few persons would dispute it in the abstract. The

334 application which has been here made of the principle is this,—that

335 where a doctrine comes recommended to us by strong presumptions of its

336 truth, we are bound to receive it unsuspiciously, and use it as a key to

337 the evidences to which it appeals, or the facts which it professes to

338 systematize, whatever may be our eventual judgment about it. Nor is it

339 enough to answer, that the voice of our particular Church, denying this

340 so-called Catholicism, is an antecedent probability which outweighs all

341 others and claims our prior obedience, loyally and without reasoning, to

342 its own interpretation. This may excuse individuals certainly, in

343 beginning with doubt and distrust of the Catholic developments, but it

344 only shifts the blame to the particular Church, Anglican or other, which

345 thinks itself qualified to enforce so peremptory a judgment against the

346 one and only successor, heir and representative of the Apostolic

347 college.

348 #### SECTION II.

349 ##### STATE OF THE EVIDENCE.

350 Bacon is celebrated for destroying the credit of a method of reasoning

351 much resembling that which it has been the object of this Chapter to

352 recommend. "He who is not practised in doubting," he says, "but forward

353 in asserting and laying down such principles as he takes to be approved,

354 granted and manifest, and, according to the established truth thereof,

355 receives or rejects everything, as squaring with or proving contrary to

356 them, is only fitted to mix and confound things with words, reason with

357 madness, and the world with fable and fiction, but not to interpret the

358 works of nature."[110:1] But he was aiming at the application of these

359 modes of reasoning to what should be strict investigation, and that in

360 the province of physics; and this he might well censure, without

361 attempting, (what is impossible,) to banish them from history, ethics,

362 and religion.

363 Physical facts are present; they are submitted to the senses, and the

364 senses may be satisfactorily tested, corrected, and verified. To trust

365 to anything but sense in a matter of sense is irrational; why are the

366 senses given us but to supersede less certain, less immediate

367 informants? We have recourse to reason or authority to determine facts,

368 when the senses fail us; but with the senses we begin. We deduce, we

369 form inductions, we abstract, we theorize from facts; we do not begin

370 with surmise and conjecture, much less do we look to the tradition of

371 past ages, or the decree of foreign teachers, to determine matters which

372 are in our hands and under our eyes.

373 But it is otherwise with history, the facts of which are not present; it

374 is otherwise with ethics, in which phenomena are more subtle, closer,

375 and more personal to individuals than other facts, and not referable to

376 any common standard by which all men can decide upon them. In such

377 sciences, we cannot rest upon mere facts, if we would, because we have

378 not got them. We must do our best with what is given us, and look about

379 for aid from any quarter; and in such circumstances the opinions of

380 others, the traditions of ages, the prescriptions of authority,

381 antecedent auguries, analogies, parallel cases, these and the like, not

382 indeed taken at random, but, like the evidence from the senses, sifted

383 and scrutinized, obviously become of great importance.

384 2.

385 And, further, if we proceed on the hypothesis that a merciful Providence

386 has supplied us with means of gaining such truth as concerns us, in

387 different subject-matters, though with different instruments, then the

388 simple question is, what those instruments are which are proper to a

389 particular case. If they are of the appointment of a Divine Protector,

390 we may be sure that they will lead to the truth, whatever they are. The

391 less exact methods of reasoning may do His work as well as the more

392 perfect, if He blesses them. He may bless antecedent probabilities in

393 ethical inquiries, who blesses experience and induction in the art of

394 medicine.

395 And if it is reasonable to consider medicine, or architecture, or

396 engineering, in a certain sense, divine arts, as being divinely ordained

397 means of our receiving divine benefits, much more may ethics be called

398 divine; while as to religion, it directly professes to be the method of

399 recommending ourselves to Him and learning His will. If then it be His

400 gracious purpose that we should learn it, the means He gives for

401 learning it, be they promising or not to human eyes, are sufficient,

402 because they are His. And what they are at this particular time, or to

403 this person, depends on His disposition. He may have imposed simple

404 prayer and obedience on some men as the instrument of their attaining to

405 the mysteries and precepts of Christianity. He may lead others through

406 the written word, at least for some stages of their course; and if the

407 formal basis on which He has rested His revelations be, as it is, of an

408 historical and philosophical character, then antecedent probabilities,

409 subsequently corroborated by facts, will be sufficient, as in the

410 parallel case of other history, to bring us safely to the matter, or at

411 least to the organ, of those revelations.

412 3.

413 Moreover, in subjects which belong to moral proof, such, I mean, as

414 history, antiquities, political science, ethics, metaphysics, and

415 theology, which are pre-eminently such, and especially in theology and

416 ethics, antecedent probability may have a real weight and cogency which

417 it cannot have in experimental science; and a mature politician or

418 divine may have a power of reaching matters of fact in consequence of

419 his peculiar habits of mind, which is seldom given in the same degree to

420 physical inquirers, who, for the purposes of this particular pursuit,

421 are very much on a level. And this last remark at least is confirmed by

422 Lord Bacon, who confesses "Our method of discovering the sciences does

423 not much depend upon subtlety and strength of genius, but lies level to

424 almost every capacity and understanding;"[113:1] though surely sciences

425 there are, in which genius is everything, and rules all but nothing.

426 4.

427 It will be a great mistake then to suppose that, because this eminent

428 philosopher condemned presumption and prescription in inquiries into

429 facts which are external to us, present with us, and common to us all,

430 therefore authority, tradition, verisimilitude, analogy, and the like,

431 are mere "idols of the den" or "of the theatre" in history or ethics.

432 Here we may oppose to him an author in his own line as great as he is:

433 "Experience," says Bacon, "is by far the best demonstration, provided it

434 dwell in the experiment; for the transferring of it to other things

435 judged alike is very fallacious, unless done with great exactness and

436 regularity."[113:2] Niebuhr explains or corrects him: "Instances are not

437 arguments," he grants, when investigating an obscure question of Roman

438 history,—"instances are not arguments, but in history are scarcely of

439 less force; above all, where the parallel they exhibit is in the

440 progressive development of institutions."[113:3] Here this sagacious

441 writer recognizes the true principle of historical logic, while he

442 exemplifies it.

443 The same principle is involved in the well-known maxim of Aristotle,

444 that "it is much the same to admit the probabilities of a mathematician,

445 and to look for demonstration from an orator." In all matters of human

446 life, presumption verified by instances, is our ordinary instrument of

447 proof, and, if the antecedent probability is great, it almost

448 supersedes instances. Of course, as is plain, we may err grievously in

449 the antecedent view which we start with, and in that case, our

450 conclusions may be wide of the truth; but that only shows that we had no

451 right to assume a premiss which was untrustworthy, not that our

452 reasoning was faulty.

453 5.

