a member, and without asking whether that body be a teacher, is only to settle whether he ought or ought not to adhere to its teaching. Undoubtedly its right to teach lies at the bottom of his inquiry; but it was not designed to come up: the question for him is the truth of what it teaches, as well with regard to itself, as to all other revealed truth.

Otherwise stated, the case is this: A man is in the world, and the Church comes to him, with her message, and her credentials: which shall he do first, hear the message, or examine the credentials? If she come alone, the first, surely: the very tenor of her message would be a test of her credentials. But suppose she do not come alone: the credentials must be tried, to discriminate the true messenger. Would not the shortest way be, to settle what are flaws in the credentials? since the probability is, that one or more of the false pretenders (for they are many, but the true only one) will first present itself. This is to be done by the notes of the Church. They are negative tests —not that which gives the Church its authority; but those things of which the absence proves a pretender to be not the true messenger.

This negative character is very observable in all the notes mentioned by our author (below, p. 25. s.) as having been employed at various times. Against the novelties of the Gnostics, Tertullian appeals to antiquity and priority: Irenæus, against the multiplicity of systems and spurious derivations of the same family of heresies, to the one faith and succession of the church and all these notes are of universal use, be

cause all heresy and schism must be novel and of spurious origin. In the Donatist controversy, where both parties had an outward succession from the apostles, that note was not appealed to.

The notes employed by Augustin are those which served him to detect the heresy of Manichæism,Jerome argues against the recent sect called after its author-&c. &c.

The value of these several tests is not to be estimated singly. No one may be sufficient for the end: the probability is rather that no one will be; that several or all, may be required completely to discriminate the one true claimant to be the channel of Divine goodness from all false pretenders. Still less may any one, or all, be expected positively to establish the claim of the one true body of CHRIST: that claim is substantiated by the refutation of the others. We who have CHRIST's promise to be always with us, may rest on it, content and thankful, when we have disproved the Roman tyrant's claim to be its exclusive depositary, and ascertained the nullity of the pretensions that swarm around us from other quarters.

In a treatise of such extent and variety of topics, it could hardly be expected that an editor should adopt wholly the views and expressions of his author. He is very sensible of the disparity between them, and yet has freely used the liberty of comment which editorship implies; and does not, even now, hold himself responsible for all that he has suffered to pass without remark. In many places, without material difference as to fact, or argument, he would have preferred

another tone; in others, would have made a different choice of proof or illustration; but, on the whole, deemed the disadvantages of scrupulous attention to such points more than compensatory for any little enhancement the value of the work might receive from the unlimited endorsement of an editor.

Than that editor none can be more deeply grateful to the learned and laborious author with whom he has presumed to take such freedoms. If anywhere he has chanced to see further or more clearly, it is as the pigmy on the giant's shoulder. Everywhere he has found cause for admiration of the extent and depth of research, the accuracy of learning, and the clearness of methodical arrangement, which make this, as the first complete treatise on the subject in our language, so among the best in any.

The most scrupulous attention has been given not to alter word or syllable of the original text. Everything added, has been designated by brackets. Even manifest slips of the pen, in two or three instances, have been retained in the text, with the addition of bracketed corrections.

Baltimore,

FEAST OF ST. BARNABAS, 1841.}

W. R. W.

PREFACE

TO THE FIRST EDITION.

In presenting to students in theology a treatise on so extensive a subject as that of the Christian Church in general, it seems necessary to state the reasons and the objects of this publication.

To contemplate the past and present condition of the universal church of Christ, must always be full of a deep interest to those who believe that the SON OF GOD came into this world to establish a spiritual kingdom, in which through His atonement and merits, salvation should be obtained by the faithful of all nations, even to the end of the world. The fulfilment of many prophecies of holy scripture, and the accomplishment of the Divine promises and the Divine will, are involved in the fate of Christianity.

Nor are such topics merely instructive and interesting to a contemplative and Christian mind: they disclose to us the deep responsibility incumbent on every individual Christian, to seek for the Divine favour, not in broken cisterns of human device; but in that way wherein alone Divine grace is promised, and which, amidst the infirmities, the errors, and the

VOL. I.-3

faults inseparable from human agency, conducts to eternal life.

In addition to these considerations, which would in themselves justify an attempt to examine the question of the church in its full extent, the alteration of circumstances and opinions furnishes another reason for this undertaking. The controversies between our churches and their various opponents, have been gradually assuming new forms. Fresh theories and arguments have been devised; while many of those ancient errors against which the masters of Anglocatholic theology contended in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, have been permitted to sink into oblivion. One class of separatists has ceased to maintain the temporal power of the Roman Pontiff, and other Ultramontane doctrines: another no longer claims a divine right for its system of church-government; and a false Liberality has arisen, which views truth and error with impartial indifference, and opens the way to Infidelity.

Such circumstances will, I hope, justify the publication of this Treatise, in which, avoiding obsolete controversies, and, as much as possible, the discussion of the particular doctrines of Revelation, it has been my object to examine the origin, signs, privileges, powers, relations, and existing condition of the Catholic Church, and of all sects, and to supply the theological student with a selection of arguments, by which he may be enabled to defend the Churches of this realm against all adversaries whatsoever.

It has been my endeavour to adapt the entire system