VII. But it may be thought that whatever be
the source of the divine doctrine possessed by the
Church, the fact of its possession by the body of
Christ is at least a presumptive evidence of its
truth, and that if we could shew of any doctrine
or practice that it had prevailed in the Church
from the beginning, and wherever the true faith
of Christ was professed, we should be constrained
to yield our believing submission to such teaching,
and to receive such institutions, as of divine autho-
rity and universal obligation.
In propositions of this kind there is such a
mixture of truth and error, of assertion and
proof, of hypothesis and fact, that it is not easy
to unravel the web of sophistry which is thus
constructed, and this point will be matter of spe-
cial and separate investigation. We may however
admit to a certain extent at least, the soundness
of the celebrated dictum of Vincentius Lirinensis/
that, on the one hand, we should receive with
all deference those doctrines which the Universal
Church of all nations, and of all ages, had ever re-
ceived under the warrant of the revealed Word of
God ; and that -oh the other hand we should be un-
willing to receive any doctrine of which it could be
clearly shewn that there was a time prior to which
it had never been heard of in the Church, except

r " Quod semper et ubique et ab omnibus," &c.
