Now the new and gratuitous hypothesis in question does not appear, when examined, even to harmonize with the facts of the case. One mode of dealing with it is this:—Take a large view of the faith of Christians during the centuries before Constantine established their religion. Is there any family likeness in it to Protestantism? Look at it, as existing during that period in different countries, and is it not one and the same, and a reiteration of itself, as well as singularly unlike Reformed Christianity? Hermas with his visions, Ignatius with his dogmatism, Irenæus with his praise of tradition and of the Roman See, Clement with his allegory and mysticism, Cyprian with his "Out of the Church is no salvation," and Methodius with his praise of Virginity, all of them writers between the first and fourth centuries, and witnesses of the faith of Rome, Africa, Gaul, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt, certainly do not represent the opinions of Luther and Calvin. They stretch over the whole of Christendom; they are consistent with each other; they coalesce into one religion; but it is not the religion of the Reformation. When we ask, "Where was your Church before Luther?" Protestants answer, "Where were you this morning before you washed your face?" But, if Protestants can clean themselves into the likeness of Cyprian or Irenæus, they must scrub very hard, and have well-nigh learned the art of washing the blackamoor white.
2.
If the Church system be not Apostolic, it must, some time or other, have been introduced, and then comes the question, when? We maintain that the known circumstances of the previous history are such as to preclude the possibility of any time being assigned, ever so close upon the Apostles, at which the Church system did not exist. Not only cannot a time be shown when the free-and-easy system now in fashion did generally exist, but no time can be shown in which it can be colourably maintained that the Church system was brought in. It will be said, of course, that the Church system was gradually introduced. I do not say there have never been introductions of any kind; but let us see what they amount to here. Select for yourself your doctrine, or your ordinance, which you say was introduced, and try to give the history of its introduction. Hypothetical that history will be, of course; but we will not scruple at that;—we will only ask one thing, that it should cut clean between the real facts of the case, though it bring none in its favour; but it will not be able to do even this. The rise of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, of the usage of baptizing infants, of the eucharistic offering, of the episcopal prerogatives, do what one will, can hardly be made short of Apostolical times. This is not the place to prove all this; but so fully is it felt to be so, by those who are determined not to admit these portions of Catholicism, that in their despair of drawing the line between the first and following centuries, they make up their minds to intrude into the first, and boldly pursue their supposed error into the very presence of some Apostle or Evangelist. Thus St. John is sometimes made the voluntary or involuntary originator of some portions of our creed. Dr. Priestley, I believe, conjectures that his amanuensis played him false, as regards his teaching upon the sacred doctrine which that philosopher opposed. Others take exceptions to St. Luke, because he tells us of the "handkerchiefs, or aprons," which "were brought from St. Paul's body" for the cure of diseases. Others have gone a step further, and have said, "Not Paul, but Jesus." Infidel, Socinian, and Protestant, agree in assailing the Apostles, rather than submitting to the Church.
3.
Let our Protestant friends go to what quarter of Christendom they will, let them hunt among heretics or schismatics, into Gnosticism outside the Church, or Arianism within it, still they will find no hint or vestige anywhere of that system which they are now pleased to call Scriptural. Granting that Catholicism be a corruption, is it possible that it should be a corruption springing up everywhere at once? Is it conceivable that at least no opponent should have retained any remnant of the system it supplanted?—that no tradition of primitive purity should remain in any part of Christendom?—that no protest, or controversy, should have been raised, as a monument against the victorious error? This argument, conclusive against modern Socinianism, is still more cogent and striking when directed against Puritanism. At least, there were divines in those early days who denied the sacred doctrine which Socinianism also disowns, though commonly they did not profess to do so on authority of tradition; but who ever heard of Erastians, Supralapsarians, Independents, Sacramentarians, and the like, before the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? It would be too bold to go to prove a negative: I can only say that I do not know in what quarter to search for the representatives, in the early Church, of that "Bible religion," as it is called, which is now so much in favour. At first sight, one is tempted to say that all errors come over and over again; that this and that notion now in vogue has been refuted in times past. This is indeed a general truth—nay, for what I know, these same bold speculatists will bring it even as an argument for their not being in error, that Antiquity says nothing at all, good or bad, about their opinions. I cannot answer for the extent to which they will throw the onus probandi on us; but I protest—be it for us, or be it against us—I cannot find this very religion of theirs in ancient times, whether in friend or foe, Jew or Pagan, Montanist or Novatian; though I find surely enough, and in plenty, the general characteristics, which are conspicuous in their philosophy, of self-will, eccentricity, and love of paradox.
