In his latter sermon, preached the following day, he pursues the subject:--

"This your celebration they are jealous of, who are wont to be; and, being jealous of it, they hate the cause of it, and are extravagant enough to deny the merits of those martyrs, whose works the very devils confess. Nor is it wonderful; it commonly happens that unbelievers who deny are less bearable than the devil who confesses. For the devil said, 'Jesus, Son of the living Son, why hast Thou come to torment us before the time?' And, whereas the Jews heard this, yet they were the very men to deny the Son of God.

And now ye have heard the evil spirits crying out, and confessing to the martyrs, that they cannot bear their pains, and saying, 'Why are ye come to torment us so heavily?' And the Arians say, 'They are not martyrs, nor can they torment the devil, nor dispossess any one;' while the torments of the evil spirits are evidenced by their own voice, and the benefits of the martyrs by the recovery of the healed, and the tokens of the dispossessed.

"The Arians say, 'These are not real torments of evil spirits, but they are pretended and counterfeit.' I have heard of many things pretended, but no one ever could succeed in feigning himself a devil. How is it we see them in such distress when the hand is laid on them? What room is here for fraud? what suspicion of imposture?

"They deny that the blind received sight; but he does not deny that he was cured. He says, 'I see, who afore saw not.' He says, 'I ceased to be blind,' and he evidences it by the fact. They deny the benefit, who cannot deny the fact. The man is well known; employed as he was, before his affliction, in a public trade, Severus his name, a butcher his business: he had given it up when this misfortune befell him. He refers to the testimony of men whose charities were supporting him; he summons them as evidence of his present visitation, who were witnesses and judges of his blindness.

He cries out that, on his touching the hem of the martyrs' garment, which covered the relics, his sight was restored to him. We read in the Gospel, that when the Jews saw the cure of the blind man, they sought the testimony of the parents. Ask others, if you distrust me; ask persons unconnected with him, if you think that his parents would take a side. The obstinacy of these Arians is more hateful than that of the Jews. When the latter doubted, at least they inquired of the parents; these inquire secretly, deny openly, as giving credit to the fact, but denying the author."--_Ibid._

3. We may corroborate the evidence of those two Fathers with that of Paulinus, who was secretary to St. Ambrose, and wrote his life, about A.D. 411.

"About the same time," he says, "the holy martyrs Protasius and Gervasius revealed themselves to God's priest. They lay in the Basilica, where, at present, are the bodies of the martyrs Nabor and Felix; while, however, the holy martyrs Nabor and Felix had crowds to visit them, as well the names as the graves of the martyrs Protasius and Gervasius were unknown; so that all who wished to come to the rails which protected the graves of the martyrs Nabor and Felix, were used to walk on the graves of the others. But when the bodies of the holy martyrs were raised and placed on litters, thereupon many possessions of the devil were detected. Moreover, a blind man, by name Severus, who up to this day performs religious service in the Basilica called Ambrosian, into which the bodies of the martyrs have been translated, when he had touched the garment of the martyrs, forthwith received sight.

Moreover, bodies possessed by unclean spirits were restored, and with all blessedness returned home. And by means of these benefits of the martyrs, while the faith of the Catholic Church made increase, by so much did Arian misbelief decline."---- 14.

4.

Now I want to know what reason is there for stumbling at the above narrative, which will not throw uncertainty upon the very fact that there was such a Bishop as Ambrose, or such an Empress as Justina, or such a heresy as the Arian, or any Church at all in Milan. Let us consider some of the circumstances under which it comes to us.

1. We have the concordant evidence of three distinct witnesses, of whom at least two were on the spot when the alleged miracles were wrought, one writing at the time, another some years afterwards in a distant country. And the third, writing after an interval of twenty-six years, agrees minutely with the evidence of the two former, not adding to the miraculous narrative, as is the manner of those who lose their delicate care for exactness in their admiration of the things and persons of whom they speak.

2. The miracle was wrought in public, on a person well known, on one who continued to live in the place where it was professedly wrought, and who, by devoting himself to the service of the martyrs who were the instruments of his cure, was a continual memorial of the mercy which he professed to have received, and challenged inquiry into it, and refutation if that were possible.

3. Ambrose, one of our informants, publicly appealed, at the time when the occurrence took place, to the general belief, claimed it for the miracle, and that in a sermon which is still extant.

4. He made his statement in the presence of bitter and most powerful enemies, who were much concerned, and very able to expose the fraud, if there was one; who did, as might be expected, deny the hand of God in the matter; but who, for all that appears, did nothing but deny what they could not consistently confess, without ceasing to be what they were.

