found in that period of ignorance and superstition? In the days of Innocent the Third, or the still more revolting æra of Alexander the Sixth? I have now lying before me a Spanish edition of the "Hours of the Blessed Virgin," without date, but certainly printed during the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella. The first leaf contains five short prayers,

very

directed to be said before the image of St. Gregory; for every single performance of which, with the accompaniment of five Paternosters, and five Ave Marias, a promise of no less than 46,000 years of pardon is held out by no less authority than that of Paul Second, the pontiff of that period. Where, I ask, was the tradition of the Church at that moment, when the credulity of all Europe could bear to be thus insulted by monstrous and antichristian fictions? If the question be put, where then was true Christianity to be found in that darkened epoch, the answer is obvious in Scripture and in Scripture only. To the return to Scripture as the great rule of faith, Christianity a few years after that time

owed its revival, and to our continual adherence to what we find written, with the exclusion of all merely human surmises, it is, that we are indebted for all our modern advances in theological knowledge.

We have, I repeat, no escape from this dilemma. Either revelation, supposing it to have originally consisted of the written Scriptures and of oral tradition, is at this moment incomplete, the oral communication having been lost in the lapse of ages, and the supplementary written portion alone having descended to us; or, on the other hand, we must be prepared to receive the canonical books of the New Testament as an entire, full, and sufficient declaration of the will of God and summary of our faith. That the latter inference is the true one has already been attempted to be shown by arguments taken from the internal evidences of the written Scriptures. This inference, however, will appear still more prominent, if we consider the very weak foundations upon which those arguments rest, which are usually alleged in

support of the authority of tradition, as constituting an integral portion of the Christian revelation. Those arguments it shall now be my object to examine.

Now it is self-evident, that if the written Scriptures do carry with them strong proofs of their own Divine inspiration, the claim of any merely oral communications (even supposing them to be really traceable to the very earliest ages of Christianity,) to be placed on the same level with the written word of God, would require to be supported by the strongest possible external testimony, before we could accept them as such. To say of any traditionary doctrines, conveyed in no definite form of words, but passing from mouth to mouth, under every possible modification of expression, which the personal feelings and wishes of the reporters may lead them to adopt-to assert, I say of them, that they are revelation, and that they are equally binding upon the belief and conscience with the Holy Scriptures (and such are the assertions which now a days we hear, even within the pale of our own

Church), is surely a most startling proposition. But the fact is, that all the evidence attempted to be adduced in favour of this theory, is of a most questionable kind. Nothing assuredly can be more unsteady, or more at variance with one another, than the floating opinions of mankind on all grave and important subjects, that of religion more especially, when not rendered consistent and uniform by being compressed into a dogmatical form, and enunciated in definite language. The more earnestly and deeply that, under such circumstances, men think and feel on this important topic, the more certainly will they deviate into the extravagancies of an excited judgment. The very best intentions, so far from affording them security, will often help to mislead. The weak-minded, the superstitious, and the ignorant become, in questions of faith, as dangerous guides as the hypocrite and impostor. False views and estimates of the divine attributes grow up in moments of excitement or terror; strange conceits for the obtaining God's favour, or for averting his

wrath, grow successively into fashion, and divide mankind into sects, till the passions become heated to the verge of delirium, and men begin to defend from theory dogmas, which they had originally adopted from mere impulse. Such is the origin of not a few religious sects-such the source of many of those traditionary notions which subsequent times have consecrated, and to which the circumstance of their antiquity has eventually attached a sentiment of deep veneration. Happy then, most happy is it, that meanwhile the written word of God undergoes no change, and by the fixedness of its records, and the calmness of its precepts, enables the sincere enquirer after truth to subdue his extravagances, to elevate his deficiences to a more perfect standard, and yet whilst he feels warmly, to think at the same time soberly and wisely. Without the operation of one continued miracle, in the absence of a written revelation, it were impossible to guard any set of human beings, however well intentioned from errors, such as I am now describing.