but let every province abound in its own views, and esteem the precepts of its ancestors to be Apostolical laws."1 This passage, I suspect, furnishes us with a key to the whole matter. In points of ecclesiastical order which did not affect the faith, it was on many accounts desirable that the scruples or perverseness of individuals, should not interfere with matters that had been sanctioned by long usage in the Church, the peace of the Church being thereby greatly endangered. Therefore, says Jerome, let each province follow the customs which have long obtained in it, even though they may be contrary to what are observed in other provinces; and let each look upon such customs as Apostolical laws. Where the apostolicity of such matters is evidently not insisted upon as what could be strictly proved, but which, for the sake of the peace of the Church, might, in a general sense, be allowed, where no evil could arise to the faith from the admission. To the sentiments of Jerome, as here expressed, we are far from being desirous of offering any objection; but, on the contrary, believe that there was much good sense in the advice. And I suspect that many of the Fathers, when they spoke of Apostolical traditions in such matters, took the same view of the subject. That such, or very similar, was also the view of

AUGUSTINE (fl. a. 396.)

is, I think, evident on a review and comparison of various passages in his works. For though, when writing on the question of the rebaptization of those baptized by heretics, he says, 66 Many things which are not found in the writings of the Apostles, nor in the Councils of those De Sabbatho quod quæris, utrum jejunandum sit; et de Eucharistia, an accipienda quotidie, quod Romana Ecclesia et Hispaniæ observare perhi bentur, scripsit quidem et Hippolytus vir disertissimus, et carptim diversi Scriptores e variis auctoribus edidere. Sed ego illud breviter te admonendum puto, traditiones ecclesiasticas (præsertim quæ fidei non officiant) ita observandas, ut a majoribus traditæ sunt ; nec aliorum consuetudinem aliorum contrario more subverti . . . ... sed unaquæque provincia abundet in sensu suo, et, præcepta majorum leges Apostolicas arbitretur. HIERON. Epist. ad Lucin. ep. 71. ad fin. Op. tom. i. col. 434, 5.

2

who came after them; yet, inasmuch as they are observed throughout the Universal Church, are believed to have been delivered and commended to observation, by no others than by them;" and that "that which the Universal Church holds, and was not instituted by Councils, but always preserved, is most rightly believed to have been delivered by no other than Apostolical authority;' yet, nevertheless, as Bishop Taylor says, "It seems himself was not sure that so little a foundation could carry so big a weight; he therefore plainly hath recourse to Scripture in this question; Whether is more pernicious, not to be baptized, or to be re-baptized, is hard to judge; nevertheless, having recourse to the standard of our Lord, where the monuments of this are not estimated by human sense, but by divine authority, I find concerning each of them the sentence of our Lord,' (Contr. Don. lib. iv. c. 14, &c. 17 and 24), to wit, in the Scriptures." And so, still more strongly in another passage, Augustine says, "Lest I should seem to treat the matter with human arguments, since the obscurity of this question drove great men, in former times of the Church, before the schism of Donatus, and men endued with much Christian charity, episcopal Fathers, to differ from one another, &c. . . . I produce from the Gospel certain proofs, by which, the Lord helping me, I prove how rightly and truly, according to the Divine will, it has been ordained," &c.* And so far is he from disapproving of Cyprian's reference to Scripture in the question, that he says,-"But what Cyprian advises, namely, that we must go back to the fountain head, that is, to Apostolical tradition,—and thence direct the stream to our own times, is the best,

1 Multa quæ non inveniuntur in litteris eorum [i. e. Apostolorum], neque in conciliis posteriorum, et tamen quia per universam custodiuntur Ecclesiam, non nisi ab ipsis tradita et commendata creduntur. De bapt. contra Donat. lib. ii. c. 7. ix. col. 102.

2 Quod universa tenet Ecclesia nec conciliis institutum, sed semper retentum est, non nisi auctoritate Apostolica traditum rectissime creditur. Ib. lib. iv. c. 24. ix. 140.

3 Works, vol. x. p. 433, 434.

De bapt. contra Donat. lib. i. c. 7. tom. ix. col. 84. See vol. i. p. 340.

and without doubt to be done. It is, therefore, delivered to us, as he himself relates, by the Apostles, that there is one God, and one Christ, and one hope, &c. [Eph. iv. 4.]"1 And he says, "That which the custom of the Church hath ever held, that which this disputation cannot disincline us to, and that which a General Council has confirmed, that we follow. Add to this, that the reasons and testimonies of Scripture adduced on both sides having been well. weighed, it may also be said, That which truth has declared, that we follow." It seems, then, that after all, the burthen of proof, as to the Apostolicity of the custom, was thrown by him upon Scripture; which shows the misgivings of his mind as to the sufficiency of the other evidence.

