not secure. 1 Fathers worthy to be relied on," says Placette; "first, that they consent, and secondly, that they do not merely propose what seems most true to themselves, but testify moreover that what they teach was either delivered by Christ, or is of faith, or which is all one, the opposite of it heresy. If either of these fail, then their testimony is The first condition is required by many, and particularly by Alphonsus a Castro, who, inquiring out the ways whereby a proposition may be convinced to be heretical, in the fourth place assigns the unanimous consent of all the Fathers who have written upon that argument.' The latter condition is made necessary by many more. Driedo tells us the authority of the Fathers is of no value any otherwise than as they demonstrate their opinion with it, I say, if such a passage, so indistinct and so defective, be admitted by you as apparently recognizing and sanctioning the more full development of a later age, surely you cannot resist our evidence for the doctrine of purgatory? I must really insist that, as far as the three first centuries are concerned, (and if you wish it I will pursue the inquiry further down), all the writers who ' mention' the subject agree more or less in their view of it, each of them exhibiting some peculiar element of our doctrine; and that, consequently, this may fairly be considered as one of those admitted cases in which, in the silence of the apostolic writings, we have sufficient assurance that the apostles have spoken.' As a matter of course, as centuries roll on, and we have more writers, we have also more full and comprehensive views of the doctrine, which enable us, as in the case of the Limbus Patrum, more fully to exhibit it; but supported as these early and brief statements are by later and more fully developed ones, their evidence must, I beg leave to submit, on our common principles, be deemed conclusive. And with respect to your other objection, if it have any force at all, it will be fatal to your own doctrine also; except that in your case you have, I believe, the unanimity of silence. But should your doctrine have any existence, it cannot be with the unanimous consent' of doctors. Doctors in every age from the third are opposed to you; while in our case, from the third century to the present day, we can show you an uninterrupted descent-the stream of our doctrine flowing more full and clear in every succeeding age.' I know not how the Oxford Tract writers would meet such observations as these; but I fear that the Anglican believer, if he yields to the principle of this tract, instead of expatiating in the rich pastures of catholicism,' will soon find himself in the snare of popery.'" Brit. Mag. for Feb. 1840. pp. 174-7. 6 In his "Incurable scepticism of the Church of Rome" translated and published by Archbishop Tenison, 1688. 4to., and inserted by Bishop Gibson in the third volume of his Preservative against Popery. either from the canonical Scriptures or the belief of the universal church since the Apostles' times; and that they do not always deliver their sense as matters of faith, but by way of judgment, opinion, and probable reason,'” &c. "Both conditions are required by Canus and Bannes, who, laying down rules whereby true traditions may be discerned from false, both assign this in the second place and in the same words; If the Fathers have unanimously from the beginning all along the succession of their times held any article of faith, and refuted the contrary as heretical.' Bellarmine and Gretser give this for their fourth rule,- When all the doctors of the church teach anything by common consent to have descended from Apostolical tradition, either gathered together in a Council or each one apart in their writings' Martinonus, that none of the holy Fathers or doctors taken separately is the rule of faith, nor all yet together conjunctly, unless they assert their common opinion to be of faith, and not merely propose their own judgment.' Lastly, Natalis Alexander affirms, that when all the Fathers conspire in the same opinion, defend it, and propose it as Apostolic doctrine, and an article of the church to be believed by catholic faith, then doth their authority afford a necessary argument of sacred doctrine.""" It sufficeth not therefore," observes Placette, "either that many Fathers deliver an opinion as of faith, or that all should simply teach it, but not affirm it to be of faith. Now if these two conditions be observed, how few articles of Christian faith shall we receive from tradition? For the Fathers seldom all agree and more rarely admonish us that what they teach is of faith. So THAT IF YOU TAKE AWAY ALL ARTICLES WHEREIN EITHER OF THESE CONDITIONS IS WANTING, IT MAY WELL BE DOUBTED WHETHER ANY ONE WILL REMAIN . . From what hath been said, it appears that matters of tradition and belief cannot be learned from the Fathers. Hence Ægidius Estrix vehemently inveighs against Peter van Buscum, a Divine of Gaunt, who in his 'Instruction' had remitted young di vines to the Fathers to learn the Christian doctrine from them. And Nuetus the Jesuit likens those writers of controversy, who, passing by the Scripture, betake themselves to the Fathers, to thieves and rogues, who deserting the cities flee into thick woods that they may more securely hide themselves."1 In fact, our opponents when brought to the point are compelled to admit the uncertainty of their boasted "catholic consent." "We, for our parts," says Mr. Newman, speaking on this subject, "have been taught to consider that faith in its degree as well as conduct must be guided by probabilities, and that doubt is ever our portion in this life we are but striking a balance between difficulties existing on both sides." 