what hath been so temperately learnedly and judiciously written by Monsieur Daille our Protestan-Perron And what the same Lord in a Treatise which will shortly be publisht saith concerning the Popish Perron viz. Him I can scarce ever laudare in one sense that is quote but I must laudare in the other that is praise who hath helpt the Church to all the advantages which wit learning industry judgment and eloquence could add unto her is as true of this our Protestant I shall add but one Lords Testimony more viz. the Lord George Digbies in his late Letters concerning Religion in these words p. 27 28. The reasons prevalent with me whereon an inquiring and judicious person should be obliged to rely and acquiesce are so amply and so learnedly set down by Monsieur Daillé in his Employ des Peâ—â—s that I think little which is material or weighty can be said on this subject that his rare and piercing observation hath not anticipated Were it needful to wander to Foreigners for Testimonies I could tell you how highly this Author is esteemed by the Learned and Famous Doctor Andr. Rivet upon whole importunity his Book des Images and other Tracts have been translated but writing to Englishmen I will only name the judicious Doctor Jer. Taylor Libert of Proph. Sect. 8. n. 4. in these words I shall chuse such a topick as makes no invasion upon the great reputation of the Fathers which I desire should be preserved sacred as it ought For other things let who please read Mr. Daillé du vrai usage des Peres Et siquis eueulo locus inter Oscines I must ingenuously profess that it was the reading of this rational Book which first convinced me that my study in the French Language was not ill employed which hath also enabled me to commend this to the World as faithfully translated by a judicious hand And that if there were no other use of the Fathers there is very much while Testem quem quis adducit pro se tenetur accipere contra se is a rule in reason as well as Civil Law and that the works of Cord. Perron for whose monstrous understanding they are the words of Viscount Faulkland p. 59. Bellarmine and Bironius might with most advantage to their party and no disgrace to them have been employed in seeking citations being built upon the principle That whatever the Fathers witness to be tradition and the doctrine of the Church must be received of all for such and so relied on And this principle being here throughly examined You have here as sufficient a constitation of Perrons Book against K. J. and by consequence of the Marquess of Worcesters against K. C. and Dr. Vanes and other Epitonizers of the Cardinal as you have of Mr. Cressys in the Preface to the Lord Faulkland by the learned I. P. Chr. Coll. Aug. 1. 1651. T. S. THE PREFACE ALl the Difference in Religion which is at this day betwixt the Church of Rome and the Protestants lies in some certain Points which the Church of Rome maintaineth as important and necessary Articles of the Christian Faith Whereas the Protestants on the contrary neither believe nor will receive them for such For as for those things which the Protestants believe for their part and which they conceive to be the Fundamentals of Religion they are so evidently and undeniably such as that even their Adversaries themselves do also allow of and receive them as well as they for as much as they are both clearly delivered in the Scriptures and expresly set down by the Ancient Councils and Fathers and are indeed unanimously received by the greatest part of Christians in all Ages and Parts of the World Such for example are these Maxims following Namely That there is a God who is Supreme over all and who created the Heavens and the Earth That having created Man after his own Image this Man revolting from his Obedience is faln together with his whole Posterity into most extreme and eternal misery and become infected with Sin as with a mortal Leprosie and is therefore obnoxious to the Wrath of God and liable to his Curse That the Merciful Creator pitying Mans Estate graciously sent his Son Jesus Christ into the World That his Son is God Eternal with him and that having taken Flesh upon himself in the Womb of the Virgin Mary and become Man He hath done and suffered in this Flesh all things necessary for our Salvation having by this means sufficiently expiated for our Sins by his Blood and that having finished all this he is ascended again into Heaven and sitteth at the right hand of the Father from whence He shall one day come to judge all Mankind rendering to every one according to their Works That to enable us to communicate of his Salvation by His Merits He sendeth us down His Holy Spirit proceeding both from the Father and the Son and who is also one and the same God with Them in such sort as that these Three Persons are notwithstanding but One GOD who is Blessed for ever That this Spirit enlightens our Vnderstanding and begets Faith in us whereby we are justified That after all this the LORD sent his Apostles to Preach this Doctrine of Salvation throughout the whole World That These have planted Churches and placed in each of them Pastors and Teachers whom we are to hear with all reverence and to receive from them Baptism the Sacrament of our Regeneration and the Holy Eucharist or Lords Supper which is the Sacrament of our Communion with Jesus Christ That we are likewise all of us