evidence is denied, calculated most infallibly to establish any facts or any opinions to be drawn from the testimony of man; and such demonstrative proofs are refused, as we should be ashamed to disown for the establishment of a point of history, or a matter of inquiry in any other cause. We do not rely upon the Fathers as the infallible oracles of the word of God; we quote them only as proofs of the doctrines of the Church in their own times: in this light their evidence is most conclusive and unexceptionable, and, as such, they form a most invaluable traditionary history.

We have, at the same time, Scripture evidence to prove, that it was ordained by Christ that much of his doctrine should be handed down to us by tradition. Tradition gives us the sense, at the same time that it proves the authenticity and inspiration, of the sacred writings; and as Catholics alone have existed in all ages, so Catholics alone have the tradition of all ages in their favour. St. Paul says to the Corinthians; Keep my ordinances as I delivered them to you: to the Thessalonians; Brethren, stand fast, and hold the Traditions, which you have learned by word, or by our Epistle) to Timothy; Hold the form of sound words which thou hast heard from me in faith, and in the love, which is in Christ Jesus :") and again;

(1) 1 Cor. xi. 2. (m) 2 Thess. ii. 14.

(n) 2 Tim. i. 13.

And the things, which thou hast heard of me before many witnesses, the same commend to faithful men, who shall be fit to teach others also.")

With such Scripture authority for tradition, surely we are justified in contending, that, if a doctrine was known to have prevailed in a district which had been converted to Christianity by the preaching of the Apostles, and if the same doctrine was prevalent in all other districts, under similar circumstances, that that doctrine must have been derived from them, and is clearly an apostolical tradition. Hence, it formed an article of Catholic

(°) 2 Tim. ii. 2.

(P) Besides many other Protestant authorities to this point, we have that of Dr. Waterland, which I quote from the Bishop of Strasbourg's learned Answer to the Difficul ties of Romanism. "It was highly unreasonable to suppose," says Dr. Waterland, "that those several churches, very distant from each other in place, and of different languages, should all unite in the same errors, and deviate uniformly from their rule at once. But that they should all agree in the same common faith, might easily be accounted for, as arising from the same common cause, which could be no other than the common delivery of the same uniform faith and doctrine to all the churches by the apostles themselves. Such unanimity could never come by chance, but must be derived from one common source; and, therefore, the harmony of their doctrine was in itself a pregnant argument of the truth of it."

Importance of the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity, p. 372.

faith, as much as if it had been detailed in the Sacred Writings. Throughout the Holy Scriptures there is constant mention of a command to teach, but never to write: preaching was the grand method of diffusing Christianity; writing was only an auxiliary and subordinate means. Christianity had been widely spread before any part of the New Testament was written, and, still more so, before it obtained any general circulation. Yet Protestants maintain, that what was written is alone to be attended to; that teaching and preaching are of no avail, unless that which was taught and preached was forthwith committed to writing: they argue as if St. Paul had said: "Hold fast the doctrine which you have learnt by our Epistle; but that which we have preached by word of mouth, heed it not."(9)

It is every day vauntingly and ostentatiously asserted that the Bible, and the Bible alone, is the

(9) If we attend to the circumstances under which the New Testament was written, we shall immediately see that it never could have been intended as a regular and exclusive code of faith, a statute book, as it were, of the laws and ordinances of Christ, and, through him, of his apostles. In proof of this, see APPENDIX, No. XII. for a short historical analysis of the contents of the New Testament, with which I have been favoured by a learned and reverend friend.

rule of faith, and the religion of Protestants ;(1) while the reflection of a moment will serve to dissipate this vain and idle illusion, by calling upon them to prove their right of possession, and the validity of this their great, eternal, and all-sufficient charter. Their right of

possession is only the right of violence and conquest; for, till their great rebellion against the constitutions of God and the government of the Church, in the 16th century, when they forcibly wrested the sacred deposit from the hands to which it had been so long entrusted by its Divine Author, they possessed it not. But no sooner did they obtain it, than they sacrilegiously profaned it by mutilations, additions, and interpolations, so that the first fruit of their usurpation was an impious violation of that very law, to be ruled by which, as they asserted, they had incurred the guilt of apostacy and rebellion; a law, by which they have ever since sworn, in contradiction to its letter and its spirit, that it is good for every purpose but that for which it was evidently intended, -that it was pure and unadulterated, when they themselves had corrupted it,-that it was clear

() If the Bible alone, without note or comment, be the religion of Protestants, what need have they of Articles of Faith, of Catechisms, of Priests, of Bishops, or of any part of the complicated machinery of the Establishment? Surely not for the administration of two Sacraments!

and explicit, when they allow it still to tell us that it is hard to be understood, and easily wrested to our own destruction. They would have us to believe it to be equally the advocate of dissension, as of unity; because it was by the legions of dissension that they first invaded that stronghold of unity which, terrified at the consequences of their own presumption and violence, they have ever since vainly endeavoured to reconstruct upon new principles and insufficient foundations:-they would have us to acknowledge that this their law and charter was equally valid for belief and unbelief; because in obtaining it, they had poisoned that source from which alone a steadfast faith could be derived;-they would have us to violate every principle of reason and of revelation, by subjecting ourselves to a law which they proclaim to be immutable, eternal, and divine, the moment they have illegally obtained possession thereof; which, while it was in the keeping of its own promulgators and administrators, they despised, contemned, and rejected. The fundamental maxim of this great charter is obedience to the authority from which we have received it; while those who have now surreptitiously adopted it, not content with spurning the authority of their ancient legislators, demand us to transfer to innovators and usurpers that obedience, which a legitimate and established government can alone command.