ture, nor to written, disagreeing with Scripture; yet written accounts, consonant to Scripture, are of use to confirm and strengthen Scripture, and to ascertain its true meaning. Ignatius, for instance, had been intimately conversant with the Apostles b, and was a disciple of St. John©: and therefore he may reasonably be presumed to have justly represented the mind of the Apostles, in the doctrine he has left behind him, extant at this day. This the learned Mosheim has admitted, and even contended ford, though otherwise no zealous admirer of the ancient Fathers. The like may be said of Polycarp, who had been taught immediately by the Apostles, and had conversed with many who had seen our Lorde. He was also particularly acquainted with St. John f, was one of his disciples, and ordained Bishop of Smyrna by his hands 5. His doctrine, so far as it reaches, and may be certainly depended upon as his, (whether we have it at first or at second hand,) will be of great use for confirming the sense of Scripture, being a secondary attestation of the same doctrine: which Mosheim, before mentioned, does also allow, and plead for h. Our most reverend metropolitan, speaking of the authority of the very early Fathers, sums it up in these several particulars. "1. That they were contemporary "with the Apostles, and instructed by them. 2. That "they were men of an eminent character in the Church, "and therefore such as could not be ignorant of what was taught in it. 3. They were careful to preserve the 66 b Chrysostom. Hom. in Ignat. tom. i. p. 499. Socrat. Eccl. H. l. vi. c. 8. Act. Ignat. p. 9. edit. Grab. in Spicileg. Si doctrinam quam hic publice proposuit, intelligimus, id simul quod Petrus, Joannes, cæterique Servatoris amici senserint et Antiochenis tradiderint, exploratum habemus. Mosheim. Vindic. contr. Toland. sect. i. cap. 8. Compare Abp. Wake, c. x. p. 111, 114. 2d edit. e Iren. lib. iii. c. 3. Euseb. E. H. lib. iv. c. 14. Iren. Ep. ad Florin. inter Fragment. p. 340. Euseb. E. H. v. 20. Hieronym. Catal. Scriptor. Eccl. 17. Tertullian. Præscript. c. 32. Indubitatæ itaque fidei testem rursus habemus, non modo doctrinæ, quam ipse cœtui suo tradidit, sed et ejus quam optimus magister discedens suis reliquit. Mosheim, ibid. p. 237. Abp. Wake's Apostolical Fathers, c. x. p. 111. "doctrine of Christ in its purity, and to oppose such as "went about to corrupt it. 4. They were men not only "of a perfect piety, but of great courage and constancy, "and therefore such as cannot be suspected to have had any design to prevaricate in this matter. 5. They were "endued with a large portion of the Holy Spirit, and, as "such, could hardly err in what they delivered as the "Gospel of Christ. 6. Their writings were approved by "the Church in those days, which could not be mistaken "in its approbation of them i." Mr. Bayle allows that, "in the days of the Apostles, "or their first disciples, it had been easy to discover those "who gave the Scriptures a wrong interpretation, because "the infallibility of the Apostles, (who might have been "consulted by word or by letter,) and the fresh remem"brance of the verbal instructions they had given their "disciples and pastors, whom themselves had consecrated, "was a ready means for clearing any doubt or disputed "point." It appears then to be on all hands agreed, that those most early Fathers are competent witnesses of the doctrine of the Church in their days; nay, and of the doctrine also of Christ and his Apostles, to whom they immediately succeeded: and therefore their general sense is of signal use (so far as it reaches) to ascertain the interpretation of Scripture, and more especially as being consonant to the easy and natural import of the words themselves. The like may be said in proportion, and in a lower degree, of the writings of Justin Martyr, Athenagoras, Irenæus, and Clemens Alexandrinus1; eminent personages, who flourished within fifty or sixty, or at most ninety years of the apostolical age. Their nearness to i Abp. Wake's Apostolical Fathers, cap. x. p. 110. * Bayle's Supplement to Philosophical Commentary, p. 692. 1 Clemens of Alexandria, the latest of the four, yet testifies of himself, that he had received his doctrine from several disciples of the very chief Apostles, who had truly preserved the tradition of the blessed doctrine as coming directly from the holy Apostles, Peter, James, and Paul. Strom. lib. i. p. 322. Conf. Grabe, Instances of Omissions and Defects, &c. p. 9. the time, their known fidelity, and their admirable endowments, ordinary and extraordinary, add great weight to their testimony, or doctrine, and make it a probable rule of interpretation in the prime things: but there is another consideration, to follow in its place, which will give it still greater strength of probability than what I have here suggested. As to later Fathers, the argument, in this view, loses its force more and more, the lower we descend. Yet it deserves our notice, that the Fathers of the third and fourth centuries had the advantage of many written accounts of the doctrine of the former ages, which have since been lost; and therefore their testimonies also are of considerable weight, and are a mark of direction to us, not to be slighted in the main things. Neither indeed is this saying any thing very highly of them, but may be thought rather to be setting them too low, and sinking them beneath their real value: for the testimonies of Jews, heretics, or Pagans, so far as we can depend upon them, must be allowed to carry in them the same use, where they testify any thing of the general doctrine or practice of