great conceit that these Epistles appeared not till two hundred Years after Ignatius whereas by his own confession Origen writ within one hundred and forty Years Thirdly It cuts off the great pretence that Eusebius was the Founder of this mistake whereas it hereby appears that if it were one he only followed his Predecessors in it But the main of the Controversie here is the second thing Whether those Books ascribed to Origen in which Ignatius is quoted are really his or not Daillé says No but his learned Adversary has with no less than evidence of Demonstration proved they were though if he had not done it St. Jerom has done it long since who plainly tells us that himself translated them out of Origen's Greek into Latine And now after these I need add nothing of the Testimony of Eusebius and those that follow him for if he be mistaken their Authority is of no use if he be not it is of little necessity but that he is not is demonstrated from these more ancient Testimonies Though if any man desire more Witnesses I shall refer him to my learned Author who has summon'd them out of every Age from that in which the Epistles themselves were writen down to that next our own But to all the Testimonies of the Ancients what do our Adversaries oppose irst Salmasius opposes the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Nicephorus Patriarch of Constantinople by which says he the Authentick and spurious Books of the Church were distinguish'd and among many others the Epistles of Ignatius are censured for Apocryphal Books But to this it is replied by the Pious the Reverend and the Learned Dr. Hammond that the opinion of one Author especially of later date for Nicephorus lived not before the ninth Century was not of weight and authority enough to oppose to the consent of so many ancient Writers Secondly That the word Apocryphal which is used by Nicephorus does not always signifie Spurious but it is very often used by Ecclesiastical Writers as opposed to Canonical and so is given to Books whose Authors were never question'd only to seclude them from the Canon of the Scripture To the first it is replied by Daillé and that I must say with impertinency enough that the authority of Nicephorus is at least equal to Dr. Hammonds as if the Dispute were between them two whereas the Dispute was between Walo and the Doctor who when he had produced the Testimonies of the Fathers of all former Ages could not but think it very hard that the opinion of one late Writer should be opposed to all their Authority To the second he replies That it is true that the word Apocryphal is oftentimes opposed to Canonical yet it is very frequently too used by Ecclesiastical Writers as equivalent to Spurious and Counterfeit and that therefore the Doctor in vain takes refuge in the Ambiguity of the word But certainly it is the manifest design of these men to tire out their Adversaries with verbose Trifles For who could have expected this Answer that when Walo had argued from the word Apocryphal as if it only signified Spurious and that when to the Argument the Doctor had answer'd that it no ways follows because it as often signified not Canonical who I say after this would have expected that his Adversary should upbraid him with taking Refuge in the ambiguity of the word when the Ambiguity of the word alone was not only a full answer to but a clear confutation of the Argument But he replies secondly That some of the Books joyn'd with it are confessed by all to be Supposititious and therefore as they were censur'd for that reason so must the Ignatian Epistles But this is manifestly false and though if it were true it follows like all the rest For the Censure has no regard to their Author but whether Spurious or Genuine to their Authority and only designs to shut them out from creeping in among the Canonical Scriptures For that was the only danger it aim'd to prevent least the Books that either were or pretended to be of Apostolical Antiquity should creep into the Canon And it is plain from the Decree it self that Nicephorus intended nothing else than to determine the Canonical Books of Scripture and prevent all others that came nearest to them in Age from obtaining sacred Authority But says Daillé Pope Gelasius when he defines what Books are Apocryphal he does not confine it meerly to the Canonical Scriptures but to all other Ecclesiastical Writers not allowed of and therefore this must be the meaning of Nicephorus That is to say that because Gelasius in his Decree determines what Ecclesiastical Books of what kind soever are to be reputed Orthodox what Heterodox that therefore Nicephorus when he distinguishes the Canonical Books of the New Testament from the Apocryphal does not mean as himself declares but must be understood in the sense of Gelasius And yet when all is done there is no such Testimony but the whole Story is a meer Dream of their own who catch at any shadow that may seem to serve their turn For sirst it is certain That Nicephorus was not the Author of the Stichometria Secondly That the Author of it whoever he was did not pass this censure upon Ignatius his Epistles For we find in it only the name of Ignatius without any mention of his Epistles Which indeed cannot in Daillé's sense be call'd Apocryphal because they were never esteem'd Canonical For that is the true Original of the distinction that whereas there were some Books written by the Followers of