454 I am speaking of the process itself, and its correctness is shown by its

455 general adoption. In religious questions a single text of Scripture is

456 all-sufficient with most people, whether the well disposed or the

457 prejudiced, to prove a doctrine or a duty in cases when a custom is

458 established or a tradition is strong. "Not forsaking the assembling of

459 ourselves together" is sufficient for establishing social, public, nay,

460 Sunday worship. "Where the tree falleth, there shall it lie," shows that

461 our probation ends with life. "Forbidding to marry" determines the Pope

462 to be the man of sin. Again, it is plain that a man's after course for

463 good or bad brings out the passing words or obscure actions of previous

464 years. Then, on a retrospect, we use the event as a presumptive

465 interpretation of the past, of those past indications of his character

466 which, considered as evidence, were too few and doubtful to bear

467 insisting on at the time, and would have seemed ridiculous, had we

468 attempted to do so. And the antecedent probability is even found to

469 triumph over contrary evidence, as well as to sustain what agrees with

470 it. Every one may know of cases in which a plausible charge against an

471 individual was borne down at once by weight of character, though that

472 character was incommensurate of course with the circumstances which gave

473 rise to suspicion, and had no direct neutralizing force to destroy it.

474 On the other hand, it is sometimes said, and even if not literally true

475 will serve in illustration, that not a few of those who are put on trial

476 in our criminal courts are not legally guilty of the particular crime on

477 which a verdict is found against them, being convicted not so much upon

478 the particular evidence, as on the presumption arising from their want

479 of character and the memory of their former offences. Nor is it in

480 slight matters only or unimportant that we thus act. Our dearest

481 interests, our personal welfare, our property, our health, our

482 reputation, we freely hazard, not on proof, but on a simple probability,

483 which is sufficient for our conviction, because prudence dictates to us

484 so to take it. We must be content to follow the law of our being in

485 religious matters as well as in secular.

486 6.

487 But there is more to say on the subordinate position which direct

488 evidence holds among the *motiva* of conviction in most matters. It is

489 no paradox to say that there is a certain scantiness, nay an absence of

490 evidence, which may even tell in favour of statements which require to

491 be made good. There are indeed cases in which we cannot discover the law

492 of silence or deficiency, which are then simply unaccountable. Thus

493 Lucian, for whatever reason, hardly notices Roman authors or

494 affairs.[115:1] Maximus Tyrius, who wrote several of his works at Rome,

495 nevertheless makes no reference to Roman history. Paterculus, the

496 historian, is mentioned by no ancient writer except Priscian. What is

497 more to our present purpose, Seneca, Pliny the elder, and Plutarch are

498 altogether silent about Christianity; and perhaps Epictetus also, and

499 the Emperor Marcus. The Jewish Mishna, too, compiled about A.D. 180, is

500 silent about Christianity; and the Jerusalem and Babylonish Talmuds

501 almost so, though the one was compiled about A.D. 300, and the other

502 A.D. 500.[115:2] Eusebius again, is very uncertain in his notice of

503 facts: he does not speak of St. Methodius, nor of St. Anthony, nor of

504 the martyrdom of St. Perpetua, nor of the miraculous powers of St.

505 Gregory Thaumaturgus; and he mentions Constantine's luminous cross, not

506 in his Ecclesiastical History, where it would naturally find a place,

507 but in his Life of the Emperor. Moreover, those who receive that

508 wonderful occurrence, which is, as one who rejects it allows,[116:1] "so

509 inexplicable to the historical inquirer," have to explain the difficulty

510 of the universal silence on the subject of all the Fathers of the fourth

511 and fifth centuries, excepting Eusebius.

512 In like manner, Scripture has its unexplained omissions. No religious

513 school finds its own tenets and usages on the surface of it. The remark

514 applies also to the very context of Scripture, as in the obscurity which

515 hangs over Nathanael or the Magdalen. It is a remarkable circumstance

516 that there is no direct intimation all through Scripture that the

517 Serpent mentioned in the temptation of Eve was the evil spirit, till we

518 come to the vision of the Woman and Child, and their adversary, the

519 Dragon, in the twelfth chapter of the Apocalypse.

520 7.

521 Omissions, thus absolute and singular, when they occur in the evidence

522 of facts or doctrines, are of course difficulties; on the other hand,

523 not unfrequently they admit of explanation. Silence may arise from the

524 very notoriety of the facts in question, as in the case of the seasons,

525 the weather, or other natural phenomena; or from their sacredness, as

526 the Athenians would not mention the mythological Furies; or from

527 external constraint, as the omission of the statues of Brutus and

528 Cassius in the procession. Or it may proceed from fear or disgust, as on

529 the arrival of unwelcome news; or from indignation, or hatred, or

530 contempt, or perplexity, as Josephus is silent about Christianity, and

531 Eusebius passes over the death of Crispus in his life of Constantine; or

532 from other strong feeling, as implied in the poet's sentiment, "Give

533 sorrow words;" or from policy or other prudential motive, or propriety,

534 as Queen's Speeches do not mention individuals, however influential in

535 the political world, and newspapers after a time were silent about the

536 cholera. Or, again, from the natural and gradual course which the fact

537 took, as in the instance of inventions and discoveries, the history of

538 which is on this account often obscure; or from loss of documents or

539 other direct testimonies, as we should not look for theological

540 information in a treatise on geology.

541 8.

542 Again, it frequently happens that omissions proceed on some law, as the

543 varying influence of an external cause; and then, so far from being a

544 perplexity, they may even confirm such evidence as occurs, by becoming,

545 as it were, its correlative. For instance, an obstacle may be

546 assignable, person, or principle, or accident, which ought, if it

547 exists, to reduce or distort the indications of a fact to that very

548 point, or in that very direction, or with the variations, or in the

549 order and succession, which do occur in its actual history. At first

550 sight it might be a suspicious circumstance that but one or two

551 manuscripts of some celebrated document were forthcoming; but if it were

552 known that the sovereign power had exerted itself to suppress and

553 destroy it at the time of its publication, and that the extant

554 manuscripts were found just in those places where history witnessed to

555 the failure of the attempt, the coincidence would be highly

556 corroborative of that evidence which alone remained.

557 Thus it is possible to have too much evidence; that is, evidence so full

558 or exact as to throw suspicion over the case for which it is adduced.

559 The genuine Epistles of St. Ignatius contain none of those

560 ecclesiastical terms, such as "Priest" or "See," which are so frequent

561 afterwards; and they quote Scripture sparingly. The interpolated

562 Epistles quote it largely; that is, they are too Scriptural to be

563 Apostolic. Few persons, again, who are acquainted with the primitive

564 theology, but will be sceptical at first reading of the authenticity of

565 such works as the longer Creed of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, or St.

566 Hippolytus contra Beronem, from the precision of the theological

567 language, which is unsuitable to the Ante-nicene period.

568 9.

