Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 3.djvu/67

Rh no member of the English Church can in common prudence as well as propriety do otherwise, since he is exposed to an immediate retort, in consequence of the errors and irregularities which have in Protestant times occurred among ourselves. King Henry the VIIIth, the first promoter of the Reformation, is surely no representative of our faith or feelings; nor Hoadly, in a later age, who was suffered to enjoy his episcopate for 46 years; to say nothing of the various parties and schools which have existed, and do exist, among us.

So much then must be granted to the Romanists; yet not so much as they themselves desire. For though the acts of individuals are not the acts of the Church, yet they may be the results, and therefore illustrations of its principles. We cannot consent then to confine ourselves to a mere reference to the text of the Tridentine decrees, as Romanists would have us, apart from the teaching of their doctors, and the practice of the Church, which are surely the legitimate comment upon them. The case stands as follows. A certain system of teaching and practice has existed in the churches of the Roman communion for many centuries; this system was discriminated and fixed in all its outlines at the Council of Trent. It is therefore not unnatural, or rather it is the procedure we adopt in any historical research, to take the general opinions and conduct of the Church in elucidation of their Synodal decrees; just as we take the tradition of the Church Catholic and Apostolic as the legitimate interpreter of Scripture, or of the Apostles' Creed. On the other hand, it is as natural that these decrees, being necessarily concise and guarded, should be much less objectionable than the actual system they represent. It is not wonderful then, yet it is unreasonable, that Romanists should protest against our going beyond these decrees in adducing evidence of their Church's doctrine, on the ground that nothing more than an assent to them is requisite for communion with her: e.g. the Creed of Pope Pius, which is framed upon the Tridentine decrees, and is the Roman Creed of Communion, only says "I firmly hold there is a Purgatory, and that souls therein detained are aided by the prayers of the faithful," nothing being said of its being a place of punish-