STRICTURES

ON

DR. MARSH'S

"COMPARATIVE VIEW OF THE CHURCHES OF ENGLAND AND ROME."

Της των ουρανῶν βασιλέιας την γνῶσιν ἐπὶ πᾶσαν κατήγγελλον (οι Αποστλοι) την οικεμένην σπεδης της περι λογογραφειν μικράν ποιέμενοι φροντίδα και τοτε ἐπραλλον οτε μείζονι και ὕπες άνθρωπον ἐξυπηρετεμενοι διακονία.

Euseb. Hist. Eccles. 1. iii. c. 24.

STRICTURES,

&c. &c.

CHAPTER I.

The object of the "Comparative View of the Two Churches of England and Rome."-Dr. Marsh's opinion of scripture and tradition. -His reasoning examined.-His charges against Bossuet.-His explanation of 2 Thes. ii. 15.-His opinion of the instability of tradition, and of the difficulty of knowing it, when we find it,refuted.

THOUGH it may be fairly presumed that, in the controversy between the church of Rome and the mo dern church of England, every important argument has long since been pre-occupied and exhausted; yet new advocates are daily brought forward, who claim in their turn the attention of the public, and present the old matter belonging to their predecessors under a new, and sometimes a more engaging form. Among these may be numbered a scholar of great biblical celebrity, the Margaret-professor of divinity in the university of Cambridge. If Dr. Marsh, by proposing to distribute the Book of Common Prayer with the Bible, was thought to betray a secret leaning to the arbitrary principles of popery: his Comparative View of the Churches of England and Rome," must completely

66

wipe away the injurious imputation. In this long and laboured performance, he undertakes to examine the doctrine and policy of the two churches; 1st, as to the foundation of their respective creeds; 2d, as to the establishment of church ceremonies; and 3d, as to the exercise of church authority. On all these points he professes to shew, as it was meet he should, that the church of England acts on rational, tolerant, and scriptural grounds, while the conduct of the church of Rome has been repugnant to the inspired word of God, and to the natural liberty of man.

As the writer of these pages has not the inclination, so neither has he the leisure, to discuss this variety of subjects. Of the three parts into which the " Comparative View" has been divided, he wishes to confine himself to the first, the ground work of the other two. Nor would he even notice that, did he not feel anxious to direct the attention of Dr. Marsh and his associates, to a question, which has frequently been offered to their consideration; but, by some fatality, has almost always escaped their memory. In examining the sources from which the two churches profess to derive their respective creeds, occasion will be offered to inquire, whether the reformers, by rejecting the authority of tradition, have not in effect destroyed the authority of scripture, taken away the security of religious belief, and undermined the very foundations of Christianity. This, certainly, is a subject not undeserving of attention.

The three first chapters of the "Comparative View," consist of preliminary matter, of definitions and quotations. These, with much parade of research, are spread over more than fifty pages; while the information which they convey, might have been comprised in less than fifty lines. We are successively led to the council of Trent, to Bellarmine, and Delahogue on the one side, and to the articles and homilies of the church of England on the other: from the first we are taught, what every reader knew before, that the church of Rome admits the authority of both scripture and tradition; from the latter, what is equally well ascertained,