569 The influence of circumstances upon the expression of opinion or

570 testimony supplies another form of the same law of omission. "I am ready

571 to admit," says Paley, "that the ancient Christian advocates did not

572 insist upon the miracles in argument so frequently as I should have

573 done. It was their lot to contend with notions of magical agency,

574 against which the mere production of the facts was not sufficient for

575 the convincing of their adversaries; I do not know whether they

576 themselves thought it quite decisive of the controversy. But since it is

577 proved, I conceive with certainty, that the sparingness with which they

578 appealed to miracles was owing neither to their ignorance nor their

579 doubt of the facts, it is at any rate an objection, not to the truth of

580 the history, but to the judgment of its defenders."[118:1] And, in like

581 manner, Christians were not likely to entertain the question of the

582 abstract allowableness of images in the Catholic ritual, with the actual

583 superstitions and immoralities of paganism before their eyes. Nor were

584 they likely to determine the place of the Blessed Mary in our reverence,

585 before they had duly secured, in the affections of the faithful, the

586 supreme glory and worship of God Incarnate, her Eternal Lord and Son.

587 Nor would they recognize Purgatory as a part of the Dispensation, till

588 the world had flowed into the Church, and a habit of corruption had

589 been largely superinduced. Nor could ecclesiastical liberty be asserted,

590 till it had been assailed. Nor would a Pope arise, but in proportion as

591 the Church was consolidated. Nor would monachism be needed, while

592 martyrdoms were in progress. Nor could St. Clement give judgment on the

593 doctrine of Berengarius, nor St. Dionysius refute the Ubiquists, nor St.

594 Irenæus denounce the Protestant view of Justification, nor St. Cyprian

595 draw up a theory of toleration. There is "a time for every purpose under

596 the heaven;" "a time to keep silence and a time to speak."

597 10.

598 Sometimes when the want of evidence for a series of facts or doctrines

599 is unaccountable, an unexpected explanation or addition in the course of

600 time is found as regards a portion of them, which suggests a ground of

601 patience as regards the historical obscurity of the rest. Two instances

602 are obvious to mention, of an accidental silence of clear primitive

603 testimony as to important doctrines, and its removal. In the number of

604 the articles of Catholic belief which the Reformation especially

605 resisted, were the Mass and the sacramental virtue of Ecclesiastical

606 Unity. Since the date of that movement, the shorter Epistles of St.

607 Ignatius have been discovered, and the early Liturgies verified; and

608 this with most men has put an end to the controversy about those

609 doctrines. The good fortune which has happened to them, may happen to

610 others; and though it does not, yet that it has happened to them, is to

611 those others a sort of compensation for the obscurity in which their

612 early history continues to be involved.

613 11.

614 I may seem in these remarks to be preparing the way for a broad

615 admission of the absence of any sanction in primitive Christianity in

616 behalf of its medieval form, but I do not make them with this intention.

617 Not from misgivings of this kind, but from the claims of a sound logic,

618 I think it right to insist, that, whatever early testimonies I may bring

619 in support of later developments of doctrine, are in great measure

620 brought *ex abundante*, a matter of grace, not of compulsion. The *onus

621 probandi* is with those who assail a teaching which is, and has long

622 been, in possession. As for positive evidence in our behalf, they must

623 take what they can get, if they cannot get as much as they might wish,

624 inasmuch as antecedent probabilities, as I have said, go so very far

625 towards dispensing with it. It is a first strong point that, in an idea

626 such as Christianity, developments cannot but be, and those surely

627 divine, because it is divine; a second that, if so, they are those very

628 ones which exist, because there are no others; and a third point is the

629 fact that they are found just there, where true developments ought to be

630 found,—namely, in the historic seats of Apostolical teaching and in the

631 authoritative homes of immemorial tradition.

632 12.

633 And, if it be said in reply that the difficulty of admitting these

634 developments of doctrine lies, not merely in the absence of early

635 testimony for them, but in the actual existence of distinct testimony

636 against them,—or, as Chillingworth says, in "Popes against Popes,

637 Councils against Councils,"—I answer, of course this will be said; but

638 let the fact of this objection be carefully examined, and its value

639 reduced to its true measure, before it is used in argument. I grant that

640 there are "Bishops against Bishops in Church history, Fathers against

641 Fathers, Fathers against themselves," for such differences in individual

642 writers are consistent with, or rather are involved in the very idea of

643 doctrinal development, and consequently are no real objection to it;

644 the one essential question is whether the recognized organ of teaching,

645 the Church herself, acting through Pope or Council as the oracle of

646 heaven, has ever contradicted her own enunciations. If so, the

647 hypothesis which I am advocating is at once shattered; but, till I have

648 positive and distinct evidence of the fact, I am slow to give credence

649 to the existence of so great an improbability.

FOOTNOTES:

43 [104:1] Anal. ii. 7.

44 [107:1] [On Miracles, Essay ii. 111.]

45 [109:1] Anal. ii. 7.

46 [109:2] On Prophecy, i. p. 28.

47 [110:1] Aphor. 5, vol. iv. p. xi. ed. 1815.

48 [113:1] Nov. Org. i. 2, § 26, vol. iv. p. 29.

49 [113:2] Nov. Org. § 70, p. 44.

50 [113:3] Hist. of Rome, vol. i. p. 345, ed. 1828.

51 [115:1] Lardner's Heath. Test. p. 22.

52 [115:2] Paley's Evid. p. i. prop. 1, 7.

53 [116:1] Milman, Christ. vol. ii. p. 352.

54 [118:1] Evidences, iii. 5.

CHAPTER IV.

46 (Texto do capítulo)

INSTANCES IN ILLUSTRATION.

49 It follows now to inquire how much evidence is actually producible for

50 those large portions of the present Creed of Christendom, which have not

51 a recognized place in the primordial idea and the historical outline of

52 the Religion, yet which come to us with certain antecedent

53 considerations strong enough in reason to raise the effectiveness of

54 that evidence to a point disproportionate, as I have allowed, to its

55 intrinsic value. In urging these considerations here, of course I

56 exclude for the time the force of the Church's claim of infallibility in

57 her acts, for which so much can be said, but I do not exclude the

58 logical cogency of those acts, considered as testimonies to the faith of

59 the times before them.

60 My argument then is this:—that, from the first age of Christianity, its

61 teaching looked towards those ecclesiastical dogmas, afterwards

62 recognized and defined, with (as time went on) more or less determinate

63 advance in the direction of them; till at length that advance became so

64 pronounced, as to justify their definition and to bring it about, and to

65 place them in the position of rightful interpretations and keys of the

66 remains and the records in history of the teaching which had so

67 terminated.

68 2.

69 This line of argument is not unlike that which is considered to

70 constitute a sufficient proof of truths in physical science. An

71 instance of this is furnished us in a work on Mechanics of the past

72 generation, by a writer of name, and his explanation of it will serve as

73 an introduction to our immediate subject. After treating of the laws of

74 motion, he goes on to observe, "These laws are the simplest principles

75 to which motion can be reduced, and upon them the whole theory depends.

76 They are not indeed self-evident, nor do they admit of accurate proof by

77 experiment, on account of the great nicety required in adjusting the

78 instruments and making the experiments; and on account of the effects of

79 friction, and the air's resistance, which cannot entirely be removed.

