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untrue; and thus there is another evil of these unhappy disguises, that they furnish men the temptation of half saying, what they would shrink from speaking openly, as knowing or suspecting it to be untrue: but now, if untrue, it is to pass as part of the jest, and so they take courage, and stifle their consciences.

For ourselves, you will have done us good service; your attack will fall harmless alike on those who are now with the Lord, or upon those who remain; but your revival of the old Presbyterian cry against "Prelacy and Popery," will show the members of our Church what is really censured under the name of Popery, they will see the necessity of striking back into the old paths, and manfully avowing truths, which many of late have shrunk from, as invidious. You, Sir, have been consistent: it is, if we are rightly informed, a favourite maxim with you that the bishops have been the great hinderers of the development of the Reformation for the last 300 years; i. e., of such development as Germany has suffered under for the last half century, and from which she is now in part recovering. The Rationalists, it is known, ever maintained the same; they also complained that our bishops were the great hinderances to the extension of their theories among us. Therein they saw, indeed, but a portion of the truth; since our bishops were produced by the system, which under God's blessing they contributed to perpetuate; but still they saw that our system possessed a principle of stability, or as they deemed it, stationariness, foreign to their own. Those who wish well to our Church will now see who, under Almighty God, are the real upholders of sound doctrine among us; they who respect the office of a bishop, even antecedently to any consideration of individual merit in the person consecrated thereto, or they who, as yourself, (p. 16.) ridicule such respect; they will see that the cry of Popery is but a feint devised by the archenemy of the Church, whereby to hurry men down the steep descent of ultra-Protestantism to its uniform end, the "denial of the Lord who bought them." And knowing that that Church alone is safe who guards the deposit of sound doctrine committed unto her, they will not be scared by shadows to abandon the reality, or shrinking from the reproach which our forefathers bore faithfully, fall into the toils, on either side spread for them, whether of the Socinian or the Papal anti-Christianism.

Christ Church, St. Mark's* Day.

See Collect for the Day.

TRACTS FOR THE TIMES.

No. 78.

(Ad Populum.)

CATENA PATRUM.

No. III.

TESTIMONY OF WRITERS IN THE LATER ENGLISH CHURCH TO THE DUTY OF MAINTAINING QUOD SEMPER, QUOD UBIQUE, QUOD AB OMNIBUS TRADITUM EST.

THE following extracts from English Divines, are but expositions and comments upon the celebrated Tract of Vincentius Lirinensis* on Heresy, which has been so generally adopted by them, that it may justly be considered as the formal manifestation of our Church as regards all the controversies of the last three hundred years. In selecting them, it has been thought advisable, as in the two previous Catenas, not to include the writings of the Reformers of the 16th century, because the particular complexion of their opinions is the very subject keenly debated and claimed by opposite schools of opinion at the present day. It has been thought safer to show that the Succession of our Standard Divines ever since their times, understood them to hold that view of doctrine which it has been the endeavour of these Tracts to recommend; and that no other can be taken without contradicting both that illustrious Succession itself, and its judgment concerning the Reformers.

And in the next place, were the Reformers directly appealed to in these Catenas, it might be plausibly asked why the list stopped with them, and did not ascend to the generation before them, as if they were to be considered the founders of our Church, instead of being, as they are really, one link in a chain. No greater injury can be done them than to make it appear, (as is too often done at this day,) that they occupied or professed a position which belongs only to heretics, that of originating the faith they maintained. Against such a notion especially, the subject of the pres

* This Tract has just been republished, with a translation, at Oxford, and should be carefully studied by all who wish to understand in what sense the English Church upholds tradition.

Testimony of Writers in the later English Church.

421

ent selection of Testimonies is expressly directed; in which it is maintained that no individuals, since the Apostles, are by themselves expositors of the will of Christ: that the unanimous witness of Christendom is the only, and the fully sufficient, and the really existing guarantee of the whole revealed Faith; that Catholicity is the only test of truth.

J

Considering the copiousness and value of the following extracts, the doctrine maintained in them need not here be discussed. With relation to the supreme authority of inspired Scripture it stands thus :--Catholic tradition teaches revealed truth, Scripture proves it; Scripture is the document of Faith, tradition the witness of it; the true Creed is the Catholic interpretation of Scripture, or Scripturally proved tradition; Scripture by itself teaches mediately and proves decisively; tradition by itself proves negatively and teaches positively; Scripture and tradition taken together are the joint Rule of Faith.

Acknowledgment must here be made for the kind assistance of two friends of the compiler, who have supplied him with many valuable references.

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JEWELL, BISHOP.-A Sermon preached at Paul's Cross.

