God has given as a guide to the poorest, the most illiterate, and simplest of his creatures?

And having thus proved, to his own satisfaction at least, the weakness and uncertainty attendant on this course, he next proceeds to develope the Romish system. On this part of the subject he says,

'Let us suppose that, not content with the more compendious method whereby God has brought us, through baptism and our early instruction, into the possession of the faith, we are disposed to investigate the authority of its principles; we begin naturally with scripture-we take up the gospels, and submit them to examination.' 2

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Here we must pause for an instant, to admire the Proteus-like changes of Romanism, and its wonderful power of adapting itself to existing circumstances. When, till the year 1836, did the Romish church, or any of its advocates, admit that in the investigation of our religious principles, we should begin naturally with scripture?' When, till now, was it ever said, we take up the gospels, and submit them to examination.' How opposite is the policy and the spirit here manifested, to the tone and temper of the church of Rome in those days, and in those countries, in which she could safely venture to lock up the word of God from the sight of men. Even within the last twenty years, we have on record the vehement opposition of two popes to the use of the Holy Scriptures. In 1816, Pope Pius the Seventh denounced the circulation of the Bible in the following terms; It is a crafty device, by which the very foundations of religion are undermined. It is a pes

1 Wiseman's Second Lecture, p. 43. 2 Third Lecture, p. 62.

'It

tilence and defilement of the faith most dangerous to souls.' And Leo XII. in 1824, denounces the Bible Society in equally energetic language. strolls with effrontery through the world, contemning the traditions of the holy fathers, and, contrary to the well-known decrees of the council of Trent, labours with all its might, and by every means, to translate, or rather to pervert, the Holy Bible into the vulgar language of all nations.'

This was the tone adopted by the Romish church, when on its own ground; amidst a blind and devoted population, with whom proofs and arguments were unnecessary; with whom it was enough to say, 'the church decrees, or declares so and so,' and implicit submission followed of course. But Dr. Wiseman has a very different task in hand. He is addressing a people who have been accustomed to be reasoned with; and he knows full well, that if he were merely to pronounce to his hearers that he and his colleagues were infallible,-the rejoinder would be, 'Do you expect us to believe that, merely because you choose to say so?' He feels it absolutely necessary, therefore, to seek for some credentials. And where is he to find those credentials, but in the Bible? Whether he can find them there or not, remains to be seen; but if he fails in that quarter, he is not likely to succeed in any other. Standing, therefore, before an English auditory, and feeling himself obliged to present to them something bearing at least the semblance of an argument, he is compelled, however unwillingly, to begin with holy scripture; and he accordingly says,

being disposed to investigate the authority of its principles (the principles of Romanism) we begin naturally with scripture,-we take up the gospels.'

But it may be said, that Dr. Wiseman does not mean to recommend this course of proceeding. Of that we are well aware. He evidently prefers what he calls, 'the more compendious method whereby God brought us, through baptism and our early instruction, into the possession of the faith.' In other words he would wish a set of followers who having been baptized into the Romish church in infancy, and having constantly heard, from their early instructors, that the Romish church was the only true church-the only safe church, have ever ranged themselves among her disciples, without a single inquiry as to the validity of her pretensions, or the truth of her doctrinal creed. These, we are aware, would be scholars after Dr. Wiseman's own heart. But he knows that among his hearers at Moorfields, this sort of blind admission of the most arrogant pretensions, cannot be generally expected. He is obliged to deal with them as with reasonable creatures. And he finds it impossible to construct a plausible scheme, on which to rest his system of belief, except by going at once to scripture, and endeavouring to frame a case out of its testimony. Observe, however, the confession herein implied. If a man is content with the compendious method,' as Dr. Wiseman calls it, of believing without investigation, this he can do in any church and with any creed. But if he is 'disposed to investigate the authority of his principles,' if he is desirous of being able to give a reason of the hope that is in him,' then, even Dr. Wiseman himself can help him to no other course than to 'begin naturally with scripture,'-to take up the gospels, and submit them to examination.' Thus, after all his horror at the idea of the exercise of

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'private judgment,' after all his proofs of the impossibility of a plain unlettered man's being ever able to discover the grounds of his faith in scripture, he is obliged at last to fall back upon the use of the Bible itself,-of that Bible which the council of Trent declared to be likely to do more harm than good,' and the reading of which that council declared to be unlawful even to the regular clergy themselves, except with the permission of their prelates.' To a body of several hundreds of laymen, of all classes, rich and poor, learned and ignorant,-to the whole of these, without the least discrimination, does Dr. Wiseman address himself, assuming that they all possess the Bible,—that they all are able and competent to study it, and to each and all he addresses the same direction, that if they would investigate the authority of their principles,' they must begin naturally with scripture,' they must take up the gospels, and submit them to examination.' Here, then, we have the Protestant rule unhesitatingly adopted; here we have a simple and absolute appeal to holy scripture resorted to; and we feel little hesitation in determining the motive to be, that Dr. W. knew and felt the utter impossibility of taking any other course; the impossibility of constructing in such form as to be fit for an English eye, his theological system, until he had found some solid foundation; the impossibility, in short, of finding in the works and words of mere human beings, a basis whereon to build a system which was to reach eternity. He did well, therefore, in at least attempting to gain a groundwork from holy scripture; but let it be observed that in so doing he has given up the old Romish ground of the unfitness of the scriptures for

the use of the common people, he has carried his whole andience with him to the word of God; and having so done, he is no longer in a situation to object to the Protestant Rule of Faith.

But we have stopped at the very opening of his argument. Not to misrepresent him, we proceed

with the whole statement:

'We take up the gospels, and submit them to examination. We abstract for a moment from our belief in their inspiration and divine authority—we look at them simply as historical works, and intended for our information; writings from which we are anxious to gather such truths as may be useful to our instruction. We find, in the first place, that to these works, whether considered in their substance or their form, are attached all those motives of human credibility which we can possibly require :-that there is, throughout them, an absence of every element which could suggest the suspicion that there has been either a desire to deceive, or a possibility of having been mistaken. For we find a body of external testimony sufficient to satisfy us, that these are documents produced at the time when they profess to have been written, and that those persons were their authors, whose names they bear. And as these were eyewitnesses of what they relate, and give us, in their lives and characters, the strongest security of their veracity, we conclude all that they have recorded to be certain and true. We thus arrive at the discovery, that besides their mere narrative, they unfold to us a system of religion, preached by one who wrought the most stupendous miracles to establish and confirm the divinity of his mission. In other words, we are led by the simple principle of human