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As I cannot think that it detracts from a dial that in order to tell the time the sun must shine upon it; so neither does it detract from the Scriptures, that though the best and holiest they are yet Scripture, and require a pure heart and the consequent assistances of God's enlightening grace in order to understand them to edification.

1812.

I still agree with the preceding note, and add that Jeremy Taylor should have cited the Arians and Socinians on the other side. But the Romish Papal hierarchy cannot for shame say, or only from want of shame can pretend to say, what a Catholic would be entitled to urge on the triple link of the Scripture, the Spirit, and the Church.

27 April, 1826.

Ib. s. vi. p. 392.

From this principle, as it is promoted by the Fanatics, they derive a wandering, unsettled, and a dissolute religion, &c.

The evils of the Fanatic persuasion here so powerfully, so exquisitely, stated and enforced by our all-eloquent Bishop, supply no proof or even presumption against the tenet of the Spirit rightly expressed. For catholicity is the distinctive mark, the conditio sine qua non, of a spiritual teaching; and if men that dream with their eyes open mistake for this the very contrary, that is, their own particular fancies, or perhaps sensations, who can help it?

Ib. s. vii. p. 394.

They affirm that the Scriptures are full, that they are a perfect rule, that they contain all things necessary to salvation; and from hence they confuted all heresies.

Yes, the heretics were so confuted, I grant; because these would not acknowledge any other authority but that of the Scriptures, and these too forged or corrupted by themselves; but by the Scriptures that remained unaltered the early Fathers of the Church both demonstrated the omissions and interpolations of the heretical canons and the false doctrines of the heresy itself. But so far from following the same rule to the members of the true Church, they made the applicability of this way of proof the criterion of a heretic.

Ib. p. 394.

'Which truly they then preached, but afterwards by the will of God delivered to us in the Scriptures, which was to be the pillar and ground to our faith.'

Lessing has shown this to be a false and even ungrammatical rendering of Irenæus's words. The columen et fundamentum fidei, are the Creed, or economy of salvation.

Ib. vii. p. 395. Extracts from Clement's Stromata.

It would require a volume to shew the qualifications with which these excerpta must be read. There is no one source of error and endless controversy more fruitful than this custom of quoting detached sentences. I would pledge myself in the course of a single morning to bring an equal number of passages from the same (Ante-Nicene) Fathers in proof of the Roman Catholic theory. One palpable cheat in these transcripts is the neglect of appreciating the words, 'inspired,' a 'Spiritu dicta', and the like, in the Patristic use; as if the Fathers did not frequently apply the same terms to the discourses of the Bishops, their contemporaries, and to writings not canonical. It is wonderful how so acute and learned a man as Taylor could have read Tertullian, Irenæus and Clemens Alexandrinus, and not have seen that the passages are all against him so far as they all make the Scriptures subsidiary only to the Spirit in the Church and the Baptismal creed, the regula fidei, or æconomia salutis.

Ib. p. 396.

… that the tradition ecclesiastical, that is, the whole doctrine taught by the Church of God, and preached to all men, is in the Scripture.

It is only by the whole context and purpose of the work, and this too interpreted by the known doctrine of the age, that the intent of the sentences here quoted can be determined, relatively to the point in question. But even as they stand here, they do not assert that the Traditio Ecclesiastica was grounded on, or had been deduced from, the Scriptures; nor that by Scripture Clemens meant principally the New Testament; and that the Scriptures contain the Tradition Ecclesiastical or Catholic Faith the Romish divines admit and contend.

Ib. p. 399. Extract from Origen.

As our Saviour imposed silence upon the Sadducees by the word of his doctrine, and faithfully convinced that false opinion which they thought to be truth; so also shall the followers of Christ do, by the examples of Scripture, by which according to sound doctrine every voice of Pharaoh ought to be silent.

Does not this prove too much; namely, that nothing exists in the New which does not likewise exist in the Old Testament?

One objection to Jeremy Taylor's argument here must, I think, strike every reflecting mind; namely, that in order to a fair and full view of the sentiments of the Fathers of the first four centuries, all they declare of the Church, and her powers and prerogatives, ought to have been likewise given.