80 They are, however, constantly, and invariably, suggested to our senses,

81 and they agree with experiment as far as experiment can go; and the more

82 accurately the experiments are made, and the greater care we take to

83 remove all those impediments which tend to render the conclusions

84 erroneous, the more nearly do the experiments coincide with these

85 laws."[123:1] And thus a converging evidence in favour of certain

86 doctrines may, under circumstances, be as clear a proof of their

87 Apostolical origin as can be reached practically from the *Quod semper,

88 quod ubique, quod ab omnibus*.

89 In such a method of proof there is, first, an imperfect, secondly, a

90 growing evidence, thirdly, in consequence a delayed inference and

91 judgment, fourthly, reasons producible to account for the delay.

92 #### SECTION I.

93 ##### INSTANCES CURSORILY NOTICED.

94 1.

95 (1.) *Canon of the New Testament.*

96 As regards the New Testament, Catholics and Protestants receive the

97 same books as canonical and inspired; yet among those books some are to

98 be found, which certainly have no right there if, following the rule of

99 Vincentius, we receive nothing as of divine authority but what has been

100 received always and everywhere. The degrees of evidence are very various

101 for one book and another. "It is confessed," says Less, "that not all

102 the Scriptures of our New Testament have been received with universal

103 consent as genuine works of the Evangelists and Apostles. But that man

104 must have predetermined to oppose the most palpable truths, and must

105 reject all history, who will not confess that the *greater* part of the

106 New Testament has been universally received as authentic, and that the

107 remaining books have been acknowledged as such by the *majority* of the

108 ancients."[124:1]

109 2.

110 For instance, as to the Epistle of St. James. It is true, it is

111 contained in the old Syriac version in the second century; but Origen,

112 in the third century, is the first writer who distinctly mentions it

113 among the Greeks; and it is not quoted by name by any Latin till the

114 fourth. St. Jerome speaks of its gaining credit "by degrees, in process

115 of time." Eusebius says no more than that it had been, up to his time,

116 acknowledged by the majority; and he classes it with the Shepherd of St.

117 Hermas and the Epistle of St. Barnabas.[124:2]

118 Again: "The Epistle to the Hebrews, though received in the East, was not

119 received in the Latin Churches till St. Jerome's time. St. Irenæus

120 either does not affirm, or denies that it is St. Paul's. Tertullian

121 ascribes it to St. Barnabas. Caius excludes it from his list. St.

122 Hippolytus does not receive it. St. Cyprian is silent about it. It is

123 doubtful whether St. Optatus received it."[124:3]

124 Again, St. Jerome tells us, that in his day, towards A.D. 400, the

125 Greek Church rejected the Apocalypse, but the Latin received it.

126 Again: "The New Testament consists of twenty-seven books in all, though

127 of varying importance. Of these, fourteen are not mentioned at all till

128 from eighty to one hundred years after St. John's death, in which number

129 are the Acts, the Second to the Corinthians, the Galatians, the

130 Colossians, the Two to the Thessalonians, and St. James. Of the other

131 thirteen, five, viz. St. John's Gospel, the Philippians, the First to

132 Timothy, the Hebrews, and the First of St. John are quoted but by one

133 writer during the same period."[125:1]

134 3.

135 On what ground, then, do we receive the Canon as it comes to us, but on

136 the authority of the Church of the fourth and fifth centuries? The

137 Church at that era decided—not merely bore testimony, but passed a

138 judgment on former testimony,—decided, that certain books were of

139 authority. And on what ground did she so decide? on the ground that

140 hitherto a decision had been impossible, in an age of persecution, from

141 want of opportunities for research, discussion, and testimony, from the

142 private or the local character of some of the books, and from

143 misapprehension of the doctrine contained in others. Now, however,

144 facilities were at length given for deciding once for all on what had

145 been in suspense and doubt for three centuries. On this subject I will

146 quote another passage from the same Tract: "We depend upon the fourth

147 and fifth centuries thus:—As to Scripture, former centuries do not

148 speak distinctly, frequently, or unanimously, except of some chief

149 books, as the Gospels; but we see in them, as we believe, an

150 ever-growing tendency and approximation to that full agreement which we

151 find in the fifth. The testimony given at the latter date is the limit

152 to which all that has been before said converges. For instance, it is

153 commonly said, *Exceptio probat regulam*; when we have reason to think

154 that a writer or an age would have witnessed so and so, *but for* this

155 or that, and that this or that were mere accidents of his position, then

156 he or it may be said to *tend towards* such testimony. In this way the

157 first centuries tend towards the fifth. Viewing the matter as one of

158 moral evidence, we seem to see in the testimony of the fifth the very

159 testimony which every preceding century gave, accidents excepted, such

160 as the present loss of documents once extant, or the then existing

161 misconceptions which want of intercourse between the Churches

162 occasioned. The fifth century acts as a comment on the obscure text of

163 the centuries before it, and brings out a meaning, which with the help

164 of the comment any candid person sees really to be theirs."[126:1]

165 4.

166 (2.) *Original Sin.*

167 I have already remarked upon the historical fact, that the recognition

168 of Original Sin, considered as the consequence of Adam's fall, was, both

169 as regards general acceptance and accurate understanding, a gradual

170 process, not completed till the time of Augustine and Pelagius. St.

171 Chrysostom lived close up to that date, but there are passages in his

172 works, often quoted, which we should not expect to find worded as they

173 stand, if they had been written fifty years later. It is commonly, and

174 reasonably, said in explanation, that the fatalism, so prevalent in

175 various shapes pagan and heretical, in the first centuries, was an

176 obstacle to an accurate apprehension of the consequences of the fall, as

177 the presence of the existing idolatry was to the use of images. If this

178 be so, we have here an instance of a doctrine held back for a time by

179 circumstances, yet in the event forcing its way into its normal shape,

180 and at length authoritatively fixed in it, that is, of a doctrine held

181 implicitly, then asserting itself, and at length fully developed.

182 5.

183 (3.) *Infant Baptism.*

184 One of the passages of St. Chrysostom to which I might refer is this,

185 "We baptize infants, though they are not defiled with sin, that they may

186 receive sanctity, righteousness, adoption, heirship, brotherhood with

187 Christ, and may become His members." (*Aug. contr. Jul.* i. 21.) This at

188 least shows that he had a clear view of the importance and duty of

189 infant baptism, but such was not the case even with saints in the

190 generation immediately before him. As is well known, it was not unusual

191 in that age of the Church for those, who might be considered

192 catechumens, to delay their baptism, as Protestants now delay reception

193 of the Holy Eucharist. It is difficult for us at this day to enter into

194 the assemblage of motives which led to this postponement; to a keen

195 sense and awe of the special privileges of baptism which could only once

196 be received, other reasons would be added,—reluctance to being

197 committed to a strict rule of life, and to making a public profession of

198 religion, and to joining in a specially intimate fellowship or

199 solidarity with strangers. But so it was in matter of fact, for reasons

200 good or bad, that infant baptism, which is a fundamental rule of

201 Christian duty with us, was less earnestly insisted on in early times.

202 6.

