is exactly in the same sentiments which I have been pleading for. And indeed, if there be any Church now in the world, which truly reverences Antiquity, and pays a proper regard to it, it is this Church. The Romans talk of Antiquity, while we observe and follow it.- Works, vol. v. p. 265, 316.

BINGHAM, PRESBYTER.-Antiquities of the Christian Church.

If it be now inquired what articles of Faith, and what points of practice were reckoned thus fundamental, or essential to the very being of a Christian, and the union of many Christians into one body or Church, the Ancients are very plain in resolving this. For as to fundamental Articles of Faith, the Church had them always collected or summed up out of Scripture in her Creeds, the profession of which are ever esteemed both necessary on the one hand and sufficient on the other, in order to the admission of members into the Church by baptism; and consequently both necessary and sufficient to keep men in the unity of the Church, so far as concerns the unity of Faith generally required of all Christians, 'to make them one body and one Church of Believers. Upon this account, as I have had occasion to show in a former book, the Creed was commonly called by the ancients the κανών, and Regula Fidei, because it was the known standard or Rule of Faith, by which Orthodoxy and Heresy were judged and examined. If a man adhere to this rule he was deemed an Orthodox Christian, and in the union of the Catholic Faith; but if he deviated from it in any point, he was esteemed as one that cut himself off, and separated from the communion of the Church, by entertaining heretical opinions and deserting the common Faith. Thus the Fathers in the Council of Antioch charge Paulus Samosatensis with departing from the Rule of Canon, meaning the Creed, the Rule of Faith, because he denied the divinity of CHRIST. Irenæus calls it the unalterable Canon or Rule of Faith, and says, This Faith was the same in all the world; men professed it with one heart and one soul: for though there were different dialects in the world, yet the power of Faith was one and the same. The Churches in Germany had no other Faith or tradition than those in Spain, or in France, or in the East, or Egypt, or Libya. Nor did the most eloquent ruler of the Church say any more than this, for no one was above his master, nor the weakest diminish any thing of this tradition. For the Faith being one and the same, he that said most of it could not enlarge it, nor he that said least, take any thing from it. So Tertullian says, There is one rule of Faith only, which admits of no change or alteration, 'That which teaches us to believe in one GOD ALMIGHTY, the Maker of the world, and in

JESUS CHRIST HIS SON, &c.' This rule, he says, was instituted by CHRIST Himself, and there were no disputes in the Church about it, but such as Heretics brought in, or such as made Heretics; to know nothing beyond this, was to know all things. This Faith was the Rule of believing from the beginning of the Gospel, and the antiquity of it was sufficiently demonstrated by the novelty of heresies, which were but of yesterday's standing in comparison of it. Cyprian says, It was the law which the whole Catholic Church held, and that the Novatians themselves baptized into the same Creed, though they differed about the sense of the Article relating to the Church. Therefore Novatian in his book of the Trinity makes no scruple to give the Creed the same name, Regula Veritatis, the Rule of Truth. And St. Jerome after the same manner, disputing against the errors of the Montanists, says, The first thing they differed about was the Rule of Faith. For the Church believed the FATHER, SON, and HOLY GHOST, to be each distinct in his own Person, though united in substance. But the Montanists, following the doctrine of Sabellius, contracted the Trinity into one Person. From all which it is evident, that the fundamental Articles of Faith were those which the Primitive Church summed up in her Creeds, in the profession of which she admitted men as members into the unity of Body by baptism; and if they deserted or corrupted this faith, they were no longer reputed Christians, but Heretics, who break the unity of the Church by breaking the unity of the Faith, though they had otherwise made no further separation from her Communion. For as Clemens Alexandrinus says, out of Hermes Pastor, Faith is the virtue that binds and unites the Church together. Whence Hegesippus, the ancient historian, giving an account of the old Heretics, says, They divided the unity of the Church by pernicious speeches against God and His CHRIST; that is, by denying some of the prime, fundamental Articles of Faith. He that makes a breach upon any one of these, cannot maintain the unity of the Church, nor his own character as a Christian. We ought therefore, says Cyprian, in all things to hold the unity of the Catholic Church, and not to yield in any thing to the enemies of Faith and Truth. For he cannot be thought a Christian who continues not in the truth of CHRIST'S Gospel and Faith. If men be Heretics, says Tertullian, they cannot be Christians. The like is said by Lactantius, and Jerome, and Athanasius, and Hilary, and many others of the ancients, whose sense upon this matter I have fully represented in another place. As therefore, there was an unity of Faith necessary to be maintained in certain fundamental Articles in order to make a man a Christian, so these Articles were always to be found in the Church's Creeds; the profession of which was esteemed keeping the unity of the Faith; and deviating in any point from them, was esteemed a breach of that one Faith and a virtual departing from the unity of the Church.

