practices, which she pretends to support on the authority of tradition, it is in vain that we endeavour to convince the members of her communion that the articles of their faith are not borne out by the Scriptures. While the advocates of that Church strive to make proselytes to their opinions, by enjoining a submission to the teaching of what they call the unwritten word, the sanctity and undoubted truth of which they confidently assert, we shall be doing nothing towards staying their progress, so long as we content ourselves with opposing their doctrines one by one, without refuting them in the stronghold to which they trust. It is folly to suppose that their assertion will confute itself; to take for granted that they have nothing to urge in its favour, that men are so determined not to allow so monstrous a position, that it is unnecessary to oppose it. The simple fact that the Romanists bring forward their sentiments with positive confidence, and that Protestants do little more than declaim against the authority of tradition, is sufficient to bias many persons in favour of the former: and we may rest assured, that when the doctrine of the infallible authority of the supposed depositary of apostolic tradition is set forward with all the plausible reasonings, which its advocates well

know how to adapt to the intellectual taste of the present day, and invested with the apparent beauty and magnificence which a skilful hand can throw around its intrinsic weakness, there will be found multitudes who will be carried away by the deception.

We may speak in nearly the same manner with reference to the disputed points among members of our own communion. So long as the actual meaning of the phrase "Church authority;" the arguments on which is based the doctrine thus implied; and the possibility of applying to such authority as a guide to the written rule of faith; are no better understood than they now are, we have little prospect of coming to any agreement in other matters. It is to no purpose that the one side bring forward quotation after quotation from works of high repute, so long as their opponents wholly disregard such reasoning. It is in vain that the opposite party set forth the impossibility that the words of Scripture should have such a meaning as their adversaries allege, while these adversaries submit their judgment on the question to that of the ancient Christian writers. We must go to

the fountain head, if we would

ever have a clear

and smooth stream. It is useless to expect

Protestants to unite together in defence of Protestantism, or to join hand in hand in their warfare with the powers of the world, so long as some among them deny either guide or rule of faith beyond the Scriptures, while others uphold the authority of tradition, and at the same time maintain, that the grand Romish errors cannot be maintained upon any such principle.

On the decision we make on these vital points, depends the future course we adopt. When once these principles are settled, we then proceed to their further investigation or application, as the case may be. If it shall be shown that the Church has a right to require belief in articles of faith, or submission to practices, which do not pretend to a place in the written word of God, the next step of the religious inquirer must be to discover these traditionary doctrines: if it shall be proved, that though Scripture is the only rule of faith, yet tradition is the divinely authorized interpreter of its statements, the question then follows, "Who are the orthodox guides?" and if it be made clear, that it is not only unreasonable, but impossible, (if we would reason fairly,) to follow any other guide than our own capacities, enlightened by the influences of the

Holy Ghost, in such case we have nothing more to do, than to take up our Bibles at once, and try all doctrines by the agreement which, in our own individual judgment, they appear to have with the written word. If the first of these three suppositions be made good, the Romanist conceives (whether justly or not) that all the doctrines and practices of his Church are established; and upon the settlement of the second and third mainly depend the majority of the controverted points between members of Protestant communions.

In the following pages it is attempted to establish the following view of the question: that the nature of the case, the facts of ecclesiastical antiquity, and Holy Scripture itself, unite in showing to us, that it is not the will of God that we should regard either the Church or Tradition as a divinely commissioned interpreter of the written word. There is of course no pretence made to deny the historical fact, that in every age there has existed a body of men in the world, receiving the great doctrines of the Gospel in greater or less purity, and thus exhibiting to the world and to the angels of heaven the fulfilment of Christ's promise of perpetuity to his Holy Catholic Church. The object here in view is to make it evident, that

our Lord has never intended that individual Christians should accept any one interpretation of the Scriptures, simply because it is sanctioned by the voice of this body; that it is the right and privilege of every member of the Church to reject all those portions of her teaching, which to his own personal capacities and common sense, employed in humility and with unceasing supplication to God, appear to be unwarranted by the Bible. It is fully admitted, that certain truths have in their substance been received in every age in such a manner, that they can claim for themselves catholicity, universality, and antiquity; but it is denied, that a man is under any obligation to accept such doctrines, because they are catholic, universal, or ancient. We are to believe the traditive expositions of our forefathers, whensoever we ourselves regard them as sanctioned by Holy Writ; and we are to reject every doctrine which we conceive to disagree with that unerring source of truth, though it claim for itself the authority of every era of the Universal Church.

Not that it is to be supposed that it is the bounden duty of every believer actually to search the Scriptures for the express purpose of testing all the articles of his faith by what he therein