G. D. My Noblest Lord and most honoured Friend MY unsteady abode in the town and frequent suddain excursions out of it of late have cast me so far behinde-hand with your Lordship not onely for what civility requireth of me but for what duty bindeth me unto as I was grown to a belief that I could make no other amends for my long silence but by coming on purpose to Sherburn to you to excuse it And therefore out of an ill bashfulness I forbore acknowledging my fault by Letter referring that till I was in state to repair it by mine own personal attendance But that being not likely to fall out so soon I being to go to morrow to my Mothers and thence to my own house for some weekes and I having lately received a picture from my Lord Russel with command to send it as soon as I could to your Lordship I durst not make that a prisoner till I got liberty my selfe to wait upon you By which means I am engaged without being able to defer it any longer to give you humble thanks for your letter of the second of November and to crave your pardon that I came thus late to doe it So sudden and distracted an houre as I have now to write in would deterre me from offering at any return to so obliging and judicious a Letter till I had a greater freedom both of time and thoughts But I can never be taken unprovided for the first part my sincere affection to your Lordship and sence of your favours ever outweighing any other humane object that may busie my mind for the second of answering your judicious objections I shall confide more for the solution of them in your owne calme and impartiall reflections upon them then in ought I shall be able to reply Therefore had I never so much time I would for this intent imploy it onely in reducing the matters into your remembrance and intreating you to commit the appearances on both sides fairly one against another into the balances and let your owne Reason hold the Scale which I must acknowledge with excesse of joy to be the strongest and most sincere that I know in any man I should begin the performance of this task with complaining to your Lordship in the Fathers behalfe and representing their grievances to your Lordship that you are so rigorous to them as to exclude them from being witnesses in matters of Religion Their humility as well of understanding as of manners will not let them be troubled when they are recused as Judges They never pronounce any thing out of their own breasts unto which they will confine other mens assents But when they tell you plainly what they were taught and what they sinde believed and practised generally throughout the whole Church have they not reason to take it unkindly to be rejected If you will examine their veracity by al those circumstances that are usually considered in taking mens depositions you will find them strong on their side They were right honest men not onely believed but known to be such by all the world They are acknowledged on all hands to be so judicious as would more blemish ones owne judgement then theirs but to cal it in question What they wrote of are matters belonging to their own Art and Trade in which surely they would have great care and attention not to mistake since their own and their posterities eternall salvation depended on it Since then there is will and ability to inform us of truth why should we suspect them What can appeare stronger to us in opposition of what they deliver as witnesses to make us doubt their evidence and consequently to brand them with the imputation of falshood and ignorance flattering our selves that new and clearer lights shine to us and that we know more then they Their private opinions for the establishing of which your Lordship saith you discover too prone a Bias in most of their evidence doe not interest our beliefs in such poynts we are as free as they Nor can I believe so ill of any of them as to make those to passe for currant they would stamp upon them the seale of being taught from hand to hand and of tradition from Christ and his Apostles and of the generall and uncontrouled beliefe and practise of the Church or if they did certainly their numerous adversaries would not have let such foul play scape their note It is true they were ever as your Lordship observes earnest and severe against them who were such as if they had been mild against their Heresies they would never have gained the name of Fathers and Pillars of the Church nor have been reverenced as Saints by succeeding Ages The faction and sectary-passion that your Lordship remarketh even neer the springs of verity belongeth onely to their adversaries their warmth is just and due zeale And for those three Fathers of whom your Lordship sayes that we as well as you may allow them an Expurgator I professe my slender reading never met to my best remembrance with any doctrine of faith in them that I doe not entirely assent unto In the next place my Lord I must cleare what I mean by the infallible Authority from whence the Fathers derived what they were taught which I distinguished against what of themselves they teach Of this later sort are the reflections that they make upon the Scriptures when in their Comments or Sermons they deliver to us what occurred to them in the interpretation of the Texts of it And when they are but barely such I conceive they are to have no more weight with those that have ability to examine them then the reasons wherewith they are accompanied do give them But the other points of Doctrine I take to have been taught by Christ to his Apostles and by them preached through the world and then again delivered to the ensuing age by them that had these points inculcated into their hearts by the Apostles and in this manner with care and every where handed over from age to age which upon particular occasions the Fathers used to sum up and produce against Innovators that would make breaches upon the ancient and generally received Faith of the Church Doctrines thus delivered I conceive to be derived from infallible Authority as well as the Scriptures and withall that it is so safely conveyed to us as we are as deeply obliged to beleeve it as what the Scriptures teach us and in governing the tenor of our Faith to give them much the precedency Because by such Tradition we are fully plainly and practically taught how to understand it and the business and errand of it is to deliver it so unto us whereas the causes of writing the particular Books of Scripture were for other particular ends and not to give us a compleat body of Faith And those Articles of it that they do deliver us are not so plainly expressed that every body can understand them So that if