the Apostles as Clemens Barnabas and Hermas left these by reason of their nearness to the Canonical Books should in process of time be reckoned with them the Church was careful to range them in a Classis by themselves And whereas there were many other Books that pretended to be dictated by the Apostles and written by their Disciples lest they should gain the Authority they pretended to it concern'd the Church to give them the Apocryphal Mark. Seeing therefore Ignatius Epistles were never upon either of these accounts in any probability of being accounted Canonical it would have been a needless Caution to refer them to the Apocryphal Catalogue And though to Ignatii Daillé after his usual way of making bold with his Quotations adds Omnia It is probable that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 should be added as it is in another Index of Apocryphal Books in the Oxford Library It being the custom of some idle men of those times to make Institutions of Divinity and then fasten them upon Apostles and Apostolical men out of which as our learned Author with great probability conjectures was afterward made that Collection which goes under the name of Apostolical Constitutions Now these spurious pieces pretending to Canonical Authority it was very requisite to prevent and discover the Imposture But whatever probability may be in this Conjecture of which we stand in no need I am
to the Reader to judge whether he could desire or contrive more evidence for the authority of any Book than is produced for the Epistles of Ignatius St. Polycarp then who was his particular Friend and Fellow-pupil under St. John and St. Irenaeus who was Disciple to Polycarp give in full and clear testimony to the Martyrs Epistles Polycarp sent a Copy of them to the Church of Philippi as appears both by his own Epistle still extant and by Eusebius his Quotation out of it and that at a time when it was vulgarly known and commonly read in the Churches of Asia Polycarp's Epistle was never call'd in question by any good Author was immediately attested by Irenaeus read with Veneration in the Churches of Asia even to the very time of Eusebius and St. Hierom. So that I know not what more undoubted or publick Testimony Monsieur Daillé could demand for his satisfaction and indeed it is hard to conceive what more effectual evidence could have been provided to secure their Authority For when St. Polycarp's Epistle was so universally known it was impossible to corrupt it And yet in this wild Supposition is Monsieur Daillé forced at last to shelter himself he allows his Epistle it self to be of undoubted Credit and the greatest part of it to have been written by Polycarp but that a certain Impostor a little before the time of Eusebius had foisted in that Paragraph in which this passage concerning Ignatius his Epistles is found which Eusebius meeting with he took it to be of the same credit with the rest of the Epistle Which is all so very ungrounded and precarious that with the same liberty he might deny or destroy the validity of any ancient Record whatsoever but beside this the Epistle was so publick so exposed to the view of all men so known to the Learned and Unlearned that it were as easie to poison the Sea as for a private man to corrupt it Or if he would attempt to do it how was it possible for Eusebius and all the World beside to be deluded by so bold an Imposture Does not Eusebius himself inform us that it was read in the Churches of Asia at the time of his writing Did he not then know what was read there and therefore if this passage were not read could he be so stupid as to be imposed upon by one single private man against the authority of all the publick Books or if he were could all the Fathers whom Daillé will have to have followed his Dance be so prodigiously blind and careless as in a thing so known and common to be deceived by him and that no man if we may believe him should discover the mistake till Nicephorus who lived five hundred Years after him But granting the Testimony to be true he denies it to be effectual because Polycarp only says that Ignatius wrote Epistles but no where affirms that those we have are the true ones So that it seems unless St. Polycarp had written particularly against Mounsier Dailâ—é himself and declared that those very Epistles that he opposes with so much zeal were written by his Friend the Martyr it was not possible for him to give sufficient testimony to their truth And yet that could not have been a more ample proof than this amounts to For he declares not only that Ignatius wrote certain Epistles but that himself made a Collection of them and this Collection was seen by Eusebius and others of the Ancients Now when we consider the Reputation of the Martyr both for his acquaintance with the Apostles his eminent dignity in the Church the gallantry of his Martyrdom when we consider the time and occasion of his writing which was at the approach of his Death and as it were his dying Exhortation to the Churches when we consider how they were recommended by Polycarp whose Epistle was publickly read in their Assemblies is it any way credible that these true Epistles should all perish before the time of Eusebius and other counterfeit ones rise up in their room and among all those learned men that then were very inquisitive after Ancient and Apostolical Tradition none should ever discern or discover it Nay that Eusebius a