bound to love GOD and our Neighbour very fervently observing diligently that Holy Doctrine which is laid down unto us in the Books of the New Testament which have been inspired by His Spirit of Truth as also those other of the Old there being nothing either in the one or in the other but what is most true These Articles and some other few the like which there perhaps may be are the substance of the Protestants whole Belief and if all other Christians would but content themselves with these there would never be any Schism in the Church But now their Adversaries add to these many other Points which they press and command Men to believe as necessary ones and such as without believing of which there is no possible hope of Salvation As for example That the Pope of Rome is the Head and Supreme Monarch of the whole Christian Church throughout the World That He or at least the Church which he acknowledgeth a true one cannot possibly erre in matter of Faith That the Sacrament of the Eucharist is to be adored as being really Jesus Christ and not a piece of Bread That the Mass is a Sacrifice that really expiates the Sins of the Faithful That Christians may and ought to have in their Churches the Images of God and of Saints to which they are to use Religious Worship bowing down before them That it is
lawful and also very useful to pray to Saints departed and to Angels That our Souls after death before they enter into Heaven are to pass through a certain Fire and there to endure grievous Torments thus satisfying for their Sins That one neither may nor ought to receive the holy Eucharist without having first confessed himself in private to a Priest That none but the Priest himself that consecrated the Eucharist is bound by right to receive it in both kinds And a great number of other Opinions which their Adversaries protest plainly That they cannot with a safe conscience believe And these Points are the ground of the whole Difference betwixt them the one Party pretending That they have been believed and received by the Church of Christ in all Ages as revealed by him and the other maintaining the contrary Now seeing that none of these Tenets having any ground from any Passage in the New Testament which is the most Ancient and Authentick Rule of Christianity the Maintainers are fain to fly to the Writings of the Doctors of the Church which lived within the four or five first Centuries after the Apostles who are commonly called the Fathers my purpose is in this Treatise to examine whether or no this be a good and sufficient means for the decision of these Differences And for this purpose I must first presuppose two things which any reasonable Person will easily grant me The first is That the Question being here about laying a Foundation for certain Articles of Faith upon the Testimonies or Opinions of the Fathers it is very necessary that the Passages which are produced out of them be clear and not to be doubted of that is to say such as we cannot reasonably scruple at either touching the Author out of whom they are alledged or the Sense of the Place whether it signifie what is pretended to For a Deposition of a Witness and the Sentence of a Judge being of no value at all save onely for the reputation of the Witness or Judge it is most evident that if either proceed from Persons unknown or suspected they are invalid and prove nothing at all In like manner if the Deposition of a Witness or Sentence of a Judge be obscure and in doubtful Terms it is clear that in this case the Business must rest undecided there being another Doubt first to be cleared namely What the meaning of either of them was The second Point that I shall here lay down for a Foundation to the ensuing Discourse is no less evident than the former namely That to allow a sufficiency to the Writings of the Fathers for the deciding of these Controversies we must necessarily attribute to their Persons very great Authority and such as may oblige us to follow their Judgment in Matters of Religion For if this Authority be wanting how clear and express soever their Opinions be in the Articles now controverted it will do nothing at all toward their Decision We have therefore here two things to examine in this Business The first is Whether or not we may be able now certainly and clearly to know what the Opinion of the Fathers hath been touching the Differences now in hand The second Whether their Authority be such as that whatever faithful Person shall clearly and certainly know what their Opinion hath been in any one Article of Christian Religion he is thereby bound to receive that Article for True For if the Church of Rome be but able to prove both these Points it is then without all dispute that their Proceeding is good and agreeable to the End proposed there being so many of the Ancient Fathers Writings alledged at this day by them But if on the contrary side either of these Two things or both of them be indeed found to be doubtful I should think that any Man of a very mean Judgment should be able to conclude of himself That this way of Proof which they have hitherto made use of is very insufficient and that therefore they of necessity ought to have recourse to some other more proper and solid way in the Proof of the Truth of the said Opinions which the Protestants will not by any means receive THE FIRST BOOK CHAP. I. REASON