nd Methodius with his praise of Virginity, all
of them writers between the first and fourth centuries, and witnesses
of the faith of Rome, Africa, Gaul, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt,
certainly do not represent the opinions of Luther and Calvin. They
stretch over the whole of Christendom; they are consistent with each
other; they coalesce into one religion; but it is not the religion of
the Reformation. When we ask, "Where was your Church before Luther?"
Protestants answer, "Where were you this morning before you washed your
face?" But, if Protestants can clean themselves into the likeness of
Cyprian or Irenaeus, they must scrub very hard, and have well-nigh
learned the art of washing the blackamoor white.

2.

If the Church system be not Apostolic, it must, some time or other, have
been introduced, and then comes the question, when? We maintain that the
known circumstances of the previous history are such as to preclude the
possibility of any time being assigned, ever so close upon the Apostles,
at which the Church system did not exist. Not only cannot a time be
shown when the free-and-easy system now in fashion did generally exist,
but no time can be shown in which it can be colourably maintained that
the Church system was brought in. It will be said, of course, that the
Church system was gradually introduced. I do not say there have never
been introductions of any kind; but let us see what they amount to here.
Select for yourself your doctrine, or your ordinance, which you say was
introduced, and try to give the history of its introduction.
Hypothetical that history will be, of course; but we will not scruple at
that;--we will only ask one thing, that it should cut clean between the
real facts of the case, though it bring none in its favour; but it will
not be able to do even this. The rise of the doctrine of the Holy
Trinity, of the usage of baptizing infants, of the eucharistic offering,
of the episcopal prerogatives, do what one will, can hardly be made
short of Apostolical times. This is not the place to prove all this; but
so fully is it felt to be so, by those who are determined not to admit
these portions of Catholicism, that in their despair of drawing the line
between the first and following centuries, they make up their minds to
intrude into the first, and boldly pursue their supposed error into the
very presence of some Apostle or Evangelist. Thus St. John is sometimes
made the voluntary or involuntary o