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we have been commenting, would choose to confess a satisfaction, when a penalty is attached to the expression of new doc'trines or to a change of communion.' Nay, as we shall shortly see, even he, in despair, we suppose, of getting mankind to adopt his antiquated opinions, provides, in condescension to their infirmities and ignorance, a mode of exercising the right which, as he flatters himself, will still get rid of all its principal inconveniences. This, and some other theories, we shall now briefly examine, and shall show of them all that they are absolutely nugatory, inasmuch as they still leave for the decision of private judgment,' questions as difficult and perplexing as those which, according to the common theory, are submitted to it; or, what is worse, that they enjoin, in obedience to an authority neither claiming nor admitted to be infallible, a deliberate violation of the law of conscience, where the actual convictions of the individual are at variance with that authority; or, lastly, that they are chargeable on both these counts.

Nothing, indeed, short of the Popish doctrine of the Church's infallibility, will suffice to annul or limit the Right of Private Judgment. That, and that alone, will. For though we Protestants, who deny that doctrine, know very well that the variations of Romanism' have been nearly, if not quite, as numerous as those which Bossuet charged upon Protestantism, and many of them on points quite as important as those which the Church professes to have definitively settled;-though we know that Popes have been opposed to Popes, and Councils to Councils; that Popes have contradicted Councils, and Councils contradicted Popes;-though there have been infinite disputes as to where the infallibility resides; what are the doctrines it has definitively pronounced true, and who, to the individual, is the infallible expounder of what is thus infallibly pronounced infallible ;—yet he who receives this doctrine in its integrity, has nothing more to do than to eject his reason, sublime his faith into credulity, and reduce his creed to these two comprehensive articles: 'I believe whatsoever the Church believes;'-'I believe that the Church 'believes whatsoever my father confessor believes that she believes.' For thus he reasons: Nothing is more certain than that whatsoever God says is infallibly true; it is infallibly true. that the Church says just what God says; it is infallibly true that what the Church says is known; and it is also infallibly true that my father-confessor, or the parson of the next parish, is an infallible expositor, of what is thus infallibly known to be the Church's infallible belief, of what God has declared to be infallibly true. If any one of the links, even the last, in this strange sorites, be supposed unsound-if it be not true that the

priest is an infallible expounder, to the individual, of the Church's infallibility-if his judgment be only his private judgment'-we come back at once to the perplexities of the common theory of private judgment; and the question then submitted to the individual Romanist's private judgment' is-whether it be reasonable in him, in a matter of which he knows nothing, but which is yet of infinite moment, to surrender his private judgment to that of another man? And truly, to decide a question without having any data for deciding it, appears to us quite as difficult a problem as any of those which are ordinarily submitted to 'private judgment? The system, therefore, must be received in its integrity, and if so, the rule of conduct is very simple. If the priest tells us that bread is flesh, and wine is blood-that the sun revolves round the earth-that Gulliver's Travels, if they had not been written by a heretic, would have been as true as the gospelall we have to do is to believe it, and, if need be, to believe it even for Tertullian's paradoxical reason, because it is impossible.'

Of every other mode of nullifying or circumscribing the right of judgment, and of this too, except where the claim of infallibility is not merely made but admitted, it may be shown, as already said, that it is either nugatory, or flagitious, or both.

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Conscious of this, there is a small party of hybrid Protestants amongst us, who virtually claim for some Church unknownneither the Church of Rome nor the Church of England, and yet both, but certainly not the Church of Scotland-some Visible Church,' which is not to be seen; some Catholic Church,' which excludes all Christians except Episcopalians; some Undivided Church,' which embraces the communions of the reciprocally excommunicated; some Primitive Church' of uncertain date-nothing less than the infallibility, and consequent authority of the Church of Rome. But they are born out of due time;' their infallibility comes too late to enable them by its means to limit the Right of Private Judgment,' or relieve us of our perplexities. For unhappily the Church of Rome has got the start of them; there are, therefore, rival claims to infallibility; and, consequently, if more could be said to reconcile the manifold contradictions of the theory of these infatuated men, and to authenticate their claims to be its expositors, than ever can be said, private judgment' would still be pressed with the most transcendently incomprehensible question ever submitted to the arbitration of ignorance Of two claimants to infallibility, which is the more likely to be infallible?'-But to resume the modern theories.

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The writer, on whose appetite for persecution we have been

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constrained to animadvert, is not, it appears, disposed, after all, to deny the free exercise of private judgment,' but merely to limit the range of its enquiries; that is, the bird may freely range in its cage; nevertheless, we shall show that even there it has room to lose itself. He has discovered, it seems, that the question which private judgment' is called to decide, is, ، Who is the teacher we are to follow? not what are the doctrines we are to believe ? ' The ، precedents' in Scripture, he affirms, 'sanction not an enquiry about Gospel doctrine, but about the 'Gospel teacher; not what has God revealed, but whom has he ' commissioned?' He maintains that the private student of Scripture would not ordinarily gain a knowledge of the Gospel ، from it! Once more, he says ; ، The New Testament equally 'with the Old, as far as it speaks of examination into doctrines 'professedly from heaven, makes their teachers the subject of ، that enquiry, and not their matter.... Let it be observed how exactly this view of the province of private judgment, where it ' is allowable, as being the discovery not of doctrine, but of the 'teachers of doctrine, coincides both with the nature of religion ' and the state of human society as we find it.' We have already had a notable specimen of the exegetical talents of this writer, and need not, therefore, be surprised at his professing to find Scripture proof of this doctrine also. It must be confessed, however, that his method is somewhat novel, and would be generally imagined equally opposed to criticism and to logic. He seems to think he has made out his point, if he but proves that teachers are promised in Scripture, and that it is within the province of private judgment to decide on their credentials. We deny neither. In remarkable coincidence,' says he, with this view, we find in both Testaments that teachers are pro'mised under the dispensation of the Gospel!' Might we not just as logically say, that, in remarkable coincidence with our views,' we find it written that there was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job?' What is all this to the purpose? Who denies that religious teachers are promised? As little do we deny that it is the right of individuals to judge of their pretensions and credentials. But does the right terminate there? that is the question. One would imagine that the commendation bestowed on the Bereans, for searching the Scriptures to see whether the things told them by Paul were so,' would be alone sufficient to decide this point. But no-our author expressly says, though he attempts not to prove it, that this, too, is amongst the precedents which sanction not an enquiry about ، Gospel doctrine, but about the Gospel teacher !