Faith that you doe not most intirely assent unto For my part I doe not know what you understand by an Article of Faith but I am sure I have cited out of St. Austin of the necessity of Childrens partaking of the Eucharist an Article in this discourse which 't is evident he held as an Article both of necessary faith and practice wherein I believe you will refuse to joyne with him As for Epiphanius his over-sights I referre you onely to the Jesuit Petavius and for Eusebius to Cardinall Perron who casts upon him a trifling aspersion but of Arrianism or if his authority suffice not let Jerome Ep. 65. ad Pamach Oc. be heard who gives him this good testimony Impietatis Arrii apertissimus propugnator est Now to your third and last ground That the traditions of the Church are infallible I say that in part we agree in this point for I am perswaded that no man in his right wits will ever deny the firmest assent he hath about him to traditions of the nature which you Character doctrines taught by Christ to his Apostles and by them preached through the world and then again delivered to the ensuing ages by them that had these points inculcated in their hearts by the Apostles in this manner with care and every where handed over from age to age which upon particular occasions the Fathers used to summe up and produce against innovators that would make breaches upon the ancient and generally received faith of the Church-Traditions of this nature Doctrines thus delivered I say we agree to be derived from infallible Authority as well as the Scriptures and it is indifferent unto me whether I receive the waters of life from the Springs themselves from the originall cisternes and conserves into which they did immediarly flow or else conveyed through Aquiducts at sixteen hundred yeares distance so I be certain of the stanchnesse and purity of the pipes That such traditions and so exactly conveyed there are in the Church and to which is due as to the Scripture from every prudent man how ever a Sophister may cavill the strongest assent of his soule we likewise both agree such are those fore-named grand fundamentals of Christianity we agree further that by tradition we are as you say plainly fully and practifically taught how to understand Scripture I mean in those Fundamentals And much more must I agree with you that the businesse and errand of tradition is to deliver it so unto us since for my part I hold that those dignifying circumstances by which tradition may rightly pretend to be infallible belong onely to such doctrines as are either plainly or by necessary consequences deducibly coucht in Scripture in regard of which deductions we agree further that it cannot be denied but that it is as you say an easier and better rule to guide our understandings in the affairs of religion to use the help of such traditions then to resort for that end unto Scriptures alone as to read a book wherein there are difficulties with a judicious comment is likely to be more profitable then onely to peruse the single Text. And this last I assent unto without admitting of the supposition upon which you inferre it to wit that there can by tradition be had a compleat knowledge of all that Christ taught All this we are of accord in but what can you infer from hence to the advantage of the Romish cause since I peremptorily deny that there is such a qualified tradition really belonging to any Tenent of the Church of Rome disapproved by us or that seale with those quarterings and dignifyings wherewith you blazon it set by any of the primitive Fathers which yet were no sufficient warrant to any doctrine that doth so much as border upon our disputes since then I am sure you directed that part of your Letter to the same purpose that the rest I must answer what I conceive it tends to as well as what directly your words beare And as I have profest wherein we agree so now I must set down in what and why we differ concerning these particulars of Tradition and Scripture There are two principall poynts wherein I dissent from you First that in the generall you conceive all Traditions of the Church whatsoever infallible Secondly that you hold the Scripture to be no compleat body of Faith and therefore that we are to give tradition much the preheminency in governing the tenour of ours For the first namely that all the traditions of the Church are infallible I could by one demand of which is that Church whose traditions are infallible either bring you to our confession that the true Church is to be known meerly by its conformity to Scripture in belief and practice or else into a circle whilst you are forc'd to prove the truth and infallibility of the Church by her constant reception of those true and infallible traditions whose truth and infallibility you are at the same time proving by the Churches constant receiving them But I passe it by because I would not seeme to argue in any wise captiously and also for that Mr. Chillingworth hath already excellently laid open all the intricasies of this labyrinth And therefore taking the present Romish Church for that you mean I proceed to answer your Arguments wherby in your Letter to the Vicountesse of P. to which you referre me you endeavour to prove all doctrines of the Church received or delivered by way of tradition infallible the chiefe that I finde are in the 12 and 13. conclusions as you call them of that treatise where first for proof of your assertions that no false doctrine of Faith whatsoever can be admitted or creep into the Catholick Church you say that whatsoever the present Church beleeveth as a proposition of faith is upon this ground that Christ taught it as such unto the Church he planted himself a special good ground and that will soon end all controversies in this matter if the ground appear to be well grounded and that the Church of Rome which you suppose the present Catholick do never admit any doctrine of Faith but upon that ground But first the ground can never be made good that whatsoever of Faith the Church of Rome teacheth was ab initio so taught by Christ himself And secondly I beleeve that the Church of Rome her self doth not alwayes in all that she teaches for a tradition of Faith suppose that Christ himself did teach the same for this latter part I am better perswaded of the modesty of the Church of Rome then to think that she will so much as pretend it for all her doctrines as for example that of communicating onely in the bread is a tradition for you will not I suppose vouch Scripture for it unless you mean to apply to it Christ's prayer that the Cup might be removed it is a tradition of Faith yea and I think I may say of necessary faith for unless the Communicants
LETTERS BETWEEN The L d GEORGE DIGBY AND Sr KENELM DIGBY kt CONCERNING Religion London Printed for Humphrey Moseley and are to be sold at his Shop at the sign of the Prince's Arms in St Pauls Church-yard 1651. To the Reader IT is no EXCUSE though too often it is made one to tell Thee these LETTERS are now made publick to prevent false Copies for really if you have not these you will be abus'd with others so imperfect and mangled that we may justly pronounce them to be none of the Authors own In Matters of Religion there ought to be greatest care to publish nothing but what is genuine which here without more words thou wilt soon find is faithfully offered thee Farewell LETTERS BETWEEN The L d GEORGE DIGBY AND Sr KENELM DIGBY kt CONCERNING RELIGION My noblest Cousin and dearest friend I Ever thought my self a Rich man in the many testimonies of your favour being perswaded that the authority of your esteeming me may work more upon the World to my advantage then many personall defects of mine own to my prejudice Among my best titles to valuation with Worthy men I treasure up your last Letter expecting to receive thereby as much Credit hereafter as I doe now obligation when those that finde it knowing your eminence and only my name shall happily misconceive my praises there to have bin of your judgement which I must refer meerly to your love and civility Persist I beseech you in the former of these and restrain your self in the excess of the latter permitting and owning me to be your friend without making me mine own flatterer of which I can never come in danger but by your Commendations I think my