mation of our faith, and in refutation of infidel objections: but we much regret, that in contending earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints, its author should have been betrayed by his zeal into such a passage as the following:-"By what right, O Marcion, dost thou fell trees in my wood? By whose permission, O Valentinus, dost thou divert my water-courses? Who gave thee the power, O Apelles, to remove my landmarks? Why do the rest of the heretics till and depasture my land at their pleasure? It is my possession: I inherit it of old: I have the title deeds, drawn by those who first enclosed it. I am the heir of the apostles. As they appointed in their testament, as they entrusted, as they required, all these I fulfil."87 We have no difficulty in tracing the unscriptural arrogance of this passage to the unseemly elevation given by the apostolical fathers to the Christian ministry, wherein Tertullian was a presbyter. It is but a transcript of that which Ignatius so amply and unequivocally declares, and for which his avowed authority is inspiration and tradition.

Having already dealt with his inspiration,88 we proceed to another of those thorny questions which beset our path at almost every step. It may be thus stated: did there exist, in the early church, certain maxims regarding clerical orders and authority, and the ceremonial of divine worship, which, being taught by the inspired apostles to the primitive bishops, and by them to their successors, remain with her thenceforward as an ecclesiastical tradition? Bearing in mind the arguments which appear to refute the notion of traditional doctrines,89 we shall find that they apply also with considerable force to tradition generally, as a vehicle of divinely communicated 88 Above, p. 25., e. s.

87 De Præs. Hær., c. 36.

89 See above, Chap. III.

knowledge, independently of the sanction of Scripture. We imagine that their tendency is to establish a principle regarding all Christian tradition, as well as the disproof of the traditional existence of one class of facts. We do not perceive that the improbability that our Lord would have recourse to this mode of conveying divine truths to successive periods of his church, is at all affected by the nature of the truths to be handed down. His own rebuke of oral tradition would apply with equal force against himself, whether the truths entrusted to that mode of perpetuation regarded the polity of his church, and the authority of his ministers, or his own nature and his people's duties.-The argument drawn from the fact there is in the New Testament no allusion to any tradition, except to that which (as the early fathers inform us9) itself contains, is equally universal in its application, and bears upon the whole question as strongly as upon any branch of it. Of the same nature is the admirable argument for which we are also indebted to the early fathers, from the accordance between the apostolical tradition and the apostolical writings :91 nor is it at all weakened in its present application, by the circumstance, that they themselves limit it to traditional doctrines, and assert the existence of traditional ceremonies. To make this apparent, we have only to debate the point of difference with them prescriptively, as Tertullian phrases it ;92 that is, to apply their own argument to their own limitation. Early in the second century, Valentinus, one of the philosophical heretics, succeeded in imposing upon a multitude of individuals, a crude mass of mad impieties regarding the divine nature, which he professed to have received from the oral tradition 91 See above, p. 119, &c.

90 De Præs. Hær., cc. 25, 26.

92 Ubi Supra, c. 35.

of the apostles.-The cotemporary fathers of the church answer him, that this must be a fabrication, because the apostolical tradition coincided minutely and in every particular with the apostolic epistles :-and no such doctrine was to be found there. About the same period, Ignatius also states a doctrine regarding clerical supremacy, than which, nothing can be more utterly at variance with the spirit, and tenor, and design of the entire New Testament, and upon the same authority. Now here are two cotemporaries, or nearly so,93 both claiming the sanction of tradition for doctrines equally opposed to the New Testament. How, I shall be glad to know, can an exception be taken in favour of the one, which is not also an important admission on behalf of the other? Concede but the ароtheosis of the bishop to Ignatius, and Sophia Achamoth94 and the Eons of Valentinus will leap through the same gap. The whole value of the argument consists in its integrity. Let it but stand as a fence round our faith, whole and unbroken, and it is a wall of brass, which no error, from this quarter, shall ever be able to surmount;

93 Ignatius wrote A. D. 218. Valentinus first made his appearance at Rome, at the commencement of the reign of Antoninus Pius, A. D. 237. Iren., lib. 3, c. 4, p. 206.

94 One of the thirty Eons, or concentric circles, which constitute the divine nature, or pleroma, according to this heretic. Sophia (ropía) is the Septuagint rendering of the word, which denotes the female impersonation of Wisdom in the first nine chapters of the Book of Proverbs. Achamoth (axaμãd) is the Greek transcription of the same Hebrew word; n. A very able epitome of this wild fantasm occurs in the Bishop of Lincoln's Tertullian, pp. 510-519. There are many very remarkable resemblances between the system of Valentinus and that of the Jewish Cabbalists. The notions of the divine nature in concentric circles, of male and female Eons, and of wisdom slipping out of the pleroma, and gambolling in the nether world appear to be common to the two.-See Irira, Porta cœlorum in Cab. Denud., Vol. II.

but break it down in a single point, and it becomes utterly worthless. Allow but the authority of one tradition, plainly new and additional to the doctrine contained in the Inspired Volume, and all comparisons of other asserted traditional doctrines therewith is at an end.-It is no longer the test by which their truth is to be ascertained. One such admission as effectually disqualifies it as a hundred.

Neither have we any difficulty in discovering the reason why Valentinus, and the rest of the heretics, never availed themselves of this argument against the fathers; they were at least as much interested in the doctrines of Clement and Ignatius, as the latter could possibly be; and as anxious that the question of ecclesiastical supremacy should remain a dormant one. For nearly all the heresiarchs were ecclesiastics, disappointed in their hopes of advancement ;95 and their errors invariably tended to the elevation of themselves, as "the Paraclete," or "the great power of God," to the rank of inspired promulgators of a new doctrine. No wonder, therefore, that they never raised the question, when the view of it taken by the opponents, so powerfully contributed to the support of their own pretensions.

With the Church of England then, we utterly deny that "it is in the power of tradition to ordain any thing against God's word;96 and therefore we reject the doctrine of clerical supremacy advanced by the apostolical fathers, and maintained by the early ones.

The whole question of Tradition being now generalized, and one rule being made applicable to every possible case, it is needless to detail our opinions upon each of them. We cannot better express the conclusion to which 95 See Tert. adv. Valen., c. 4., &c.

96 Article 34.

this enquiry has conducted us, than in the words of the high authority to which we have just appealed.—“ It is not necessary that traditions and ceremonies be in all places one and utterly alike; for at all times there have been divers, and may be changed according to the diversities of countries, times, and men's manners, so that nothing be ordained against God's word."97

The tendency of the error we are considering, to corrupt the clergy, by assigning to them an improper measure of authority, and to degrade the laity, by the prescription of an undue degree of deference, is sufficiently manifest. The most obvious evil consequence that immediately followed upon this state of things, was the deplorable ignorance in which the great mass of professing Christians were sunk by it, rendering them an easy prey to the many deceivers that arose in those unhappy times. For it is quite evident that, far from encouraging the mere layman in the pursuit of religious knowledge, the doctrine in question virtually denounced all such enquiries, as the most dangerous that could possibly engage the attention of ordinary Christians, because of their inevitable tendency to incite men to think for themselves rather than by proxy; and, consequently, to weigh and consider the evidence of all religious tenets, before they received them, by whomsoever they were presented to their credence. But should this reflection raise even the shadow of a doubt regarding the doctrine or practice of the clergy, the unhappy enquirer would thereby be involved in the sin of schism, and his eternal salvation placed in the utmost jeopardy. There is satisfactory evidence of this, in the abstruse and learned character of nearly all the extant works of the early fathers; they are conciones ad clerum :

97 Article 36.