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A53931 A treatise proving Scripture to be the rule of faith writ by Reginald Peacock ... before the Reformation, about the year MCDL. Pecock, Reginald, 1395?-1460?; Wharton, Henry, 1664-1695. 1688 (1688) Wing P1043; ESTC R1772 67,273 88

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submitting the Decrees and Doctrine of the Church to the examination of every private man how strongly he contends that God can reveal nothing contrary to our reason or oblige us to the belief of it that he rejecteth the authority of Tobit and Susanna as being Apocryphal Books that a Divorce and Separation of the Clergy from their Wives after Marriage once contracted in unlawful that the Council of Nice condemned that Separation and consequently prohibited not to the Clergy the use of Marriage in the third Canon that the Church hath no more authority of interpreting Scripture and proposing it to the faithful than hath every private Housholder of proposing it to his Family every Divine to his Hearers every Learned Man to ignorant persons or no more than a Judge hath of expounding the Laws or a Grammarian the Rules of Grammar I will not so far presume upon the Judgment of the Reader as to make an Apology for the old and obsolete stile of our Author If it wanteth the Elegance and Beauties of our modern Language that must be imputed to the fault of the Age not any deficience of the Author I had once intended to represent his Arguments in our modern Language and publish both together in distinct Columns but the fear of inlarging these Papers too much deterred me from pursuing that design However I have drawn up an Alphabetical Catalogue of the more obsolete and unusual words and affixed their significations to them which the Reader will find at the end of the Book and may consult upon occasion A Treatise of REGINALD PEACOCK Bishop of CHICHESTER before the Reformation In the Year 1450. proving that Scripture is the only Rule of Faith. CAP. I. I. DEsiring for to wynne the Lay Children of the Churche into Obedience whiche undir greet perel of ther Soulis thei owen paie and holde to the Clergie y entende and propose in this present Booke for to mete agens suche unobediencers bi an open wey and in a nother manner and bi meene which the lay persoonys wole admitte and graunte which meene is this That we owen to bileeve and stonde to sum Saier or Techer which may feile while it is not knowne that thilk Seier or Techer thereyne failis And so for to move and convicte them into obedience never the lesse and never the latter to the Clergie in leernyng their feith thoug it were so that the Clergie mygte solempnely determyne agens trew feith II. Twey thingis be the principal causis of Heresie in the lay yeple Overmyche leenyng to Scripture and in such manner wise as it longith not to holi Scripture for to receyve And the seconde is this Setting not bi for to followe the Determynatiouns and the Holdingis of the Churche in mater of Feith III. The Feende hath broughte in so greet a sleigte in the Secte of the Sarrasenes that thei ben ful wondirful violenti settid for to geve audience to eny proofe making for Christen Feith or making agens Sarrasene Secte For whi thilk wickid Man Mahumet whiche brought in their Secte or sum Prelate after him made as for a po●nt of his Law that no persoone of his Secte schulde heere eny Declaracioun or evydence agens his Sect and that under peyne of passing cruel deep But O thou Lord Iesu God and Man heed of thi Christen Churche and Techer of Christen Bileeve y besee●he thi mercy thi pitee and thi charite fer be this seid perel fro the Christen Churche and fro ech persoon thereyne conteyned and schilde thou that this Venom be never brougte into thi Churche and if thou suffre it to by eny while brougte in y beseche that it be soon agen out spet but suffre thou ordeyne and do that the Law and the Feith whiche thi Churche at eny tyme kepith be receyved and admitted to fall under this examinacioun whether it be the same verri Feith which thou and thi Apostlis taugten or no and that it be receyved into examinacioun whether it hath sufficient evydencis for it to be verry feith or no and ellis it mygte be holde aghe and it were a full suspect thing to alle them that schulde be convertid therto and ellis also it were a ful schameful thing to the Christen Churche for to holde such a feith for a substaunce of her salvacioun and yitt dursten not suffre it to be examined whether it is worthi to be allowid for trew feith or no. And it were a vilonye putting to Crist that he schulde geve such a feith to his peple and into which feith he wolde his peple turne alle other peple and yitt he wolde not allowe his feith to be at the ful tried and that he durste not be aknowe his feith to be so pure and so fyne fro al falsehede that it mygte not by strenghe of eny evydence be overcomen And therefore Lord Almygti thou forbid that eny such prisonyng of thi feith be maad in thi Churche And also this is worschip ynoug for Cristen Feith that it may withoute feere be avowed and be publischid and be profred to be examyned bi eny wit under Heuene in such maner of examynacioun now bifore seid as vi which ech pretense feith ougte to be examyned whether it be trew feith or no. And yitt ferthemore to this now seid may evydence be this that ellis Crist wolde have gove such a Lawe to be hadde and to be contynued in his name of whiche Law sum of our feith is a party ne were that it mygte abide the fier of triel and of examynacioun of ech creaturis resoun so the examynacioun be such as ougte to be taken and usid for to examine and prove whether a feith pretense be trewe feith or no as ferforth as eny Goldsmyth wole avowe and warante his Gold which he desyneth to be tried and examyned by all manner of fier of this wordli brennyng IV. And ferthemore y wole Clerkis to have in consideracioun that not for a thing is famed to be an Article of Feith therefore it is an Article of Feith but agenward for that it is an Article of Feith and proved sufficiently to be such therefore it is to be bileeved bi feith So that an Article to be bileeved bi feith is dependant on this that it is bifore proved sufficiently to be feith And an Article to be an Article of Feith is not dependent of this for that it is bileeved as an Article of Feith V. The Clergy shall be condemned at the last day if by cleer witt they drawe not Men into consent of trew feith otherwise than by fier and sword or hangement Although I will not deny these second means to be lawfull provided the former be first used VI. Thomas had thanne these same evydences of Christis Resurrection in as good maner or in better than we hau now for us For whi he herde the Apostlis denounce Christis Resurreccioun to him bi ther owne mouthe the that denouncen the same to us bi their