I. Touching the Difficulty of knowing the Sense of the Fathers in reference to the present Controversies in Religion drawn from hence Namely Because there is very little extant of Their Writings for the Three First Centuries IF we should in this particular take the same course which some Writers of the Church of Rome make use of against the Holy Scriptures it would be a very easie matter to bring in question and render very doubtful and suspected all the Writings of the Fathers For when any one alledgeth the Old or New Testament these Gentlemen presently demand How or by what means they know that any such Books were truly written by those Prophets and Apostles under whose Names they go If therefore in like manner when these Men urge Justin Irenaeus Ambrose Augustine and the like one should take them short and demand of them How and by what means they are assured that these Fathers were the Authors of those Writings which at this day go under their Names it is very much to be doubted but that they would find a harder Task of it than their Adversaries in justifying the Inscriptions of the Books of Holy Writ the Truth whereof is much more easie to be demonstrated than of any Humane Writings whatsoever But I pass by this too-artificial way of Proceeding and onely say That it is no very easie matter to find out by the Writings of the Fathers what hath really beeen their Opinion in any of those Controversies which are now in debate betwixt the Protestant and the Church of Rome The Considerations which render the knowledge of this so difficult are many I shall therefore in this First Part handle some of them onely referring the rest to the Later examining them one after another The first Reason therefore which I shall lay down for the proving of this Difficulty is The little we have extant of the Writings of the Ancient Fathers especially of the First Second and Third Centuries which are those we are most especially to regard For seeing that one of the principal Reasons that moveth the Church of Rome to alledge the Writings of the Fathers is to shew the Truth of their Tenets by the Antiquity which they reckon as a Mark of it it is most evident that the most Ancient ought to be the most taken notice of And indeed there is no question to be made but that the Christian Religion was more pure and without mixture in its beginnings and Infancy than it was afterwards in its Growth and Progress it being the ordinary course of Things to contract Corruptions more or less according as they are more or less removed from their first Institution As we see by experience in States Laws Arts and Languages the Natural Propriety of
Observation of the Lords Day by Pius both Bishops of Rome which is a thing Eusebius never so much as dreamt of as may appear out of some Manuscripts of him where you shall find him wholly muâ—e as to these Points wherewith the Moderns so much please themselves But to return and to take the Times all along as they lie we may observe that this Licence grew stronger daily as the Times grew worse because that the greater the distance of time was from the Author 's own Age the more difficult the discovery of these Forgeries must necessarily be the Example also of some of the most eminent Persons among the Ancients who had sometimes made use of these sleights adding on the other side boldness to every one and courage to venture upon what they had done before them For I pray you is it not a strange thing that the Legats of Pope Leo in the year 451. in the midst of the Council of Chalcedon where were assembled 600 Bishops the very Flower and Choice of the whole Clergy should have the confidence to alledge the VI Canon of the Council of Nice in these very Words That the Church of Rome hath always had the Primacy Words which are no more found in any Greek Copies of the Councils than are those other pretended Canons of Pope Zozimus neither do they yet appear in any Greek or Latin Copies nor so much as in the Edition of Dionysius Exiguus who lived about fifty years after this Council When I consider that the Legats of so holy a Pope would at that time have fastned such a Wen upon the Body of so Venerable a Canon I am almost ready to think that we scarcely have any thing of Antiquity left us that is entire and uncorrupt except it be in Matters of Indifferency or which could not have been corrupted without much noise and to take this Proceeding of theirs which is come to our knowledge as an advertisement purposely given us by Divine Providence to let us see with how much consideration and advisedness we ought to receive for the Council of Nice and of Constantinople and for Cyprian and Hieroâ—o's Writings that which goes at this day for such About seventy four years after the Council of Chalcedon Dionysius Exiguus whom we before mentioned made his Collection at Rome which is 〈◊〉 printed at Paris Cum Privilegio Regiâ— out of very ancient Manuscripts Whosoever shall but look diligently Into this Collection shall find divers alterations in it one whereof I shall instance in only to shew how ancient this Artifice hath been among Christians The last Canon of the Council of Laâ—dicea which is the 163. of the Greek Code of the Church Universal forbidding to read in Churches any other Books than those which are Canonical gives us withal a long Catalogue of them Dionysius Exiguus although