As soon as I receive any writing as inspired by the Spirit of Truth, of course I must believe it on its own authority. But how am I assured that it is an inspired work? Now do not these Fathers reply, By the Church? To the Church it belongs to declare what books are Holy Scriptures, and to interpret their right sense. Is not this the common doctrine among the Fathers? And how was the Church to judge?

First, by the same spirit surviving in her; and secondly by the accordance of the Book itself with the canon of faith, that is the Baptismal Creed. And what was this? Traditio Ecclesiastica. As to myself, I agree with Taylor against the Romanists, that the Bible is for us the only rule of faith; but I do not adopt his mode of proving it.

In the earliest period of Christianity the Scriptures of the New Testament and the Ecclesiastical Tradition were reciprocally tests of each other; but for the Christians of the second century the Scriptures were tried by the Ecclesiastical Tradition, while for us the order is reversed, and we must try the Ecclesiastical Tradition by the Scriptures. Therefore I do not expect to find the proofs of the supremacy of Scripture in the early Fathers, nor do we need their authority. Our proofs are stronger without it.

Ib. p. 403.

Which words I the rather remark, because this article of the consubstantiality of Christ with the Father is brought as an instance (by the Romanists) of the necessity of tradition, to make up the insufficiency of Scripture.

How shall I make this rhyme to Taylor's own assertion, in the last paragraph of sect. xix. of his Episcopacy Asserted,⁷⁵ in which he clearly refers to this very question as relying on tradition for its clearness? Jeremy Taylor was a true Father of the Church, and would furnish as fine a subject for a concordantia discordantiarum as St. Austin himself. For the exoteric and esoteric he was a very Pythagoras.

Ib. p. 406.

… for one or two of them say, Theophilus spake against Origen, for broaching fopperies of his own, and particularly, that Christ's flesh was consubstantial with the Godhead.

Origen doubtless meant the caro noumenon, and was quite right. But never was a great man so misunderstood as Origen.

Ib. p. 408. n.

Sed et alia, quoe absque auctoritate et testimoniis Scripturarum, quasi traditione Apostolica, sponte reperiunt atque contingunt, percutit gladius Dei.

"Those things which they make and find, as it were, by Apostolical tradition, without the authority and testimonies of Scripture, the word of God smites."

Is it clear that Scripturarum depends on auctoritate? It may well mean they who without the authority of the Church, or Scriptural testimony pretend to an Apostolical Tradition.

Ib. p. 411.

But lastly, if in the plain words of Scripture be contained all that is simply necessary to all, then it is clear, by Bellarmine's confession, that St. Austin affirmed that the plain places of Scripture are sufficient to all laics and all idiots, or private persons, and then it is very ill done to keep them from the knowledge and use of the Scriptures, which contain all their duty both of faith and good life; so it is very unnecessary to trouble them with any thing else, there being in the world no such treasure and repository of faith and manners, and that so plain, that it was intended for all men, and for all such men is sufficient. "Read the Holy Scriptures wherein you shall find some things to be holden, and some to be avoided."

And yet in the preface to his Apology for authorized and set forms of Liturgy,⁷⁶ Taylor regrets that the Church of England was not able to confine the laity to such selections of Holy Writ as are in her Liturgy. But Laud was then alive: and Taylor partook of his trepidatiunculæ towards the Church of Rome.

Ib. p. 412.

And all these are nothing else, but a full subscription to, and an excellent commentary upon, those words of St. Paul, Let no man pretend to be wise above what is written.

Had St. Paul anything beyond the Law and the Prophets in his mind?

Ib. p. 416.

St. Paul's way of teaching us to expound Scripture is, that he that prophesies should do it according to the analogy of faith.

Yet in his Liberty of Prophesying⁷⁷ Taylor turns this way into mere ridicule. I love thee, Jeremy! but an arrant theological barrister that thou wast, though thy only fees were thy desires of doing good in questionibus singulis.

Ib. s. iii. p. 419.

Only, because we are sure there was some false dealing in this matter, and we know there might be much more than we have discovered, we have no reason to rely upon any tradition for any part of our faith, any more than we could do upon Scripture, if one book or chapter of it should be detected to be imposture.

What says Jeremy Taylor then to the story of the woman taken in adultery, (John, c. viii. 3-11.) which Chrysostom disdains to comment on? If true, how could it be omitted in so many, and these the most authentic, copies? And if this for fear of scandal, why not others? And who does not know that falsehood may be effected as well by omissions as by interpolations? But if false, – then – but Taylor draws the consequence himself.