5. A great and practical impression was made upon the popular mind in consequence of the alleged miracles: or, in the words of an historian, whose very vocation it is to disbelieve them, "Their effect on the minds of the people was rapid and irresistible; and the feeble sovereign of Italy found himself unable to contend with the favourite of heaven."[366]

6. And so powerfully did all this press upon the Court, that, as the last words of this extract intimate, the persecution was given up, and the Catholics left in quiet possession of the churches.

On the whole, then, are we not in the following dilemma? If the miracle did not take place, then St. Ambrose and St. Augustine, men of name, said they had ascertained a fact which they did not ascertain, and said it in the face of enemies, with an appeal to a whole city, and that continued during a quarter of a century. What instrument of refutation shall we devise against a case like this, neither so violently _a priori_ as to supersede the testimony of Evangelists, nor so fastidious of evidence as to imperil Tacitus or Caesar? On the other hand, if the miracle did take place, a certain measure of authority, more or less, surely must thereby attach to St. Ambrose--to his doctrine and his life, to his ecclesiastical principles and proceedings, to the Church itself of the fourth century, of which he is one main pillar. The miracle gives a certain sanction to three things at once, to the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity, to the Church's resistance of the civil power, and to the commemoration of saints and martyrs.

Does it give any sanction to Protestantism and its adherents? shall we accept it or not? shall we retreat, or shall we advance? shall we relapse into scepticism upon all subjects, or sacrifice our deep-rooted prejudices? shall we give up our knowledge of times past altogether, or endure to gain a knowledge which we think we have already--the knowledge of divine truth?

FOOTNOTES:

[366] Gibbon, Hist. ch. 27.

CHAPTER II.

WHAT SAYS VINCENT OF LERINS?

1.

It is pretty clear that most persons of this day will be disposed to wonder at the earnestness shown by the early bishops of the Church in their defence of the Catholic faith. Athanasius, Hilary, Basil, Gregory, and Ambrose resisted the spread of Arianism at the risk of their lives.

Yet their repeated protests and efforts were all about what? The man of the world will answer, "strifes of words, perverse disputings, curious questions, which do not tend to advance what ought to be the one end of all religion, peace and love. This is what comes of insisting on orthodoxy; putting the whole world into a fever!" _Tantum religio potuit_, etc., as the Epicurean poet says.

Such certainly is the phenomenon which we have to contemplate: theirs was a state of mind seldom experienced, and little understood, in this day; however, for that reason, it is at least interesting to the antiquarian, even were it not a sound and Christian state also. The highest end of Church union, to which the mass of educated men now look, is quiet and unanimity; as if the Church were not built upon faith, and truth really the first object of the Christian's efforts, peace but the second. The one idea which statesmen, and lawyers, and journalists, and men of letters have of a clergyman is, that he is by profession "a man of peace:" and if he has occasion to denounce, or to resist, or to protest, a cry is raised, "O how disgraceful in a minister of peace!"

The Church is thought invaluable as a promoter of good order and sobriety; but is regarded as nothing more. Far be it from me to seem to disparage what is really one of her high functions; but still a part of her duty will never be tantamount to the whole of it. At present the _beau ideal_ of a clergyman in the eyes of many is a "reverend gentleman," who has a large family, and "administers spiritual consolation." Now I make bold to say, that confessorship for the Catholic faith is one part of the duty of Christian ministers, nay, and Christian laymen too. Yet, in this day, if at any time there is any difference in matters of doctrine between Christians, the first and last wish--the one sovereign object--of so-called judicious men, is to hush it up. No matter what the difference is about; _that_ is thought so little to the purpose, that your well-judging men will not even take the trouble to inquire what it is. It may be, for what they know, a question of theism or atheism; but they will not admit, whatever it is, that it can be more than secondary to the preservation of a good understanding between Christians. They think, whatever it is, it may safely be postponed for future consideration--that things will right themselves--the one pressing object being to present a bold and extended front to our external enemies, to prevent the outward fabric of the Church from being weakened by dissensions, and insulted by those who witness them. Surely the Church exists, in an especial way, for the sake of the faith committed to her keeping. But our practical men forget there may be remedies worse than the disease; that latent heresy may be worse than a contest of "party;" and, in their treatment of the Church, they fulfil the satirist's well-known line:--

"Propter vitam vivendi perdere causas."

