this extensive Appeal to Fathers and Creeds and Apologies and Enemies and Liturgies.

The Appeal, truly, comprises the whole Circle of really Catholic Doctrines: insomuch that these Doctrines collectively stand out, upon the most perfect and invincible HISTORICAL TESTIMONY, as the true Sense of SCRIPTURE; according as Scripture was INTERPRETED by the Spirit, and according as the Spirit's INTERPRETATION was received and understood by the apostolically instructed Primitive Church.

(4.) Higher MORAL EVIDENCE than this, I submit, cannot, for the substantiation of any given FACT, be produced.

By such a process, we ascertain the PRIMEVAL APOSTOLIC SETTLEMENT OF THE SENSE OF DOCTRINAL SCRIPTURE: and this is the only true object of any rational inquiry into the Doctrinal Import of Holy Writ. With insulated INTERPRETERS, whether ancient or modern, we have nothing to do. What we want is TESTIMONY TO A FACT. That FACT is the DOCTRINAL SYSTEM OF THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH, AS RECEIVED THROUGH THE PERSONAL TEACHING OF THE INSPIRED APOSTLES, FROM THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE BY THE Spirit of God: and that TESTIMONY we obtain by an Appeal to A CHAIN OF WITNESSES which reaches unbroken to the very commencement of Christianity.

III. Such is the LEGITIMATE APPEAL to Antiquity, which is sanctioned and practised by the Church of England: an Appeal, under one aspect, universal; under another aspect, studiously and systematically restricted: that is to say, universal, so far as TESTIMONY is concerned; restricted, so far as SUBJECT is concerned.

Here it is, that she differs both from the Papists and the Tract-Writers and the whole Fraternity of Ultra-Churchmen.

1. They ILLEGITIMATELY appeal to Antiquity, not positive and catenary, but relative and insulated; supplying their want of positively ancient Evidence, by the gratuitous allegation of certain imaginary hints and tendencies in the concise text afforded through the first ages and their Appeal, when of this description, is made, in order to enforce our Reception of sundry very foolish Extrascripturalities or Unscripturalities of the fourth century.

:

2. She LEGITIMATELY appeals to Antiquity, not merely relative and insulated, but positive and catenary; dealing not in the vagueness of fancied hints and tendencies, but resorting to direct Evidence; and her Appeal is made solely for the ascertainment of the true Sense of Doctrinal Scripture.

IV. In a word, the Church of England, wherein I desire humbly to follow her, holds Scripture to be THE SOLE RULE OF FAITH, and Unanimous Antiquity to be AN UNEXCEPTION

ABLE WITNESS TO THE NATURE OF THAT FAITH WHEREOF SCRIPTURE IS THE SOLE RULE.

NUMBER XII.

THE PAULICIANS.

The very able Bossuet has so constructed an argument against the Reformation, that, if its middle term be admitted, its conclusion, by a logical necessity, must inevitably follow. His argument is this.

Christ has promised, to his true Visible Church, the privilege of unfailing doctrinal purity: for the promise of such purity, free from any stain of deadly apostatic corruption, is plainly involved in his last declaration to his Apostles, and through them to their successors; Lo, I am with you ALWAY, even unto the end of the world.

But, except the two Communions of the Valdenses and the Albigenses, whereof the Valdenses were a mere modern sect owing their recent origin to Peter Valdo in the twelfth century, while the Albigenses and their theological ancestors the Paulicians were rank Manichéans, Protestants are unable to produce any Visible Church, out of the pale of the Roman Church, which, during the long term of the middle ages, they can, consistently with their own religious principles, allege, in agreement with Christ's promise, to be a pure Visible Church.

Therefore, they must either condemn their own separation by admitting the Church of Rome and the Churches in communion

with her to constitute the pure Visible Church of Christ's promise, or else they must impiously impugn the veracity of the Lord himself: for, if the promised pure Visible Church existed not in the Church of Rome and the Churches in communion with her throughout the middle ages, and if during the same period they be unable to point out any other Visible Church which on their own principles, they can justly deem pure; then such a Church must have ceased to exist many ages before the Reformation, and thus consequently the promise of Christ will have failed in its accomplishment.

Of this argument, I see not, how the premises can be denied : for we must allow, that Christ spoke, not of an invisible or mystical Church, but of a visible or literal Church; and we must further allow, that, if Christ were to be ALWAY with the literal ministers of this literal Church, those ministers could not apostatise into damnable doctrinal error, inasmuch as the approbative spiritual presence of Christ with gross apostatic perverters of the sincere word is a contradiction in terms. Admit, then, in addition to the premises, the middle term also, which Bossuet has laboured at great length to establish upon historical testimony; and the conclusion, so far as I can perceive, will plainly follow.

