just. They are confessedly unlike the loyal men who rallied round the throne of our first Charles, or who fought, however ill-advisedly, for his exiled descendants. The particular nature of this inconsistency will be discussed in some following Lectures; meanwhile I have here considered Romanism in its abstract professions for two reasons. First, I would willingly believe, that in spite of the violence and rancour of its public supporters, there are many individuals in its communion of gentle, affectionate, and deeply religious minds; and such a belief is justified when we find that the necessary difference between us and them is not one of essential principle, that it is the difference of superstition, and not of unbelief, from religion. Next, I have insisted upon it, by way of showing what must be the nature of their Reformation, if in God's merciful counsels a Reformation awaits them. It will be far more a reform of their popular usages and opinions, and ecclesiastical policy, or a destruction of what is commonly called Popery, than of their abstract principles and maxims.

On the other hand, let it not be supposed because I have spoken without sympathy for popular Protestantism in the abstract, that this is all one with being harsh towards individuals professing it; far from it. The worse their creed the more sympathy is due to their persons; chiefly to those, for they most demand and will most patiently suffer it, who least concur in their own doctrine, and are

held by it in an unwilling captivity. Would that they would be taught that their peculiar form of religion, whatever it is, never can satisfy their souls, and does not admit of reform, but must come to nought! Would that they could be persuaded to transfer their misplaced and most unrequited affection from the systems of men to the One Holy Spouse of Christ, the Church Catholic, which in this country manifests herself in the Church commonly so called as her representative! Nor need we despair that as regards many of them this wish may yet be fulfilled.

LECTURE II.

ON ROMANISM AS NEGLECTFUL OF ANTIQUITY.

WE differ from the Romanists, as I have said, more in our view of historical facts than in principles; but in saying this, I am speaking, not of their actual system, nor of their actual mode of defending it, but of their professions, professions which in their mouths are mere professions, while they are truths in ours. The principles, professed by both parties, are at once the foundation of our own theology, and what is called an argumentum ad hominem against theirs. They profess to appeal to primitive Christianity; we honestly take their ground, as holding it ourselves; but when the controversy grows animated, and descends into details, they suddenly leave it and desire to finish the dispute on some other field. In like manner in their teaching and acting, they begin as if in the name of all the Fathers at once, but will be found in the sequel to prove, instruct, and enjoin simply in their

own name.

Our differences from them, considered not in theory but in fact, are in no sense matters of detail and questions of degree. In truth, there is a tenet in their theology which assumes quite a new position in relation to the rest, when we pass from the abstract and quiescent theory to the practical workings of the system. The infallibility of the existing Church is then found to be its first principle, whereas, before, it was a necessary, but a secondary doctrine. Whatever principles they profess in theory, resembling, or coincident with our own, yet when they come to particulars, when they have to prove this or that article of their creed, they supersede the appeal to Scripture and Antiquity by the pretence of the infallibility of the Church, thus solving the whole question, by a summary and final interpretation both of Antiquity and of Scripture.

This is what takes place in the actual course of the controversy. At the same time it is obvious that, while they are as yet but engaged in tracing out their elementary principles, and recommending them to our notice, they cannot assign to this influential doctrine the same sovereign place in their system. It cannot be taken for granted as a first principle in the controversy; if so, nothing remains to be proved, and the controversy is at an end, for every doctrine is contained in it by implication, and no doctrine but might as fairly be assumed as a first principle also. Accordingly, in order to make

a show of proving it, its advocates must necessarily fall back upon some more intelligible doctrine; and that is, the authority of Antiquity, to which they boldly appeal, as I described in my last Lecture. It follows that there is a striking dissimilarity, or even inconsistency between their system as quiescent, and as in action, in its abstract principles, and its reasonings and discussions on particular points. In the Creed of Pope Pius not a word is said expressly about the Church's infallibility; it forms no Article of faith there. Her interpretation, indeed, of Scripture is recognized as authoritative; but so also is the "unanimous consent of Fathers." But when we put aside the creeds and professions of our opponents for their actual teaching and disputing, they will be found to care very little for the Fathers, whether as primitive or as concordant; they believe the existing Church to be infallible, and if ancient belief is at variance with it, which of course they do not allow, but if it is, then Antiquity must be mistaken; that is all. Thus Romanism, which even in its abstract system, must be considered a perversion or distortion of the truth, is in its actual and public manifestation a far more serious error. It is then a disproportionate or monstrous development of a theory in itself extravagant. I propose now to give some illustration of it, thus considered, viz., to show that in fact it substitutes the authority of the Church for that of Antiquity.