self as happy to bear the name of your friend and promise to my self as much eternitie by the relation as he who ingraved Sir Philip Sydnie's friendship on his Monument But I must tell you I aspire yet to a farr greater felicity that is to be made worthy of so brave an appellation to which you can best contribute if you please to impart freely to me your own rare abilities and my weaknesses rather then to darken these unto me in exercising but the slightest part that you excell in Courtliness To take you off from this and to engage you in the other give me leave to lay hold on that part of your Letter which concerns my Studies Wherein as your example and advice have ever been my prime directory in the way of them so in the severall judgements of what I read yours must be ever with me of singular Authority Yet in the particular concerning the Fathers I must confess as I came unto them perhaps with different preparations so I have likewise perused many of them with reflections upon their usefulness far differing from those you specifie I am so farr from receiving them as Judges that in many cases I cannot admit them as witnesses Authentick enough whereon to pass a Verdict in Religion I discover methinks too prone a byas in most of their evidence either to the establishing of their own private opinions or to the destruction of their adversaries And this even in the most Primitive of them faction it seems and a kinde of Sectary passion having had as strong though not so various a Current even neer to the very springs of verity as afterward in the remoter Channels as you can much better instance if you please then I out of Eusebius Epiphanius and St Augustin who themselves also as they seem to adhere to the Catholick Church and as the Roman glories in them may well be by both sides allowed an Expurgator For that which you say Secondly that you rely more upon the Fathers for what they tell us they were taught then upon what they teach I profess I should do so too could I be but half so well assured of the first part of your reason namely that the former was derived from an infallible Authority as I am of the other that their own reasons were liable to Error But to tell you true as I can yet finde no reason to make me acknowledge that there is any infallible Authority but only the Scriptures which I conceive is not that you mean so do I finde as little that the Fathers especially those before the first Nicene Councell were perswaded of any such And grant they were I can least of all discern which of the various doctrins they deliver were rightly delivered to them from that unerring authority Since it is apparent methinks that they do teach many uncertainties and errors as Dogmatically and with as solemn confirmations as they do the most authentique truths Hardly shal you find Scripture alledged more frankly by them or the Church tradition proclaimed more lowdly in any point of Faith then by Justin and Tertullian in the rigid censure of the use of Images and in the same Tertullian in affirming Christs descent to free the Patriarks and in these two and divers others the gross assertion of the Angels copulation with women and lastly then in all the Millenaries most confident authorizing of their Judaick doctrine These are perhaps of the slighter instances such as flow easiest into a Letter from a bad memory and yet I pray you resolve me which of them I shall let pass as derived from infallibilitie whether that which our Church approves and the Roman condemns as the first or that which the Roman agrees to and we disallow as the second or the second last which both sides reject I profess I am as yet to distinguish which of them these Fathers meant we should swallow as delivered to them and which chew and consider as onely delivered by them These and many more irreconcileable passages in them have rendred me much alike affected both to what you say they tell us they were taught and to what they teach that is to have my reason as much as I can cleared and enlightened by both but to suffer it to be hoodwinkt and lead implicitly by neither I reverence those holy Fathers as divine establishers of Faith in things where they all concur and where not as happy aides of the understanding and as it were sacred bellowes of the soul whether to make it glow unto contrition and fervor of zeal or to subtilize and exalt it into flames of contemplation It is now high time for me to beg your pardon for having licensed my self so much to your trouble It is an inconvenience drawn upon you by your excess of favour and obligingness that have incouraged me freely to express to your self my ill-digested opinions wherein toward any other I should have been restrained by shame and the consciousness of mine own incapacities but from you I ever promise my self rectifying where from another I might look for contempt All your just censures I am sure will be sweetened instantly by this one consideration that this pennance hath been laid upon you by Noblest Cousin Your faithfull Servant SHERBURN Novemb. 2. 1638.
it be once admitted that by such tradition there can be had in all ages a compleat and true knowledg of what Christ taught it cannot be denied but that it is an easier and better rule to guide our understanding in the affairs of Religion then to resort for that end to the Scripture alone And that such tradition is infallible I have endeavoured to prove in another discourse which your Lordship hath so that I will not trouble you here with any repetitions upon that Subject Now when I wrote to your Lordship my opinion of the use to be made of reading the Fathers relying upon them more for what they were taught then for what they teach it was as taking them for faithful Collectors of the tradition that they found general through the Church in their times and sincere conveyers of them to us And this course you shall finde even among the ancientest of them When St. Austin will establish the doctrine of praying for the dead he telleth that it hath been the practise of the whole Church from the Apostles time The like he doth against the Pelagians and upon several other occasions and directeth us to enquire what faith is professed in the Churches established by the Apostles from whom he reckoneth on the uninterrupted succession of Pastors unto his time And by them he deriveth the present Doctrine from the first preachers who had it immediately from Christ Tertullian when he prescribeth against Heresie giveth you a Catalogue of the Bishops of several Churches from the several Apostles that planted them and with the successions of the persons urgeth the succession in those Churches of the Doctrine he seeketh to establish Irenaeus doth the like and generally all of them which they do not onely when they use those formal positive words that the whole Church hath received from the Apostles and holdeth generally such and such a Doctrine but at other times also when they do but intimate it in their discourses which intimation is such as is easily perceptible to whosoever of judgement shall read them impartially Therefore to summon up as short and as plainly as I can the use as I conceive is to be made of reading the Fathers I say that letting pass what they writ as Commentors upon the Scriptures and as Phliosophers and all which is but as Divines and Schollers we are generally to take hold of what they deliver us as Pastors of the Church which appeareth chiefly by what they writ against those they brand