Hence, the only way, in which the argument can be nullified, is through the medium of a successful denial of its middle term and the sole mode, in which the middle term can be successfully denied, is; either by a well established vindicatory reclamation of the Vallenses and the Albigenses, as jointly constituting the pure Visible Church of the middle ages; or else by the authentic production of some other Visible Church, which, in a state of purity, shall have continued, throughout the whole of that intermediate period, distinct and separate from

Rome.

Now the latter part of this alternative was out of my power. Consequently, as I had no inclination to be driven by Bossuet's argument into the purlieus of the Papal Church, I preferred attempting the former part of the alternative. Accordingly, the former part constituted the subject of a Work which I published under the title of An Inquiry into the History and Theology of the ancient Vallenses and Albigenses, as exhibiting,

agreeably to the promises, the perpetuity of the Sincere Church of Christ.

I. Such was the argument of Bossuet: and such was the subject of a Work, designed very honestly and innocently, on protestant principles, to meet and combat that argument.

Two Anglican Clergymen, however, Mr. Dowling and Mr. Maitland to wit, have jointly, so far as respects the Vallenses and the Albigenses, laboured to establish the truth of Bossuet's middle term; and, thence, have jointly aided also in the establishment of his antiprotestant conclusion.

That their purpose and belief are as honest as my own, I have no right to deny yet, since they have so far industriously toiled in the cause of Popery as to defend and maintain a very important part of Bossuet's middle term; I cannot help thinking, that, after their respective performances, they are bound to come publicly forward, and shew how, with the vindication and adoption of all that he says respecting the Valdenses and the Albigenses and the Paulicians, they purpose to set aside his conclusion. What they have written may tend to unsettle the mind of many a conscientious Anglican who is acquainted with the argument of Bossuet: and, to persons thus circumstanced, they owe, as a just duty, a confutation of that argument upon principles which they themselves are able to establish. It a fearful thing to unhinge the faith of any one: and I perceive not, how this fearful thing can be removed from their consciences, save, either singly or jointly, by their grappling, before the public, with the argument of the Gallican Prelate.

Mr. Maitland's Book, I cannot say that I have myself read: but the drift of it is sufficiently well known; and, if I had any doubt, it would be effectually removed by the language of his fellow-labourer Mr. Dowling. Meaning to be complimentary to his friend, that gentleman assures us that an acquaintance with one tenth of the authorities, which Mr. Maitland has collected, is sufficient to convince the fair inquirer, that the Albigenses held Manichean Tenets, and that the Waldenses were a distinct and recent Sect. Letter on the Paulicians, p. 4.

In like manner when I published my own Work, I had not

read Mr. Dowling's Pamphlet on the Paulicians; though circumstances have, since then, led me to its perusal. I had heard of this Production, and I was aware of its drift: but the same reason, which made me deem it unnecessary to consult Mr. Maitland, caused me to form the same opinion as to the consulting of Mr. Dowling; and a subsequent perusal of his Pamphlet has convinced me, that I judged correctly.

This case was simply this: I had duly studied the Master; and, since the historical vouchers of Mr. Maitland and Mr. Dowling must be the same as those of Bossuet (possibly with some unimportant additions of the same stamp), I did not think it requisite, after I had checked and sifted and examined the Gallican Leader, to travel over the ground a second time with his two mere English Followers. The original documents were alike open to M. Bossuet, to Mr. Maitland, to Mr. Dowling, and to myself: and, as they had produced upon me, even while under the skilful management of the French Prelate, no such conviction as Mr. Dowling celebrates when he pronounces that there is now an end of the controversy about the Albigenses; it was not probable, that my view of them would be changed by any thing which Mr. Maitland and Mr. Dowling could urge.

In truth, with the Performance of their very clever Gallican Corypheus before my eyes, I could not doubt (a matter fully established by the Pamphlet of Mr. Dowling, who professes himself an admirer and imitator of Mr. Maitland), that the two Anglican Divines had adopted a mode of estimating Historical Testimony so radically and so essentially different from that adopted by myself, as utterly to preclude the very possibility of our agreement. Why the mode in question should have been preferred by the wily Bossuet, it is easy to understand: but, why the same mode should have been zealously patronised by two Clergymen of the Reformed Church of England, it is not a matter of equal facility to explain. However, the only real point is: WHICH of the two modes was the most likely to elicit the true state of the case.

The business if I mistake not, stands as follows.

Of the old Paulicians and Albigenses and Vallenses, we know very little, save what, in the midst of repeated contradic