Ib. p. 427.

So that the tradition concerning the Scriptures being extrinsical to Scripture is also extrinsical to the question: this tradition cannot be an objection against the sufficiency of Scripture to salvation, but must go before this question. For no man inquires whether the Scriptures contain all things necessary to salvation, unless he believe that there are Scriptures, that these are they, and that they are the word of God. All this comes to us by tradition, that is, by universal undeniable testimony.

Very just, and yet this idle argument is the favourite, both shield and sword, of the Romanists: as if I should pretend to learn the Roman history from tradition, because by tradition I know such histories to have been written by Livy, Sallust, and Tacitus!

Ib. p. 435.

The more natural consequence is that their proposition is either mistaken or uncertain, or not an article of faith (which is rather to be hoped, lest we condemn all the Greek Churches as infidels or perverse heretics), or else that it can be derived from Scripture, which last is indeed the most probable, and pursuant to the doctrine of those wiser Latins who examined things by reason and not by prejudice.

It is remarkable that both Stillingfleet and Taylor favoured the Greek opinion. But Bull's Defensio Fidei Nicænæ was not yet published. It is to me evident that if the Holy Ghost does not proceed through and from the Son as well as from the Father, then the Son is not the adequate substantial idea of the Father. But according to St. Paul, he is – ergo, &c. N.B. These "ergos, &c." in legitimate syllogisms, where the major and minor have been conceded, are binding on all human beings, with the single anomaly of the Quakers. For with them nothing is more common than to admit both major and minor, and, when you add the inevitable consequence, to say "Nay! I do not think so, Friend! Thou art worldly wise, Friend!"

For example: major, it is agreed on both sides that we ought not to withhold from a man what he has a just right to: minor, property in land being the creature of law, a just right in respect of landed property is determined by the law of the land: – "agreed, such is the fact:" ergo: the clergyman has a just right to the tithe. "Nay, nay; this is vanity, and tithes an abomination of Judaism!"

Ib. s. v. p. 492.

And since that villain of a man, Pope Hildebrand, as Cardinal Beno relates in his Life, could, by shaking of his sleeve make sparks of fire fly from it.

If this was fact, was it an idiosyncrasy, as I have known those who by combing their hair can elicit sparks with a crackling as from a cat's back rubbed. It is very possible that the sleeve might be silk, tightened either on a very hairy arm, or else on woollen, and by shaking it might be meant stripping the silk suddenly off, which would doubtless produce flashes and sparks.

Vol. XI. s. x. p. 1.

As a general remark suggested indeed by this section, but applicable to very many parts of Taylor's controversial writings, both against the anti-Prelatic and the Romish divines, especially to those in which our incomparable Church-aspist attempts, not always successfully, to demonstrate the difference between the dogmas and discipline of the ancient Church, and those which the Romish doctors vindicate by them, – I would say once for all, that it was the fashion of the Arminian court divines of Taylor's age, that is, of the High Church party, headed by Archbishop Laud, to extol, and (in my humble judgment) egregiously to overrate, the example and authority of the first four, nay, of the first six centuries; and at all events to take for granted the Evangelical and Apostolical character of the Church to the death of Athanasius.

Now so far am I from conceding this, that before the first Council of Nicaea, I believe myself to find the seeds and seedlings of all the worst corruptions of the Latin Church of the thirteenth century, and not a few of these even before the close of the second.

One pernicious error of the primitive Church was the conversion of the ethical ideas, indispensable to the science of morals and religion, into fixed practical laws and rules for all Christians, in all stages of spiritual growth, and under all circumstances; and with this the degradation of free and individual acts into corporate Church obligations.

Another not less pernicious was the gradual concentration of the Church into a priesthood, and the consequent rendering of the reciprocal functions of love and redemption and counsel between Christian and Christian exclusively official, and between disparates, namely, the priest and the layman.

Ib. B. II. s. ii. p. 58.

Often have I welcomed, and often have I wrestled with, the thought of writing an essay on the day of judgment. Are the passages in St. Peter's Epistle respecting the circumstances of the last day and the final conflagration, and even St. Paul's, to be regarded as apocalyptic and a part of the revelation by Christ, or are they, like the dogma of a personal Satan, accommodations of the current popular creed which they continued to believe?