with Heresie which they could not do were not those points which they censure against the known and general tradition of the Church And next when they deliver us dogmatically and professedly any doctrine in such sort as we may reasonably conceive they intended we should take it as matter of faith not giving it as conceptions of their own which they bring onely learned arguments on texts of Scripture to maintain In all which a free good judgement will easily discern by reading them which way to incline which I knowing your Lordship to be do beseech you to apply it a little industriously to collect throughout their sense and by what they say to frame a model of the Government Beleif and practise of the Church wherein they lived and then tell me whether it be like yours or ours It is worth the while Criticks labour to get some knowledge of the manners and customes of Ages long since past by little fragments of antiquity that have hardly scaped into their hands And Lawyers get a knowledge of the Government and frame of the State in Kings raigns long agoe by broken and disjoynted Records that they meet with scattered in several Files And these maimed evidences by chance fallen into their Hands do serve to beget a fairer body of knowledge when they know how to make a right use of them and such as will convince an indifferent and equal hearer much more certainly the Fathers works that handle professedly and at large the affairs of the Church and Religion and whereof we have such plenty will fairly inform a rational and discoursing man of the true state of them in their times and what they conceived and had been taught imported Heaven or Hell in mans belief and practise which I am sure your Lordship will allow to carry a great stroke in ours and from which it is madness if not impiety to depart upon less grounds then a demonstration to convince the contrary Though I have already too much trespassed upon your Lordships patience by my tedious Letter yet I may not conclude it till I have said a word or two to the foure instances your Lordship giveth toward the latter end of yours First for the use of Images I doe not conceive it to be a precept given by Christ but since introduced by the Governors of the Church as a thing convenient to raise devotion in the people Now things of that nature may be convenient at one time and unfit at another When I dolatry was fresh in the memory and practise of the world it was dangerous to admit it therefore in the primitive times Justin and Tertullian might have reason to cry it down But because there was no precept of Christ in that behalfe conserved in the Church you see they urge not the authority of Tradition of the Church to beat down their use but arguments of their own and Texts of Scripture produced by them whereas now in times secured from that danger and a great good appearing in them they being as a Father said the bookes of unlettered persons to beget knowledge and stirre up devotion in them as strong arguments and as pregnant Texts of Scripture are produced for their use and to justifie the Governours of the Church in recommending them to the people Your second instance is of Tertullians affirming Christs descent to free the Patriarkes which I conceive not onely he but all the Fathers that ever spake of that particular deliver it in a matter of faith and so it hath been ever held by the Church which word of Descent I take it is to be understood as we all doe the Article of the Creed He descended into Hell that is by his power and operation at least by which he confounded the damned comforted the soules in Purgatory and brought to the sight of God those in Abrahams bosome that is a place of rest where yet they enjoyed not the beatificall vision For to give other motion and place to a soule is a question in Philosophy and concernes not faith and such was the assertion of the Angels copulation with women for many or rather most of the Fathers were of opinion that they were not pure Spirits but had very subtile immortall bodies the contrary of which was never yet delivered as matter of faith howbeit by force of Argument now the corporiety of Angels is exploded out of the Schools and thus supposing that opinion the way is obvious enough in commenting
some Texts of Scripture to fall into that error which so becommeth an error in Philosophy and in no wise concerning faith And that other of the Millenaries which is the last your Lordship urgeth appeareth plainly to have growne among some of the Fathers with whom the authority of Papias weighed much by literally interpreting a Text of the Apocalyps but never any of them urged the generally received opinion of the Church nor publick Tradition from Christ and the Apostles And besides the Church has never yet to this day condemned as an heresie that part of the Millenaries beliefe which some of the Fathers held which is of the Saints reigning with Christ a thousand yeares upon earth after their resurrection and enjoying onely spirituall delights but only other foule enormities which went under the name of the Millenaries heresies Now by what I have said to those instances in particular and bringing that spirit that I said before was required to the reading of the Fathers I conceive it will be no hard matter to determine which of them as your Lordship sayes we are to swallow as delivered to them and which to chaw and consider as onely delivered by them One thing more I shall adde in generall which is That a large and great soule like yours expresseth it selfe more to its advantage in weighing in the powerfull scale of reason that it hath the main bulk of what it is to judge of rather than to dwell with too scrupulous a diligence upon little quillets and niceties which admit arguments on both sides and in the mean time let slide away unnoted that great deale which is uncontroulable and plaine as though one were but to declame in Schoole to exercise ones wit and therefore he maketh choyce of some ingenious Paradox against a known and received truth and to impugne it can bring but against the skirts of it arguments or rather cavils of wit without being able to grapple with the main body of it and seeks rather to puzzle and embroyle his adversary then weightily to establish the solid truth This is a subject that is deeply to be considered for use the importantest that we can have not argued upon for ostentation and that a wise man ought to seek a settlement in and not aim at the applause of being sharp-sighted by reducing all things to uncertainty Therefore good my Lord apply that great understanding you are so excellently endowed withall to build as well as to pull down and read not the Fathers with a fore-laid designe to enerve their authority but with an indifferency to yeeld your assent to what upon the whole matter you shall judge reasonable for you so to doe And since I know that your judgement must in all things that are controverted before it of this nature tend to a settlement one way or other for only sciolous wits float onely in uncertainty as delighting to make objections and raise a dust which afterward their weak eyes cannot looke through let me recommend to you not onely to examine whether the opinion you meet with in your reading repugnant to what you were formerly imbued with be concludingly demonstrated or no but likewise examine as strictly the reason you have for your own and where the scale weighes heaviest give your assent For since of contradictory propositions one must necessarily be true and the other false a man proceedeth upon safe grounds if he take for a firm truth what is opposite to an assertion that betrayes its own weaknesse whereas if you look onely upon the true you may happily at the instant not finde a full resolution to every objection that may be raised against it which proceedeth not from the weaknesse of the thing but from ours that cannot at the first sight look into the bottome of it You see my Lord how confident I am with you to tell you what upon the present in such shortness and distraction of time occurreth to me upon this subject which your goodnesse hath invited me unto and I begge the continuance of it first in pardoning me and next in imparting to me your reflections upon them which I professe sincerely I value beyond any mans and most of all in loving me as you have ever done which is the happiest condition that can give a blessing unto London Decem. 