So far from it, that if we wish to find the rudiments of the Catholic system clearly laid down in writing, those who are accounted least orthodox will prove as liberal in their information about it as the strictest Churchman. We can endure even the heretics better than our opponents can endure the Apostles. Tertullian, though a Montanist, gives no sort of encouragement to the so-called Bible Christians of this day; rather he would be the object of their decided abhorrence and disgust. Origen is not a whit more of a Protestant, though he, if any, ought, from the circumstances of his history, to be a witness against us. It is averred that the alleged revolution of doctrine and ritual was introduced by the influence of the episcopal system; well, here is a victim of episcopacy, brought forward by our opponents as such. Here is a man who was persecuted by his bishop, and driven out of his country; and whose name after his death has been dishonourably mentioned, both by Councils and Fathers. He surely was not in the episcopal conspiracy, at least; and perchance may give the latitudinarian, the anabaptist, the Erastian, and the utilitarian, some countenance. Far from it; he is as high and as keen, as removed from softness and mawkishness, as ascetic and as reverential, as any bishop among them. He is as superstitious (as men now talk), as fanatical, as formal, as Athanasius or Augustine. Certainly, there seems something providential in the place which Origen holds in the early Church, considering the direction which theories about it are now taking; and much might be said on that subject.
Take another instance:—There was, in the fourth century, a party of divines who were ecclesiastically opposed to the line of theologians, whose principles had been, and were afterwards, dominant in the Church, such as Athanasius, Jerome, and Epiphanius; I mean, for instance, Eusebius, Cyril of Jerusalem, and others who were more or less connected with the Semi-Arians. If, then, we see that in all points, as regards the sacraments and sacramentals, the Church and its ministers, the form of worship, and other religious duties of Christians, Eusebius and Cyril agree entirely with the most orthodox of their contemporaries, with those by party and country most separated from them, we have a proof that that system, whatever it turns out to be, was received before their time—i.e. before the establishment of Christianity under Constantine; in other words, that we must look for the gradual corruption of the Church, if it is to be found, not when wealth pampered it, and power and peace brought its distant portions together, but while it was yet poor, humble, and persecuted, in those times which are commonly considered pure and primitive. Again, the genius of Arianism, as a party and a doctrine, was to discard antiquity and mystery; that is, to resist and expose what is commonly called priestcraft. In proportion, then, as Cyril and Eusebius partook of that spirit, so far would they be in their own cast of mind indisposed to the Catholic system, both considered in itself and as being imposed on them.
Now, have the writers in question any leaning or tenderness for the theology of Luther and Calvin? rather they are as unconscious of its existence as of modern chemistry or astronomy. That faith is a closing with divine mercy, not a submission to a divine announcement, that justification and sanctification are distinct, that good works do not benefit the Christian, that the Church is not Christ's ordinance and instrument, and that heresy and dissent are not necessarily and intrinsically evil: notions such as these they do not oppose, simply because to all appearance they never heard of them. To take a single passage, which first occurs, in which Eusebius, one of the theologians in question, gives us his notion of the Catholic Church:—
"These attempts," he says, speaking of the arts of the enemy, "did not long avail him, Truth ever consolidating itself, and, as time went on, shining into broader day. For while the devices of adversaries were extinguished at once, confuted by their very activity,—one heresy after another presenting its own novelty, the former specimens ever dissolving and wasting variously in manifold and multiform shapes,—the brightness of the Catholic and only true Church went forward increasing and enlarging, yet ever in the same things and in the same way, beaming on the whole race of Greeks and barbarians with the awfulness, and simplicity, and nobleness, and sobriety, and purity of its divine polity and philosophy. Thus the calumny against our whole creed died with its day, and there continued alone our discipline, sovereign among all, and acknowledged to be pre-eminent in awfulness and sobriety, in its divine and philosophical doctrines; so that no one of this day dares to cast any base reproach upon our faith, nor any such calumny such as it was once customary for our enemies to use."—Hist. iv. 7.
Or to take a passage on a different subject, which almost comes first to hand, from St. Cyril, another of this school of divines:—