"This faith," proceeds Irenæus," the church, as I said before, has received, and though dispersed over the whole world, assiduously preserves as if she inhabited a single house; and believes in these things as having but one heart and one soul: and with perfect harmony proclaims, teaches, hands down, these things as though she had but one mouth. For though there are various and dissimilar languages in the world; yet the power of the faith transmitted is one and the same. Neither the churches in Germany, nor in Iberia,” (Spain)" nor among the Celta," (in France) "nor in the East, nor in Egypt, nor in Libya, nor in the middle regions of the world," (Jerusalem and the adjacent districts) "believe or teach any other doctrines, But as the Sun is one and the same throughout the whole world; so the preaching of the truth shines every where, and enlightens all men who are willing to come to the knowledge of truth. Nor will the most powerful in speech among the governours of the churches say any thing more than these; (for no one can be above his master;) nor the most feeble any thing less.

καίοις, και ὅσιοις, και τας εντολάς αυτού τετηρηκοσί, και εν τη αγαπη αυ του διαμεμενηκοσι τοις (μεν) απ' αρχής, τοις δε εκ μετανοίας, ζωήν χαρισα μενος, αφθαρσίαν δώρησηται, και δόξην αιωνίαιν περιποίηση.

IREN. Adversus Hareses. Lib. I. c. 2. p. 45. ed. Grabe.

For as there is but one faith, he who is "able to speak much cannot enlarge; nor he who can say little, diminish it.”*

It is clear that this venerable father did not mean to give the very words of any formula of faith; but to state, substantially, those high and leading truths in which all the churches of Christ over the whole world harmonized; and which formed the doctrinal bond of their union.

It is also certain, that as heresies, corrupting any cardinal principle of Christianity, arose in the church, her public profession met them by an open and decisive assertion of the injured truth. This necessarily enlarged, by degrees, the number of articles in her creed, as well as the scope of her ministerial instruction. But her maintenance of the faith was always pointed and brief. She never launched out into wide discussion; never pursued principles to their remote consequences; nor embarrassed her testimony by numerous and minute applications. These were left then as they ought to be now, and, in the nature of things, must be, in a very great measure, to the intelligence and fidelity of her ministry. But the basis of her communion was laid

*IREN. ib. c. 3. p. 46. See to the same purpose, CYPRIAN. de unis late Ecclesia, Opp. p. 108. ed. Fell. Oxon. 1682,

so broad, in the vital doctrines of the gospel, that all who "held the head," in whatever spot of the globe, might join, as they had opportunity, in the reciprocation of Christian kindnesses, and the enjoyment of Christian privileges. For proof of this a single fact will suffice. The most copious of all her confessions, framed toward the close of the fourth century, or about A. D. 373, nearly two hundred years after Irenæus, was designed, expressly, to guard and vindicate the common faith against the numerous heresies of the age. "All the orthodox bishops," says EPIPHANIUS, “and, in a word, the whole catholic church, in opposition to those heresies, and conformably to the pre-established faith of those holy fathers" (the Apostles and their successors)" affirm and maintain as follows; We believe," &c. *

He then recites the creed at length. It is substantially the same with the one already quoted; to the specifications of which it gives greater amplitude, and closer application. Yet this enlarged creed would not fill, or more than fill, THREE PAGES of the present work!!

* Έμεις τε και ήμεις, και παντες δι ορθοδοξοι επίσκοποι, και συλλήβδην πασα ἡ ἁγια Κα θολική Εκκλησία προς τας ανακύψασας αιρεσεις ακολούθως τη των άγιων εκείνων πατερων προτεταγμενη πιστεί, όντως λεγομεν, μάλιστα τοις ἁγίῳ λυτρῳ προσιούσιν, ίνα απαγ γελλωσι και λεγωσι όντως. ΠΙΣΤΕΥΟΜΕΝ κ. τ. λ. EPIPH. Ancor. 121. Οpp. Τ. II. p. 123. Petavii. 1622.

It is now apparent in what the doctrinal unity of the primitive church consisted. It was in holding and professing the same faith on points immediately affecting our eternal hope.

2d. The second principle of her unity was found in her common institutions.

These, again, without descending to subordinate variations or local observances, were her ministry, her worshipping assemblies, and her

sacraments.

Whatever alterations passed, in process of time, upon the form of her ministry and worship, there was no place nor period, in which their substance was not accounted sacred. On the one hand she resisted, with jealous promptitude, every intrusion into her official functions; and, on the other, her ministers were ministers of her whole body, and so acknowledged and employed wherever they happened to be, under such restrictions only as prudence rendered it necessary to impose for the preservation of public order. A ministry and a ministry she understood not. It was one. To interdict a minister of the gospel, with suitable credentials, from preaching or other service of the sanctuary, in any particular church whatever, on the pretence of its being unlawful to receive him and to join with him in ministerial communion, she would have held in

abomination. Severance of church from church -worship from worship-sacraments from sacraments, under the notion of separate Christian interests, and the denial of reciprocal fellowship, she condemned and detested. CYPRIAN's trea

tise on the unity of the church;* and his correspondence relative to the Novation schism, will satisfy any candid man of the truth of this representation. Proof in detail is forborne at present, as it will be incorporated with subsequent matter; and will thus prevent a needless if not wearisome repetition.

3d. The third great point of primitive unity was, brotherly love.

Let brotherly love continue; was an injunction among the last which proceeded from the sanctified lips of Paul the apostle, the aged, the martyr. And for the best of reasons. It is a lesson the most likely to be forgotten, and the most important to be remembered, of all the practical lessons which have been given to the children of men. The most likely to be forgotten: because every form and particle of their depravity has an interest in counteracting it—the most important to be remembered: because it is the principal proof of their reconciliation and com

* De unitate Ecclesiæ. Opp. pp. 104-120. Ed. FELL.