SERMON IV.

JEREMIAH VI. 16.

Thus saith the Lord, stand ye

in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls.

WE frequently hear persons referring to the sentiments and quoting the opinions of the reformers, foreign and domestic, of the sixteenth century, as if they were authoritative in the interpretation of Scripture, and as if it were incumbent upon us to be silent whenever they may speak. Yet why we should pay more of deference to the opinions of wise and good and learned men of the sixteenth century, than we do to the opinions of wise and good and learned men of the nineteenth century, is a question more easily asked than satisfactorily answered. Why should Luther, or Melancthon, or Calvin

be regarded, extrinsically, as commentators of Scripture, more skilful than any who have succeeded them, and who, in many respects, have possessed superior advantages? Why should Cranmer, or Ridley, or Latimer, be more free from error than our present metropolitan and his suffragans? Good men they doubtless were, and great men, but still they were only gifted with those ordinary graces of the Spirit which the church still dispenses. Our debt to them is great for their exertions against popery; our debt to our own Reformers is greater still for their having, in most instances, clearly marked the difference between true catholicism and Romanism, and their example in contending for, yea, in dying for, what they believed to be God's truth, is to be zealously upheld, as worthy of imitation, to an age more distinguished for light than for love. But still they were not infallible, they were not faultless;—in many respects they were all of them faulty; and therefore, when to their dicta an appeal is made, as if from their decisions it were almost heresy to depart, we may fairly demand the grounds on which such authority is made to rest.

But although their authority cannot be established, although the Reformers were not one whit more infallible than the pope of Rome, yet

the fact that their writings are published and quoted as works to be referred to for the decision of controversies, proves that some authority is wanted, that the human mind, amid the prevailing collision of sentiment, while Scripture is made to speak one thing by this party and directly the reverse by that, is desirous of finding an umpire to whose decisions it may bow. The Roman church is loud in her boastings and promises on this head; and, as assertions are often taken for facts, we may attribute to this circumstance the many converts made to the popish system, wherever its more hideous features are concealed, and among those who are deficient in learning to perceive, that the claims of the pope of Rome can be substantiated, neither by Scripture, nor by the consent of the universal church, (the Greek church even to this day protesting against popish usurpation as rigorously as we do ourselves,) nor by any thing like primitive practice. These claims have been, in fact, a gradual encroachment upon the liberty of the church, of which almost each step can be distinctly traced.

But, admitting that the authority neither of popish prelate nor of protestant reformer can be established; admitting, and contending as we do for, the sufficiency of Scripture, does it follow

that there is no authority to be discovered sufficient to determine our judgments when Scripture appears to be ambiguous, or when from the same passages contradictory doctrines are inferred? Not so, says the church of England. Her spirit may be gathered from the rules given to our divines, when, in the early days of the Reformation, they were appointed to hold a conference with certain popish priests and jesuits 1. "If they, the Papists, will shew any ground of Scripture, and wrest it to their own sense, let it be shewed by the interpretation of the old doctors, such as were before Gregory I." "If they can shew no doctor that agreed with them in their said opinion before that time, then conclude that they have no succession in that doctrine from the Apostles' time and above four hundred years after, when doctrine and religion were most pure; for that they can shew no predecessor whom they can succeed in the same. Quod primum verum. Tertullian." Would that those unauthorised individuals and self-appointed polemics, who rashly and presumptuously challenge the Romanists to discussion in the present day, had never forgotten the rules laid down by the church to which they still profess to belong,

1

1 Strype's Life of Abp. Whitgift, vol. i. p. 196.

when she thus sent forth her children to fight with the enemy!

But it was not only with respect to the Romanist that this rule was observed; when a commission was issued for the trial of heretics, an especial provision was made that no spiritual person should have any authority or power, however commissioned, to determine or judge any matter to be heresy, but only such as had heretofore been determined, or ordered, or adjudged to be heresy by the canonical Scriptures, or by the four first general councils. Nor is it only with respect to heresies that this rule is to be observed; it, is also expressly ordained by canon, that the clergy, in their exposition of doctrine, shall receive as their guide, in subordination to Scripture, the catholic Fathers and primitive bishops'. The same rule was laid down for the observance of the divines commissioned to make that version of the Bible which we still retain ; for they were directed to refer to "the most celebrated Fathers, when any word had several significations*;" and we still find the rule enforced in the proclamation for the last review of

2 Collier, Eccles. Hist. ii. 421.

3 Liber Canon. Discip. Eccles. Angl. A. D. 1571. Canon de Concionatoribus.