Christ, born of the Virgin Mary, the Son of God the Creator, and the resurrection of the body. He unites the law and the prophets with the Scriptures of the Evangelists and Apostles, and from thence HE DRINKS HIS FAITH: he signs it with water, he clothes it with the Holy Spirit, he feeds it with the Eucharist, he exhorts it to martyrdom, and he receives no one who opposes this sacred institution." In the following page, he speaks of the Scriptures in these words: "Wherever a diversity of doctrine is found, there also is the ADULTERATION OF THE SCRIPTURES, and of the interpretation of them. For those who purpose to teach a different doctrine, are forced by necessity to alter the instruments of doctrine." Here he calls the Scriptures by their true title, the instruments of doctrine, which is precisely equivalent to their being the RULE of faith. Again, describing their assemblies for worship, in his celebrated apology, written to influence the Roman Emperors to cease their persecution, he saith, "We meet together, (p. 31) to be refreshed in our minds by THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. We feed our faith by the divine Words, we elevate our hope, we establish our confidence." Again, saith he, (35) “We have now shown our whole condition, and in what manner we can prove that it is as we have declared it, namely, by the faith and antiquity of the DIVINE SCRIPTURES." A volume might be written, brethren, filled with extracts from these authors, all going to the same point; but our limits force me to be brief, and therefore I pass on to another of Dr. Wiseman's witnesses, whose testimony you will find in no respect at variance with what has been already laid before you.

Irenæus (p. 156) saith, "THE SCRIPTURES truly are perfect, because they are dictated by the Word and Spirit of God." And again, "We have known the plan of our salvation," saith he, (p. 173) "only through those by whom the Gospel was delivered to us, which truly they preached, but which afterwards, by the will of God, they delivered to us in THE SCRIP

TURES, to be the foundation and the pillar of our faith. For after our Lord rose from the dead, and they were clothed with the power of the Holy Ghost descending upon them from heaven, they were filled with all spiritual gifts, and had perfect knowledge; and thus they went forth to the ends of the earth, announcing celestial peace to men, and each having committed to him the Gospel of God. Accordingly," continues Irenæus, "Matthew set forth his Gospel, about the time when Peter and Paul preached at Rome, and founded the Church there. And after their departure, Mark, the disciple and companion of Peter, delivered in writing those things which were preached by Peter. And Luke, the follower of Paul, set down in a book the Gospel as it was preached by Paul. And afterwards John, the disciple of the Lord, who reclined on his breast, published his Gospel during his abode at Ephesus. And all these delivered unto us the one God, Maker of heaven and earth, announced by the law and the prophets, and one Christ the Son of God." Here, brethren, we have the simple doctrine of the primitive Church, for Irenæus was the bishop of Lyons in the next generation after the death of the apostle John, and he states that the Scriptures contained the whole of the apostles' preaching, and that they were delivered to the Church, by the will of God, to be the ground and pillar of the faith. Nothing can be more direct to the point, nothing more conclusive.

Let us next hear Cyprian, the celebrated bishop of Carthage, who flourished in the next century after Irenæus, and who is also one of Dr. Wiseman's chosen witnesses. In the dispute between him and Stephen, then bishop of Rome, of which we shall have occasion to speak more fully hereafter, Cyprian argues against the authority of the tradition which Stephen had adduced, touching a matter, however, which was rather a point of discipline than a doctrine of faith, namely, whether the baptism performed by heretics should be repeated by the

Catholic Church or not. Nevertheless, although it was only a point of discipline, mark how Cyprian speaks of the principle. "Whence," says he, "is this tradition ?" (Ch. of Rome, p. 129, Am. ed.) "Is it that which descends from the authority of our Lord and of his Gospel, or which comes to us from the precepts of the apostles and their epistles? For those things which are written are to be done, as the Lord testifies and proposes to Joshua, saying, 'This book of the law shall not depart from thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do all things which are written therein.' In like manner, the Lord, sending his apostles, commands them to teach and baptize the nations, that they may observe all things which were commanded them. If therefore," continues Cyprian, "it is either directed in the Gospel, or contained in the epistles of the apostles or in the acts, let this DIVINE AND HOLY TRADITION BE OBSERVED. But how great is this obstinacy, how bold this presumption, to place this human tradition before the divine sanction, forgetting that God is always indignant and wrathful, whenever human traditions are exalted above his precepts." I think, brethren, that no one who reads this passage can be in doubt, whether Cyprian held the Scriptures to be the rule of faith, for the nature of the dispute proves, that he not only held them to be the rule of faith, but the rule of practice also.

