adapting the evidence it conveys, to the purposes of the present controversy. In other instances I have offered a translation only, yet making such references as will enable the learned reader easily to follow my footsteps. By these various means, I trust the reader will be satisfied that he is not intentionally, or in any material point, misled by the author.

As to the fidelity of these translations (concerning which I shall have more to say in the end) I confidently throw myself on the candour of all to whom such an appeal may hopefully be made; especially of those of them who know what literary labour of this peculiar description is. The present is an urgent controversy, and in no other way to be treated, than by a copious appeal to the most voluminous and difficult (not to say repulsive) class of books. More than a hundred folio volumes, many of them of the largest dimensions, are to be cited, and the evidence they furnish is to be wrought into the continuity of an argument; and all this is to be done in combination with other, and equally laborious tasks, and with many and various engagements. It is idle to say-" Take more time." My persuasion deepens every hour, that the occasion admits of no delay. Nevertheless, and under all disadvantages, and unaided as I have been, I have the testimony of the most competent persons (nay, lately of my opponents) that the Evidence adduced in these numbers has not been falsified-that it has been, in the main, correctly rendered.-For the rest, I have no solicitude :-the translations might have been more elegant or more precise ;-but for the purposes of the controversy, they are efficient, and trustworthy.

A portion of this number is occupied with a Supplement, containing, as well the original passages cited in the preceding number from Salvian, and to which I beg to direct the reader's attention, as several passages from other writers, confirmatory of his evidence. For these additional testimonies I challenge a particular regard. They prove all that has been alleged, and more than need be proved, to make good what has been affirmed.

To the next number, and which will, I hope, speedily follow this, I propose to append, in the same manner-original proofs, and new illustrations of the argument as it proceeds; and in concluding my labours, and after replying to every reasonable criticism, I hope to supply, in the way of indexes and particular references, every sort of aid to those who may be inclined to follow home my citations.

STANFORD RIVERS,

November 26, 1840.

ANCIENT CHRISTIANITY,

&c. &c.

STATEMENT OF THE HYPOTHESIS ON WHICH A RELIGIOUS DEFERENCE TO ANTIQUITY MIGHT BE MADE TO REST.

Is there yet be any who could claim a deference as due to the opinions and practices of the ancient church on the plea of its eminent purity, they are bound to produce evidence-not otherwise contradicted, to that effect; and it must be shown, especially, that the church of the fourth century was incorrupt and holy; for it is the rightful authority of that period which is now in question.

The facts already adduced in the course of this work, together with the copious evidences which will be found in the supplementary sheets, exclude absolutely (as I believe) any such pretension. The evil tendencies of human nature being in every age the same, and the social system having been at that time in a condition of rapid decay, while the corrective energies of Christianity were almost nullified by fatal corruptions-doctrinal, ethical, and ritual, those times exhibited, on all sides, a sorrowful spectacle of wild extravagance, and of general dissoluteness :-an ill-directed intensity of the religious emotions, at particular centres; while the surface of society displayed the gross habits and usages of the ancient polytheism, slightly glozed over by christian forms.

The more copiously the actual evidence is searched into and adduced, the more difficult will it become to sustain any opinion materially differing from the one here expressed; and although a contrary feeling may be long and passionately adhered to, it must gradually give way before irresistible proofs.

But if the ground of the imaginary superior purity of the ancient church be abandoned, then the promoters of church principles must resort, either to the Hypothesis, now to be examined, or to the Theory, which will next come to be considered.

The HYPOTHESIS is,

-That the apostolic mind, relating to points nowhere explicitly advanced in the canonical writings, but orally transmitted, may yet be collected from the extant ecclesiastical records; and that when so collected, it carries with it all the authority which can attach to the text of the Gospels and Epistles; inasmuch as it is the same as well in substance, as in its source; differing merely in the mode of conveyance.

If this hypothesis could be made good, then it would be proper to define Revelation as being-The supernaturally expressed will of God, conveyed to us, partly in the canonical writings, and partly in the traditions of the Church; and then it would follow-That, inasmuch as a material portion of Revelation is inaccessible to the mass of the people (to the laity generally) and indeed can never be clearly separated, the metal from the ore, by any individuals; not only the mass of the people, but even the majority of the clergy, must tacitly receive their faith and their rules of conduct from the dictation of the Church. Under such a system, the canonical scriptures, although they may be used for the purpose of stirring devout sentiments, can have no conclusive functions left to them, either as proof of doctrine, or as the rule of life; for the church must always, and first, be heard, before any point can be legitimately determined. Under such a system, too, it must always be desirable to remove occasions of perplexity from the popular mind, and to lay open only such portions of the Scriptures as may seem the most free from matter of doubt or controversy such as their simple narratives, and didactic apophthegms, and the purely devotional psalms. It must be regarded as a

*No. V. p. 28.

cruel mockery to allow the laity to peruse the epistles-least of all those of Paul, which they will almost invariably interpret in a sense widely differing from that which the church attributes to them; and which will not fail to provoke the spirit of inquiry, in a manner not to be allowed.

Every ingenuous advocate of this, or of any similar Hypothesis, must grant that it involves the establishment of the strictest spiritual despotism; and that it is essentially opposed to the principles of the Lutheran and English Reformation. If the will of Christ be contained-partly in the canonical writings, and partly within the hundred tomes of ecclesiastical antiquity, and if the portion imbedded in these, be a joint rule with the portion expressed in those, then the Church, which alone possesses, and which alone understands, and is qualified to interpret both, is the real and sole authority in matters of religion. Private judgment, exercised in a perusal of the Scriptures, must be regarded as in an equal degree logically inconclusive in its inferences, and treasonable and impious in its pretensions.

Holding this hypothesis, one might yet dissent from the church of Rome, and disown her usurped authority, inasmuch as she has, by her own acknowledgment, legislated in doctrine and ritual; and she has done so on the ground of a Theory, which might carry us much further than this hypothesis would do. Nevertheless the despotism to which we must submit, is, in no sense, less absolute than that of the church of Rome; and in point of fact, the articles to be believed, and the usages to be observed under the one authority, differ very little from those enjoined by the other.

It is now therefore our part, with a foresight of the momentous consequence thereto appended, to inquire-Whether this HypoTHESIS, or any supposition essentially the same, can be reasonably maintained, and if maintained, carried into effect.

For the sake of conciseness, as well as to exclude every occasion of ambiguity, it is necessary distinctly to keep our hold of the supposition in question, as distinguished from assumptions or instances speciously intermixed, or inadvertently confounded with it.

As for example; we are to exclude all those instances, (and