203 Even in the fourth century St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Basil, and St.

204 Augustine, having Christian mothers, still were not baptized till they

205 were adults. St. Gregory's mother dedicated him to God immediately on

206 his birth; and again when he had come to years of discretion, with the

207 rite of taking the gospels into his hands by way of consecration. He was

208 religiously-minded from his youth, and had devoted himself to a single

209 life. Yet his baptism did not take place till after he had attended the

210 schools of Cæsarea, Palestine, and Alexandria, and was on his voyage to

211 Athens. He had embarked during the November gales, and for twenty days

212 his life was in danger. He presented himself for baptism as soon as he

213 got to land. St. Basil was the son of Christian confessors on both

214 father's and mother's side. His grandmother Macrina, who brought him up,

215 had for seven years lived with her husband in the woods of Pontus during

216 the Decian persecution. His father was said to have wrought miracles;

217 his mother, an orphan of great beauty of person, was forced from her

218 unprotected state to abandon the hope of a single life, and was

219 conspicuous in matrimony for her care of strangers and the poor, and for

220 her offerings to the churches. How religiously she brought up her

221 children is shown by the singular blessing, that four out of ten have

222 since been canonized as Saints. St. Basil was one of these; yet the

223 child of such parents was not baptized till he had come to man's

224 estate,—till, according to the Benedictine Editor, his twenty-first,

225 and perhaps his twenty-ninth, year. St. Augustine's mother, who is

226 herself a Saint, was a Christian when he was born, though his father was

227 not. Immediately on his birth, he was made a catechumen; in his

228 childhood he fell ill, and asked for baptism. His mother was alarmed,

229 and was taking measures for his reception into the Church, when he

230 suddenly got better, and it was deferred. He did not receive baptism

231 till the age of thirty-three, after he had been for nine years a victim

232 of Manichæan error. In like manner, St. Ambrose, though brought up by

233 his mother and holy nuns, one of them his own sister St. Marcellina, was

234 not baptized till he was chosen bishop at the age of about thirty-four,

235 nor his brother St. Satyrus till about the same age, after the serious

236 warning of a shipwreck. St. Jerome too, though educated at Rome, and so

237 far under religious influences, as, with other boys, to be in the

238 observance of Sunday, and of devotions in the catacombs, had no friend

239 to bring him to baptism, till he had reached man's estate and had

240 travelled.

241 7.

242 Now how are the modern sects, which protest against infant baptism, to

243 be answered by Anglicans with this array of great names in their favour?

244 By the later rule of the Church surely; by the *dicta* of some later

245 Saints, as by St. Chrysostom; by one or two inferences from Scripture;

246 by an argument founded on the absolute necessity of Baptism for

247 salvation,—sufficient reasons certainly, but impotent to reverse the

248 fact that neither in Dalmatia nor in Cappadocia, neither in Rome, nor in

249 Africa, was it then imperative on Christian parents, as it is now, to

250 give baptism to their young children. It was on retrospect and after the

251 truths of the Creed had sunk into the Christian mind, that the authority

252 of such men as St. Cyprian, St. Chrysostom, and St. Augustine brought

253 round the *orbis terrarum* to the conclusion, which the infallible

254 Church confirmed, that observance of the rite was the rule, and the

255 non-observance the exception.

256 8.

257 (4.) *Communion in one kind.*

258 In the beginning of the fifteenth century, the Council of Constance

259 pronounced that, "though in the primitive Church the Sacrament" of the

260 Eucharist "was received by the faithful under each kind, yet the custom

261 has been reasonably introduced, for the avoiding of certain dangers and

262 scandals, that it should be received by the consecrators under each

263 kind, and by the laity only under the kind of Bread; since it is most

264 firmly to be believed, and in no wise doubted, that the whole Body and

265 Blood of Christ is truly contained as well under the kind of Bread as

266 under the kind of Wine."

267 Now the question is, whether the doctrine here laid down, and carried

268 into effect in the usage here sanctioned, was entertained by the early

269 Church, and may be considered a just development of its principles and

270 practices. I answer that, starting with the presumption that the Council

271 has ecclesiastical authority, which is the point here to be assumed, we

272 shall find quite enough for its defence, and shall be satisfied to

273 decide in the affirmative; we shall readily come to the conclusion that

274 Communion under either kind is lawful, each kind conveying the full gift

275 of the Sacrament.

276 For instance, Scripture affords us two instances of what may reasonably

277 be considered the administration of the form of Bread without that of

278 Wine; viz. our Lord's own example towards the two disciples at Emmaus,

279 and St. Paul's action at sea during the tempest. Moreover, St. Luke

280 speaks of the first Christians as continuing in the "*breaking of

281 bread*, and in prayer," and of the first day of the week "when they came

282 together to *break bread*."

283 And again, in the sixth chapter of St. John, our Lord says absolutely,

284 "He that eateth Me, even he shall live by Me." And, though He distinctly

285 promises that we shall have it granted to us to drink His blood, as well

286 as to eat His flesh; nevertheless, not a word does He say to signify

287 that, as He is the Bread from heaven and the living Bread, so He is the

288 heavenly, living Wine also. Again, St. Paul says that "whosoever shall

289 eat this Bread *or* drink this Cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be

290 guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord."

291 Many of the types of the Holy Eucharist, as far as they go, tend to the

292 same conclusion; as the Manna, to which our Lord referred, the Paschal

293 Lamb, the Shewbread, the sacrifices from which the blood was poured out,

294 and the miracle of the loaves, which are figures of the bread alone;

295 while the water from the rock, and the Blood from our Lord's side

296 correspond to the wine without the bread. Others are representations of

297 both kinds; as Melchizedek's feast, and Elijah's miracle of the meal and

298 oil.

299 9.

300 And, further, it certainly was the custom in the early Church, under

301 circumstances, to communicate in one kind, as we learn from St. Cyprian,

302 St. Dionysius, St. Basil, St. Jerome, and others. For instance, St.

303 Cyprian speaks of the communion of an infant under Wine, and of a woman

304 under Bread; and St. Ambrose speaks of his brother in shipwreck folding

305 the consecrated Bread in a handkerchief, and placing it round his neck;

306 and the monks and hermits in the desert can hardly be supposed to have

307 been ordinarily in possession of consecrated Wine as well as Bread. From

308 the following Letter of St. Basil, it appears that, not only the monks,

309 but the whole laity of Egypt ordinarily communicated in Bread only. He

310 seems to have been asked by his correspondent, whether in time of

311 persecution it was lawful, in the absence of priest or deacon, to take

312 the communion "in one's own *hand*," that is, of course, the Bread; he

313 answers that it may be justified by the following parallel cases, in

314 mentioning which he is altogether silent about the Cup. "It is plainly

315 no fault," he says, "for long custom supplies instances enough to

316 sanction it. For all the monks in the desert, where there is no priest,

317 keep the communion at home, and partake it from themselves. In

318 Alexandria too, and in Egypt, each of the laity, for the most part, has

319 the Communion in his house, and, when he will, he partakes it by means

320 of himself. For when once the priest has celebrated the Sacrifice and

321 given it, he who takes it as a whole together, and then partakes of it

322 daily, reasonably ought to think that he partakes and receives from him

323 who has given it."[132:1] It should be added, that in the beginning of

324 the Letter he may be interpreted to speak of communion in both kinds,

325 and to say that it is "good and profitable."

