Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 2.djvu/557

Rh to be a prophet, one of the sons of the prophets, a doctor and champion of truth, and hold in highest veneration and love, when he suddenly and secretly is the author of mischievous errors, which the strain of teaching he has made familiar to you, incapacitates you from quickly detecting, and affection for himself seems to make it undutiful in you to condemn.

I say, whoever he be, how holy and learned soever, whether Bishop, whether Confessor and Martyr, if he teaches aught beyond or contrary to the doctrine of all the Fathers, let it be set apart from the common, public, and general doctrine, which has authority, and numbered among his peculiar, hidden, and private surmises, lest, at the extreme risk of eternal ruin, we fall into the ways of heretics and schismatics, giving up the universally received truth, and following the novel error of an individual.

[Augustine, who was contemporary with Vincentius, affords an instance in illustration of the last sentence. His peculiar views of election were beyond, not to say contrary, to those of the Church ever before him, and called for precautions on the part of Christians, lest by mixing them up with Christianity, they acted like heretics, whose peculiar tenets have always been originally the innovations of one or two subtle and venturous minds upon or counter to what has been received.

As to cases of actual error, such as that of the false prophet introduced by Vincentius, there has been since his time a most deplorable and astounding instance of this in the corruptions of the Latin Church, whether they be called heresy or not. Considering the high gifts and the strong claims of the Church of Rome and its dependencies on our admiration, reverence, love, and gratitude, how could we withstand it as we do; how could we refrain from being melted into tenderness and rushing into communion with it, but for the words of Truth itself, which bid us prefer It to the whole world? "He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me;" How could we learn to be severe, and execute judgment, but for the warning of Moses against even a divinely gifted teacher, who should preach new gods; and the anathema of St. Paul even against Angels and Apostles, who should bring in a new doctrine?

And lastly, what a noble comment is here given us upon the prohibition of Christ to call any one on earth our Master! and how elevating a thought is it to reflect that the precept so explained has ever been acted upon by the Church Catholic! "We have no human head in matters of doctrine, we acknowledge every single Christian, however exalted, to be but an individual, to have no intrinsic authority, no power, no influence except so far as he is