Church, she formally maintained her connection with the Church Catholic, and made provision that her Ministers should not narrow her teaching, but retain it as co-extensive with that of the Universal Church.

The very language of this Canon itself shews, that the rightful authority of the Fathers interferes neither with that of Holy Scripture, nor with her own.

First then, there is no semblance of "contrasting Scripture and the Fathers, as coordinate authority." Scripture is reverenced as paramount; the "doctrine of the Old or New Testament" is the source; the "Catholic Fathers and ancient Bishops" have but the office of" collecting out of that same doctrine;" the Old and New Testaments are the fountain; the Catholic Fathers, the channel, through which it has flowed down to us. The contrast, then, in point of authority, is not between Holy Scripture and the Fathers, but between the Fathers and us; not between the Book interpreted and the interpreters, but between one class of interpreters and another; between ancient Catholic truth and modern private opinions; not, as is sometimes said, between the word of God and the word of man, but between varying modes of understanding the word of God. Scripture is the depository of the will of our Heavenly Father, His will, His covenant; but since every thing conveyed in the language of men will be liable to be by men differently interpreted, it would, of course, be a merciful provision of Almighty God, if He has been pleased to give us, within certain limits, rules for understanding that word. Now any one would acknowledge, in any man's testament, that if the father, when yet with his children, had explained to them the meaning of his testament, (whether formally reading it to them, or conveying to them its substance in other words,) such an exposition would be of great authority in ascertaining the meaning of the general tenor of that testament, or of any portion of it which might otherwise seem capable of two interpretations. And if such children, when their father was no longer present here, were, when asked,

without any wrong bias, to explain such will in one and the same way, and to declare that their father had told them that it was so to be understood, we should yield unhesitating assent to this testimony. Nor again would our value for that testimony be weakened, if, instead of the immediate children, the children's children should be the witnesses, especially had they been separated from each other in different countries, yet all agreed in the meaning which they had learnt from their several parents was to be attached to the will of their common father. All such illustrations as this must indeed fall short of the truth, because such reference to the things of men can furnish no adequate parallel to those of God. Thus, this illustration omits, that Holy Scripture is not a formal document, written for the purpose of conveying systematic, precise, statements; or, again, that God did not leave the meaning of His word to be collected any how, or ever did employ it without living guardians and expounders, and the like. It suffices, however, for the purpose for which it is here used. It gives an instance, how in the case of such agreement as to the meaning of a document, no one would doubt about it; (the testimony of the sons of Jonadab, the son of Rechab, was valid testimony as to that which their father commanded them ;) nor, in the case of a written document, would any one say that these witnesses were regarded as equal in authority to that to whose meaning they bore testimony, since the very fact of appealing to, and expounding an original document, implies that it is the ultimate source of authority; it is not, as men say, its independence, but ours, which is denied; it is the independent source of authority; but we, to be satisfied of its meaning, are not independent, (as some would wish to be,) but depend upon the testimony of others. These points then are plain; 1. The paramount authority of the document appealed to. 2. The authority of concurring testimony to its meaning, if it is to be had from those to whom its meaning was originally explained, or their descendants. Now this is just what is claimed by our Church for the Fathers, i. e. for

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the ancient Church, in whatever way its testimony is to be collected; whether they had themselves occasion to deposit it once for all, as at the General Councils (truly so called), or whether, though not collected by themselves, it is still capable of being collected from them. They are witnesses, and in whatever cases agreement is to be had, they are valid witnesses, as to the sense in which God willed His Scripture to be understood. Thus, we are assured at once, without further scruple, that the Nicene Creed contains the Scriptural Doctrine of the Holy Trinity, not only in case any can prove it to themselves to be such, (for as to some of its Articles many might find much difficulty in so doing,) but because we have the witness of the whole Church that it is so. We believe that it may be proved by most certain warrant of Holy Scripture," (Art. VIII.) because it was so proved, and the Church Universal bore witness that such was the meaning of Holy Scripture on these awful truths, and that such was the interpretation which they had received from their fathers, and so from the Apostles. It is our privilege, that questions so decided are closed-not against us, but for us—or, if we so will, for us against ourselves. We have ground to be satisfied that the results so gained are true, and may benefit by them, without the labour of further questioning. We are satisfied to "receive them as agreeable to the Doctrine of the Old and New Testaments," even because" the Catholic Fathers and ancient Bishops have gathered it out of that very Doctrine," for us as well as for themselves. The Fathers, then, are not, as some mistakenly suppose, equalled, much less preferred, to Holy Scripture, but only to ourselves, i. e. the ancient to the modern, the waters near the fountain to the troubled æstuary rolled backward and forward by the varying tide of human opinion, and rendered brackish by the continued contact with the bitter waters of this world, unity to disunion, the knowledge of the near successors of the Apostles to that of these latter times.