29. 1638. My Lord your Lordships most humble and most faithfull servant K. D. My deare Lord WHen I wrot my Letter I intended to review and copy it but it held me much longer time then I designed to it It should not have been with my dull head and hand an after-suppers work and after comming home from vain entertainment with some impertinent she-wits that most tyrannically had seized upon me They had tun'd my brains to so crosse a Key as afterward all serious Images came so lamely into my fancy as I may be ashamed to send you this rough draught of them and so slowly halting as I was in good faith three houres about those blotted and interlined sheets For it was an houre past midnight afore I had done which was not one to enter upon so tedious a task as to lick this abortive and mishapen Embrion into form And now this morning my company calls upon me to be gone so that I am in a strait to appeare before your Lordship either extreamly negligent if I deferre till my return to towne the answering of your Letter and the sending my Lord Russels Picture or extreamly indiscreet if I send you so rude and indigested reflections upon your so judicious and strong discourse wherein the instances though your Lordship be pleased to call them slight ones and such as flow easiest into a Letter from a bad memorie yet you must give me leave to believe them the strongest and sharpest that can be urged upon this subject and the flower and Quintessence of what Mr. Chillingworth and the best wits have produced against the tradition of the Church and the authority of the Fathers But I will choose rather to fall into your hands for the latter then under your censure for the first and so asking you a thousand pardons I send you this by which all I can hope is that you will at least discern in me a great willingnes to come out of your debt in this kinde for all other I know impossible though I am but a flow and imperfect paymaster and that you will in some measure guess at what I would say if I had time to digest and range it as it should be I shall here only by way of supplement adde this more concerning the Millenaries because I would not render my Letters more illegible by new interlining it that as I remember Justin Martyr himself saith it is an opinion not generally beleeved in the Church but that many of the Orthodox reject it howbeit he professeth to hold it for true and accordingly endeavoureth to prove it by authority of Scripture all which manifestly declareth that it was no
and consequently the insufficiency of your rule of faith tradition hath been made appeare it will be fit to vindicate the sufficiency of that rule which we relie upon In which work the first hinderance that I meet with is this objection of yours That the particular books of Scripture were written for other particular ends and not to give us a compleat body of faith To which I answer that if by particular books of Scripture you understand each book a part severed from its relation to the whole I then agree with you that every particular book was no more intended for a compleat body of Faith then every particular Chapter for a compleat body of the book or then a Window or a Door to be a compleat body of a House but as the one was designed to give entrance the other light to some room or passage of the Edisice so the several books of Scripture were written some to give entrance to Christianity some to illustrate dark places of the whole some to inform us of matters of fact that we might understand in what chiefly to praise God some to discipline us in matters of practice that we might know how aptliest to serve and please him And others to instruct us in matter of belief that we might learn to relie upon him But on the other side if you remit the least of this abstract and Independent consideration of the particular books of Scripture I must then profess that I stedfastly beleeve that they were all designed to this chief and primary end of composing that compleat body of Faith whereon Christs perfect Church should be built as certainly as so many several parts of a building having each a particular end besides of their erection are yet in the general and main intention all destin'd to the making up of one compleat and intire Fabrick yea further without urging the comparison till it halt I am perswaded that as the Master Architect having an Idaea form'd of the whole directs many a part to the perfection of that when the subordinate workman that frames it thinks of nothing farther then of the peice he is in hand with So oftentimes the Almighty Architect when his Ministers perhaps never look'd further then that service in particular wherein they were imployed some perhaps in a Gospel in an Epistle some he by his infinite Wisdom directed each particular to the making up of the whole and compleat body and rule of Faith the written Word which by his admirable providence he hath and will I am consident ever preserve intire and uncorrupt in all parts necessary to its own perfection and harmony and to mans eternal safety and direction Insomuch that I cannot but think it at the best loss of time to be solicitous after any other rule and irreverence if not impiety to question the sufficiency of this But because my opinion is little considerable with one of so far a better Judgment take in this Point the Opinion of the Fathers which you so much relie upon To begin with Tertullian these are the last words of his 22. Chapter against Hermogines Scriptum esse doceat Hermogenis officina If it be not written saith he let him fear the Woe destin'd to such as shall adde or take away Can any thing be inferred more rightly then from this passage the sufficiency of Scripture and the superfluity of any other rule But take yet somewhat more direct from †Oratio ad Gentiles towards the beginning Athanasius The holy and from God inspired Scriptures saith he are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of themselves sufficient to the discovery of truth I appeal to St Basil himself of all the Fathers the greatest attributer to Tradition in all things wherein regard is justly due unto it Hear what he sayes handling a point wherein Scripture I think is as dark as in any necessary one whatsoever I mean that of the Trinity Believe what 's written saith * Hom. 29. advers Calum stan Trin. page 623. he what is not written seek not And in another place It is a manifest falling from the Faith sayes †De vera ac Pia side page 251. he and an argument of Arrogance either to reject any of those things that are