Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 2.djvu/564

6 That the Church ever will teach these faithfully, is promised in Scripture (Isa. lix. 21.), and in matter of fact, it has taught them up to this day, has taught them over the whole world, whatever may be the quarrels and schisms of its branches. These fundamentals are contained in the creed, and have been expanded at various times by the Catholic Church acting together; such are the doctrines of the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Atonement, and the like; they have been held from the beginning, and to this day are taught in the east and west, north and south. Such too are many ordinances and usages of the Church. Accordingly, in spite of our unhappy differences with Greece and Rome, we may say to the Socinian, after Vincent's manner, "We know when your doctrine first appeared, and it was protested against on its first appearance;" to the Baptist, "We can point to the very date when Infant Baptism was first denied;" to the Presbyterian, "We can prove the rejection of Episcopacy to be a novelty;" to the Zuinglian or Hoadleian, "We can trace the history of the denial of Sacramental grace; we know its rise, its course, its outbreaks, and its defeats;" and so with the rest.

Further, we may apply the argument against the Romanists themselves, unwilling as we are to speak harshly of them. We consider we can give the history of the corruptions in the Church, as well as of the heresies which went out of it. We can give the very year when image worship was first established, and show the opposition and protests made against it at the time. We can assign a date to the doctrine of Transubstantiation. Nay, we are willing to receive all doctrines which were in possession of the Church in the sixteenth century, except so far as we can show a time when they were not in possession.]

Here perhaps some one may ask, whether the heretics also do not make use of testimonies from Holy Scripture? Yes, indeed, they do use them, and lay great stress on them, for you may see them ready quoters of each book of God's Sacred Law,—the Books of Moses, of Kings, the Psalms, the Apostles, the Evangelists, the Prophets. Whether indeed they are among their own people, or among strangers, in private or in public, discoursing or writing, at convivial meetings or in the open ways, they never at all advance any of their peculiar positions, without attempting