But lastly we shall be referred to the xvth of Acts, in which, we shall be told, there is most clearly a central body, an admitted and acknowledged authority, knitting together in union and oneness of feeling and principle, all the various scattered provincial churches of the apostolic days.

That chapter, however, is perfectly consistent with the view we have already given. The college of apostles being then at Jerusalem (not at Rome), and there being no New Testament to guide the infant churches, those churches naturally and necessarily sent up to Jerusalem, to the apostles, whenever any doubt arose. But the apostles died, and left no successors in their apostolic authority; but they left the New Testament in their stead. Consequently the churches ceased to send to Jerusalem for decisions; as for sending to Rome, such a course was never thought of for at least a century after this.

As to one, sole, visible church, then, we see it nowhere in the New Testament; and we find it nowhere in ecclesiastical history. In the apostolical writings, we merely meet with a great number of churches in various lands and kingdoms, and we find also that to the decrees and orders of the apostles, all these churches were obedient. But we hear nothing of their subjection even to the church of Jerusalem, much less to that of Rome, which was not so much as founded until many years after. And in ecclesiastical history, we find, indeed, that about the year 193, Victor, then bishop of Rome, assumed to himself the power of fixing the period of Easter, but instead of any such authority being conceded to him, he was sharply reprehended by the brightest light of that time, Irenæus; and his decree set at nought

Y

Not in through the greater part of Christendom. scripture then, nor yet in what is called Antiquity,' in its purest and best days, do we find any trace of this one, universal, and visible church.

We shall probably, however, be told that this hypothesis leaves the church at large in a hapless and forlorn predicament. How unlikely,—it will be said,—that Christ should have deliberately left his disciples, in all after ages, destitute of authoritative guidance and direction; when it was so easy, as in the Romish church has been shown, to establish a centre of unity and authority in that apostolic college, of which we find such clear traces in the Acts of the Apostles.

We have before observed, that it is useless, and therefore idle and almost criminal, to indulge in speculations of this kind, when we have both God's own word, and the records of antiquity to boot, to instruct us as to what he was actually pleased to decide upon doing in this matter. Let us again glance at these two sources of truth, not so much for what we shall there find, as for the fullest evidence of the want of all support for the Romish hypothesis. Our opponents must certainly admit, that if one visible church, ruled over by one central authority, had been established by Christ, there must have been some distinct and visible traces of it, both in the writings of the apostles, and in the records of their Acts; and also in the history of the church during the first two centuries. And it is on the utter silence of both these sources of information that we rely, as establishing our conclusion, that this visible church, and this central authority, are nothing better than mere human inventions, constructed in some later period.

Had we, indeed, a college of apostles, or any other body of men who could raise the dead to life, or give sight to the blind,-sitting on earth at the present moment, we should not for an instant hesitate to admit their authority. But between a college of inspired men, selected and sent forth by Christ himself, and evidencing their divine commission by their miraculous power; and a college of cardinals, named by court intrigues, characterized by every shade of folly and of crime, and possessing neither infallibility in their decisions, nor power in their actions, there is a difference as wide as between heaven and earth.

But we must protest against being supposed to admit the church of Christ to be left in a desolate and helpless condition. We are not arguing against the authority of the apostles of Christ, but for it. All that they were inspired to teach men, they have left us in the New Testament; and in the study of that unerring guide, we have also the promise of the Holy Spirit's teaching. What we protest against, is the desertion of this, the only really apostolic authority, for human decisions and opinions, whether of fathers, or councils, or popes, or bishops. We cling to that apostolic code, touching the character of which there is no doubt, and refuse to admit the jarring and controverted claims of men, to be placed in any kind of competition with it.

XV.

THE IDOLATRY OF ROMANISM.

THE INVOCATION OF SAINTS.

THUS far have we gone, without being able to get beyond the first, grand, fundamental question, of the RULE OF FAITH. Our time, however, has not been wasted, nor has our progress been tardy; for that single point comprises more than one half the controversy. In fact, it involves the whole. The enmity so generally exhibited by the leaders of the Romish church towards the holy scriptures, sufficiently proves that, in their view, the admission of the word of God, as the rule of Christian faith and practice, must be fatal to their cause. And we are equally ready to admit, on the part of Protestants, that if the Bible be not our sole and sufficient rule-if we are under the necessity of having recourse to tradition, or the writings of the fathers, or the decisions of the church, in any matter essentially connected with the soul's salvation,-then there is little prospect of our being able to resist the establishment of the greater part of popery.

The Romanist, however, assures us that we must have recourse, at last, to the traditions of the church, for many doctrines and practices which are generally held among Protestants. How, he asks, can we possibly establish the doctrine of the Trinity, or the sacredness of the Sabbath, or the lawfulness of infant baptism, or the apostolic institution of episcopacy, without having recourse to the writings of the fathers, and the decisions of the church?

Now the first two of these points are of far greater moment and importance than the other two. The doctrine of the Trinity, in our view, can be abundantly established by the words of scripture; and, in fact, so high and vast is its dignity and its weight, that if it were not found in God's own word, we could never venture to press it upon any one's belief, on the mere ground that some ancient fathers held such a view. 2. The divine institution of the Sabbath is upheld throughout the whole Bible; and in the New Testament we have the clearest proofs that the day set apart, as the Sabbath, by the earliest Christians, under the sanction of the apostles, was the first day of the week, to which we now adhere. 3. Infant baptism is not essential to salvation; though it is clearly deducible, by way of inference, from the tenor of the Old and New Testaments, gathering from the first the practice relative to circumcision; and from the second, the substitution, in the Christian church, of baptism in its room. 4. Episcopacy stands in nearly the same position. It is not commanded in the New Testament, but we may learn from various passages that it was instituted by the apostles. But neither in the case of infant baptism, nor of episcopacy, nor in any other, do we wish to throw the history