Paulinus, who, I presume, was an individual, the examination and study of the Scriptures. And so little did St. Jerome dream of the possibility of any contrary conclusion being drawn from his eloquent denunciation of those who attempt to expound the Scripture before they have learned it themselves, that he concludes with the following earnest exhortation to the individual examination of it: "Oro te frater carissime, inter hæc vivere, ista meditari, nihil aliud nosse, nihil quærere, nonne tibi videtur jam hic in terris regni cœlestis habitaculum?" And does it not seem also very remarkable that St. Jerome should describe, as the evils of his own day, the very abuses which writers of Dr. O'Connell's class are so fond of declaiming against, as if they were the peculiar fruit and offspring of the Reformation? The Scriptures, he says, are the only branch of knowledge in which everybody imagines himself to be a master. Nobody sets up to be a rhetorician, an astronomer, a physician, without having regularly learned those sciences. Nobody attempts to exercise even the meaner manual arts or trades without having been brought up to them; but everybody thinks himself qualified to give an opinion upon the Scriptures, although in opposition to the judgment of those who have made theology the study of their lives. This is exactly what we find to be the case at the present day; but when we go on to read what Jerome adds about the garrulous old lady and the doting old man, the verbose sophist and the eloquent philosopher lecturing young ladies, to say nothing of those who, he says, were in the habit of learning their theology from the ladies, would we not almost think that he was describing the evils that are prevalent amongst ourselves, and that he had lived in the nineteenth instead of in the fifth century? And what is the natural conclusion from this? Is it not that the Scriptures were then, as now, accessible to all? That the church of the fifth century did not prohibit the individual examination of the Scriptures, although by no means insensible to the dangerous use which might occasionally be made of the Scriptures, by ignorance and presumption? And that the evils which controversial writers of Dr. O'Connell's school are so fond of attributing to the Reformation are in truth the necessary result of human infirmity, and have been found to exist at all times, yea, even in the best and purest ages of the church? A state of things such as St. Jerome has described could not have existed if the discipline of the church had rigidly prohibited all access to the Scriptures to the laity or the unlearned. And it is remarkable that St. Jerome makes no allusion to any such prohibition, nor even to the advantages of the infallible interpreter, whose guidance would have effectually prevented all such abuses as he has so graphically described. On the con trary, he speaks of those abuses, exactly as we would ourselves now speak of them; by holding them up to ridicule, and to the condemnation of common sense. Whenever Dr. O'Connell can convict us of maintaining that in the study of the Scriptures neither learning, nor information, nor judgment is necessary:-whenever he hears us recommend as teachers of Divine truth the babbling old women and raving dotards of whom St. Jerome speaks-when he discovers that the church of England recommends every one to consider his own crude interpretations of Scripture as the law of God, or permits each individual to distort sentences and force the reluctant Scriptures to their own conceits, then he may with reason adduce passages like the foregoing as an irrefragable argument against us. But until then, we must be permitted to maintain, that in all the quotations with which he has hitherto favoured us from the writings of the Fathers, we can detect much that is inconsistent with the modern doctrine of his own school of divines, but nothing that does not in the strongest manner establish the doctrine of our church-proving, as the foregoing passage from St. Jerome most clearly does, that the same liberty of access to the Holy Scriptures which the church of England now allows to her faithful children, was also allowed to the faithful by the primitive church. And whilst we cease not to warn all against ignorance, and arrogance, and presumption; whilst we avail ourselves of all the aids of human learning, and above all, whilst we give the highest place to the judgment of the Fathers and of the primitive church, not as though