Ib. s. iii. p. 105.

And therefore St. Paul left an excellent precept to the Church to avoid profanas vocum novitates, 'the prophane newness of words;' that is, it is fit that the mysteries revealed in Scripture should be preached and taught in the words of the Scripture, and with that simplicity, openness, easiness, and candor, and not with new and unhallowed words, such as that of Transubstantiation.

Are not then Trinity, Tri-unity, hypostasis, perichoresis, diphysis, and others, excluded? Yet Waterland very ingeniously, nay more, very honestly and sensibly, shews the necessity of these terms per accidens. The profanum fell back on the heretics who had occasioned the necessity.

Ib. p. 106.

"The oblation of a cake was a figure of the Eucharistical bread which the Lord commanded to do in remembrance of his passion." These are Justin's words in that place.

Justin Martyr could have meant no more, and the Greek construction means no more, than that the cake we offer is the representative, substitute, and fac-simile of the bread which Christ broke and delivered.

I find no necessary absurdity in Transubstantiation. For substance is but a notion thought on to the aggregate of accidents – hinzugedacht – conceived, not perceived, and conceived always in universals, never in concreto.

Therefore, X. Y. Z. being unknown quantities, Y. may be as well annexed by the choice of the mind as the imagined substratum as X. For we cannot distinguish substance from substance any more than X. from X.

The substrate or causa invisibilis may be the noumenon or actuality, das Ding in sich, of Christ's humanity, as well as the Ding in sich of which the sensation, bread, is the appearance.

But then, on the other hand, there is not a word of sense possible to prove that it is really so; and from the not impossible to the real is a strange ultra-Rhodian leap.

And it is opposite both to the simplicity of Evangelical meaning, and anomalous from the interpretation of all analogous phrases which all men expound as figures, – I am the gate, I am the way, I am the vine, and the like, – and to Christ's own declarations that his words were to be understood spiritually, that is, figuratively.

Ib. s. vi. p. 164.

However, if you will not commit downright idolatry, as some of their saints teach you, then you must be careful to observe these plain distinctions; and first be sure to remember that when you worship an image, you do it not materially but formally; not as it is of such a substance, but as it is a sign; next take care that you observe what sort of image it is, and then proportion your right kind to it, that you do not give latria to that where hyperdulia is only due; and be careful that if dulia only be due, that your worship be not hyperdulical, &c.

A masterly specimen of grave dignified irony. Indeed, Jeremy Taylor's Works would be of more service to an English barrister than those of Demosthenes, Æschines, and Cicero taken together.

Ib. s. vii. p. 168.

A man cannot well understand an essence, and hath no idea of it in his mind, much less can a painter's pencil do it.

Noticeable, that this is the only instance I have met in any English classic before the Revolution of the word 'idea' used as synonymous with a mental image. Taylor himself has repeatedly placed the two in opposition; and even here I doubt whether he has done otherwise. I rather think he meant by the word 'idea' a notion under an indefinite and confused form, such as Kant calls a schemaor vague outline, an imperfect embryo of a concrete, to the individuation of which the mind gives no conscious attention; just as when I say – "any thing," I may imagine a poker or a plate; but I pay no attention to its being this rather than that; and the very image itself is so wandering and unstable that at this moment it may be a dim shadow of the one, and in the next of some other thing. In this sense, idea is opposed to image in degree instead of kind; yet still contra-distinguished, as is evident by the sequel, "much less can a painter's pencil do it:" for were it an image, individui et concreti, then the painter's pencil could do it as well as his fancy or better.

A Discourse of Confirmation

Of all Taylor's works, the Discourse of Confirmation seems to me the least judicious; and yet that is not the right word either. I mean, however, that one is puzzled to know for what class of readers or auditors it was intended.

He announces his subject as one of such lofty claims; he begins with positions taken on such high ground, no less than the superior dignity and spiritual importance of Confirmation above Baptism itself – whether considered as a sacramental rite and mystery distinct from Baptism, or as its completory and crowning part (the finis coronans opus) – that we are eager to hear the proof.

But proofs differ in their value according to our previous valuation of authorities. What would pass for a very sufficient proof, because grounded on a reverend authority, with a Romanist, would be a mere fancy-medal and of no currency with a Bible Protestant.