man so throughly versed in all Ecclesiastical Antiquities so conversant with the choicest Libraries should be so grosly and so easily cheated by a double Imposture contrived in his own time as to take the new invented Epistles of Ignatius for the old authentick Writings of that holy Martyr and then to vouch it by a forg'd Passage foisted into Polycarp against the authority of all the vulgar Books So many hard Suppositions one would think were enough to shame any modest man out of his Opinion The second Witness to these Epistles is St. Irenaeus whose testimony is no more to be doubted of than the former being extant both in Eusebius and those pieces of Irenaeus that are preserved down to our times though most of his works are perish'd But to this Monsieur Daillé answers that Irenaeus cautiously expresses his Quotation of the holy Martyr by Dixit and not Scripsit and thence conjectures that he quotes it only as a Saying or Apothegm and not as a Citation out of his Writings But 1. There is no Record of any such Saying as this neither in that particular Quotation that is preserved could we know whom Irenaeus means did we not find the same sentence in Ignatius his Epistle to the Romans so that it is a vain and a frivolous thing to forsake that and to fetch the business from unknown and unheard of Reports And. 2. This is the very form of all Irenaeus his Quotations who never uses the word Scripsit but always Dixit But then why does he not cite some Testimony against the Hereticks out of Ignatius in whom there were so many apposite to his purpose I answer for the same reason that he does not cite other as pertinent Authors as Ignatius For out of all the Ecclesiastical Writers that lived before him he has in his surviving Works but four Quotations of which that out of Ignatius is one Neither would this way of disputing have been at all pertinent in the days of Irenaeus when the Hereticks against whom he wrote allowed no Authority to the ancient Doctors of the Church but always recurred to certain wild Apocryphal Books of their own and therefore it had been but a vain thing for Irenaeus to have prest them with this Topick The next Witness is Origen who quotes him by name but against this Testimony we have these two Exceptions First That it is at too great a distance from the time of Ignatius Secondly That those Writings in which he is quoted are none of Origens First As to the first we would grant the force of the Objection if this had been the first Testimony in the cause but following Polycarp and Irenaeus it proves the constant opinion of Learned men before Eusebius and his Impostor Secondly It overthrows Daillé's
succession of the Roman Empire from Augustus to Constantine But to wave all other parallel Cases that which I have already propounded is irrefragable viz. That those men that beat about in the Writings of the Ancients to start sceptical pretences against the use and institution of Episcopacy would do very well to consider the consequences of this rude and licentious way of Arguing And as the Reverend and Learned Doctor Hammond long since remarked it they that so confidently reject the Epistles of Ignatius shrewdly indanger if they will stand to their own principles the credit and authority of the sacred Canon when these are vouch'd for the true and authentick Epistles of Ignatius by as strong a current and unanimous consent of the Fathers as most of the Canonical Books of Scripture And therefore it is observable that the proud Walo Messalinus does with the same ease and confidence pish away one of the Epistles of St. Peter as he does all these of this Apostolical Martyr and might in the same pert and pedantick humour and with the same evidence of Reason huff all the rest after it into the Apocryphal Rubbish But because our Adversaries main strength lies in this Objection and some ill-minded men will be hasty to seise on it for worse purposes than they intended I shall consider it in its full force and glory The defect then pretended is three-fold as to Places as to Times as to Persons 1. As to Places and here they tell us we can have no certainty without an universal Testimony For if but one place varied that is enough to overthrow the necessity of any one form of Government and therefore seeing we have not an account of what was done by the Apostles in all Churches we can have no sufficient certainty of their practice But certainly never was any thing so hardly dealt with as Antiquity by these men for unless we could be certain that every thing that was done in the Church 1500 Years agoe was recorded and made known to us by some unquestionable way all that is recorded be it never so certain and evident can be of no use for our Information If this hard condition be put upon us I must confess that we not only have no certainty of the Primitive Practice but that it is impossible that we should have any either in that or any other Record But this certainly is too rigorous proceeding with the authority of Precedents that let us produce never so many they shall signifie nothing as to their use unless we can demonstrate that there never was or indeed could be one contrary Example in the World But I am very apt to believe that all ingenuous men will be fully satisfied with this that all the precedents that are recorded are for us and therefore till our Adversaries are able to produce some against us to rest in the certainty of those