written or to introduce any that are not of the written And lastly to sum up all that can be said by a Protestant in one sentence of a Father of greatest Learning and authority Listen but to St. Augustine De doctrina Christian lib. 2. cap. 9. In its quae appertè in Scriptura positasunt inveniuntur illa omnia quae continent fidem moresque vivendi He had need be a confident Sophister that would undertake to evade these Authorities but yet if they may not be admitted let Scripture be heard for it self It is a priviledge and preeminence solely peculiar to that sacred Volume to be Witness Advocate and Judge in its own cause Surely the Spirit spake in St. Paul when he told Timothy That holy Writ was able to make him wise unto salvation 2 Tim. 3. in fine And when numbring up almost all the particular parts that can be required to the compleat Institution of a Christian he concludes that in these by Scripture the man of God is made perfect and fitted to every good work And I am confident by the same Spirit he spake his own minde when he spake ours so directly to the Corinthians Vt dicsatis in nobis supra id quod scriptum est non sapere Epist 1. cap. 4. Where by the way it is to be noted that the Apostle applies this doctrine as an Antidote to that very inconvenience which I have heard some Papists object against the reliance on the search and use of Scripture namely that by it those of greater capacity were lkely to be blown up and to glory in their clearer discerning over weaker whereas the guidance of the Church and Tradition was equaller to all To this I say 't is worth observing what he delivers as it were by way of reason for the contrary Doctrine to wit of confining our selves to Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I profess Consin that these and many other passages of Scripture which for brevities sake I note only in the * Deut. cap. 4. cap. 12. Epist ad Gal. cap. 1. Margent prenounce to me in as clear a sense as may be the sufficiencie of Scripture and supersluity of relying on tradition for a rule of faith And yet I sweare I am none of those of whom St. Basil speaks p. 621. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 How they may sound or what other sense they may bear to you I know not since now adayes Gods Word proves to men of divers opinions as the Apostles language when the devided tongues had sat upon them in Dr. * This was likewise the fantastique opinion of the Authour of the book de Spiritu sancto fathered upon Cyprian Alabasters conceit to severall Nations at one and the same
time Hebrew to the Jew pure Greek to the Athenian and Latin to the Roman Lastly if the Fathers Testimonie may not prevaile they being of an uncertain Authority nor Scripture swey as being of an uncertain sence let common reason be heard in the cause which for as much as I can judge of it is as strong for the sufficiencie of Scripture that is its containing all points necessarie to salvation as any prudent man need require for warrant of his belief It is agreed upon by all sides that Man being ordained to a supernatural end nature is not sufficient to lead him thither but that he must have some meanes above it and proportionate to the end such as may either shew him the way if he can discern or lead him in it if he be blind or which is happiest and surest of all both instruct and conduct him in it This last kinde of guidance it were presumption for man to claim however Gods grace may afford it unto some The second it were stupidity for all to expect however some have little hopes without it And therefore it is the first that belongs to man in generall that is a directory to all those pathes and windings without the knowledge of which he cannot arrive to his primary end And by the knowledge of which he may and is responsible himself if he do not follow the direction which if God should withhold from us although I could not venture with some to apply to his Justice that of Pharaoh's requiring brick where he gives no straw nor to pronounce it a stain to his goodnesse should he condemn us for missing the way when he gave us no Map of the Countrey since to a life actually forfeited as all mans was in Adam the least reprieve is a grace a grace to be let row in the Gallies to him that the Gallowes expected A grace to take out of the ditch a man that put out his own eyes though you leave him to grope out the rest of his journey with perpetuall hazards of falling in againe I say though I dare not in this case pronounce the with-holding a directory from us inconsistent with his justice wisdome or goodnesse yet truly I think you will yeeld the man hath not so fitting a belief of Gods mercy wisdom as he ought who conceives that he would suffer those to perish for want of such a necessary directory for whose sake he gave up his own Son to death Now to suppose such a directory from God and to think it defective is again to fall into undue thoughts either of his mercy or of his power nay it is to destroy what you do suppose since the omission of any thing absolutely necessary in a direction makes the direction none This conclusion then I may safely draw and I doubt not but with your consent that the Supernatural Directorie and rule whereby we are through Gods grace and mercy to be instructed in the way to our supernatural end must needs be compleat and sufficient in all parts absolutely necessary to that end It only remains then to shew which is that rule and directory sufficient and compleat in all necessary parts Now as in a journey directions of the way how sufficient how exact soever will little advance you unless you beleeve them or the knowledge of the way unless you have legs to go or somewhat else to carry you so in our Souls progress to beatitude it must have reliance and its instruments of gradation too which is Faith the strongest vehiculum of Humanity to Divinity Now as I said before that the means must be proportionate to the end so it is certain that the way the Organs by which we move in it must be proportionate one to another or we shall never arrive at our end As that let all other things be never so well fitted yet if our way must be thorow the Air or the Sea good legs or directions will little avail us The Organ then of our motion to Heaven being Faith and that Faith the strongest assent of our souls the ground upon which it must march ought to be no less folid then infallibility since the strongest Assent cannot be given but upon the strongest inducement Forasmuch then as particular Tradition that is the unanimous testimony of any Church of what numerous parts soever hath been already concluded fallible and universal Tradition is as it were coincident with Scripture being only as Clemens sayes Strom. lib. 6. p. 679. as it were an unwritten Transcript of that in mens hearts and gives attestation to no materiall Object of Faith but what is deducible thence It follows That Scripture is the ground proportioned by unquestionable infallibity to Faith as correspondent likewise in all things else both to the goodnes of God that gives the directory to our necessities that are to follow it The sufficiency and perfection of Scripture having been shewed and likewise the defectibility of that kinde of Tradition for whose Authority you labour The preferring of this latter before the first in governing the Tenure of our Faith is of consequence such an error as I am sorry should be countenanced by your continuing in it But because the precedency which you