And yet for Protestants, and those too laymen (for we can hardly suppose that Taylor thought his Episcopal brethren in need of it), must this Discourse have been intended; and in this point of view, surely never did so wise a man adopt means so unsuitable to his end, or frame a discourse so inappropriate to his audience.

The authorities of the Fathers are, indeed, as strong and decisive in favour of the Bishop's position as the warmest advocate of Confirmation could wish; but this very circumstance was calculated to create a prejudice against the doctrine in the mind of a zealous Protestant, from the contrast in which the unequivocal and explicit declarations of the Fathers stand with the remote, arbitrary, and fine-drawn inferences from the few passages of the New Testament which can be forced into an implied sanction of a rite no where mentioned, and as a distinct and separate ministration, utterly, as I conceive, unknown in the Apostolic age.

How much more rational and convincing (as to me it seems) would it have been to have shewn, that when from various causes the practice of Infant Baptism became general in the Church, Confirmation or the acknowledgment in propria persona of the obligations that had been incurred by proxy was introduced; and needed no other justification than its own evident necessity, as substantiating the preceding form as to the intended effects of Baptism on the believer himself, and then to have shewn the great uses and spiritual benefits of the institution.

But this would not do. Such was the spirit of the age that nothing less than the assertion of a divine origin, – of a formal and positive institution by Christ himself, or by the Apostles in their Apostolic capacity as legislators for the universal Church in all ages, could serve; and accordingly Bishops, liturgies, tithes, monarchy, and what not, were, de jure divino, with celestial patents, wrapped up in the womb of this or that text of Scripture to be exforcipated by the logico-obstetric skill of High Church doctors and ultra-loyal court chaplains.

The Epistle Dedicatory To The Duke Of Ormonde.

Ib. p. ccxvii.

This very poor church.

With the exception of Spain, the Church establishment in Ireland is now, I conceive, the richest in Europe; though by the most iniquitous measure of the Irish Parliament, most iniquitously permitted to acquire the force of law at the Union, the Irish Church was robbed of the tithes from all pasture lands. What occasioned so great a change in its favour since the time of Charles II?

1810.

Ib. p. ccxviii.

And amidst these and very many more inconveniences it was greatly necessary that God should send us such a king.

Such a king! O sorrow and shame! Why, why, O Genius! didst thou suffer thy darling son to crush the fairest flower of thy garland beneath a mitre of Charles's putting on!

Ib. p. ccxix.

For besides that the great usefulness of this ministry will greatly endear the Episcopal order, to which (that I may use St. Hierom's words) "if there be not attributed a more than common power and authority, there will be as many schisms as priests," &c.

On this ground the Romish divines justify the Papacy. The fact of the Scottish Church is the sufficient answer to both. Episcopacy needs not rash assertions for its support.

Ib. p. ccxx.

For it is a sure rule in our religion, and is of an eternal truth, that "they who keep not the unity of the Church, have not the Spirit of God."

Contrast with this our xixth and xxth Articles on the Church. The Irish Roman Catholic Bishops, methinks, must have read this with delight. What an over hasty simpleton that James II was! Had he waited and caressed the Bishops, they would have taken the work off his hands.

Ib. p. 229. Introduction.

It has been my conviction that in respect of the theory of the Faith, (though God be praised! not in the practical result,) the Papal and the Protestant communions are equi-distant from the true idea of the Gospel Institute, though erring from opposite directions.

The Romanists sacrifice the Scripture to the Church virtually annulling the former: the Protestants reversed this practically, and even in theory, (see the above-mentioned Articles,) annulling the latter.

The consequence has been, as might have been predicted, the extinction of the Spirit (the indifference or mesothesis) in both considered as bodies: for I doubt not that numerous individuals in both Churches live in communion with the Spirit.

Towards the close of the reign of our first James, and during the period from the accession of Charles I to the restoration of his profligate son, there arose a party of divines, Arminians (and many of them Latitudinarians) in their creed, but devotees of the throne and the altar, soaring High Churchmen and ultra royalists.

Much as I dislike their scheme of doctrine and detest their principles of government both in Church and State, I cannot but allow that they formed a galaxy of learning and talent, and that among them the Church of England finds her stars of the first magnitude.

