only common discernment and integrity, their testimony respecting the doctrines then actually received by the Church, and maintained against the heresies then prevailing, must have peculiar weight. Those among them who had been personally conversant with the Apostles, and who derived their knowledge of the Christian Faith from what they continually heard of their preaching and discourse, as well as from their writings, seem to have claim to a regard only short of that which was due to their inspired Preceptors. To place such men as Clement, Ignatius, and Polycarp, no higher in the scale of authority, with respect to the value of their testimony on these points, than Bishops and Pastors in later times, betrays an error of judgment, which on any other subject of investigation analogous to this, would be deemed preposterous. On the part of their immediate successors, somewhat of the same extraordinary claim to acceptance still presents itself, though with a certain diminution of its force. Descending still lower in the scale of history, this authority rapidly diminishes;

I 2

minishes; and our judgment in their favour will be chiefly, if not solely, influenced, by the internal evidence their writings afford of some superior qualifications in the authors themselves. Yet, until the great schism between the Eastern and Western Churches, and the full establishment of the Papal Usurpation, the Fathers of the Church appear to have been deeply sensible of the obligation laid upon them to " contend for the Faith once delivered to "the saints," and to guard the sacred deposit committed to their charge against every vain imagination which the Heretic or Schismatic might labour to introduce.

Disclaiming, therefore, any superstitious reverence towards these venerable men, it may reasonably be urged, that their peculiarly advantageous circumstances demand especial consideration; and that unless their characters, both moral and intellectual, could be so successfully impeached as to prove them wholly unworthy of credit, their testimony is of the very first import

i Jude 3.

ance

ance in ascertaining the primitive Faith. In matters requisite to the formation of the Church; in framing Confessions of Faith more or less explicit according to the errors it was necessary to discountenance; and in adopting means for the perpetuation of these benefits to the latest ages; they appear as having been at first deputed by the Apostles for purposes the most important, and as acting under impressions of a most awful responsibility. To them were also confided those Sacred Oracles, on which our Faith now most essentially depends. Through their ministry we have received these invaluable treasures: to their zeal and fidelity, under Providence, we owe the transmission of the pure Word of God to these present times: and the charge thus consigned to our care, we are bound to deliver unimpaired to succeeding generations.

If, in addition to these special grounds of confidence in the early Fathers, we admit, what has been contended for by learned and judicious Divines, that the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit, (especially that of "discern

I 3

"discerning of spirits,") were not entirely withdrawn from the Church till long after the time of the Apostles; this would give still stronger confirmation to their claims. For, though we should not be warranted in a supposition that even these extraordinary gifts conferred authority for promulgating new articles of Faith, or infring ing on any exclusive prerogative of the Sacred Writers; yet it would go far to wards establishing interpretations of Chris tian doctrine thus received and sanctioned, on a firmer basis than any on which their less gifted successors can ground their pretensions.

But, not to insist on any disputable points, the use and value of ecclesiastical antiquity in general, and of its earliest pros ductions in particular, is sufficiently evis dent, upon the ordinary principles of criti cism and evidence. As works so nearly contemporary with those of the Sacred Canon, they illustrate the diction and phraseology of the inspired Penmen; they

k1 Cor. xii. 10.

give an insight into the history of the age in which the writings of the New Testament were composed; they explain allusions to rites and customs, which otherwise might be involved in much obscurity; and, what is of still more importance, they assist in fixing the sense of controverted texts of Scripture, by the substantial evidence they afford of their generally received interpretation in the primitive ages of the Church. These advantages are derived to us from the public acts of the Church recorded in the most ancient ecclesiastical histories; from the prescribed formularies of Faith then in general use; and from the censures authoritatively passed upon such as departed from these standards of reputed orthodoxy. Hence we are assured of the care and solicitude manifested from the beginning by spiritual rulers, to preserve the truth from corruption: and when the importance of the doctrines themselves, as well as the opportunities they enjoyed of tracing them to the fountain-head, are duly considered; it can hardly be conceived, that they who had the guidance and