have formulated their rule of judgment in the famous dictum of Vincent of Lerins : " Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab om- nibus." ' '" """ Common Consent not a Criterion.
To this Protestants reply, — First, That they admit the authority of common consent among true Christians as to what is taught in the Scriptures. So far as all the true people of God agree in their interpretation of the Bible, we acknowledge ourselves bound to submit. But this consent is of authority only, (a) So far as it is the consent of true believers ; (h) So far as it concerns the mean- ing of the written word ; and, (c) So far as it relates to the prac- tical, experimental, or essential doctrines of Christianity. Such consent as to matters outside of the Bible, or even supposed to be in the Bible, if they do not concern the foundation of our faith, is of no decisive weight. The whole Christian world, without one dissenting voice, believed for ages that the Bible taught that the sun moves round the earth. No man now believes it.
Secondly, Common consent as to Christian doctrine cannot be pleaded except within narrow limits. It is only on the gratuitous and monstrous assumption that Romanists are the only Christians, that the least plausibility can be given to the claim of common con- sent. The argument is really this : The Church of Rome receives certain doctrines on the authority of tradition. The Church of Rome includes all true Christians. Therefore, the common con- sent of all Christians may be claimed in favour of those doctrines.
But, thirdly, admitting that the Church of Rome is the whole Church, and admitting that Church to be unanimous in holding certain doctrines, that is no proof that that Church has always held them. The rule requires that a docti'ine must be held not only ab omnibus, but semper. It is, however, a historical fact that all the peculiar doctrines of Romanism were not received in the early Church as matters of faith. Such doctrines as the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome ; the perpetuity of the apostleship ; the grace of orders ; transubstantiation ; the propitiatory sacrifice of the Mass ; the power of the priests to forgive sins ; the seven sacra- ments ; purgatory ; the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary, etc., etc., can all be historically traced in their origin, grad- ual development, and final adoption. As it would be unjust to de- termine the theology of Calvin and Beza from the Socinianism of modern Geneva ; or that of Luther from the theology of the Ger mans of our day ; so it is utterly unreasonable to infer that because the Latin Church believes all that the Council of Trent pronounced
124 INTRODUCTION. [Ch. V. - R. C. R. of Faith.
to be true, that such was its faith in the first tenturies of its his- tory. It is not to be denied that for the first hundred years after the Reformation the Church of England was Calvinistic; then under Archbishop Laud and the Stuarts it became ahnost thor- oughly Romanized ; then it became to a large extent Rationalistic, so that Bishop Burnet said of the men of his day, that Christianity seemed to be regarded as a fable " among all persons of discern- ment." To this succeeded a general revival of evangelical doc- trine and piety ; and that ha.s been followed by a like revival of Romanism and Ritualism. Mr. Newman ^ says of the present time : " In the Church of England, we shall hardly find ten or twenty neigliboring clergymen who agree together ; and that, not in non-essentials of religion, but as to what are its elementary and necessary doctrines ; or as to the fact Avhether there are any nec- essary doctrines at all, any distinct and definite faith required for salvation." Such is the testimony of history. In no external, visible Church, has there been a consent to any form of faith, setn- 'per et ah omnibus.
The Latin Church is no exception to this remark. It is an un- deniable fact of history that Arianism prevailed for years both in the East and West ; that it received the sanction of the vast ma- jority of the bishops, of provincial and ecumenical councils, and of the Bishop of Rome. It is no less certain tiiat in the Latin Church, Augustinianism, including all the characteristic doctrines of what is now called Calvinism, was declared to be the true faith by council after council, provincial and general, and by bishops and popes. Soon, however, Augustinianism lost its ascendency. For seven or eight centuries no one form of doctrine concerning sin, grace, and predestination prevailed in the Latin Church. Augus- tinianism, Semi-Pelagianism, and Mysticism (equally irreconcilable with both), were in constant conflict ; and that, too, on questions on which the Church had already pronounced its judgment. It was not until the beginning of the sixteenth century that the Council of Ti'ent, after long conflict within itself, gave its sanction to a modified form of Semi-Pelagianism.
The claim, therefore, for common consent, as understood by Ro- manists, is contrary to history. It is inconsistent with undeniable facts. Tliis is virtually admitted by Romanists themselves. For with them it is common to say. We believe because the fifth cen- tury believed. But this is a virtual admission that their peculiar faith is not historically traceable beyond the fifth century. Thia
1 Lectures on Prophetic Office of the Church, Lond. 1837, pp. 394, 396.