We are next to examine what communion different Churches held with one another, that we may discover the harmonious unity of the Catholic Church, and here first of all we are to observe, that as there was one common Faith, consisting of certain fundamental Articles, essential to the very being of a particular Church and its unity, and the being of a Christian; so the same faith was necessary to unite the different parts of the Catholic Church, and make them one body of Christians. So that if any Church deserted or destroyed this Faith, in whole or in part, they were looked upon as rebels and traitors against CHRIST, and enemies to the common Faith, and treated as a conventicle of Heretics, and not of Christians. Upon this account every Bishop not only made a declaration of his faith at his ordination, before the Provincial Synod that ordained him, but also sent his circular or encyclical letters as they were called, to foreign Churches, to signify that he was in communion with them. And this was so necessary a thing in a Bishop newly ordained, that Liberatus tells us, the omission of it was interpreted a sort of refusal to hold communion with the rest of the world, and a virtual charge of heresy upon himself or them.

To maintain this unity of Faith entire, every Church was ready to give each other their mutual assistance to oppose all funda. mental errors, and beat down heresy at its first appearance among them. The whole world in this respect was but one common Diocese, the Episcopate was an universal thing, and everp Bishop had his share in it in such a manner as to have an equal concern in the whole; as I have more fully showed in another place, where I observed, that in things not appertaining to the Faith, Bishops were not to meddle with other men's Dioceses, but only to mind the business of their own: but when the Faith or welfare of the Church lay at stake, and religion was manifestly invaded, then, by this rule, of their being but one Episcopacy, every other Bishopric was as much their Diocese as their own; and no human Laws or Canons could tie up their hand from performing such acts of the Episcopal office in any part of the world, as they thought necessary for the preservation of Faith and Religion. This was the ground of their meeting in Synods, Provincial, National, and sending their joint opinions and advice from one Church to another. The greatest part of Church History is made up of such acts as these, so that it were next to impertinent to refer to any particulars. I only observe one thing farther upon this head, that the intermeddling with other men's concerns, which would have been accounted a real breach of unity in many other cases, was in this case thought so necessary, that there was no certain way to preserve the unity of the

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Catholic Church and Faith without it. And as an instance of this, I have noted in the fore-cited book, that though it was against the ordinary rule of the Church for any Bishop to ordain in another man's Diocese, yet in case a Bishop turned Heretic, and persecuted the Orthodox, and would ordain none but heretical men to establish Heresy in his Diocese, in that case any Orthodox Bishop was not only authorized, but obliged, as opportunity served, and the needs of the Church required, to ordain Catholic teachers in such a Diocese, to oppose the malignant designs of the enemy, and stop the growth of Heresy, which might otherwise take deep root, and spread and overrun the Church. Thus Athanasius and the famous Eusebius of Samosata went about the world in the prevalency of the Arian heresy, ordaining in every Church where they came, such clergy as were necessary to support the Orthodox cause in such a time of distress and desolation; and this was so far from being reckoned a breach of the Church's unity, though against the letter of a Canon in ordinary cases, that it was necessary to be done, in such a state of affairs, to maintain the unity of the Catholic Faith, which every Bishop was obliged to defend, not only in his own Diocese, but in all parts of the world, by virtue of that rule which obliges Bishops in weighty affairs to take care of the Catholic Church, and requires all Churches in time of danger to give mutual aid and assistance to one another. Vol. ii. pp. 2, 14.

