ry. When the Lord hath
spoken, well does it become the whole earth to be silent before him;
when the eternal Judge Himself hath decided, the witness of man bears on
its very face the stamp of incompetency and presumption.

[Footnote 18: While some authors seem to go far towards the
substitution of the fathers for the written word of God, others
in their abhorrence of that excess have run into the opposite,
fancying, as it would seem, that they exalt the Divine oracles
just in the same proportion as they disparage the uninspired
writers of the Church. The great body of the Church of England
adhere to a middle course, and adopt that golden mean, which
ascribes to the written Word its paramount authority, from which
is no appeal, and yet honours Catholic tradition as the handmaid
of the truth.]

For myself I can say (what I have good hope these pages will of
themselves evince) that no one can value the testimony of Christian
tradition within its own legitimate sphere more sincerely, or more
highly, than the individual who is now soliciting your attention to the
conclusions which he has himself drawn from it. When Scripture is
silent, or where its meaning is doubtful, Catholic tradition is to me a
guide, which I feel myself bound to follow with watchful care and
submissive reverence.

Now let it be for the present supposed, that instead of the oracles of
God having spoken, as we believe them to have spoken, with a voice
clear, strong, and uniform against the doctrine and practice of the
invocation of saints and angels, their voices had been weak, doubtful,
and vague; in other words, suppose in this case the question had been
left by the Holy Scriptures an open question, then what evidence would
have been deducible from the writings of the primitive Church? What
testimony do the first years and the first ages after the canon of
Scripture was closed, bear upon this point? And here I would repeat the
principle of inquiry, proposed above for our adoption in the more
important and solemn examination of the Holy Volume itself.--We ought to
endeavour to ascertain what may {63} fairly and honestly be regarded as
the real bearing of each author's remains, and not suffer the general
tone and spirit of a writer to be counterbalanced by single expressions,
which may be so interpreted as to convey an opposite meaning. Rather we
should endeavour to reconcile with that general spirit and pervadin