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A GENERAL REPLY TO OBJECTIONS, BY A RESTATEMENT OF THE QUESTION.

THE Controversy now pending, concerning 'Church Principles,' so far as the author of these numbers has ventured to touch it, DOES NOT turn upon any such questions as those named beneath; and therefore the many pages that have been written, in the way of objection, as if it did, being wholly beside the mark, have no claim to a particular reply.—

I. The argument we have now to do with is no way dependent upon the opinion we may entertain concerning the personal piety and integrity of the illustrious men of a distant age.—

The question IS NOT

What ought to be said of Basil; or of pope Gregory, or of pope Hildebrand; but whether the SYSTEM which they severally promoted, and to which they zealously attached themselves, was such that we should do well in taking it as our model. The 'much ado,' therefore, which has been made about Cyprian, and others, is altogether irrelevant, we might say impertinent; and can serve no other purpose than that of diverting the reader's attention from the real point at issue. Let Cyprian or others be defended, when they, as individuals, are assailed.

II. The question is NOT

Whether a certain amount of delinquency, or corruption of manners-less or more, attached to this or that ancient community ;-But, whether the church SYSTEM of the early ages embraced elements which contravened the spirit of the christian

institute which were at variance with explicit apostolic injunctions, and which were of a tendency that, by the experience of many centuries, and in all climates, is proved to be unfavourable to morals, nay productive of the greatest evils. It might indeed serve the urgent need of my opponents to represent the author as coming forth with a few single instances of delinquency, for the purpose of defaming the ancient church; and then, by showing that the case was not quite so bad as had been affirmed, to overthrow the argument. All this, again, is utterly impertinent; nor can it avail, for the purpose intended, more than for a moment. Whether this or that christian community had sustained the utmost possible damage, in its morals, or not, is a question we may go into when leisure permits. Meantime I shall always be willing to meet an opponent who will fairly and roundly deny that the ascetic philosophy, and its consequent institutions, was an element of the ancient church system; or who will undertake to prove that this philosophy, and its practices, are consonant with the spirit and letter of Holy Scripture; or that they are part and parcel of the ENGLISH PROTESTANT CHURCH SYSTEM (let me find a 'critic' who will meet me on this one point) or again; I will fairly encounter any one who is ready to affirm that the ascetic philosophy, as embodied in the institutions of the ancient church, has worked well, on the whole; and that monkery is a holy thing, which it would be wise to reinstate among ourselves. At the outset of this my Reply, I at once throw on one side, as evasive and discreditable to gentlemanly controvertists, all that has been advanced in connexion with the above named points, but not tending, even remotely, to overthrow the author's principal allegations.

III. Again: The question IS NOT

Whether the extant remains of the ancient church (of all kinds) be not of inestimable value, in relation, both to the general purposes of religious history, and to the special purposes of biblical criticism and exposition. This is not the question: how could any man in his senses deny this? It is fully admitted on all hands; but then this sort of value is shared by writings, orthodox and heterodox; and even christian and pagan; for Porphyry, Celsus, or Julian, may render us an aid, on points of history or

criticism, which we may not happen to receive from Basil, or Athanasius. Nor is the question whether much that is wholesome, edifying, and every way profitable, may not be gathered from the patristic remains. Who has ever questioned it? But then the same, in substance, must, in all justice, be affirmed in behalf of the divines of every other age-not excluding the very darkest eras of popery. The Fathers may be read with comfort and profit; yes, and so may some of the schoolmen; so may the Jansenists; and so, still more, may the English Puritans. Let the question be whether the Puritans, or the Jansenists, are entitled to any sort of deference, or respect, other than that which an impartial christian criticism would assign to them, individually. We suppose they are not. Then let it be shown that the Fathers of the first five centuries possess any such claim, as a body; or any claim which sets them, as such, upon a higher level than that occupied by the divines of any other period.