Records that are preserved without a vain enquiry after what might or might not be in those that are lost And therefore our Adversaries in stead of making such wild and sceptical demands if they would prevail upon the minds of men should in the first place have proved the variety of Apostolical Practice and that indeed would have disproved the necessity of any one Form but that is a thing they never attempt When therefore we have this uniformity of practice in all Churches whose settlement is known it betrays an unreasonable partiality in men to put us upon giving an account of what St. Andrew did in Scythia and St. Thomas in India for certainly all impartial men will be satisfied with the uniform practice of all the known Churches of Europe Asia and Affrica And that is enough in answer to the first pretended defect of Antiquity as to Places The second defect is as to Times And here they fall directly upon the credit of all Ecclesiastical History and in particular upon Eusebius the Father of it who they say lived at too great a distance from Apostolical Times and wanted sufficient Records for his Information But this I must answer that I know not any Historian furnished with better and more certain accounts of the things they write of than Eusebius The Tradition of the Church being conveyed down to him in the most uninterrupted and undoubted manner possible St. Polycarp St. Ignatius St. Clemens of Rome were familiarly acquainted with the Apostles themselves Irenaeus Tatianus Theophilus Antiochenus Athenagoras Justin Martyr and many more converst with them as they did with the Apostles to these succeed Origen Clemens Alexandrinus Tertullian Minutius Faelix Lactantius Ar nobius Dionysius Alexandrinus Gregorius Thauntaturgus St. Cyprian beside many other excellent Writers whose Works he enjoyed though some of them are since perish'd who all lived in the first and second Centuries after the Apostles Now out of these Eusebius collected his History and to their genuine and undoubted Writings ever refers himself to justifie his own Fidelity quotes no Author for any matter of fact but what was done in his own Age as particularly in the beginning of the second Book the Reader is desired to observe that he collected the materials of it from the Writings of Clemens Tertullian Josephus and Philo and the same Preface he might have set before every particular Book And as he always refers to good Authors so he rejects many things as counterfeit and spurious for this reason only because he finds no account of them in the Ancient Writers But beside the Writings of the Doctors of the Church and the Epistles of Bishops the Originals whereof were then reserved in the Archives of their several Churches he made very great use of the Acts of the Martyrs that were then preserved with great care and sacredness though afterwards it being the most valued part of Ecclesiastical History it was the most improved into fabulous Legends and Stories And beside all this he was furnished with many excellent materials of the First Times which alone he could be supposed to want by Hegesippus who wrote five Books of Commentaries of the Acts of the Church about the Reign of Marcus Aurelius which was scarce eighty Years after the death of St. John So that it is no better than a very rash censure of such an Ancient and Apostolical Writer to say that his Relations are as questionable as those of Eusebius himself in reference to those elder Times when he lived almost in the very eldest times and so near to the Apostles that it was scarce possible that any matter of Fact that happened in that Interval could escape his knowledg Now last of all the Heathen Records themselves were not a little useful to him as himself informs us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. In theâ—e times that is about the Reign of Domitian the Doctrine of the Christian Faith was so flourishing that the Heathen Writers have left exact Records of the Persecutions and Martyrdoms As for Eusebius his
an incomparable treasure of Ecclesiastical Antiquity And therefore omitting Daille's beloved Negative and internal Arguments which his Adversary has for ever routed with a prodigious force of reason and dexterity of learning I shall only give an account in short of the main rational point of the Controversie That is what antient Testimonies are to be alledged either for or against their Antiquity On the one side they are frequently owned and quoted by all the first general Councils and therefore must have been enacted in the Interval between the Apostles and the Council of Nice They are cited by many of the most ancient Fathers as Canons of the first and most early Antiquity And they are expresly referred to by the most famous Emperours in their Ecclesiastical Laws All which concurrent Testimony any moderate man would think sufficient to give Authority to any Writing and yet it is all over-ruled by a single Decree of Pope Gelasius supposed to be made Anno Domini 494. in which the Apostolical Canons are reckoned among the Apocryphal Books But first is it reasonable to set up the Opinion of one man against many that were more ancient and so much the more competent witnesses than himself Secondly it is uncertain whether any such Decree as is pretended were ever made by Gelasius in that we never hear any thing of it till at least three hundred years after his time Thirdly if there were any such