And this view of his sentiments seems to me strongly confirmed by a remark he makes in his Letter to Casulanus, where, on the question of fasting on the Sabbath, he says, "In these things in which the divine Scripture has determined nothing certain, the custom of the people of God, or the institutes of our ancestors, are to be considered as a law."3 Here it is evident that, for matters of this kind not determined in Scripture, he claims no other sanction than that which long ecclesiastical usage gives them; and such usage he justly thinks that individuals should reckon equivalent to a law. Upon the whole, then, his view seems to differ but little, if at all, practically from that which we maintain. There are no references

Quod autem nos admonet, ut ad fontem recurramus, id est, ad Apostolicam traditionem, et inde canalem in nostra tempora dirigamus, optimum est, et sine dubitatione faciendum. Traditum est ergo nobis, sicut ipse commemorat, ab Apostolis, quod sit unus Deus et Christus unus, &c. [Eph. iv. 4.] De bapt. contra Don. lib. v. c. 26. ix. 158.

2 Quod Ecclesiæ consuetudo semper tenuit, quod hæc disputatio dissuadere non potuit, et quod plenarium concilium confirmavit, hoc sequimur. Huc accedit, quod bene perspectis ex utroque latere disputationis rationibus et Scripturarum testimoniis, potest etiam dici, Quod veritas declaravit, hoc sequimur. De bapt. contra Don. lib. iv. c. 6. ix. 126.

3 In his enim rebus de quibus nihil certi statuit Scriptura divina, mos populi Dei vel instituta majorum pro lege tenenda sunt. Epist. ad Casulan. ep. 36 (al. 86.) § 2. ii. 68.

VOL. II.

I I

to be found in Augustine to "precious Apostolical relics," demanding "the same reverence" from us as the written Word.

Finally, we must remark that, even were the testimony of these Fathers different to what it is, our opponents, both Romanists and Tractators, could not consistently maintain that such (supposed) Apostolical traditions are obligatory on the Church, because they do not themselves adopt them all.

I have already given some proofs of this;1 and more might easily be added, as will hardly, I suppose, be denied. I will not, therefore, detain the reader by enumerating other instances. But it clearly follows from hence, either that they do not consider patristical testimony sufficient to prove the Apostolical origin of these practices, which is in direct contradiction to their professed theory, or that they hold that, even if they were of Apostolical origin, the Church, or any independent portion of it, has power to deviate from them; which practically leaves the matter much in the same state as the view for which we contend. We do not deny the possibility that some of the rites now in use in the Church, of those not mentioned in Scripture, may have had Apostolical sanction for their introduction, as for instance the use of the sign of the cross in baptism, though we believe that we have no sufficient evidence to prove the Apostolicity of any of them; and we hold that the Church, or each independent Church, has the power of ordering such matters according to its own discretion, and that individuals ought, for the sake of the peace of the Church, to acquiesce in its decisions. The advice, therefore, of Jerome, that individuals should, in such matters, look upon the customs of their Church that have come down to them from of old as equivalent to Apostolical usages, and the similar advice of Augustine, appear to us to have in their due place, and within

1 See vol. i. pp. 421, 2.

their due limits, much practical wisdom. And it would, perhaps, have been well for the Church, if the remark of Gregory the Great had been more borne in mind by all parties, that "while the faith is one and the same, a difference of customs is no injury to the Church." If, then, any man chooses to contend for the Apostolicity of any particular practice or practices sanctioned by very early and general ecclesiastical usage, but at the same time allows that these things are left to the discretion of each independent Church, the practical result is much the same as in the former view of the matter. But if we are bound, as our opponents seem to think, to observe all those practices that had Apostolical sanction for their observance in the primitive Church, and the testimony of a few of the early Fathers is held sufficient to prove that sanction; or even if we are only required to observe those that are said to have been delivered by the Apostles as of permanent obligation, and the testimony of a few Fathers is held sufficient to show such a delivery; then if we receive one that pleases us upon a certain amount of testimony, we must not reject another which has equally good testimony in its favour, because we are disinclined to it; and if we do, we are self-condemned; which we humbly submit is the case with the Tractators.

SECTION V.-WHETHER SCRIPTURE IS SUFFICIENTLY CLEAR TO TEACH THE FAITH; AND HOW ITS MEANING IS BEST ASCERTAINED.

WE proceed to the question of the alleged obscurity of Scripture; and the reader will probably have already observed, that many of the passages cited in a former section in proof of Scripture being our sole and complete Rule of faith, equally show that the writers held that it

1 In una fide nihil officit sanctæ Ecclesiæ consuetudo diversa. GREGOR. M. Ep. ad Leandr. Epist. lib. i. 43.; ii. 532. ed. Ben.