Instead of regarding the Reformation established under Edward VI as imperfect, they accused the Reformers, some of them openly, but all in their private opinions, of having gone too far; and while they were willing to keep down (and if they could not reduce him to a primacy of honor to keep out) the Pope, and to prune away the innovations in doctrine brought in under the Papal domination, they were zealous to restore the hierarchy, and to substitute the authority of the Fathers, Canonists and Councils of the first six or seven centuries, and the least Papistic of the later Doctors and Schoolmen, for the names of Luther, Melancthon, Bucer, Calvin and the systematic theologians who rejected all testimony but that of their Bible.

As far as the principle, on which Archbishop Laud and his followers acted, went to re-actuate the idea of the Church, as a co-ordinate and living Power by right of Christ's institution and express promise, I go along with them; but I soon discover that by the Church they meant the Clergy, the hierarchy exclusively, and then I fly off from them in a tangent.

For it is this very interpretation of the Church that, according to my conviction, constituted the first and fundamental apostasy; and I hold it for one of the greatest mistakes of our polemic divines in their controversies with the Romanists, that they trace all the corruptions of the Gospel faith to the Papacy.

Meantime can we be surprised that our forefathers under the Stuarts were alarmed, and imagined that the Bishops and court preachers were marching in quick time with their faces towards Rome, when, to take one instance of a thousand, a great and famous divine, like Bishop Taylor, asserts the inferiority, in rank and efficacy, of Baptism to Confirmation, and grounds this assertion so strange to all Scriptural Protestants on a text of Cabasilas – a saying of Rupertus – a phrase of St. Denis – and a sentence of Saint Bernard in a Life of Saint Malachias! – for no Benedictine can be more liberal in his attribution of saintship than Jeremy Taylor, or more reverently observant of the beatifications and canonizations of the Old Lady of the scarlet petticoat.

P. S. If the reader need other illustrations, I refer him to Bishop Hackett's Sermons on the Advent and Nativity, which might almost pass for the orations of a Franciscan brother, whose reading had been confined to the Aurea Legenda. It would be uncandid not to add that this indiscreet traffickery with Romish wares was in part owing to the immense reading of these divines.

Ib. s. i. p. 247. Acts viii. 14-17.

This is an argument indeed, and one that of itself would suffice to decide the question, if only it could be proved, or even made probable, that by the Holy Ghost in this place was meant that receiving of the Spirit to which Confirmation is by our Church declared to be the means and vehicle.

But this I suspect cannot be done. The whole passage to which sundry chapters in St. Paul's Epistles seem to supply the comment, inclines and almost compels me to understand by the Holy Ghost in this narrative the miraculous gifts, collectively.

And in no other sense can I understand the sentence the Holy Ghost was not yet fallen upon any of them. But the subject is beset with difficulties from the paucity of particular instances recorded by the inspired historian, and from the multitude and character of these instances found in the Fathers and Ecclesiastical historians.

Ib. s. ii. p. 254.

Still they are all exhibitable powers, faculties. Were it otherwise what strange and fearful consequences would follow from the assertion, the Holy Spirit was not yet fallen upon any of them.

That we misunderstand the gift of tongues, and that it did not mean the power of speaking foreign languages unlearnt, I am strongly persuaded.

Yea, but this is not the question. If my heart, bears me witness that I love my brother, that I love my merciful Saviour, and call Jesus Lord and the Anointed of God with joy of heart, I am encouraged by Scripture to infer that the Spirit abideth in me; besides that I know that of myself, and estranged from the Holy Spirit, I cannot even think a thought acceptable before God.

But how will this help me to believe that I received this Spirit through the Bishop's hands laid on my head at Confirmation: when perhaps I am distinctly conscious, that I loved my Saviour, freely forgave, nay, tenderly yearned for the weal of, them that hated me before my Confirmation, – when, indeed, I must have been the most uncharitable of men if I did not admit instances of the most exemplary faith, charity, and devotion in Christians who do not practise the imposition of hands in their Churches. What! did those Christians, of whom St. Luke speaks, not love their brethren?

In fine.

I have had too frequent experience of professional divines, and how they identify themselves with the theological scheme to which they have been articled, and I understand too well the nature and the power, the effect and the consequences, of a wilful faith, – where the sensation of positiveness is substituted for the sense of certainty, and the stubborn clutch for quiet insight, – to wonder at any degree of hardihood in matters of belief.