Decree it is certain that this Passage concerning the Canons of the Apostles was foisted into it it not being found in any of the most ancient Copies and Hincmarus a Person of singular learning in his time that makes mention of this Decree of Gelasius as early as any Writer whatsoever expresly affirms that there was no mention of the Apostolical Canons in the whole Decree De his Apostolorum Canonibus penitus taâ—uit sed nec inter Apocrypha eos misit Where he expresly affirms that in the Decree these Canons were altogether omitted and ranged neither with the Orthodox nor with the Apocryphal Books This Testimony is given in with as peremptory terms as can be expressed and therefore Daillé for no other reason than to serve his cause quite inverts the Proposition and changes misit into omisit that is turns I into No. But men that can deal thus with their Authors need never trouble their heads with Testimonies of Antiquity for after this rate it is in their power to make any Author affirm or deny what they please But fourthly suppose Gelasius had made any such Decree how does that destroy the Antiquity of these Canons when he has condemned the Books of Tertullian Arnobius Lactantius and Eusebius for Apocryphal And yet Tertullian lived three hundred years before the Decree and therefore why may not the Apostolical Canons be allowed their reputed Antiquity too notwithstanding that Sentence which only relates to the Authority his Holiness is pleased to allow them in the Roman Church and not at all to their Antiquity unless perhaps he designed to declare that they were not framed by the Apostles themselves as he might fancy from their Title not knowing that whatever was of prime Antiquity in the Church was by the first Writers of it stiled Apostolical as being supposed to descend from the Tradition of the Apostles themselves Fifthly will Monsieur Daillè allow this Decree of Gelasius sufficient to give any Book the Apocryphal stamp If he will then he must reject many of the best Fathers and in their stead admit the Acts of St. Sylvester the Invention of the Cross and the invention of St. John Baptists head for whilst the History of Eusebius together with the other Fathers is rejected such Fables as these are warranted by that barbarous and Gothish Decree And that is enough though there were nothing else to destroy the Authority of this mans censure his meer want of Judgment Now comparing this one pretended Testimony of Gelasius under all the disadvantages that I have represented with the express counter-testimony of so many Councils Fathers and Emperours if any man be resolved notwithstanding all to stick to it I will say no more than this that his Cause is much more beholden to him than he to his Cause And now having given this account of these Apostolical men that conversed with the Apostles themselves or immediately succeeded them in the Government of the Church if we descend to their Successours from Age to Age we are there overwhelmed with the croud of Witnesses But because they have been so often alledged and urged by learned men I should have wholly waved their citation had not our Adversaries made use of several shifts and artifices to evade their Authority And therefore though I shall not trouble the Reader with their direct Testimonies yet to shew the vanity of all our Adversaries pretences I shall endeavour to vindicate the credit of the Ancients against all their Exceptions And here the first pretence is the ambiguity of their Testimony which is endeavoured to be made out by these three things First That personal succession might be without such superiority of order Secondly That the names of Bishop and Presbyters were common after the distinction between them was introduced Thirdly That the Church did not own Episcopacy as a divine Institution but Ecclesiastical and those who seem to speak most of it do mean no more First then a succession there might be as to a different Degree and not as to a different Order Before we distinguished between Order and Power now between Order and Degree and by and by between the Power of Order and the Power of Jurisdiction But these distinctions are only the triflings of the Schoolmen whose proper faculty it is to divide every thing till they have reduced it to nothing For what does the degree of a Church-Officer signifie but such an order in the Church and what order is there without a power of Office according to its degree and therefore it is plain prevaricating with the evidence of things to impose these little subtilties upon the sense of Antiquity they good men meant plainly and honestly and when they give us an account of Apostolical Successions they were not aware of these scholastick distinctions and intended nothing else than a succession in the government of their several Churches Thus when Irenaeus gives us a Catalogue of twelve Bishops of Rome Successours to the Apostles in that See what did he mean but the supreme Governours of that Church when that was the only signification of the word Bishop in his time He never dream'd of their being stript of the Apostolical power and so only succeeding them in an empty Title in the meer name or the metaphysical notion of Bishops and they were no more if they had no more power than the rest of the Clergy But secondly This new distinction spoils the former evasion viz. That the Apostles were superiour in order not in power over the LXX but now a