proper rather for those who assume the office of teaching and preaching, as they have the cure of souls." Further, to show the wonderful virtues and efficacy of such a faith, another of the doctors, Gabriel Byel, maintains, that "if he who implicitly believes the church should think, misled by natural reason, that the Father is greater than the Son, and existed before him, or that the three persons are things locally distant from one another, or the like, he is not a heretic, nor sins, provided he do not defend this error pertinaciously; for he believes what he does believe, because he thinks that the church believes so, subjecting his opinion to the faith of the church. For though his opinion be erroneous, his opinion is not his faith, nay, his faith, in contradiction to his opinions, is the faith of the church. What is still more, this implicit faith not only defends from heresy and sin, but even constitutes merit in heterodoxy itself, and preserves in that merit one who forms a most heterodox opinion, because he thinks the church believes so." Thus far Byel. It is then of no consequence what a man's explicit faith be; he may be an Arian, a Socinian, an Anthropomorphite, a Polytheist, in short, any thing; he cannot err, whilst he has an implicit faith in the church. This they give as their explanation of that article of the creed, "I believe in the holy catholic church;" though, agreeably to this interpretation, there should have been no other article in the creed. This point alone supersedes every other, and is the quintessence of all. Implicit faith has been sometimes ludicrously styled fides carbonaria, from the noted story of one who, examining an ignorant collier on his religious principles, asked him what it was that he believed? He answered, "I believe what the church believes." The other rejoined, "What then does the church believe?" He replied readily, "The church believes what I believe." The other, desirous if possible to bring him to particulars, once more resumes his inquiry: "Tell me then, I pray you, what it is which you and the church both believe?" The only answer the collier could give was, "Why truly, Sir, the church and I both-believe the same thing." This is implicit faith in perfection, and, in the estimation of some celebrated doctors, the sum of necessary and saving knowledge in a Christian.

B b

It is curious to consider the inferences which they themselves deduce from this wonderful doctrine. A person, on first hearing them, would take them for the absurd consequences objected by an adversary, with a view to expose the notion of implicit faith as absolutely nonsensical. But it is quite otherwise; they are deductions made by friends, who are very serious in supporting them. One of these is, that a man may believe two propositions perfectly contradictory at the same time-one explicitly, the other implicitly. Another is, that in such a case the implicit, (which, to a common understanding, appears to include no belief at all), not the explicit, is to be accounted his religious faith. "It may

be,” says Gabriel, "that one may believe implicitly a certain truth, and explicitly believe the contrary." Put the case, that a man believes that whatever the church believes is true, at the same time disbelieving this proposition, Abraham had more wives than one, and believing the contrary, as thinking it the belief of the church; such a man implicitly believes this proposition, Abraham had two wives, because the church believes so, and explicitly he disbelieves it. Now the great virtue of implicit faith in the church lies here, that it saves a man from all possible danger, in consequence of any explicit erroneous opinions, and renders it, indeed, unnecessary in him to be solicitous to know whether his opinions be right or wrong, orthodox or heterodox. No wonder, then, that the utility of this simple principle is so highly celebrated by the schoolmen: "Hæc fides implicita, qua fidelis credit quicquid ecclesia credit, utilissima est fideli. Nam si fuerit in corde, defendit ab omni hæretica pravitate, ut dicit Occam in tractata de sacramentis, et post eum Gerson. Non enim aliquatenus hæreticari valet, qui corde credit quicquid ecclesia catholica credit, id est, qui credit illam veritatem, quicquid ecclesia credit est verum." And, indeed, its efficacy must be the same, as the reason is the same, in protecting from the consequences .of every error, even in the most fundamental points, as in protecting from what might ensue on that trifling error, that Abraham had but one wife.

We must at least confess not only the consistency, but even the humanity of the Romish system, in this amazing method of simplifying all the necessary knowledge and faith of a

Christian. For surely, when the means of knowledge were in effect put out of the reach of the people-when in public they were tantalized with the mere parade of teaching, by having instructions chanted to them in an unknown tongue; when it was not the understanding, but the senses solely, which were employed in religious offices; when every thing rational and edifying was excluded from the service—it would have been unconscionable, worse than even the tyranny of Egyptian taskmasters, to require of the people any thing like real faith, which always presupposes some information given, and some knowledge acquired, of the subject. A merely nominal faith (and such entirely is this scholastic fiction of implicit faith) suited much better a merely mechanical service. In this manner, the knowledge of God, which is declared in scripture to be more valuable than burnt-offerings, and faith in him, and in the doctrine of revelation, are superseded, to make room for an unbounded submission to, and confidence in men, to wit, those ghostly instructors whom the populace must invariably regard as the mouth of the unerring church.