Cyril, the archbishop of Jerusalem, is another witness cited by the advocate of tradition, and therefore let us listen to his testimony, which will not detain us long, and is directly to the purpose. "The faith," saith he, "which the Church delivers to you in the form of the Creed, to be embraced and learned and professed, is fenced all around by the Scriptures. For as all cannot read the Scriptures, and some are hindered from a proper knowledge of them by unskilfulness, and others by press of occupation, we comprehend the universal system of faith in a few verses, lest the soul of any should perish by

ignorance. Retain this faith in your memory, and as you have opportunity, take the contents of each head from the holy Scriptures. For this summary of the faith was not composed according to the fancy of men, but the most important heads were selected from the whole Scripture to perfect and complete the one doctrine of FAITH. And in like manner as a grain of mustard seed contains many branches in a little space, so does this faith involve within it all the knowledge of piety contained in the Old and the New Testament. Behold therefore," saith Cyril in conclusion, " and hold these traditions which you now receive, and write them on the tables of your hearts." Surely, my brethren, nothing can exceed the force and plainness of this testimony, that the rule of faith in the primitive Church, was the rule which we profess—the Holy Scriptures.

In another part of his celebrated books, the same Cyril has this observation, (p.155) "Since there are many things in Scripture which we do not fully understand, why should we trouble our minds with what is not in Scripture ?”

Again, (p. 170) he asks, "Are not the divine Scriptures our salvation?"

And again, (p. 244.) "The Holy Ghost," saith Cyril, "dictated the Scriptures-Let us say therefore those things which were spoken by Him: whatever He has not said, we dare not."

To conclude the testimony of the fathers upon this important point, brethren, I shall cite but one passage more, and this shall be from Vincent of Lerins-a witness whose evidence Dr. Wiseman calls triumphant, although he does not quote his words. In answer to the question, How, in reading the Holy Scriptures, the true Christian shall be directed against the danger of misconstruction, Vincent replies, that "the sacred Scriptures must be interpreted according to the sense which Ecclesiastical tradition in the Catholic and apostolic Church

shall sanction, always observing the rules of universality, antiquity and consent." (p. 360.) Or, as the same author has elsewhere expressed it, "In the Catholic Church herself we must take care to hold only that which has been believed every where, and always, and by all. For this alone is truly and properly Catholic." And such, brethren, is the rule we have been all along defending: the Scriptures as the written law, interpreted by the Church, when the Church was justly called Catholic, that is, general or universal. And therefore we are always ready to have our doctrine tried by this standard, and join most willingly in the appeal to the interpretation of the primitive fathers, because we know that the nearer their writings come to the pure beginning of Christianity, the more they will be found to justify us in our controversy with the Church of Rome. For the very design and object of the English Reformation, was to bring back the Church of Christ to the original standard of primitive Christianity; and the fundamental complaint made against the Church of Rome was, that she had brought in novelties upon the original system, and that she defended them, not by arguments drawn from Scripture, according to the interpretation of the primitive Church, but by relying on the assumption that she was infallible, and could not go astray, and that therefore all her doctrines must be placed on an equality with the Gospel.

But here, my beloved brethren, we must release you from a series of argument and proof, which I fear you have found too long and too dry to be otherwise than uninteresting, but which I knew not how to abbreviate in justice to the truth. Our next topic, namely, the Papacy, together with the subject of the Councils, will occupy several discourses, every portion of which will have a direct bearing on the points we have been discussing, and the evidence to be adduced will accumulate as we go on, so as to demonstrate, more and more clearly, the fallaciousness of the claim, which the Church of Rome has for

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