No wonder they do so, when they have been so long accustomed to merge the Church in the nation, and to talk of "Protestantism" in the abstract as synonymous with true religion; to consider that the characteristic merit of our Church is its "tolerance," as they call it, and that its greatest misfortune is the exposure to the world of those antagonistic principles and views which are really at work within it. But talking of exposure, what a scandal it was in St. Peter to exert his apostolical powers on Ananias; and in St. John, to threaten Diotrephes! What an exposure in St. Paul to tell the Corinthians he had "a rod" for them, were they disobedient! One should have thought, indeed, that weapons were committed to the Church for use as well as for show; but the present age apparently holds otherwise, considering that the Church is then most primitive, when it neither cares for the faith itself, nor uses the divinely ordained means by which it is to be guarded. Now, to people who acquiesce in this view, I know well that Ambrose or Augustine has not more of authority than an English non-juror; still, to those who do not acquiesce in it, it may be some little comfort, some encouragement, some satisfaction, to see that they themselves are not the first persons in the world who have felt and judged of religion in that particular way which is now in disrepute.

2.

However, some persons will allow, perhaps, that doctrinal truth ought to be maintained, and that the clergy ought to maintain it; but then they will urge that we should not make the path of truth too narrow; that it is a royal and a broad highway by which we travel heavenward, whereas it has been the one object of theologians, in every age, to encroach upon it, till at length it has become scarcely broad enough for two to walk abreast in. And moreover, it will be objected, that over-exactness was the very fault of the fourth and fifth centuries in particular, which refined upon the doctrines of the Holy Trinity and our Lord's Incarnation, till the way of life became like that razor's edge, which is said in the Koran to be drawn high over the place of punishment, and must be traversed by every one at the end of the world.

Now I cannot possibly deny, however disadvantageous it may be to their reputation, that the Fathers do represent the way of faith as narrow, nay, even as being the more excellent and the more royal for that very narrowness. Such is orthodoxy certainly; but here it is obvious to ask whether this very characteristic of it may not possibly be rather an argument for, than against, its divine origin. Certain it is, that such nicety, as it is called, is not unknown to other religious dispensations, creeds, and covenants, besides that which the primitive Church identified with Christianity. Nor is it a paradox to maintain that the whole system of religion, natural as well as revealed, is full of similar appointments. As to the subject of ethics, even a heathen philosopher tells us, that virtue consists in a mean--that is, in a point between indefinitely-extending extremes; "men being in one way good, and many ways bad." The same principle, again, is seen in the revealed system of spiritual communications; the grant of grace and privilege depending on positive ordinances, simple and definite--on the use of a little water, the utterance of a few words, the imposition of hands, and the like; which, it will perhaps be granted, are really essential to the conveyance of spiritual blessings, yet are confessedly as formal and technical as any creed can be represented to be. In a word, such technicality is involved in the very idea of a _means_, which may even be defined to be a something appointed, at God's inscrutable pleasure, as the necessary condition of something else; and the simple question before us is, merely the _matter of fact_, viz., whether any doctrine _is_ set forth by Revelation as necessary to be believed _in order_ to salvation? Antecedent difficulty in the question there is none; or rather, the probability is in favour of there being some necessary doctrine, from the analogy of the other parts of religion. The question is simply about the matter of fact.

This analogy is perspicuously expressed in one of the sermons of St.

Leo:--"Not only," he says, "in the exercise of virtue and the observance of the commandments, but also in the path of faith, strait and difficult is the way which leads to life; and it requires great pains, and involves great risks, to walk without stumbling along the one footway of sound doctrine, amid the uncertain opinions and the plausible untruths of the unskilful, and to escape all peril of mistake when the toils of error are on every side."--_Serm._ 25.

St. Gregory Nazianzen says the same thing:--"We have bid farewell to contentious deviations of doctrine, and compensations on either side, neither Sabellianizing nor Arianizing. These are the sports of the evil one, who is a bad arbiter of our matters. But we, pacing along the middle and royal way, _in which also the essence of the virtues lies_, in the judgment of the learned, believe in Father, Son, and Holy Ghost."--_Orat._ 32.

On the whole, then, I see nothing very strange either in orthodoxy lying in what at first sight appears like subtle and minute exactness of doctrine, or in its being our duty to contend even to confessorship for such exactness. Whether it be thus exact, and whether the exactness of Ambrose, Leo, or Gregory be the true and revealed exactness, is quite another question: all I say is, that it is no great difficulty to believe that it may be what they say it is, both as to its truth and as to its importance.

3.

But now supposing the question is asked, are Ambrose, Leo, and Gregory right? and is our Church right in maintaining with them the Athanasian doctrine on those sacred points to which it relates, and condemning those who hold otherwise? what answer is to be given? I answer by asking in turn, supposing any one inquired how we know that Ambrose, Leo, or Gregory was right and our Church right, in receiving St. Paul's Epistles, what answer we should make? The answer would be, that it is a matter of history that the Apostle wrote those letters which are ascribed to him. And what is meant by its being a matter of history?

why, that it has ever been so believed, so declared, so recorded, so acted on, from the first down to this day; that there is no assignable point of time when it was not believed, no assignable point at which the belief was introduced; that the records of past ages fade away and vanish _in_ the belief; that in proportion as past ages speak at all, they speak in one way, and only fail to bear a witness, when they fail to have a voice. What stronger testimony can we have of a past fact?