2 And therefore they have very little difficulty when "striking the balance" to make it pro or con in any particular case according to their own taste and convenience. And the refuge which they have provided for themselves against an objector is twofold, first that if this "consent" be not admitted, notwithstanding its uncertainty, as a sufficient foundation for faith to rest upon, we shall be left without any ground for believing the Scriptures to be the word of God, a statement for which the sceptics of the day will no doubt feel greatly obliged to them; and secondly (to make all right) that faith means belief upon imperfect and uncertain evidence; both which propositions we shall consider in the next chapter, but we notice them here that the reader may know how far our opponents themselves have been driven towards the admission of the doctrine for which we have been contending in this chapter. So far, then, from shrinking from such a charge as that which Placette brings against the church of Rome for patronizing such doctrines, namely, that of "incurable scepticism," Mr. Newman at once avows that such is his state of mind, and that he is so fully conscious of the in 1 Incur. Scept. of Church of Rome, c. 3. sufficiency of the grounds upon which his faith rests, that he feels that "doubt is ever his portion in this life." The reader will do well to consider whether he is desirous that such should be his own portion, and if not, to take heed how he embraces sentiments which, by the confession of their authors, will lead him to it. SECT. VII.—THE TRADITION IN RIVAL APPEALS MADE TO PATRISTICAL ANTIENT TIMES ON SEVERAL OF THE MOST IMPORTANT POINTS, GROUNDED UPON TESTIMONIES MANY OF WHICH WE DO NOT NOW POSSESS, MUCH REDUCE THE VALUE OF ANY PARTIAL CONSENT WE MAY FIND ON SUCH POINTS IN THE WORKS THAT REMAIN TO US. We must now proceed to observe that the claim made to catholic consent in favour of the orthodox faith is opposed by the rival claims of antient heretics to a portion at least of patristical tradition in their favour. And as they possessed the writings of the Fathers to a far greater extent and in a far more correct state than we now do, it is impossible for us precisely to determine what grounds they may or may not have had for such an appeal. And in noticing this point, I must caution the reader against the misrepresentations that are so common on this subject. Many seem to take it for granted that those who did not receive the orthodox doctrine are to be set down as men who had not common honesty, and uttered falsehoods without hesitation; which, however true it may be of some, is not to be assumed of all of them. Moreover, the Romanists, to answer their own purposes, almost always represent the heretics as men who admitted that their views were new and that they could plead no sanction for them in antiquity, and who appealed only to Scripture; and our opponents (somewhat strangely for men who profess so much knowledge of antiquity) evidently proceed upon the same notion, either from having fallen into the Romish snare, or from having been misled by their great master the monk of Lerins, who misrepresents this matter as much as the Romanists. For he universally represents the heretics as appealing only to Scripture, and bringing forward what they knew and confessed to be new doctrines, repudiating any appeal to antiquity, and yet with an inconsistency not uncommon in such writers, tells us with respect to some of those heretics, that they "commonly lay hold of some rather darkly expressed writings of one antient Father or other, which by reason of the obscurity may seem as it were to make for their opinion, to the end they may be thought, whatsoever, I know not what, they bring forth to the world, neither to have been the first that so taught, neither alone of that opinion,” (§ 7,) and accuses them (not without reason probably as it respected many) of corrupting the writings of the Fathers, (§ 28,) forgetting that if they repudiated any appeal to antiquity, they would not have given themselves the trouble to do this; and with respect to Nestorius, he pens the following downright misstatement; that he "boasted that he was the FIRST and only man who understood the Scriptures, and that all others were in ignorance, which before his days, in their office of teachers, had expounded the divine sayings, that is, all priests, all confessors and martyrs, of whom some had expounded God's law, others allowed and believed them so expounding: to conclude, he maintained that the whole church both now doth err, and always had erred, because as he thought she had followed and was following ignorant and erroneous doctors." (§ 32.) Now it is notorious that Nestorius and his followers have always maintained that their doctrine had been handed down from the earliest times of the Christian church. It is painful to see such statements made in defence of the truth. And it is not the only one of this kind which Vincentius has made. A statement of the same kind and |