326 Here we have the usage of Pontus, Egypt, Africa, and Milan. Spain may be

327 added, if a late author is right in his view of the meaning of a Spanish

328 Canon;[132:2] and Syria, as well as Egypt, at least at a later date,

329 since Nicephorus[132:3] tells us that the Acephali, having no Bishops,

330 kept the Bread which their last priests had consecrated, and dispensed

331 crumbs of it every year at Easter for the purposes of Communion.

332 10.

333 But it may be said, that after all it is so very hazardous and fearful a

334 measure actually to withdraw from Christians one-half of the Sacrament,

335 that, in spite of these precedents, some direct warrant is needed to

336 reconcile the mind to it. There might have been circumstances which led

337 St. Cyprian, or St. Basil, or the Apostolical Christians before them to

338 curtail it, about which we know nothing. It is not therefore safe in us,

339 because it was safe in them. Certainly a warrant is necessary; and just

340 such a warrant is the authority of the Church. If we can trust her

341 implicitly, there is nothing in the state of the evidence to form an

342 objection to her decision in this instance, and in proportion as we find

343 we can trust her does our difficulty lessen. Moreover, children, not to

344 say infants, were at one time admitted to the Eucharist, at least to the

345 Cup; on what authority are they now excluded from Cup and Bread also?

346 St. Augustine considered the usage to be of Apostolical origin; and it

347 continued in the West down to the twelfth century; it continues in the

348 East among Greeks, Russo-Greeks, and the various Monophysite Churches to

349 this day, and that on the ground of its almost universality in the

350 primitive Church.[133:1] Is it a greater innovation to suspend the Cup,

351 than to cut off children from Communion altogether? Yet we acquiesce in

352 the latter deprivation without a scruple. It is safer to acquiesce with,

353 than without, an authority; safer with the belief that the Church is the

354 pillar and ground of the truth, than with the belief that in so great a

355 matter she is likely to err.

356 11.

357 (5.) *The Homoüsion.*

358 The next instance I shall take is from the early teaching on the subject

359 of our Lord's Consubstantiality and Co-eternity.

360 In the controversy carried on by various learned men in the seventeenth

361 and following century, concerning the statements of the early Fathers on

362 this subject, the one party determined the patristic theology by the

363 literal force of the separate expressions or phrases used in it, or by

364 the philosophical opinions of the day; the other, by the doctrine of the

365 Catholic Church, as afterwards authoritatively declared. The one party

366 argued that those Fathers *need not* have meant more than what was

367 afterwards considered heresy; the other answered that there is *nothing

368 to prevent* their meaning more. Thus the position which Bull maintains

369 seems to be nothing beyond this, that the Nicene Creed is a natural key

370 for interpreting the body of Ante-nicene theology. His very aim is to

371 explain difficulties; now the notion of difficulties and their

372 explanation implies a rule to which they are apparent exceptions, and in

373 accordance with which they are to be explained. Nay, the title of his

374 work, which is a "Defence of the Creed of Nicæa," shows that he is not

375 investigating what is true and what false, but explaining and justifying

376 a foregone conclusion, as sanctioned by the testimony of the great

377 Council. Unless the statements of the Fathers had suggested

378 difficulties, his work would have had no object. He allows that their

379 language is not such as they would have used after the Creed had been

380 imposed; but he says in effect that, if we will but take it in our hands

381 and apply it equitably to their writings, we shall bring out and

382 harmonize their teaching, clear their ambiguities, and discover their

383 anomalous statements to be few and insignificant. In other words, he

384 begins with a presumption, and shows how naturally facts close round it

385 and fall in with it, if we will but let them. He does this triumphantly,

386 yet he has an arduous work; out of about thirty writers whom he reviews,

387 he has, for one cause or other, to "explain piously" nearly twenty.

388 #### SECTION II.

389 ##### OUR LORD'S INCARNATION AND THE DIGNITY OF HIS BLESSED

390 MOTHER AND OF ALL SAINTS.

391 Bishop Bull's controversy had regard to Ante-nicene writers only, and to

392 little more than to the doctrine of the Divine Son's consubstantiality

393 and co-eternity; and, as being controversy, it necessarily narrows and

394 dries up a large and fertile subject. Let us see whether, treated

395 historically, it will not present itself to us in various aspects which

396 may rightly be called developments, as coming into view, one out of

397 another, and following one after another by a natural order of

398 succession.

399 2.

400 First then, that the language of the Ante-nicene Fathers, on the subject

401 of our Lord's Divinity, may be far more easily accommodated to the Arian

402 hypothesis than can the language of the Post-nicene, is agreed on all

403 hands. Thus St. Justin speaks of the Son as subservient to the Father in

404 the creation of the world, as seen by Abraham, as speaking to Moses from

405 the bush, as appearing to Joshua before the fall of Jericho,[135:1] as

406 Minister and Angel, and as numerically distinct from the Father.

407 Clement, again, speaks of the Word[135:2] as the "Instrument of God,"

408 "close to the Sole Almighty;" "ministering to the Omnipotent Father's

409 will;"[135:3] "an energy, so to say, or operation of the Father," and

410 "constituted by His will as the cause of all good."[135:4] Again, the

411 Council of Antioch, which condemned Paul of Samosata, says that He

412 "appears to the Patriarchs and converses with them, being testified

413 sometimes to be an Angel, at other times Lord, at others God;" that,

414 while "it is impious to think that the God of all is called an Angel,

415 the Son is the Angel of the Father."[136:1] Formal proof, however, is

416 unnecessary; had not the fact been as I have stated it, neither Sandius

417 would have professed to differ from the Post-nicene Fathers, nor would

418 Bull have had to defend the Ante-nicene.

419 3.