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Let it be ruled so, then. And now to consider the system

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itself. We maintain that the question thus submitted to private judgment,' is as difficult as any which are ordinarily submitted to it. If a man be incompetent for the latter, he is equally incompetent for the former. The reasoning is about as good as would be that of a father who should say to his child, Though it is true you are not competent to say what it is fit for you to learn, and, therefore, cannot select for yourself a school, yet you ' are perfectly welcome to choose your schoolmaster.' We repeat, that if this exercise of judgment is to be a bona fide exercise of judgment at all, it will not be a whit less difficult to decide upon the teacher,' than upon the general doctrines to be taught.' It is much more easy,' says our author, to judge of persons than of opinions.' True-so far as regards their moral qualities; whether they be, in effect, virtuous or dissolute, benevolent or selfish, humane or cruel. But then, unhappily, if this be the criterion, it is just none at all; for men characterized by both classes of qualities are to be found in all communions. Indeed, as it is most evident from this fact that their personal qualities would be no sufficient guide, so it is by no means the criterion which our author contemplates: he would be very sorry to have it impartially applied. They are quite other qualities which are to decide the point; and the enquiry into these, we contend, is either not separable from an enquiry into the truth of the very doctrines taught, but presupposes that enquiry to have been both instituted and decided; or it is an enquiry into matters still more difficult and perplexing ;-for example, whether or not the clergy of a given Church possess the inestimable advantages of apostolical succession?' In the present divided state of Christendom, which is the more hopeful enquiry for a private individual, What saith the 'Scripture?' or, Which of all the religious teachers who claim 'my attention makes the most rightful pretensions to instruct 'me in the truth-I, at the same time, neither enquiring, nor being permitted to enquire, what that truth is ?' For it must be remembered that an Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Independent, Calvinist, or Arminian, is not a trustworthy teacher, because he tells us he is; the awful privilege of apostolical succession' is not inscribed on the bishop's forehead; no voice from heaven certifies to us that those whom he ordains are exclusively commissioned to preach the gospel. We repeat, therefore, that this liberty of private judgment,' if really acted upon, implies a task quite as difficult as those for which it is proposed to substitute it in a word, either the very same-that of examining the pretensions of the teacher by a reference to his doctrines; or that of deciding on the historic grounds of his authority, without any investigation of his doctrine at all. This method, therefore,

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would not serve the purpose for which it has been invented; it would not correct the eccentricities or diminish the varieties of 'private judgment.' Nay, we have already facts in abundance to prove this. We see that there are multitudes of all communions who select their teacher on no wiser principle than that here advocated; without any enquiry into the truth of the doctrines taught, or the teacher's claim to the authority he assumes. It were well both for them and for truth, if they would exercise also the other and better part of the Right of Private Judgment,' and diligently enquire-whether the system of doctrines taught them is in general accordance with truth, and the claims to authority, on the teacher's part, well founded. It does not appear, then, that this limitation of the Right of Private Judgment' would diminish the diversities of sect and party, or secure a nearer approximation to uniformity.*

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It is true that this writer points out some concise methods of limiting the candidates for the enquirer's suffrage. You may reject,' says he, all who do not even profess to come with authority.' To this it may be replied, first, that there are none who come to teach without professing authority to do so, and that in general the more extravagant their doctrine, the more arrogant their pretensions; and secondly, that the absence of those exclusive pretensions to which he refers-pretensions to the Apostolical Succession-would be to thousands a reason rather for admitting than rejecting the claims of a teacher who came to them with such unwonted humility. But, even according to this writer, there are at least three Churches, which, however divided on points which multitudes deem essential, possess, it seems, all that authority which is necessary to give validity to the claims of their teachers. These Churches-risum teneatis?—are the English, Romish, and Greek! But how is the perplexed enquirer to decide on their claims? Very easily, if we fairly follow out this writer's principles; for, partly by what he has said, and partly by what he has left us to infer, it does not much matter to which a man belongs; and as each is possessed of those mysterious gifts,' depending on the 'Succession,' which will serve to countervail any corruptions, it is difficult to say whether there are any reasons sufficient to justify a man in leaving any one of them for another. It is true, indeed, that our author disclaims all intention of discussing the question, as to whether there are reasons which can justify the Catholic in leaving his own communion; but it is plain, from what he has said, how he would decide it, and how, if consistent with his principles, he must decide it. Indeed, his very making it a question is a sufficient indication of his sentiments; for did ever Protestant before doubt whether it was lawful for a Catholic to leave the Church of Rome? None, assuredly, can doubt it, except those strange Protestants who deplore Protestantism itself, and who use their utmost efforts to show how much the Churches of Rome and England resemble one another! That the difference be

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