not consider that those dogmas on which he agrees with the Church, she would not have saved and handed down to his time, had she acted according to those formal principles which he requires of her, and on which he stands. The Pelagian and the Nestorian, embrace also, with the most undoubting faith, the decisions of the Church against the Arians. But as soon as the turn comes to either, he becomes as it were stupified, and is inconsiderate enough to desire the matter of Christian doctrine without the appropriate ecclesiastical form--without that form, consequently, by the very neglect whereof those parties, to which he is most heartily opposed, have fallen on the adoption of their articles of belief. It was the same with Luther and Calvin. The pure Christian dogmas, in opposition to the errors of the Gnostics, Paulicians, Arians, Pelagians, Nestorians, Monophysites and others, they received with the most praiseworthy firmness and fervency of faith. But, when they took a fancy to deliver their theses on the relations between faith and works, between free will and grace, or however else they may be called, they trod (as to form) quite in the footsteps of those whom they execrated, and when they were able to obtain possession of their persons, even burned them.*

* The observation of Chemnitius (in Exam, Conc. Trident. P. 1. p. 118, and still more further on), is very remarkable. He says, Irenæus and Tertullian, who appealed to tradition, wished only to show that tradition agreed with Scripture. "Non video, si integra disputatio consideretur, quomodo alia inde possit erui sententia, quam quod ostendat consensum traditionis apostolicæ cum Scripturâ, ita ut eadem sit doctrina, quam Scriptura tradit, et quam primitiva ecclesia ex apostolorum traditione acceperat. P. 221. Et omnia sunt sacris Scripturis consona, quæ nos et recipimus et profitemur." Hence, he draws the conclusion, that testimonies for tradition from the second, third, and fourth centuries, could not be turned against the Protestants,

This accordingly is the doctrine of Catholics. Thou wilt obtain the knowledge full and entire of the Christian religion, only in connection with its essential form, which is the Church. Look at the Scripture in an ecclesiastical spirit, and it will present thee an image perfectly resembling the Church. Contemplate Christ in, and with his creation-the Church; the only adequate authority; the only authority representing Him, and thou wilt then stamp His image on thy soul. Should it, however, be stated, in ridicule of this principle, that it were the same as to say-" Look at the Bible through the spectacles of the Church," be not disturbed, for it is better for thee to contemplate the star by the aid of a glass, than to let it escape thy dull organ of vision, and be lost in mist and darkness. Spectacles, besides, thou must always use, but only beware lest thou get them constructed by the first casual glassgrinder, and fixed upon thy nose.

because they receive all which was then decided through tradition against the heretics. But Chemnitius did not place himself in the right point of view. He ought to have considered, that if in the matter under discussion, Catholics appeal to Tertullian and others, the question is not respecting any particular doctrine, but about the very principle of tradition. Chemnitius, indeed, for the most part agrees with Catholics in their doctrinal decisions against the Gnostics; but, as regards tradition, in a formal point of view, he stands quite on the side of the latter. He must have learned from the writings of Irenæus and Tertullian, that the most simple and fundamental doctrines of Christianity could not even be established by Scripture. Then he proceeds farther (p. 128). "Veteres damnaverunt Samosatenum et deinde Arium. Judex erat verbum Dei, id est, testimonia ex Evangelio..... quæ convincunt non calumniose judicantem." Certainly, and the judges of doctrine at the Council of Nice were incapable of convincing, out of Holy Writ, the Arians of their error, precisely because these were the "calumniose judicantes."

§ XL.-Formal distinction between Scriptural and Ecclesiastical Doctrine.

If we have hitherto shown that, conformably to the principles of Catholics, the doctrine of Scripture is one and the same with the doctrine of the Church, since the Church hath to interpret the Scripture, and in this interpretation cannot err; so this unity applies to the substance only, and not to the form. In respect to the latter, a diversity is found inherent in the very essence and object of the Church; so that, indeed, if the divine truth must be preserved and propagated by human organs, the diversity we speak of could not possibly be avoided, as will appear from the following observations. The conduct of the Redeemer, in the announcement of His Word, was corresponded to by that of the apostles, and the Word became immediately in them faith-a human possession-and after his ascension, existed for the world in no other form than in this faith of the Lord's disciples, whose kernel in Peter he therefore called the rock, whereon his Church was, in such a way, to be built, that the powers of hell should never prevail against it. But, after the Divine Word had become human faith, it must be subject to all mere human destinies. It must be constantly received by all the energies of the human mind, and imbibed by the same. The preservation and communication of the Word were, in like manner, attached to a human method. Even with the evangelists, who only wished to recount what Christ had spoken, wrought, and suffered, the Divine Word appears subject to the law here described; a law which manifests itself in the choice and arrangement of the matter, as well as in the special plan, which

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each proposed to himself, and in the general conception, and execution of his task.

But, the Divine Word became still more subject to this law, when the apostles were fulfilling their mission -executing the divine charge, which they had received; for, various questions of dispute arose, the settlement whereof could not be avoided, and on that account claimed human reflection, and required the formation of notions, judgments, and conclusions-things which were not possible to be effected, without tasking the reason and the understanding. The application of the energies of the human mind to the subject matter, received from the Lord, necessarily caused the Divine Word, on one hand, to be analyzed, and, on the other hand, to be reduced to certain leading points; and the multiplicity of objects to be contemplated in their mutual bearings, and resolved into a higher unity, whereby the human mind obtained, on these matters, greater clearness and definiteness of conception. For, every thing, that the human mind hath received from an external source, and which is destined to become its property, wherein it must find itself perfectly at home, must be first reproduced by the human mind itself. The original doctrine, as the human mind had variously elaborated it, exhibited itself in a much altered form: it remained the original, and yet did not; it was the same in substance, and yet differed as to form. In this process of the developement of the Divine Word, during the apostolic age, we may exalt as high, and extend as wide as we please the divine guidance, given to the disciples of Christ; yet certainly, without human co-operation, without the peculiar activity of man, it did not advance of itself. As in the good work of the Christian, freewill and grace pervade each other, and one and the

same undivided deed is at once divine and human, so we find this to be the case here.

The same could not fail to hold good, even after the death of the apostles, even after the Gospels and the Epistles, were written and whatever else we include in the canon of the New Testament, were already in the hands of the faithful. When, in the manner described, the Church explains and secures the original doctrine of faith against misrepresentations; the apostolic expression is necessarily changed for another, which is the most fitted alike clearly to set forth and reject the particular error of the time. As little as the apostles themselves, in the course of their polemics, could retain the form, wherein the Saviour expounded his divine doctrine; so little was the Church enabled to adhere to the same. If the evangelical doctrine be assailed, by a definite theological system, and a terminology peculiar to itself; the false notions cannot by any means be repelled in a clear, distinct, evident, and intelligible manner, unless the Church have regard to the form of the error, and exhibit its thesis in a shape, qualified by the garb, wherein the adverse doctrine is invested, and thus render itself intelligible to all contemporaries. The origin of the Nicene formula, furnishes the best solution to this question. This form is in itself the human, the temporal, the perishable element, and might be exchanged for a hundred others. Accordingly, tradition often hands down to later generations, the original deposit in another form, because that deposit hath been entrusted to the care of men, whose conduct must be guided by the circumstances, wherein they are placed.

Lastly, in the same manner as in the Apostolic writings, the truths of salvation are laid open with