If an opponent will come forward and make it appear that Basil is more than Basil, Ambrose more than Ambrose, or Athanasius more than Athanasius, in any sense, which plain men can comprehend, then we will go into that question with all requisite assiduity; and unless the affirmative can be substantiated, I shall be at liberty to produce evidence to this effect—that Basil, Ambrose, Athanasius, and their contemporaries, notwithstanding their personal piety, and their intelligence, were, one and all, though in various degrees, mastered by an illusion, which had firmly possessed itself of the ancient church, and which renders them the most dangerous guides in theology, in morals, and in ecclesiastical practice, and which should bring them down in our esteem, to a level immensely below that justly occupied by the German, Swiss, and English Reformers.-I beg leave, and shall take the liberty to ring these six words, as a knell, in the ears of my 'critics'— themselves the professed adherents of a protestant church-NOT THE FATHERS; BUT THE REFORMERS,

IV. Once more; the question is NOT,

Whether we should pull down one set of uninspired men, as authorities in religion, and set up another; but whether we should defer, with religious humility, to inspired men alone; receiving from others, of whatever age, just so much incidental aid as they

may be severally qualified to render. When we say therefore'Not the Fathers, but the Reformers,' we do not intend to lift the latter to the pedestal upon which the former have so unwisely been elevated; but we addict ourselves to the latter, rather than to the former, on this very account, and because, they, to a great extent, have emancipated the church from its fatal thraldom to human authority; and have done more than had ever before been attempted, or effected, toward bringing the understandings and the hearts of men back from long and fatal wanderings, to an unfeigned and unexceptive submission to the WRITTEN WILL of God.

To this point we come then; this is our key-note: to this we shall return, ever and again; and I shall, without scruple, denounce as futile and evasive, all discussions and objections not directly bearing upon it. But now, in looking through the mass of angry ' reviews' of ' Ancient Christianity,' I find it difficult to collect so much as the quantity of a page, which, in a manner creditable to divines and gentlemen, meets what every one must well know to be the question at issue.

There are indeed several cognate questions, to which we may find opportunity to advert. Such is that relative to the comparative merits of the nicene church system, and romanism :-a question of some importance, although not vital, in the present controversy. If it clearly appear that the nicene church system was the parent of romanism, then it becomes an affair, rather of curiosity than of practical moment, to arrange the respective claims of the Mother and Daughter.

But we turn to the principal subject; and as I propose not merely to re-state the argument, but to fortify my position by the adduction of fresh evidence, I must open the way for it by endeavouring to set the question clear of entanglement on every side. This assuredly may be done, the matter in hand being as simple and intelligible as any which fond minds have ever laboured to mystify.

A certain system or colour of theological doctrine, and a certain scheme of ritual practices and sentiments, and a certain model of ecclesiastical constitution, with its rules of discipline, are now promulgated, of which its advocates say they are not the

It has heretofore existed, as a

authors-but the restorers only.

whole. But when and where ?

In the apostolic times and churches? This indeed is assumed; but, by the ingenuous confession of its promoters, it cannot be proved, from the canonical writings, to have so existed. In truth, some parts of this system are obviously so opposed to the letter and spirit of the inspired writings, that the two can never be reconciled apart from the aid, either of foreign evidence, or of some hypothesis, constructed for the purpose, and which may force them into consistency.

Does then this system come to us from the middle ages? This must not be admitted, inasmuch as we are compelled to except against the middle-age church system, on several important points.

Plainly, and by the acknowledgment and boast of its advocates, this now-revived theology--this ritual scheme, and these ecclesiastical principles, descend from times anterior to the expansion and establishment of romanism.-Let us say the times preceding the fifth general council (an. 553).

But it is not pretended that this system has floated down entire, in the memories of a succession of men; or that we may now hear and learn it, fixedly, from the lips of certain living authorities. It is to be found nowhere but in books ;-that is to say, in the books which are now on our shelves, and which are now spread open to the eyes of whoever will take the pains to look into them.

These books-containing the text and exemplification of the system and principles in question-these books, definite in number, easily bought, well known, and actually found in private collections, as well as in university libraries, comprehend all the matters in debate; so that when we deal with them, as shall seem due to their merits, we dispose of the present controversy; and if these books, with all their merits, are found to embody a system which we must not copy, and which in Scripture is distinctly foreshown as a departure from the Faith,' then, so far as argument can go, there is an end of the Oxford Tract enterprise.

Or let it be supposed that, by the aid of an elaborate method of commenting upon the evidence of Scripture-lowering some things, expanding others, giving a vastly magnified importance to what is barely alluded to by the apostles, and deranging the