honours of virginity-naked, naked, as it is? With what emotions of horror would they look around upon your married bishops, your married priests;-bishops and priests married after ordination-married, some of them a second time-it may be a third! Tell us then, are you bearing a faithful and courageous testimony to holy catholic principles, in conforming to a church which, as you cannot doubt, would have been spurned and condemned by all the fathers and saints of the best age ?

'Tell us, and tell the world plainly, do you think with the holy fathers, above named, on these momentous subjects; or do you think with the founders of your protestant church? You are wont to use strong language (though not too strong) in speaking of the sin and danger of dissent; but may not a man sometimes do worse in conforming, than he could in dissenting? Dissenters, if they sincerely think what they profess, are at least honest men. But now, tell us, do you think with your church in those prominent matters in relation to which it contradicts and impugns catholic antiquity? If you think with your church concerning the monastic life, the merit of virginity, the invocation of saints, the devotion paid to holy relics, and the like, where is your professed deference to antiquity? If you do not think with it in these points, essential as they are, what are you but dissenterswanting courage?'

Obvious reasons of policy may induce the romish church to forbid itself, at present, the use of arguments such as the above. In what way the cogency of them, when advanced, may be evaded, remains to be seen. The Oxford Tract divines are not romanists in disguise; they do not intend the reestablishment of popery but they devoutly admire, and would gladly restore, that which the english reformers did not intend, and which they rejected, feeling and seeing its contrariety to apostolic doctrine and morals.

These learned divines have, as it seems, advanced at a too rapid rate; not duly considering that, though reformation may be quick-paced, and even sudden, the advances or the return of superstitions (let the word be pardoned) must always, in the nature of things, be slow. Seven or ten years will not bring about the changes which were the work of two or three

centuries. By this precipitation they have become seriously ensnared ; ensnared as churchmen, approving what their church does not allow, or has pointedly condemned :-ensnared as the professed adherents of catholic antiquity, by not bearing their testimony openly and practically, to every catholic principle.

From these embarrassments they may indeed withdraw themselves, silently and insensibly, if time be allowed them for gradually shifting their position, and for retracting, little by little, what was said-before its time. Meanwhile the cordially affected adherents of the reformation must wish to see the present controversy dealt with in the most summary method, and brought to the speediest possible conclusion.

411

ADDITIONAL REFERENCES AND CITATIONS.

IN the preceding pages I have purposely avoided throwing the stress of my argument, in any instance, upon facts or testimonies of a recondite or questionable kind, and have appealed only to evidence which abounds on all sides, and of which any one may readily collect more than enough, who has access to the works where it is to be found. Even a few days' industry, properly directed, would amply suffice for enabling the reader to satisfy himself concerning all the statements or allegations to which, in these numbers, any importance is attached. It is not indeed to be supposed that many should give themselves even this degree of trouble; some however will do so ;-more than a very few are actually engaged in researches of this sort, and it is much to be desired that they should be continued until the truth, and the whole truth, concerning the religious opinions and practices of the first six centuries has become generally diffused. It is only by the means of this knowledge of antiquity that we can be qualified to deal with romanism, or can be secured against the insidious advances of that species of pietism of which popery is merely a digested scheme.

More with the view of saving the labour of any who may be entering upon these studies, than of substantiating in a formal manner statements which no well informed opponent would think of calling in question, I shall now point out the path in pursuing which the reader may, with very little expense of time, satisfy himself as to the condition of the nicene church, in regard to one or two principal points which have been glanced at in the preceding pages and in order to preclude an incidental disappointment,

I will refer to those works only which are the most likely to be accessible to the reader. In fact, it is the evidence of these few that is the most conclusive: what is recondite and rare would be so much the less satisfactory.

One principal point, referred to in these numbers, is the actual condition, from the first, of the ascetic institute. The evidence bearing upon this subject has a double importance, first, inasmuch as it dissipates the dangerous illusion concerning an age of purity, and of generally diffused truth and holiness; and secondly, as it tends to discourage, and to arrest the attempts, now so industriously making, to reestablish the celibate.

The ascetic institute and the celibate, have existed under three distinguishable conditions-the first that in which we find them in the middle of the third century, when the system was the least artificial in its constitution, and, one would suppose, the least liable to abuses. What it was in fact, at that time, may be gathered from those passages in Cyprian to which I have already referred. The epistle to Pomponius, and the Treatise de habitu virginum, must be perused entire. The second condition is that of the nicene age, when monasteries and convents were springing up on all sides, and when the ascetic feeling (mania) was at its height. The third, is that regulated and severe form, imposed upon the monastic orders under the auspices of the Romish church, and with which at present we have nothing to do. It is with the second that we are concerned. Does the inquirer choose then to take his idea of the nicene asceticism from a few devotional pieces, and hortatory compositions, showing what it should have been; or from the direct and indirect admissions of its admirers? I presume the latter course is to be preferred; nor can we do better than open Chrysostom; and it is curious to turn from any of his splendid descriptions of the celestial polity which the monastic orders professed to realize (as, tom. i. p. 115) to passages such as the one already cited (p. 298) and to the two treatises, in one of which this passage occurs. I will say nothing more of them than that they should serve as a caution against the easy, but dangerous error of supposing that modern church historians have fully and fairly depicted the ancient church. The very facts most necessary to be known, are barely glanced at by any of

*

these writers. The first of these admonitory treatises is addressed πρὸς τοὺς ἔχοντας παρθένους συνεισάκτους, the title of the second is—περὶ τοῦ μὴ τὰς κανονικὰς συνοικεῖν ἀνδράσιν. It is manifest that the practices inveighed against were common, and the abuses mentioned notorious. There is indeed nothing to be wondered at in these things-except it be the infatuation of those who, with such facts before them, could yet persist in the endeavour so to fight against human nature and christianity. Basil's Treatise on Virginity, which I will not recommend the reader to make himself acquainted with, gives indications enough of the existence and frequency of abuses, even worse than those referred to by Chrysostom. Jerome, cautious and yet caustic, can neither withhold the truth, nor plainly declare it in his Epistle to Eustochium he must be listened to as a reluctant witness, intimating more than he will say. Elsewhere however he freely admits that the excellence professed by the two classes of ascetics was but rarely realized. Sed rara est, et paucissimis dono Dei hæc perfectio concessa. Again in the epistle-Ad Rusticum Monachum, the truth comes out, and it appears plainly that the system exhibited, in Jerome's time, every one of those inherent bad qualities which have always drawn upon it the contempt and abhorrence of mankind. This epistle (of a few pages only) the studious reader will peruse throughout: no evidence can be more unexceptionable. Jerome's testimony might well be admitted as sufficient alone; but it accords minutely with that of Chrysostom, especially as to the custom against which the first of the abovenamed treatises is directed. Some you may see with their loins girt, clad in dingy cloaks, with long beards, who yet can never break away from the company of women; but live under the same roof, sit at the same tables, are waited upon by young girls, and want nothing proper to the married state, except-wives!' The luxury commonly indulged in by the rich ascetics, the ostentatious and rapacious practices of the poor, and the insanity of the fanatical sort, are spoken of without disguise. Vidi ego quos

* I have once and again, in citing Basil's ascetic writings, mentioned a doubt which, on the slenderest grounds, has been advanced as to their authorship.

+ Comment. in Lament. cap. 3.