it would be to complain that some person did not show proper respect to the writers of Europe. The Fathers are writers of different periods, and as different from each other as any two European writers, taken at random. The Fathers themselves were so far from dreaming that they belonged to a class entitled, as such, to veneration, that they abused each other with bitterness equal to that of modern controversialists. Jerom was not aware how sadly he was trespassing when he passed in review the principal Fathers that had preceded him. The passage is worthy of consideration, as it shows the very defects which would make the ancient writers, called Fathers, very uncertain vehicles of tradition even if they were sufficient vouchers of it. "Tertullian (says Jerom) abounds in sentences, but expresses himself with difficulty. The holy Cyprian flows sweet and placid like a pure fountain; but being a man of practical virtue, and occupied with the anxiety of persecutions, he has not discussed the divine Scriptures. Victorinus, he who was crowned with a noble martyrdom, cannot ex

press his own thoughts. I wish that Lactantius, that river of Tullian eloquence, had been able to prove our religion as easily as he upset that of the Pagans. Arnobius is unequal, diffuse, and obscure from want of arrangement. St. Hilarius raises himself on the Gallic buskin, and is quite unreadable to the people. I will not speak of the others, whether dead or still living, of whom those who shall come after me will pass their judgment one way or the other."* Jerom, however, was grievously mistaken in his prophesy. Hard and sanguinary, indeed, has been the struggle from which we derive the liberty which, at this moment, we venture to exercise. †

+ It will be allowable to add the opinion which Jerom entertained of Basil. We take it from Gibbon. Jerom's words are Basilius Cæsariensis episcopus Cappadocia clarus habetur... qui multa continentiæ et ingenii bona uno superbiæ malo perdidit. "Basil of Cæsaræa, in Cappadocia, is held a distinguished man ...who by his pride alone spoiled many good qualities of mind and conduct." This irreverent passage (says the historian of Rome) is perfectly in the style and character of Jerom. It does not appear in Scaliger's edition of the chronicle; but Isaac Vossius found it in some old manuscripts, which had not been reformed by the monks. Note to chap. xxv. Decl. and Fall.

CHAPTER VIII.

Increasing doubts.--Danger of falling into Scepticism.-An illness.

I confess I was provoked by the second manuscript much more than by the first. There is something not only painful but irritating in missing a blow into which you have sent your whole strength;-in finding that you have strained every nerve and muscle to strike a phantom which mocks you. I had collected all Protestants into a unity, and against that supposed unity I directed my batteries. But it now appears (and I really cannot deny it) that Protestantism does not imply unity, except in questioning and denying the claims of our Roman Catholic Church. If those claims could be unquestionably proved by something previous to the right of interpreting the Scripture by tradi

tion, which is the first privilege which our Catholic Church contends for, all the rest would be comparatively easy. There would be little or no necessity to rummage the Fathers, except for the sake of illustrating doctrines which would be established antecedently to their testimony and authority. But I cannot be so perverse as to shut my eyes to the existence of a flaw in the title which our Catholic Church brings forward. If she builds her supernatural privileges on tradition, the certainty of those privileges cannot be greater than the certainty of tradition. If our Catholic Church contends against Protestants on the authority of Scripture, she then depends entirely on the interpretation of those passages; and it really would be mockery to rest the certainty of her interpretation upon a supernatural authority which must be proved by the interpretation of the passages themselves.

This argument had been haunting me since I perused the first manuscript. The second manuscript, though it is rather diffuse and bears

marks of haste in its composition, certainly widened the breach which the first had made in my Catholic faith. every kind of Protestantism with which I was acquainted. And now I began to perceive with real pain that I could not escape from the dilemma I so eagerly urged in my former work. "Either Roman Catholic, I said to myself, or unbeliever." But unless I prove myself a weak, superstitious man, who may be frightened into acquiescence in spite of a strong sense of delusion, is not my choice already made for me? The Roman Catholic system seems to be a theory gradually formed to fill up some real or fancied deficiencies in the books of the New Testament. All Christians agreed from the beginning that the Gospel is the only means of salvation through Christ. But it was soon found that Christians could not agree as to what the Gospel is. At first it was supposed that the teachers, or the clergy must know; but the clergy differed among themselves. Then it was conceived that some particular clergy or Church

Still I heartily disliked