Now evidence such as this have we for the Catholic doctrines which Ambrose, Leo, or Gregory maintained; they have never and nowhere _not_ been maintained; or in other words, wherever we know anything positive of ancient times and places, there we are told of these doctrines also.

As far as the records of history extend, they include these doctrines as avowed always, everywhere, and by all. This is the great canon of the _Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus_, which saves us from the misery of having to find out the truth for ourselves from Scripture on our independent and private judgment. He who gave Scripture, also gave us the interpretation of Scripture; and He gave the one and the other gift in the same way, by the testimony of past ages, as matter of historical knowledge, or as it is sometimes called, by Tradition. We receive the Catholic doctrines as we receive the canon of Scripture, because, as our Article expresses it, "_of their authority" there "was never any doubt in the Church_."

We receive them on Catholic Tradition, and therefore they are called Catholic doctrines. And that they are Catholic, is a proof that they are Apostolic; they never could have been universally received in the Church, unless they had had their origin in the origin of the Church, unless they had been made the foundation of the Church by its founders.

As the separate successions of bishops in various countries have but one common origin, the Apostles, so what has been handed down through these separate successions comes from that one origin. The Apostolic College is the only point in which all the lines converge, and from which they spring. Private traditions, wandering unconnected traditions, are of no authority, but permanent, recognised, public, definite, intelligible, multiplied, concordant testimonies to one and the same doctrine, bring with them an overwhelming evidence of apostolical origin. We ground the claims of orthodoxy on no powers of reasoning, however great, on the credit of no names, however imposing, but on an external fact, on an argument the same as that by which we prove the genuineness and authority of the four gospels. The unanimous tradition of all the churches to certain articles of faith is surely an irresistible evidence, more trustworthy far than that of witnesses to certain facts in a court of law, by how much the testimony of a number is more cogent than the testimony of two or three. That this really is the ground on which the narrow line of orthodoxy was maintained in ancient times, is plain from an inspection of the writings of the very men who maintained it, Ambrose, Leo, and Gregory, or Athanasius and Hilary, and the rest, who set forth its Catholic character in more ways than it is possible here to instance or even explain.

4.

However, in order to give the general reader some idea of the state of the case, I will make some copious extracts from the famous tract of Vincent of Lerins on Heresy, written in A.D. 434, immediately after the third Ecumenical Council, held against Nestorius. The author was originally a layman, and by profession a soldier. In after life he became a monk and took orders. Lerins, the site of his monastery, is one of the small islands off the south coast of France. He first states what the principle is he would maintain, and the circumstances under which he maintains it; and if his principle is reasonable and valuable in itself, so does it come to us with great weight under the circumstances which he tells us led him to his exposition of it:[367]

"Inquiring often," he says, "with great desire and attention, of very many excellent, holy, and learned men, how and by what means I might assuredly, and as it were by some general and ordinary way, discern the true Catholic faith from false and wicked heresy; to this question I had usually this answer from them all, that whether I or any other desired to find out the fraud of heretics, daily springing up, and to escape their snares, and to continue in a sound faith himself safe and sound, that he ought, by two ways, by God's assistance, to defend and preserve his faith; that is, first, by the authority of the law of God; secondly, by the tradition of the Catholic Church."--_Ch._ 2.

It will be observed he is speaking of the _mode_ in which an _individual_ is to seek and attain the truth; and it will be observed also, as the revered Bishop Jebb has pointed out, that he is allowing[368] and sanctioning the use of personal inquiry. He proceeds:--

"Here some man, perhaps, may ask, seeing the canon of the Scripture is perfect, and most abundantly of itself sufficient for all things, what need we join unto it the authority of the Church's understanding and interpretation? The reason is this, because the Scripture being of itself so deep and profound, all men do not understand it in one and the same sense, but divers men diversely, this man and that man, this way and that way, expound and interpret the sayings thereof, so that to one's thinking, 'so many men, so many opinions' almost may be gathered out of them: for Novatian expoundeth it one way, Photinus another; Sabellius after this sort, Donatus after that; Arius, Eunomius, Macedonius will have this exposition, Apollinaris and Priscilian will have that; Jovinian, Pelagius, Celestius, gather this sense, and, to conclude, Nestorius findeth out that; and therefore very necessary it is for the avoiding of so great windings and turnings, of errors so various, that the line of expounding the Prophets and Apostles be directed and drawn, according to the rule of the Ecclesiastical and Catholic sense.