420 One principal change which took place, as time went on, was the

421 following: the Ante-nicene Fathers, as in some of the foregoing

422 extracts, speak of the Angelic visions in the Old Testament as if they

423 were appearances of the Son; but St. Augustine introduced the explicit

424 doctrine, which has been received since his date, that they were simply

425 Angels, through whom the Omnipresent Son manifested Himself. This indeed

426 is the only interpretation which the Ante-nicene statements admitted, as

427 soon as reason began to examine what they did mean. They could not mean

428 that the Eternal God could really be seen by bodily eyes; if anything

429 was seen, that must have been some created glory or other symbol, by

430 which it pleased the Almighty to signify His Presence. What was heard

431 was a sound, as external to His Essence, and as distinct from His

432 Nature, as the thunder or the voice of the trumpet, which pealed along

433 Mount Sinai; what it was had not come under discussion till St.

434 Augustine; both question and answer were alike undeveloped. The earlier

435 Fathers spoke as if there were no medium interposed between the Creator

436 and the creature, and so they seemed to make the Eternal Son the medium;

437 what it really was, they had not determined. St. Augustine ruled, and

438 his ruling has been accepted in later times, that it was not a mere

439 atmospheric phenomenon, or an impression on the senses, but the material

440 form proper to an Angelic presence, or the presence of an Angel in that

441 material garb in which blessed Spirits do ordinarily appear to men.

442 Henceforth the Angel in the bush, the voice which spoke with Abraham,

443 and the man who wrestled with Jacob, were not regarded as the Son of

444 God, but as Angelic ministers, whom He employed, and through whom He

445 signified His presence and His will. Thus the tendency of the

446 controversy with the Arians was to raise our view of our Lord's

447 Mediatorial acts, to impress them on us in their divine rather than

448 their human aspect, and to associate them more intimately with the

449 ineffable glories which surround the Throne of God. The Mediatorship was

450 no longer regarded in itself, in that prominently subordinate place

451 which it had once occupied in the thoughts of Christians, but as an

452 office assumed by One, who though having become man in order to bear it,

453 was still God.[137:1] Works and attributes, which had hitherto been

454 assigned to the Economy or to the Sonship, were now simply assigned to

455 the Manhood. A tendency was also elicited, as the controversy proceeded,

456 to contemplate our Lord more distinctly in His absolute perfections,

457 than in His relation to the First Person of the Blessed Trinity. Thus,

458 whereas the Nicene Creed speaks of the "Father Almighty," and "His

459 Only-begotten Son, our Lord, God from God, Light from Light, Very God

460 from Very God," and of the Holy Ghost, "the Lord and Giver of Life," we

461 are told in the Athanasian of "the Father Eternal, the Son Eternal, and

462 the Holy Ghost Eternal," and that "none is afore or after other, none is

463 greater or less than another."

464 4.

465 The Apollinarian and Monophysite controversy, which followed in the

466 course of the next century, tended towards a development in the same

467 direction. Since the heresies, which were in question, maintained, at

468 least virtually, that our Lord was not man, it was obvious to insist on

469 the passages of Scripture which describe His created and subservient

470 nature, and this had the immediate effect of interpreting of His manhood

471 texts which had hitherto been understood more commonly of His Divine

472 Sonship. Thus, for instance, "My Father is greater than I," which had

473 been understood even by St. Athanasius of our Lord as God, is applied by

474 later writers more commonly to His humanity; and in this way the

475 doctrine of His subordination to the Eternal Father, which formed so

476 prominent a feature in Ante-nicene theology, comparatively fell into the

477 shade.

478 5.

479 And coincident with these changes, a most remarkable result is

480 discovered. The Catholic polemic, in view of the Arian and Monophysite

481 errors, being of this character, became the natural introduction to the

482 *cultus Sanctorum*; for in proportion as texts descriptive of created

483 mediation ceased to belong to our Lord, so was a room opened for created

484 mediators. Nay, as regards the instance of Angelic appearances itself,

485 as St. Augustine explained them, if those appearances were creatures,

486 certainly creatures were worshipped by the Patriarchs, not indeed in

487 themselves,[138:1] but as the token of a Presence greater than

488 themselves. When "Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon

489 God," he hid his face before a creature; when Jacob said, "I have seen

490 God face to face and my life is preserved," the Son of God was there,

491 but what he saw, what he wrestled with, was an Angel. When "Joshua fell

492 on his face to the earth and did worship before the captain of the

493 Lord's host, and said unto him, What saith my Lord unto his servant?"

494 what was seen and heard was a glorified creature, if St. Augustine is

495 to be followed; and the Son of God was in him.

496 And there were plain precedents in the Old Testament for the lawfulness

497 of such adoration. When "the people saw the cloudy pillar stand at the

498 tabernacle-door," "all the people rose up and worshipped, every man in

499 his tent-door."[139:1] When Daniel too saw "a certain man clothed in

500 linen" "there remained no strength" in him, for his "comeliness was

501 turned" in him "into corruption." He fell down on his face, and next

502 remained on his knees and hands, and at length "stood trembling," and

503 said "O my Lord, by the vision my sorrows are turned upon me, and I have

504 retained no strength. For how can the servant of this my Lord talk with

505 this my Lord?"[139:2] It might be objected perhaps to this argument,

506 that a worship which was allowable in an elementary system might be

507 unlawful when "grace and truth" had come "through Jesus Christ;" but

508 then it might be retorted surely, that that elementary system had been

509 emphatically opposed to all idolatry, and had been minutely jealous of

510 everything which might approach to favouring it. Nay, the very

511 prominence given in the Pentateuch to the doctrine of a Creator, and the

512 comparative silence concerning the Angelic creation, and the prominence

513 given to the Angelic creation in the later Prophets, taken together,

514 were a token both of that jealousy, and of its cessation, as time went

515 on. Nor can anything be concluded from St. Paul's censure of Angel

516 worship, since the sin which he is denouncing was that of "not holding

517 the Head," and of worshipping creatures *instead* of the Creator as the

518 source of good. The same explanation avails for passages like those in

519 St. Athanasius and Theodoret, in which the worship of Angels is

520 discountenanced.

521 6.

522 The Arian controversy had led to another development, which confirmed by

523 anticipation the *cultus* to which St. Augustine's doctrine pointed. In

524 answer to the objection urged against our Lord's supreme Divinity from

525 texts which speak of His exaltation, St. Athanasius is led to insist

526 forcibly on the benefits which have accrued to man through it. He says

527 that, in truth, not Christ, but that human nature which He had assumed,

528 was raised and glorified in Him. The more plausible was the heretical

529 argument against His Divinity from those texts, the more emphatic is St.

530 Athanasius's exaltation of our regenerate nature by way of explaining

531 them. But intimate indeed must be the connexion between Christ and His

532 brethren, and high their glory, if the language which seemed to belong

533 to the Incarnate Word really belonged to them. Thus the pressure of the

534 controversy elicited and developed a truth, which till then was held

535 indeed by Christians, but less perfectly realized and not publicly

536 recognized. The sanctification, or rather the deification of the nature

537 of man, is one main subject of St. Athanasius's theology. Christ, in

538 rising, raises His Saints with Him to the right hand of power. They

539 become instinct with His life, of one body with His flesh, divine sons,

540 immortal kings, gods. He is in them, because He is in human nature; and

541 He communicates to them that nature, deified by becoming His, that them

542 It may deify. He is in them by the Presence of His Spirit, and in them

543 He is seen. They have those titles of honour by participation, which are

544 properly His. Without misgiving we may apply to them the most sacred

545 language of Psalmists and Prophets. "Thou art a Priest for ever" may be

546 said of St. Polycarp or St. Martin as well as of their Lord. "He hath

547 dispersed abroad, he hath given to the poor," was fulfilled in St.