the Christian Church in their times. Pliny, Lucian, Celsus, and Julian (to name no more) are all useful to us in this view, as they give some light into the doctrine of the first and purest ages. They confirm the fact, that such doctrines were then generally taught, and they corroborate other evidences. Socinus seems to have allowed more to one testimony of Lucian, than to many Christian evidences m. No doubt, but it was some advantage to it in his esteem, that it came from a Pagan: though still it had not weight enough to conquer his prejudices; for he never wanted evasions. But I pass on to what I intend farther. All kinds of evidences are of use, which can bring us any light as to what the doctrine of the Church m Nec vero nobis quidquam hactenus legere contigit, quod trini istius Dei, a Christianis jam tum recepti et culti, fidem facere videatur magis, quam quæ ex dialogo, qui Philopatris inscribitur, et inter Luciani opera numeratur, ad id probandum affert Genebrardus, lib. i. et ii. de Trinitate. Socin. adv. Eutrop. c. xv. p. 698. Opp. was in the best and purest ages: and when we are once advanced so far as to come to any certainty about that fact, then we have ground whereon to stand, and can build our argument upon it. V. The next consideration therefore is this, that a very particular regard is due to the public acts of the ancient Church, appearing in creeds made use of in baptism, and in the censures passed upon heretics: and the observable harmony and unanimity of the several churches ", in such acts, is a circumstance which adds irresistible force to them. It is not at all likely, that any whole church of those early times should vary from apostolical doctrine in things of moment but it is, morally speaking, absurd to imagine, that all the churches should combine in the same error, and conspire together to corrupt the doctrine of Christ. This is the argument which Irenæus and Tertullian insist much upon, and triumph in, over the heretics of their times and it is obliquely glanced upon by Hegesippus and Clemens Alexandrinus of the same second century, and by Origen also of the third. The argument was undoubtedly true and just, as it then stood, while there were no breaks in the succession of doctrine, but a perfect unanimity of the churches all along, in the prime articles though, afterwards, the force of this argument came to be obscured, and almost lost, by taking in things foreign to it, and blending it with what happened in later : " Traditionem itaque Apostolorum in toto mundo manifestatam in omni Ecclesia adest respicere omnibus qui vera volunt videre: et habemus annumerare eos, qui ab Apostolis instituti sunt episcopi in Ecclesiis, et successores eorum usque ad nos, qui nihil tale docuerunt, neque cognoverunt quale ab his deliratur, Iren. lib. iii. c. 3. Itaque tot ac tantæ Ecclesiæ una illa ab Apostolis prima, ex qua omnes. Sic omues primæ, et apostolicæ, dum una omnes probant unitatem; dum est illis communicatio pacis, et appellatio fraternitatis, et contesseratio hospitalitatis: quæ jura non alia ratio regit, quam ejusdem sacramenti una traditio. Tertull. Præscript. c. 20. Ecquid verisimile est, ut tot ac tantæ in unam fidem erraverint? Nullus inter multos eventus unus est. Exitus variasse debuerat error doctrinæ ecclesiarum. Ceterum, quod apud multos unum invenitur, non est erratum, sed traditum. Tertull. ibid. c. 28. times. The force of it could last no longer than such unanimity lasted. I say, while the churches were all unanimous in the main things, (as they were in Irenæus's time, and Tertullian's, and for more than a century after,) that very unanimity was a presumptive argument that their faith was right, derived down to them from the Apostles themselves. For it was highly unreasonable to suppose, that those several churches, very distant from each other in place, and of different languages, and under no common visible head, should all unite in the same errors, and deviate uniformly from their rule at once. But that they should all agree in the same common faith, might easily be accounted for, as arising from the same common cause, which could be no other but the common delivery of the same uniform faith and doctrine to all the churches by the Apostles themselves P. Such unanimity could never come by chance, but must be derived from one common source: and therefore the harmony of their doctrine was in itself a pregnant argument of the truth of it 9. As to the fact, that the churches were thus unanimous in all the prime things, in those days, Irenæus, who was a very knowing person, and who had come far east to settle in the west, bears ample testimony to it. Tertullian, in the two passages last cited from him, testifies the same thing, as to the unanimity of the churches of those times in the fundamentals of Christian doctrine. Hegesippus, contemporary with Irenæus, gives much the same account of the succession of true doctrine, down to his own time, in the several churches $. Clemens of Alexandria means the same thing, where he recommends the faith of the uni ▸ See this argument very well explained and enforced by Dr. Sherlock, in his Present State of the Socinian Controversy, cap. ii. sect. 2. p. 60, &c. Vero simile fit complures Ecclesias originis apostolicæ, regionibus linguaque dissitas, eam doctrinæ concordiam ab uno fonte hausisse, utpote quæ a casu non introducta videtur. Sum. Basnag. Annal. tom. i. P. 742. Iren. lib. i. c. 10, alias 3. lib. iii. c. 3, 4. • Εν ἑκάσῃ δὲ διαδοχῇ καὶ ἐν ἑκάσῃ πόλει οὕτως ἔχει, ὡς ὁ νόμος κηρύττει, καὶ οἱ *ро‡ñται, ó Kúgios. Hegesipp. ap. Euseb. lib. iv. c. 22. |