give to the Churches Tradition before Scripture is pretended due upon another ground also which I have yet spoke little unto give me leave to say somewhat to that You lay Obscurity to the charge of Scripture That Articles of Faith are not there so plainly exprest that every body can understand them If it were so truely the Laytie of the Church of Rome is much obliged to it for easing them of the trouble of reading what is unintelligible unto them but little beholding unto S. John for passing for a precept of Christ's Search the Scriptures But how shall they take it now forasmuch as the contrary to your Assertion is a manifest Corollary to the proof of Scriptures sufficiencie and perfection the compleatness of a Rule or Directory consisting as well in its Evidence as its Fulness and must need Interpretation as little as Addition Yet let us grant your supposition a while Scripture is obscure you say What follows Tradition is to be preferred Tradition then is easier Tradition is clear say you to the Vulgar I should rather think Tradition impossible to be learn'd since Man can speak but with a few and millions must make up that unless you bring all lines that can be drawn from the Circumference into a Centrical point the Pope But you are too much a friend to the Doctors of the Sorbon to do that Besides if you do so the difficulty will still remain For here the Rule in Geometry will not hold The lines drawn back from the Centre to the Circumference are not equal Men are not all at an equal distance from him all cannot hear him How shall the Vulgar understand him By their Ghostly Fathers You will not attribute to private men a clearer fuller
said Papias ran into either by a flattery to win upon the Jewes or else as you say by the grosse understanding of a Text in the twentieth of the Apocalypse himselfe being one but of a dull and easie spirit which being taken from him by those that reverenced the antiquity and piety of the man was delivered with recommendation to their successors and so took possession of most of the Doctors of the following Ages As for that of Cerinthus I believe with Sextus Senensis that it was a distinct heresie which fed carnall men with hopes of beastly and sensuall delights for it is not likely that a doctrine taken from such an arch Heretick as Cerinthus could have found such reception among the Catholick Fathers and least of all is it probable that Cerinthus could have fathered it upon St. John whom the Apostle is said to have detested so much that Iraeneus lib. 3. cap. 3. advers haeres a chiefe Champion of the Millenaries in that very Chapter where as you say he reckons up the successions of Bishops in divers Churches relates that when St. John was entring into a Bath where Cerinthus washed himselfe St. John no sooner saw him but he stept back crying out Let us forsake the place lest that enemy of truth draw down the house upon our heads a fit Authour for so foule a Doctrine but one very unlikely to be believed acquainted with Christs whispers to St. John But as this enormous part which passes also with most under the name of Millenaries heresie was generally condemned so the other more spirituall of Papias was and is farre from being approved at this day either by your Church or ours much more from finding so firm and entire assent as you will be obliged to give it by your rule of swallowing for unquestionable and infallible what doctrine soever the Fathers deliver as taught unto them and to be the generall sense of the Christian Church in their times And for proofe that it was delivered for such by Papias who gloried in nothing more then in being a carefull collector of the doctrines taught by the Apostles viva voce I referre you nlyto Nicephorus Calistus Hist Eccles lib. 3. c. 20. That Justine Martyr p. 307. delivered it for such a passage in his Dial. with Tryphon will easily testifie where he saith that he and all in all parts orthodox Christians held it and calls them Christians onely in name with many other circumstances of aggravation that denied it It is true as you say hee confesses a little before that some good and honest Christians did not acknowledge it but this may be an argument how carelesse and oftentimes repugnant to themselves some of the Fathers were in their writings or else how little scrupulous of setting to doubtfull doctrines that seale which you account so sacred but it can no way salve him from having taught it with those circumstances which you esteeme the notes of infallibility That Iraeneus took it and taught it to be of tradition from Christ I think is so manifest that it were superfluous to insist upon particular passages in that Authour And lastly to omit Tertullian and others who clearly me thinks imply as much though not in the very terms What can expresse more a doctrine rightly delivered and generally received then Lactantius lib. 7. Institut c. 26. his conclusion of his long discourse upon this subject haec est doctrina sanctorum Prophetarum quam Christiani sequimur hoc est Christiana sapientia Secondly For the necessity of childrens partaking of the Eucharist although the evident practise of the Church for the first six hundred years according to all our records of antiquity might excuse me from proving by any particular instance that some of the Fathers taught the necessity of it for a received tradition yet take this of St. Austin lib. 1. de peccat mer. remiss c. 24. rightly saith he do the Punick Christians call Baptisme by no other names but health and safety nor the Sacraments of Christs body by no other then life unde nisi ex antiquâ ut existimo et Apostolica traditione qua Ecclesiae Christi insitum tenent praeter Baptismum et participationem Dominicae mensae non solum non ad Regnum Dei sed nec ad salutem et vitam aeternam posse quemquam hominum pervenire So direct a passage that I see not how in this point you can avoid the necessity either of retracting your rule of assurance or of incurring an Anathema of the Councel of Trent Sess 21. cap. 4. Can. 4. against any that should hold this very opinion which you finde so delivered and so Majestically sealed by Saint Austin * Tertul. lib. de Idololatria Orig. lib. 7. Cont. Cels Arnob. lib. 6. Lactan. lib. 2. cap. ult Epihan Ep. ad Johan Hierosol inter oper Hier. Epist 60. Ambr. de suga Secul cap. 5. August de fide cap. 7. Thirdly for the use of Images a point likewise of my former letter to which you say that the Fathers do not use the Authority or Tradition of the Church to beat it down I am confident you will confess that affirmation a slip of observation or memory when you shall but cast your Eyes upon those passages of the Fathers for brevity sake quoted onely in the Margin where doubtless in some at least you will finde the interdiction of them so deeply stampt with your supposed great seal of Christianity that if you stick to your own rule it will not be enough to speak indifferently of the matter with the Moderator on your side but you must be as rigid and severe against them as you can imagine any warm brother would be at Edenbourgh for I do not think any Zealot of them all can be more invective in this point then most of those Fathers were many to the abhorring of the very Trade of Imagery but because you do insist somewhat upon justification of the contrary practise at this day in the Romish Church I must beg leave to run over your Allegations and to acquaint you freely how unsatisfied I am in the particulars In the first place you evade the Authority of the Primitive Fathers voucht formerly by me namely of Justine and Tertullian by saying In regard that Idolatry was then fresh in the memory and practice of the world they might well think it dangerous to admit that which the following Governours of the Church might afterwards introduce upon a good ground of raising devotion in the people since things of that nature you say may be convenient at one time and unfit at another And in the next you labour to justifie the use of Images now by saying First that as strong Arguments and as pregnant passages of Scripture are produced for it as formerly against it Secondly by alledging that these times are secure from the danger of Idolatry And lastly by affirming that a great good appeares in them To your infirming of those Ancient
