146 rNTRODUCTION. [Ch. V. — R. C. R. of Faith
sincerely, so did many hypocritically assent to the decrees of Nice. If many were overborne by authority and fear in the one case, so they were in the otlier. If many revoked their assent to Arian- ism, quite as many withdrew their consent to the Athanasian doc- trine.
The Romish Evasion of this Argument. In dealing with this undeniable fact, Romanists and Romanizers are forced to abandon their principle. Their doctrine is that the external Church cannot err, that the majority of the bishops living at any one time cannot fail to teach the truth. But under the r(;ign of the Emperor Constantius, it is undeniable that the vast ma- jority, including the Bishop of Rome, did renounce the truth. But, says Bellarmin,^ the Church continued and was couspienous in Athanasius, Hilary, Eusebius, and others. And Mr. Palmer, of Oxford says,2 " The truth was preserved under even Arian bish- ops." But the question is riot, whether the truth shall be preserved and confessed by the true children of God, but, whetiieranj_ex- ternal, organized bodyj and specially the Church of Romej_can_err in its teaching. Romanists cannot be allowed, merely to meet an emergency, to avail themselves of the Protestant doctrine that the Church may consist of scattered believers. It is true as Jerome teaches in the passage above quoted, " Ubi fides vera est, ibi Ec- clesia est." But that is our doctrine, and not the doctrine of Rome. Protestants say with full confidence, " Ecclesia manet et manebit." But whether in conspicuous glory as in the time of David, or in scattered believers as in the days of Elias, is not essential.
The Church of Rome rejects the Doctrines of Augustine. A second case in which the external church (and specially the Church of Rome) has departed from what it had itself declared to be true, is in the rejection of the doctrines known in histoiy as Augustinian. That the peculiar doctrines of Augustine, including the doctrine of sinful corruption of nature derived from Adam, which is spiritual death, and involves entire inability on the part of the sinner to convert himself or to c<$operate in his own regenera- tion ; the necessity of the certainly efficacious operation of divine grace ; the sovereignty of God in election and reprobation, and the certain perseverance of the saints ; were sanctioned by the whole Church, and specially by the Church of Rome, cannot be disputed. The eighteenth chapter of VViggers' " Augustinianism and Pela- gianism," is headed, " The final adoption of the Augustinian system
1 De Ecclesia, lib. iii. c. 16. 2 Qn the Oiurch, vol. ii. p. 187.