I would not, however, be understood as signifying, by what has been now advanced on the subject of implicit faith, that in this point all Romanists are perfectly agreed. What I have adduced is supported by great names among their doctors, and mostly quoted in their words. Nor was the doctrine, though every-where publicly taught in their schools and in their writings, ever censured by either Pope or council, ecumenical or provincial. But though all the Romish doctors pay great deference, they do not all, I acknowledge, pay equal deference to implicit faith. Some seem to think it sufficient for every thing; others are curious in distinguishing what those articles are, whereof an explicit faith is requisite, and what those are, on the other hand, whereof an implicit faith will answer. But it is not necessary here to enter into their scholastic cavils.

So much shall suffice for the first expedient employed by superstition for the suppression of her deadly foe knowledge, which is, by perverting the rational service of religion into a mere amusement of the senses.

LECTURE XXIV.

BUT though, by such means as those now illustrated, religious knowledge might long be kept low, it was not so easy a matter to suppress it altogether. Such a variety of circumstances have an influence on its progress, that when the things which have been long in confusion begin to settle, it is impossible to guard every avenue against its entrance. One particular art, and one particular branch of science, has a nearer connexion with other arts and other branches of science than is commonly imagined. If you would exclude one species of knowledge totally, it is not safe to admit any. This, however, is a point of political wisdom, which, luckily, has not been sufficiently understood even by politicians. When the western part of the Roman empire was overrun, and rather desolated than conquered by barbarians, matters, after many long and terrible conflicts, came by degrees to settle, and several new states and new kingdoms arose out of the stupendous ruin. As these came to assume a regular form, the arts of peace revived, and were cultivated; knowledge of course revived with them. Of all kinds of knowledge, I own that religious knowledge was the latest; and that it should be so, we cannot be surprised, when we consider the many terrible clogs by which it was borne down. But notwithstanding these, the progress of letters could not fail to have an influence even here. History, languages, criticism, all tended to open the eyes of mankind, and disclose the origin of many corruptions and abuses in respect of sacred as well as profane literature. How much this was accelerated by the invention of printing, which renders the communication of knowledge so easy, bringing it within the reach of those to whom it was inaccessible before, it would be superfluous to attempt to prove. Suffice it to remark, that, towards the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth century, the visible face of things in Europe was, in respect of cultivation, and the liberal as well as useful arts, very much altered.

The change had been insensibly advancing for some centuries before. As this was an indication of a second dawn

of reason, and the return of thought, after a long night of barbarity and ignorance, it proved the means of preparing the minds of men for a corresponding change in greater matters. Indeed, there began to be disseminated such a dissatisfaction with the corruptions that had invaded all the provinces of religion, that murmurs and complaints were almost universal. In every part of Christendom, the absolute necessity of a reformation in the church was become a common topic. It is true, the clamour regarded chiefly discipline and manners, but by no means solely. It had, indeed, long before that time, been rendered very unsafe to glance at received doctrines, though in the most cursory or even guarded manner. Yet it was impossible that the abuses in practice should not lead to those errors in principle, which had proved the parents of those abuses. The increase of knowledge brought an increase of curiosity. The little that men had discovered, raised an insatiable appetite for discovering more. The increase of knowledge, by undeceiving men in regard to some inveterate prejudices, occasioned not less infallibly the decrease of credulity; and the decrease of credulity sapped the very foundations of sacerdotal power. Now, as the principal means of conveying knowledge was by books, the spiritual powers were quickly led to devise proper methods for stopping the progress of those books which might prove of dangerous consequence to their pretensions.

This was the second expedient above-mentioned adopted by superstition, or rather by spiritual tyranny, of whose throne superstition is the chief support, for checking the progress of knowledge. The origin and growth of this expedient, till it arrived at full maturity, I shall relate to you nearly in the terms of a celebrated writer, to whom I have oftener than once had recourse before. In the earliest ages of the church, though there was no ecclesiastical prohibition in regard to books, pious persons, from a principle of conscience, always thought it right to avoid reading bad books, that they might not transgress the sense of the divine law, which prohibits us from spending the time unprofitably, and which commands us to abstain from all appearance of evil; to avoid every thing by which we may be led, without necessity, to expose ourselves to temptation, and be drawn into