ment, its articles and other formulæ ; or to be practically influenced and satisfied by the considerations of expedience commonly used in the argument': on these accounts, for the sake of undecided persons, and especially such of them as are seriously engaged in the pursuit of truth, it may be useful to notice a flaw in Mr. Blanco White's arguments, which, even admitting the incompetence of Protestant Churches to draw up Creeds, and admitting, too, the inherent ambiguity of Scripture, unless interpreted by such Creeds, still will afford them a refuge from the entanglements of the proposed dilemma. For the sake of such persons, it may be useful to point out, that even though they may feel disposed to go great lengths with Mr. Blanco White, in regard to his preliminary positions, and may fancy they see much force and truth, as well as ingenuity, in the observations he brings to bear upon them, still that it is not necessary for them to go on with him to his conclusion; that still, in spite of all he has contended for, there will remain a ground for them to take up, where, without making any concessions to the Romish claims of infallibility, they may protect themselves against the cheerless doctrines of measureless Latitudinarianism.

1 [A parenthesis is omitted here which was not the Author's. There are elsewhere some clauses or phrases not his; but he says of them, in a letter to the corrector, "I was very well contented with your alterations; indeed they seemed to me to have improved the style as well as the sense, all except one unfortunate parenthesis."]

In the suggestions, then, now about to be offered, it is not supposed that any satisfaction will be afforded to minds thoroughly made up on the authority of Protestant confessions, or on the obviousness of the meaning of those texts on which our mysterious doctrines are founded. Such persons find their satisfaction nearer to them, and on easier terms. Nor is it unlikely they may even be unwilling to hear a question on which they are thoroughly satisfied, argued on grounds different from those which have satisfied them. But this objection, naturally as it may arise on a first view, obviously is not sufficient to weigh in the scales of deliberate judgment. If there be men, as there are many, who either from ignorance, or from the peculiar construction of their minds, are unable to understand the principles which the mere hereditary Protestant (as Mr. Blanco White would consider him) takes for granted, with such persons an argument would have no weight at all, which did not leave these principles entirely out of sight. Yet again, if among such there be men of sincere minds, earnestly bent on the pursuit of truth (and, doubtless, such there are, even among the ranks of those who are on the high road to dangerous error,) it ought hardly to be withheld, defective though it may be, if it tends to rescue them from a more perilous defection,-say to Romanism itself.

With this apology, then, it is submitted in reply to arguments, such as those of Mr. Blanco White, that we may persist as steadfastly as ever in deny

ing what the Papist contends for, viz. a standing infallible judge of controversy, and yet still may be able to maintain that at least some, and those not unimportant portions of our formulæ, have the sanction, which Mr. Blanco White demands, of an unerring authority, and may be applied, without contravening any one of his observations, to the interpretation of some of the most mysterious parts of Scripture. For it will hardly be contended, that the non-existence of an infallible judge, in the present age of Christianity, is a proof that none such ever existed in any preceding age. Undoubtedly, in the first age of all, when the Apostles yet lived, and governed the Churches and conversed familiarly with their disciples, it may be presumed that their judgments, wherever the rise of controversy rendered it necessary to deliver them, were infallible, as well when delivered orally to those among whom they resided, as when sent in writing to their most distant converts. So far cannot be denied, and therefore so far every one, even Mr. Blanco White, must admit that there resided at one time with the Church on earth an infallible judge of controversies on all subjects whatsoever; and consequently that any judgments thus passed or interpretations thus sanctioned, even though it should not have happened that they were committed to writing, must still, as long as the memory of them was believed to be faithfully preserved, have been as binding on men's consciences as the written word itself; and that, if any portion of them has been preserved

faithfully to the present day, it is still binding, for the same reason and to the same extent. Now it will be found that such a portion of these doctrinal interpretations of Scripture was actually secured and recorded in primitive times, and has been transmitted to us, by means of history, as is sufficient to answer the purpose of an unerring guide, as far as the mysteries of religion are concerned; so that we have no need at all, as Mr. Blanco White would pretend, to rely upon the fallible judgment of expositors of modern times.

To illustrate the state of the case by an instance. It is well known that in the year 325, a general council of all the Bishops of the Catholic Church was summoned by Constantine the Great, to meet at Nicæa, for the purpose of settling disputes which had been raised in the Eastern Church by Arius, and other upholders of his doctrine. At this council three hundred and eighteen Bishops actually assembled, from the most distant and disconnected parts of Christendom; and on a comparison of their opinions, it appeared that all of them, except thirteen, agreed in condemning Arius's doctrine, on the ground that it contradicted the interpretation which in their several Churches had always been put upon certain texts of Scripture: while the thirteen who ventured to uphold it, relied for the most part on an argument of a different kind, viz. that what appeared to them the true meaning of the texts in question, was in favour of Arius. So far, then, as the belief of the Nicene Bishops may be

supposed to represent that of the Church at large from which they were indiscriminately called together, it attests to us the existence, in the year 325, of a certain systematic interpretation of mysterious texts, received at that time by every Church in Christendom, on the belief that it had been traditionary in each from the very first, and consequently derived ultimately from the Apostles. This is an admitted historical fact, and, if carefully considered, will be found to afford a proof little short of demonstration, that the system of interpretation in question, really was, what it was believed to be, Apostolic and authoritative. For if we adopt any other supposition, the difficulty of accounting for the universal belief above stated, may, without exaggeration, be regarded as insurmountable. If we suppose the system not to have been handed down from the first, but to have been introduced afterwards, in the course of the years that intervened between St. John's death and the council of Nicæa we shall then have. to account, first of all for the universality of its reception in countries most re mote from one another, and by Churches entirely independent; and secondly, for the obliteration of all traces of its first introduction into any single Church. We shall have to believe that the person or persons to whom the system owed its origin, or the one hand, were so successful in their schemes o proselytism, that through themselves or their suc cessors, they contrived in the course of two hundred and twenty years to revolutionize the belief of the