548 Laurence. "I have found David My servant," first said typically of the

549 King of Israel, and belonging really to Christ, is transferred back

550 again by grace to His Vicegerents upon earth. "I have given thee the

551 nations for thine inheritance" is the prerogative of Popes; "Thou hast

552 given him his heart's desire," the record of a martyr; "thou hast loved

553 righteousness and hated iniquity," the praise of Virgins.

554 7.

555 "As Christ," says St. Athanasius, "died, and was exalted as man, so, as

556 man, is He said to take what, as God, He ever had, in order that even

557 this so high a grant of grace might reach to us. For the Word did not

558 suffer loss in receiving a body, that He should seek to receive a grace,

559 but rather He deified that which He put on, nay, gave it graciously to

560 the race of man. . . . For it is the Father's glory, that man, made and

561 then lost, should be found again; and, when done to death, that he

562 should be made alive, and should become God's temple. For whereas the

563 powers in heaven, both Angels and Archangels, were ever worshipping the

564 Lord, as they are now too worshipping Him in the Name of Jesus, this is

565 our grace and high exaltation, that, even when He became man, the Son of

566 God is worshipped, and the heavenly powers are not startled at seeing

567 all of us, who are of one body with Him, introduced into their

568 realms."[141:1] In this passage it is almost said that the glorified

569 Saints will partake in the homage paid by Angels to Christ, the True

570 Object of all worship; and at least a reason is suggested to us by it

571 for the Angel's shrinking in the Apocalypse from the homage of St. John,

572 the Theologian and Prophet of the Church.[141:2] But St. Athanasius

573 proceeds still more explicitly, "In that the Lord, even when come in

574 human body and called Jesus, was worshipped and believed to be God's

575 Son, and that through Him the Father is known, it is plain, as has been

576 said, that, *not the Word*, considered as the Word, received this so

577 great grace, *but we*. For, because of our relationship to His Body, we

578 too have become God's temple, and in consequence have been made God's

579 sons, so that *even in us the Lord is now worshipped*, and beholders

580 report, as the Apostle says, that 'God is in them of a truth.'"[142:1]

581 It appears to be distinctly stated in this passage, that those who are

582 formally recognized as God's adopted sons in Christ, are fit objects of

583 worship on account of Him who is in them; a doctrine which both

584 interprets and accounts for the invocation of Saints, the *cultus* of

585 relics, and the religious veneration in which even the living have

586 sometimes been held, who, being saintly, were distinguished by

587 miraculous gifts.[142:2] Worship then is the necessary correlative of

588 glory; and in the same sense in which created natures can share in the

589 Creator's incommunicable glory, are they also allowed a share of that

590 worship which is His property alone.

591 8.

592 There was one other subject on which the Arian controversy had a more

593 intimate, though not an immediate influence. Its tendency to give a new

594 interpretation to the texts which speak of our Lord's subordination, has

595 already been noticed; such as admitted of it were henceforth explained

596 more prominently of His manhood than of His Mediatorship or His Sonship.

597 But there were other texts which did not admit of this interpretation,

598 and which, without ceasing to belong to Him, might seem more directly

599 applicable to a creature than to the Creator. He indeed was really the

600 "Wisdom in whom the Father eternally delighted," yet it would be but

601 natural, if, under the circumstances of Arian misbelief, theologians

602 looked out for other than the Eternal Son to be the immediate object of

603 such descriptions. And thus the controversy opened a question which it

604 did not settle. It discovered a new sphere, if we may so speak, in the

605 realms of light, to which the Church had not yet assigned its

606 inhabitant. Arianism had admitted that our Lord was both the God of the

607 Evangelical Covenant, and the actual Creator of the Universe; but even

608 this was not enough, because it did not confess Him to be the One,

609 Everlasting, Infinite, Supreme Being, but as one who was made by the

610 Supreme. It was not enough in accordance with that heresy to proclaim

611 Him as having an ineffable origin before all worlds; not enough to place

612 him high above all creatures as the type of all the works of God's

613 Hands; not enough to make Him the King of all Saints, the Intercessor

614 for man with God, the Object of worship, the Image of the Father; not

615 enough, because it was not all, and between all and anything short of

616 all, there was an infinite interval. The highest of creatures is

617 levelled with the lowest in comparison of the One Creator Himself. That

618 is, the Nicene Council recognized the eventful principle, that, while we

619 believe and profess any being to be made of a created nature, such a

620 being is really no God to us, though honoured by us with whatever high

621 titles and with whatever homage. Arius or Asterius did all but confess

622 that Christ was the Almighty; they said much more than St. Bernard or

623 St. Alphonso have since said of the Blessed Mary; yet they left Him a

624 creature and were found wanting. Thus there was "a wonder in heaven:" a

625 throne was seen, far above all other created powers, mediatorial,

626 intercessory; a title archetypal; a crown bright as the morning star; a

627 glory issuing from the Eternal Throne; robes pure as the heavens; and a

628 sceptre over all; and who was the predestined heir of that Majesty?

629 Since it was not high enough for the Highest, who was that Wisdom, and

630 what was her name, "the Mother of fair love, and fear, and holy hope,"

631 "exalted like a palm-tree in Engaddi, and a rose-plant in Jericho,"

632 "created from the beginning before the world" in God's everlasting

633 counsels, and "in Jerusalem her power"? The vision is found in the

634 Apocalypse, a Woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet,

635 and upon her head a crown of twelve stars. The votaries of Mary do not

636 exceed the true faith, unless the blasphemers of her Son came up to it.

637 The Church of Rome is not idolatrous, unless Arianism is orthodoxy.

638 9.

639 I am not stating conclusions which were drawn out in the controversy,

640 but of premisses which were laid, broad and deep. It was then shown, it

641 was then determined, that to exalt a creature was no recognition of its

642 divinity. Nor am I speaking of the Semi-Arians, who, holding our Lord's

643 derivation from the Substance of the Father, yet denying His

644 Consubstantiality, really did lie open to the charge of maintaining two

645 Gods, and present no parallel to the defenders of the prerogatives of

646 St. Mary. But I speak of the Arians who taught that the Son's Substance

647 was created; and concerning them it is true that St. Athanasius's

648 condemnation of their theology is a vindication of the Medieval. Yet it

649 is not wonderful, considering how Socinians, Sabellians, Nestorians, and

650 the like, abound in these days, without their even knowing it

651 themselves, if those who never rise higher in their notions of our

652 Lord's Divinity, than to consider Him a man singularly inhabited by a

653 Divine Presence, that is, a Catholic Saint,—if such men should mistake

654 the honour paid by the Church to the human Mother for that very honour

655 which, and which alone, is worthy of her Eternal Son.

656 10.

657 I have said that there was in the first ages no public and