their judgment were infallible, but because they were nearer to the fountain head of truth, and had access to many sources of knowledge and of light that since have perished-whilst we are fully alive to the peculiar dangers of an age like the present, when solid learning is almost quenched in the conceited admiration with which we regard ourselves-nevertheless the church of England exhorts all men to examine the Scriptures for themselves, conscious that the honest inquirer will there find nothing but truth and salvation and that whatever may be the evils which human sin and human infirmity may draw from the fountain, nothing but evil can be the consequence of withholding from the perishing sinner the waters of life-and we therefore say, in the language of St. Jerome, "Petenti datur, pulsanti aperietur: quærens invenit. Discamus in terris, quorum nobis scientia perseveret in cœlo ;"* and again, "Nobis cura est, non quid unus quisque possit, aut velit; sed quid Scripturæ præcipiant, dicere."+ : Trinity College, Dublin, June, 1848. JAMES H. TODD. * Ad Paulinum, Epist. 53, n. 9. Edit. Vallars. i. 281. 15 ANCIENT CHURCHWARDENS' ACCOUNTS OF A CITY PARISH. (Continued from vol. xxxiii. p. 677.) This A Covntt ys of Tomas Pekoc and Maryan Geren Churche Wardens of Sentt Andrews Howberd In Est Chepp of London of the Renttes goodes ornamenttes by Longyn To the same Churche That ys to say ffrome the fest of Sentt myhell Tharcangell In The fyrst yere of the Rayne of kyng Hary the viijt on to the fest of Sentt myhell In the second yere of the Rayne of Kyng Harry the viij. [From Michaelmas 1509 to Michaelmas 1510.] Resseyttys. Item, Recyvyd as ytt apperythe In Prikyn byll Item, Recyvyd of the Churche Hows Item, Recevyd In Pascall mony Item, Receved of Chamberers Item, Receved of Wylliam Chelderley for A Pytt In the Churche Item, Recyvyd of John Blume for ys Knell Item, Resyved at the garlond for iiij Torches Item, Resyved of John Gysors Wyffe for Pytt & knell Item, Resyved of my Lord Phewater seruant for ij Torches Summa The Recyttes xli xiiijs jd Item, payd for the hobytt of Wylliam ferehede Item, payd to the prest for iij quartters of A yere Summa vjli xvijs ijd Paymenttes. Item, payd for ale on Palme Sonday Item, paid for mendyng of A glasse wyndow. Item, paid for holme and Iue Ester Item, payd for skoryng of the Churche gere Item, paid for Bred and Drynke to the sepulqure Item, payd wacheng of the sepulcure Item, paid for mendyng of the funtt And a pew In the quere Item, payd for garlondes on Corpus Cristi Day Item, payd for bows and hoder gere for the Churche Dore Item, payd for palme flours and kakes . Summa x ixd Paymenttes Item, payd for mendyng of the bell welles Item, payd for hanging of the belles Item, payd to the smythe for makyng of hukes and hoder gere Itein, Payd to the Thalow Chandeler for yole [oil] and Item, payd to the wax Chandelar for tappers and hoder So Rest In The wex Chandolers hande of the Churche stoke Thus is Thaccompte of John Birde And William Childerle Church. Wardeyns And kepers of all the goodes Ornamentes other necessaries And profites bilongyng on to the parisch Churche of Seynt Andrewe Hobarde in london bi Estchepe. That is to seye from the ffeest of seynt Michaell tharchaungell in the secunde yere of the Reign of kyng Henry the viijte on to the ffeest of seynt Michaell tharchaungell in the iiijth yere of his Saide Rayne. [From Michaelmas 1510 to Michaelmas 1512.] ffirste The same accomptauntes Chargeth them Selff with Diuers Receites and Charges of certen sommes of mony bi them Recevid Within the tyme of the Accompte for oon hole yere. That is to seye The Church House ffirst Recevid of Thomas clerk for the Rent of a tenement Which he nowe Dwellithin callid the Churche house that is to seye for oon hole yere within the tyme of this accompt. The prikking bill The mony gaderid bi the prikkyng bille Item, Receuid as it A perith bi A prikkyng bill of the parischeners for oon hole yere Caswell [casual] Receites for T. Egerton liijs iiijd vjli vijs vjd ob. Item, Receved of the wife late Thomas Egertons Wife nowe beyng a Wedowe bi the biquest of the said Egerton hir husbonde toward the bilding of the stiple for Hugh marsch Item, Receuid for the brekyng of the grave within the church which Hugh marsch lieth buried in vjs viijd vjs viijd Summa totalis ixli xiiijs ijd ob. Caswell [casual] receites. mony gadrede in the parische. Item, Receuid in mony gadred bi the Wifes within the parischen on our Churchholidaye |