School Divinity was at that time universally received in the Church of Rome taught in all Universities and Schools and by long use become in great measure the Doctrine of the Church The most famous and celebrated Author of this Divinity was S. Thomas Aquinas whose Writings were then in all Mens hands universally applauded and religiously embraced Some few Divines indeed dissented from him and followed the System of Scotus but this Disagreement respected not the Rule of Faith nor indeed any material point of Divinity but only some abstracted Notions and Scholastick Niceties of Divinity The Doctrine therefore of Aquinas is to be esteemed the general opinion of the Divines and Writers of those times It cannot be here objected against the force of our Argument that the same Divinity is yet retained and taught in most Popish Countries although the Doctrine of the Scriptures Sufficiency be rejected The Method of Reasoning and Disputing is now infinitely altered among the Writers of the Roman Church from what it was before the Reformation Before that time they made no difficulty to acknowledge and even urge the necessity of Reformation whereas now the Honour of their Church obligeth them to declare it both unnecessary and unlawful While Scripture was yet looked up in an unknown Tongue and removed from the knowledge of the Laity who were then generally very ignorant they were not ashamed to make confident Appeals for the Truth of their Doctrine to the Holy Scriptures When that Veil was removed the Scriptures translated and the World become more intelligent and inquisitive some other Artifice was to be found out which might preserve the Credit of antient Errors and defend them from the silence and opposition of Scripture To this end no stratagem could conduce more than the constant Artifice of all Innovators in Religion the Plea of Tradition Before that lesser Artifices could hide the Deformity of their Errors and while ignorant Christians could be securely misled with false and sometimes foolish Interpretations of Scripture while Ecce duos gladios was thought sufficient to evince the coercive Power of the Pope over temporal Princes and Arabant boves juxta comedebant asini could effectually perswade the Laity intirely to resign up their Judgments to the Direction of the Clergy there was no need of any desperate Remedy but when persons became so far inquisitive as to inquire into Reasons of Things and demand some better Authority for the belief of Articles imposed on them nothing less than the arrogant pretence of an infallible Tradition could secure and palliate the contradiction of impossible Propositions To prove therefore Aquinas his Doctrine concerning the Rule of Faith to have been intirely agreeable to that of our Author I will go no farther than his Sum of Divinity the most famous and best known of all his Works In the beginning of it laying down the Principles upon which Divinity and the proofs of Religion ought to proceed he saith That this Holy Doctrine useth the Authority of Philosophers as extraneous and only probable but the Authorities of Holy Scripture as properly belonging to her and concluding necessarily or infallibly but the Authorities of other Doctors of the Church as properly indeed belonging to her but concluding only probably For our Faith is founded upon the Revelation made to the Apostles and Prophets who wrote the Canonical Books of Scripture and not upon any Revelation made to other Doctors if any such there be Whence S. Augustin saith in his Epistle to S. Hierom To the Books of Scripture only which are called Canonical have I learned to pay this honour that I should most firmly believe none of their Authors to have erred in any thing in composing them In the two next Articles it is inquired whether Holy Scripture may use Metaphors and contain diverse senses under one and the same Letter In both places the Objections are thus formed These Qualities would be incongruous to a Rule of Faith but the Scripture is the Rule of Faith. This last Proposition is no where reinforced in the Objections but laid down as an uncontroverted Principle Aquinas in answering them no where denies Scripture to be the Rule of Faith but endeavours to take off the incongruity of a metaphorical and ambiguous Style to the Rule of Faith and in answer to both Objections hath these words Although Metaphors and Allegories be found in Scripture yet doth Holy Scripture suffer no detriment or imperfection thereby For nothing necessary to Faith is contained under the hidden sense which Scripture doth not somewhere manifestly deliver in the literal sense Afterwards being about to dispute of God and the Mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation he proposeth this as a most certain and undoubted Principle That we ought to affirm nothing of God which is not found in Holy Scripture either in words or in sense conformably to what the Master of Sentences and Founder of the School Divinity had before taught who inquiring what Method is to be observed in treating of the Trinity answers That it must in the first place be demonstrated according to the Authorities of Holy Scripture whether the Christian Faith teacheth it or not and in what manner But to return to Aquinas he asserteth Scripture to be the Rule of Faith in many other places of his Summ. Thus disputing of the nature and properties of the New Law or Covenant he inquires whether it be a written Law. in resolving of this Question he opposeth not the written Law to Tradition but to the Law written in the Hearts of Men by the virtue and operation of the Holy Ghost and at last concludeth thus The New Law is principally that very Grace of the Holy Ghost which is written in the Hearts of the Faithful but secondarily it is the written Law in as much as those things are delivered in it which either dispose to Grace or respect the use of that Grace Here the very nature of this Question and comparison of the Written with the New Law supposeth that the whole System of revealed Truths is contained in the written Law and lest we should doubt of this supposition the latter part of the Passage now cited plainly determines it But to proceed Aquinas often reneweth this supposition and at last comparing the Old with the New Testament he determines thus All things which are plainly and explicitely delivered to be believed in the New Testament are delivered also to be believed in the Old Testament but implicitely and obscurely And in this respect also as to matters of Belief the new Law is contained in the old But if all matters of Belief in the new Law be contained in the Old Testament and whatsoever is contained in the Old Testament is plainly and explicitly taught in the New Testament then the New Testament doth not only contain all matters of Belief in the New Law but also which is more considerable proposeth them clearly and explicitly He intimates