Yet are there some that whisper in corners, that the Mass is a blessed and a Catholic thing, and that the holy Communion, which now GoD of His great mercy hath restored to us, is wicked and schismatical, and therefore they murmur against it, therefore they refrain it, and will not come to it. O merciful GOD, who would think there could be so much wilfulness in the heart of man! O Gregory! O Augustine! O Hierome! O Chrysostom! O Leo! O Dionyse! O Anacletus! O Sistus! O Paul! O CHRIST! if we be deceived herein, ye are they that have deceived us. You have taught us these schisms and divisions, you have taught us these Heresies. Thus ye ordered the holy Communion in your time, the same we received at your hand, and have faithfully delivered it unto the people. And that ye may the more marvel at the wilfulness of such men, they stand this day against so many old Fathers, so many Doctors, so many examples of the primitive Church, so manifest and so plain words of the holy Scriptures, and yet have they herein not one Father, not one Doctor, not one allowed example of the primitive Church to make for them. And when I say, no one, I speak not this in vehemency of spirit, or heat of talk, but even as before GOD, by the way of simplicity and truth, lest any of you should haply be deceived, and think there is more weight in the other side, than in conclusion there shall be found. And therefore once again I say, of all the words of the holy Scriptures, of all the examples of the primitive Church, of all the old Fathers, of all the ancient Doctors, in these causes they have not one.

Here the matter itself that I have now in hand, putteth me in remembrance of certain things that I uttered unto you, to the same purpose, at my last being in this place. I remember I laid out then, here before you, a number of things that are now in controversy, whereunto our adversaries will not yield. And I said, perhaps boldly, as it might then seem to some men, but as I myself and the learned of our adversaries themselves do well know, sincerely and truly, that none of all them, that this day stand against us, are able, or shall ever be able to prove against us, any one of all those points, either by the Scriptures, or by example of the primitive Chuch, or by the old Doctors, or by the ancient general Councils.

Since that time it hath been reported in places, that I spake then more than I was able to justify and make good. However, these reports were only made in corners, and therefore ought the less to trouble me. But if my sayings had been so weak, and might so easily have been reproved, I marvel that the parties never yet came to the light, to take the advantage. For my promise was, and that openly here before you all, that if any man were able to

prove the contrary, I would yield and subscribe to him and he should depart with the victory. Loth I am to trouble you with rehearsal to such things as I have spoken afore; and yet because the case so requireth, I shall desire you that have already heard me, to bear the more with me in this behalf. Better it were to trouble your ears with twice hearing of one thing, than to betray the truth of GOD. The words that I then spake, as near as I can call them to mind, were these: If any learned man of all our adversaries, or if all the learned men that be alive, be able to bring any one sufficient sentence out of any old Catholic Doctor, or Father, or out of any old general Council, or out of the holy Scriptures of GOD, or any one example of the primitive Church, whereby it may be clearly and plainly proved that there was any private mass in the whole world at that time, for the space of six hundred years after CHRIST; or that there was then any Communion ministered unto the people under one kind; or that the people had their common prayers then in a strange tongue, that they understood not or that the Bishop of Rome was then called an universal Bishop, or the head of the universal Church; or that the people was then taught to believe that CHRIST's Body is really,* substantially, corporally, carnally or naturally in the Sacrament, &c. ... If any man alive were able to prove any of these articles, by any one clear or plain clause or sentence, either of the Scriptures or of the old Doctors, or of any old general Council, or by any example of the primitive Church: I promised then that I would give over and subscribe unto him.

These words are the very like, I remember, I spake here openly before you all. And these be the things that some men say I have spoken and cannot justify. But I, for my part, will not only not call in any thing that I then said, (being well assured of the truth therein,) but also will lay more matter to the same: that if they that seek occasion, have any thing to the contrary, they may have the larger scope to reply against me.

Wherefore, besides all that I have said already, I will say further, and yet nothing so much as might be said. If any one of all our adversarries be able clearly and plainly to prove, by such authority of the Scriptures, the old Doctors and Councils, as I said before, that it was then lawful for the Priest to pronounce the words of consecration closely and in silence to himself; or that the Priest had then authority to offer up CHRIST unto His Father; or to communicate and receive the Sacrament for another as they do, or to apply the virtue of CHRIST's death and passion to any

* Jewell must not be considered to differ from the words "verily and indeed" in our Catechism. He interprets "really" by "carnally"; the Catechism opposes "verily and indeed" to figuratively and nominally. A mystical, spiritual, true, and positive presence of CHRIST's blessed Body and Blood, is at once not carnal and not figurative.

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