tion of the doctrines which it inculcates; and stamps, with his own unimpeachable impress the strict apostolicity of those doctrines.

In another place, he gives what may be deemed a sort of paraphrase of it: still, as a FACT, declaring the universal reception of its doctrines, whether delivered in writing or communicated orally.

If it had so happened, that the Apostles had left us no Scriptures: must we not then have followed the order of that tradition, which they committed to those with whom they entrusted the Churches? To this, many nations of illiterate barbarians, who believe in Christ, do virtually assent. For, by the Spirit, without ink or letters, they have salvation written in their hearts: and they diligently preserve the aboriginal tradition.

Hence, they believe in one God, the maker of heaven and earth and all things in them through Jesus Christ the Son of God: who, out of his exceeding great love toward his own creature, submitted to be born of a virgin, uniting in himself man to God. He suffered under Pontius Pilate: rose again was received into glory. And he shall come again, the Saviour of those who are saved, and the Judge of those who are judged: sending into eternal fire those, who change the truth, and who despise his Father and his own advent.

Those, who, without letters, have received this faith, are, with respect to our language indeed, barbarians: but, with respect to sentiment and morality

and conversation, they are very wise through faith; and, living in all justice and chastity and wisdom, they are pleasing unto God. If any person, speaking in their own language, reports to them the strange inventions of heretics, they quickly shut their ears and flee from them as far as possible, not enduring to hear their blasphemous discourse1.

1. From the testimony of Irenèus, we may learn, I think, the following important historical FACTS.

1 Quid autem, si neque Apostoli quidem Scripturas reliquissent nobis, nonne oportebat ordinem sequi traditionis, quam tradiderunt iis quibus committebant ecclesias? Cui ordinationi assentiunt multæ gentes barbarorum eorum qui in Christum credunt, sine charactere vel atramento scriptam habentes per Spiritum in cordibus suis salutem, et veterem traditionem diligenter custodientes, in unum Deum credentes fabricatorem coeli et terræ et omnium quæ in eis sunt per Christum Jesum Dei Filium. Qui, propter eminentissimam erga figmentum suum dilectionem, eam quæ esset ex Virgine generationem sustinuit, ipse per se hominem adunans Deo; et passus sub Pontio Pilato ; et, resurgens et in claritate receptus in gloria, venturus salvator eorum qui salvantur, et judex eorum qui judicantur, et mittens in ignem æternum transfiguratores veritatis et contemptores Patris sui et adventus ejus.

Hanc fidem qui sine literis crediderunt, quantum ad sermonem nostrum, barbari sunt: quantum autem ad sententiam et consuetudinem et conversationem, propter fidem, perquam sapientissimi sunt, et placent Deo, conversantes in omni justitia et castitate et sapientia. Quibus si aliquis annunciaverit ea quæ ab hæreticis adinventa sunt, proprio sermone eorum colloquens, statim concludentes aures, longo longius fugient, ne audire quidem sustinentes blasphemum colloquium. Iren. adv. hær. lib. iii. c. 4. § 2. p. 172.

(1.) The doctrines, contained in the mutually harmonious Symbols of the Church Catholic, were the doctrines, not merely of a few speculative individuals, but of the whole body of the faithful, whether high or low, whether rich or poor, whether lettered or unlettered, whether refined or barbarian.

(2.) At that early period, those doctrines, in every part of the world and in every distinct provincial Church, were unanimously believed to be the doctrines taught by the Apostles and concordantly handed down from them in each ecclesiastical succession.

(3.) Irenèus, who with perfect certainty must have known what doctrines had been in early life communicated to him by Polycarp the immediate disciple of St. John, pronounced the doctrines, taught in the universally received Symbols, to be those identical doctrines, which he had himself personally received from his venerable preceptor under the assurance that his preceptor had first personally received the very same doctrines from the mouth of the inspired Apostle.

(4.) Such persons, as, starting up occasionally, in this place or in that place, in this year or in that year, impugned the doctrines contained in the Symbols, were invariably, by the members of the Catholic Communion, viewed with horror, as profane innovators, who had departed from the primitive rule of faith that rule, which was well known

to have been delivered by the Apostles, and which was carefully preserved, with perfect mutual agreement, by each detached Society of Christians, in whatever part of the earth, under its proper Bishop and Presbyters, that Society might have its local habitation.

2. These FACTS, simply as facts, are manifestly established by the direct testimony of Irenèus: and, from them all conjointly, on the just principles of historical evidence, the following additional palmary FACT must assuredly result.

The doctrines, contained in the Symbol preserved and explained by Ireneus, were the precise doctrines, taught by the Apostles, and from them handed down in all the various harmonising successions to the entire and collective Church Catholic.

3. In the abstract, the Apostles themselves may have been men divinely inspired, as Christians believe; or they may have been crafty impostors, as infidels contend: but this precise question, under this special aspect, is nothing to my present purpose. I am now concerned with mere historical FACTS and one of those FACTS is; that, Whether abstractedly true or abstractedly false, the Apostles taught the identical doctrines contained in the Symbol handed down to us by Ireneus.

VII. Beside the larger Symbols which I have adduced, there was occasionally used in the early Church a very short Symbol, which seems

to have been denominated the Symbol of the Trinity.

The notice of this short Creed will lead me to dwell somewhat more fully than I have hitherto done on that very important part of my subject, the public profession of faith made by every Catechumen, at the time of his baptism, in the words of some one of the several harmonising Symbols adopted by the various provincial branches of the one Church Catholic.

I call this part of my subject important, because the very circumstance of such universal public profession distinctly evinces: that the doctrinal system, uniformly propounded in all the Symbols alike, was not a congeries of speculations, taken up by a few fanciful individuals, subsequent to the time of the Apostles, and in opposition to the system which they had taught; but that it was the system, invariably received throughout the entire Church, in all parts of the world, from the very apostolic age itself1.

3 Ὅσοι ἂν πεισθῶσι καὶ πιστεύωσιν ἀληθῆ ταῦτα τὰ ὑφ ̓ ἡμῶν διδασκόμενα καὶ λεγόμενα εἶναι, καὶ βιοῦν οὕτως δύνασθαι ὑπισχε νῶνται, εὔχεσθαί τε καὶ αἰτεῖν νηστεύοντες παρὰ τοῦ Θεοῦ τῶν προημαρτημένων ἄφεσιν διδάσκονται, ἡμῶν συνευχομένων καὶ συννηστευόντων αὐτοῖς. Επειτα ἄγονται ὑφ' ἡμῶν ἔνθα ὕδωρ ἐστί· καὶ, τρόπον ἀναγεννήσεως ὃν καὶ ἡμεῖς αὐτοὶ ἀναγεννήθημεν, ἀναγεννῶνται. Ἐπ ̓ ὀνόματος γὰρ τοῦ Πατρὸς τῶν ὅλων καὶ Δεσπότου Θεοῦ, καὶ τοῦ Σωτῆρος ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, καὶ Πνεύ ματος 'Αγίου, τὸ ἐν τῷ ὕδατι τότε λουτρὸν ποιοῦνται. Justin.