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JEBB, BISHOP.

But you will feel with me, that it is something in favour of Vincentius's rule, that it has been received, extolled, and acted upon, by such men as Ridley, Jewel, Grotius, Overall, Hammond, Beveridge, Bull, Hickes, Bramhall, Grabe, Cave, and our own Archbishop King; that it has been admitted expressly even by Chillingworth; and that it has been unreservedly acknowledged as a just and true guide by Bishop Taylor, in one of his latest works, his Visitation Sermon at Connor; a tribute, this last, the most remarkable, because, in his 'Liberty of Prophesying, and in his 'Ductor Dubitantium,' he had spoken less respectfully of the principle; and his remarkable change of language can be accounted for only by his having undergone a correspondent change of sentiment. He had seen, felt, and weighed every difficulty; the result of all was, a deliberate persuasion, that Vincentius was right, and that he himself had been wrong. But, to say no more of mere authorities, however strong, I own I cannot at present feel any difficuly in applying Vincentius's rule. If a doctrine is propounded to me, as virtually essential, that is, to speak technically, as matter of Faith, before I can receive it as

such, I must go to the Catholic succession, and ascertain whether that doctrine has been held semper, ubique, ab omnibus; convinced, if it has not been so held, my assent is not due to it as a matter of Faith. If, again, a doctrine which I hold is impugned as Heretical, next the Scripture, and as interpretative of Scripture, I must go to the Catholic succession; and if I find this doctrine universally asserted, I cannot believe that it is any other than the sincere truth of the Gospel. The universality here mentioned, is not, of course, a mathematical, but a moral universality: the universality, to use Vincentius's own words, of those "Qui in fide et communione Catholica, sancte, sapienter, et constanter viventes, vel mori in Christo fideliter, vel occidi pro Christo feliciter meruerint." And here, I may observe, that Vincentius himself has anticipated your great objection; a very fair one, no doubt, and which requires, and deserves an answer; --namely, that true Christianity, far from being diffused ubique, or received ab omnibus, was sometimes confined to a very narrow channel: when the great majority of the Bishops were Arians, what becomes of the rule?" Let Vincentius answer, Quid si novella aliqua contagio, non jam portiunculam tantum, sed totam pariter Ecclesiam commaculare conetur! Tunc item providebit ut Antiquitati inhæreat. Nor be it thought, that by this means, the quod ubique, and quod ab omnibus, are idly absorbed in the quod semper : they are, as above hinted, to be taken, not mathematically, but morally; and, so taken, they are an effectual guard to the quod semper. From the beginning, or at least, from very remote antiquity, worthy individuals have frequently held, some one or more, unsound opinions; and looking to individuals merely, the quod semper might be alleged, as it has been alleged, in favour of every opinion: it is to be rectified, however, by looking to universality and consent: not universality without exception-for such is not to be found: but the concurrent, and consistent sentiments, of the most, and greatest, doctors, in the whole body of the Church; not at any given period, bnt throughout the whole succession. Nor will such a research be so laborious as might be imagined; for, in the first place, the Catholic verities, those to be believed for necessity of salvation, are but few; and in the next place, the concurrent sense of Catholic Christians, on those few, but important points, has been amply elicited by controversy; insomuch that, from the works of Bishop Bull, and a very few more, any candid and intelligent student might obtain competent and intelligent satisfaction, respecting the sense of the universal Church, on any and every of the Catholic verities. As to all other verities, and as to the interpretation of particular texts of Scripture, they are left at large, provided always that no Catholic truth be impugned, and that the analogy of the Faith be maintained inviolable. - Life, vol. ii. pp. 249-252.