Authorities in this point it will be sufficient to put you in minde that divers of the more modern Fathers farr enough removed from the vicinity of Paganism after Christianity had taken possession of the world were as peremptory Iconoclasts as those two I pitcht upon And for the variance of practice upon variance of times your reason might hold had they condemned the Religious use of Images onely as inconvenient and not as in its own Nature unlawfull but what 's simply unlawfull at one time cannot be lawfull at another without a precept from God which you say in your first words upon this subject You did not beleeve to have been given herein To your first justification of this Practise I must needs say that for the strong Arguments for it to which I am yet a stranger I should be glad to be acquainted with them but for the Texts of Scripture so pregnant as you speak of truly I should be sorry to meet with them for although where I finde in holy Writt appearing repugnances and difficult intricacies I am as apt as any body having perhaps most reason for it of any to accuse my own ignorance and to preserve all veneration to what I finde there yet I confess it would trouble me much and be of dangerous temptation should I meet with a passage in the sacred volumne as palpably direct for the use of Images as I am sure the second Commandement is against it For your Second Allegation that these times are secure from the danger of Idolatry some proofs would be necessary since I am farr from understanding them to be so were that sinne committed then only when the outward or inward act of veneration accompanied with that belief and reliance which belongs to the Creator is exhibited to and terminated in the creature I should then be of your opinion and pronounce these times in little danger of Idolatry but withall my vote should also go to acquit all ages from the Crime as well as the present For I do not think that the fowlest Idolaters of the Heathen ever arrived to that height of stupidity as to take those low and materiall objects of their devotion for God Almighty Nay the more bestiall their Idolatry was as of the Aegyptians and Romans in worshiping the vilest creatures the lesse probability is there that they conceived the essence of the Deity to dwell under those contemptible forms that they adored as I think the Jewes little guilty of believing that the Calfe which they had made of their ear-rings though seemingly deified by their veneration was the great God that hath wrought his wonders among them but since it is as formal idolatry to frame to ones selfe out of low limited corruptible formes resemblances of the incomprehensible Deity and to impart to them any kinde of divine honour whether you please to call them of adoration of service or of pious religion since to worship the true God after an unfitting manner involves men as well in this sin as the service of a false God since I say these practises as well as the other amount to Idolatry yea such as for my part I believe the Jews Pagans were rarely guilty of any greater amidst their highest abominations I must professe I think the world at present extreamly liable to the sin yea many of the Romish Church deeply plunged therein by the easie abuse if not by the single use of Images in their prayers and this not onely the simpler sort but even the learned Doctors themselves if one may believe them of themselves Thomas of Aquine sayes Summ. part 3. quaest 25. Art 3. and hath many followers in it That the same reverence is to be given to the Image of Christ that is to Christ himselfe and seeing Christ is adored with the adoration of Latria that his Image also is to be adored with the adoration of Latria so farre is that great Doctor and his Sectators transported whom I doe chuse much rather to brand with the imputation of Idolatry then many others of his own side as learned that impugne his doctrine with sacriledge there being as I conceive no medium between those two impieties where one denies adoration of the highest kinde to that unto which another payes it Thirdly for the great good which you say appeares in the use of Images I am perswaded it doth but appeare it is pretended they help the memory and excite devotion in the people If by aids of memory be understood onely in the generall that the lively representation of some holy Historie is likely to call better thoughts into our mindes then a prophaner I like it well by the same reason that the coursest picture of CHRIST crucified ought in a good Christians Cabinet to take the wall of a Venus of Titian the one being apt to mortifie us through the same sense whereby the other may inflame us but if by the help of memory any thing be meant of more particular assistance in the directing of our prayers I think Images doe just as much good in that point as the art of memory would doe to your excellent naturall one that is help to dizzy and distract it Or if by excitement to devotion be meant any particular stimulation and guidance to the rightest way of true devotion or furnishing us with a proper means of addressing it to the right and originall object I conceive them then so far from being of good use in this kinde that I hold their very stimulations to devotion dangerous they excite they warm the zeale of the ignorant 't is true but with those strange fires that caused such combustions in Israel whilst so many as Gul. Pariensis de Legibus cap. 23. confesses not distinguishing between the Image and the thing adore the picture in stead of what it represents wherein farre lesse sinful were a luke-warm piety rightly applied then the ardentest devotion misdirected by how much sins of omission are more pardonable then of act and to worship the true God lesse intensly then to serve a false one zealously Of this danger there cannot be a better witnesse for all his mincing of the matter then Gregory the great in his Epistle to Cirenus Bishop of Marcelles in which that passage is which you cite who there adviseth the Bishop to excuse to his flock the breaking down of Images in the Church by alledging that he was forc'd to that Act by the peoples abusing that to adoration which was erected onely for instruction of the ignorant and illiterate in matter of history The Bishop truly was beholding unto him for furnishing him with such an excuse which might serve to justifie all the fiercest Iconoclasts since all the good that imagination can present in the use of Images throughout the whole Universe cannot amount to recompence the mischiefe of one poore soules betraying to Idolatry For my part I doe conceive that good use might be made of holy pictures but hardly by the vulgar