The same will be the case as to any other truths, "consentaneous to the Doctrine of the Old and New Testament,"

which the Fathers had not occasion to collect, but which still may be collected from their existing works. The Creeds, indeed, happily contain the great mass of Doctrine, although even as to these, (as is apparent from the very expositions of the Creeds, e. g. Bp. Pearson's,) a further enquiry is necessary to ascertain what is the precise meaning of these compendious statements in some of their Articles. The process in such cases may be longer, but the result the same. We become assured that we know what was the Apostolic doctrine, when we have the agreement of early and independent witnesses as to that Doctrine.

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2. There can be no notion of "appealing to fallible men, as of ultimate authority, or setting up unduly the authority of one or other of the Fathers." The appeal of our Church is not to the Fathers, individually, or as individuals, but as witnesses; not to this or that Father, but to the whole body, and agreement of" Catholic Fathers and ancient Bishops." The appeal is not to St. Athanasius, or St. Cyprian, or St. Basil, much as we have reason to venerate those blessed servants of God, but to the Church Universal throughout the world," to whose belief these are eminent, but still single, witnesses. We could not tell, from any single Father, unless where he directly avers it, whether any sentiment or statement of doctrine be peculiar to himself or his own Church, or to some particular Churches, or whether, finally, it belong to the belief of the Holy Church Universal. It may be, that any given Father, on some particular point, is not speaking as a witness at all, but expressing only his own individual sentiments, as an enlightened Christian of the present day might. Not but that he would even then be to be regarded with deference by individuals, (unless indeed he should be at variance with the majority of the ancients,) but it would be, in part, in a different capacity. We should regard him then with respect, in that he lived in holier and more self-denying times, before the Church was divided, while the memory of the truths first delivered was fresher, and men's perception of the "analogy of the Faith"

more vivid. There would be greater likelihood that he would be in the right, as an individual, in that the tone of his mind would be more likely to be in entire accordance with that of the Holy Spirit, that he would have larger measures of that Spirit, and have no opposing prejudices to disturb His influence. There would be a greater likelihood also of his being a witness, in that the statement which he was delivering, may very probably have been affected or produced by the body of Catholic truth then floating in the Church, but which has not arrived orally down to us, or for which we have, through later circumstances, a less keen perception. Still, we have thus far only a probability that he was herein speaking the truth, and it might be that he was under some secret bias of his own, as St. Augustine has generally been held to be with regard to some part of his controversy with the Pelagians. The words then of an individual Father may be only those of an enlightened man; it is only by their harmony or unity with others, that we ascertain them to be part of the Catholic Verities. By comparing them with those of other members of his Church, (who have ever been quoted as of eminence in each Church,) we should ascertain them to be the doctrines of that Church; by comparison with other Churches, to be part of the teaching of the Church Catholic. Each Father is, in the first instance, probably a witness for the doctrine of his own Church, and indirectly, and ultimately, through his Church, of the Church Catholic, if so be his Church herein agree with the other Churches. For, some things we find in the African, some in the Latin Church, peculiar to those Churches; some things, again, in two or more Churches, which yet we have no proof that they were ever Catholic. Things so held, or practices so received, (such as the re-baptizing of heretics, held in the Churches of Africa proper, Egypt, Asia Minor,) would, of course, be entitled to their degree of weight, in that they were so entertained in ancient or Apostolic Churches, and would claim the more respect, if it should appear that there was no positive evidence on the other side, (as in case other Churches