he hath indeed inserted in his Collection Num. 162. the beginning of the said Canon which forbiddeth to read any other Books in the Churches besides the sacred Volumes of the Old and New Testament yet hath he wholly omitted the Catalogue or List of the said Books fearing as I conceive lest the Tail of this Catalogue might scandalize the Church of Rome where many years before Pope Innocent had by an express Decree to that purpose put into the Canon of the Old Testament the Maccabees the Wisdom of Solomon Ecclesiasticus Tobit Judith c. of which Books the Fathers of the Council of Laodicea make no mention at all naming but XXII Books of the Old Testament and in the Catalogue of the New utterly omitting the Apocalypse If any Man can shew me any better reason of this suppression let him speak as for my part I conceive this the most probable that can be given however we are not at all bound to divine what the motive should be that made Dionysius out off that part of the Canon For whatsoever the reason were it serves the turn well enough to make it appear that at that time they made no great conscience to curtal if need were the very Text of the Canons themselves So that if we had not had the good luck to have had this Canon entire and perfect in divers other Monuments of Antiquity as namely in the Collections of the Greeks and also in the Councils of the French Church we should at this Day have been wholly ignorant what the judgment of the Fathers of Lâ—â—odices was touching the Canon of the holy Scripturâ—s which is one of the principal Controversies of these times It is true I confess that the Latins have their revenge upon the Greeks reproaching them in like manner because that in their Translation of the Code of the Canons of the African Church they have left the Books of the Maccabees quite out of the Roll of the Books of the Scripture which is set down in the 24. Canon of their Collection expresly against the Faith of all the Latin copies of this Collection both Printed and Manuscript as Cardinal Perron affirmeth and yet there are some others who assure us that no Book of Maccabees appears at all in this Canon in the Collection of Cresâ—bnius a Bishop of Africk not yet printed The Greek Cudâ— represents unto us VII Canons of the I Council of Constantinople which are in like manner found both in Balsamon and in Zonaras and also in the Greek and Latin Edition of the General Councils printed at Rome The three last of these do not appear at all in the Latine Code of 〈◊〉 though they are very considerable ones as to the business they relate to which is That Order in Proceeding in passing Judgment upon Bishops accused and in receiving such persons who forsaking their Communion with Hereticks desire to be admitted into the Church 〈…〉 very hard to say what should move the 〈…〉 this Council thus But this I am 〈…〉 in the VI. Canon which is one of those 〈…〉 hath omitted and which treateth of judging of Bishops accused there is not the least mention made of Appealing to Rome nor of any Reserved Cases wherein it is not permitted to any save only to the Pope himself to judge a Bishop the power of hearing and determining all such matters being here wholly and absolutely referred to the Provincial and Dioceâ—an Synods Now whether the Greeks added this tail to the Council of Constantinople which yet is not very probable or whether Dionysius or the Church of Rome curtalled this Council it will still that way also appear clearly that this boldness in gâ—lding or making Additions to Ecclesiastical Writings is not at all in use in these dayes After the Canons of Constantinople there follow in the Greek Code VIII Canons of the General Council of Ephâ—sus set down also both by Balsamon and Zonaras and printed with the Acts of the said Council of Ephesus in the First Tome of the Roman Edition But Dionysius Exiguus hath discarded them all not giving us any one of
from the Father to the Son this doubt I say of his manifestly proveth that the Church had not as yet at that time embraced or concluded upon the former of these Opinions it being a thing utterly improbable that so modest a Man as S. Augustine was would have cast off the general Opinion of the Church and have taken up a particular Fancy of his own But the Passion wherewith S. Hierome was at that time carried away against Ruffinus a great part of the Learned Men of his time being also of the said Opinion easily wrought in him a belief that it was the Common Judgment and Opinion of the whole Christian Church From the same Root also sprung that Errour of John Bishop of Thessalonica if at least it be an Errour who affirmed That the Opinion of the Church was That Angels are not wholly Incorporeal and Invisible but that they have Bodies though of a very Rare and thin Substance not much unlike those of the Fire or the Air. For those who published the General Councils at Rome conceive this to have been his own private Opinion onely And if so neither shall we need at present to examine the Truth of this their Conceit you then plainly see that the Affection this Author bare to his own Opinion carried him so far away as to make him father upon the whole Church what was indeed but his own particular Opinion though otherwise he were a Man who was highly esteemed by the VII Council which not onely citeth him among the Fathers but honours him also with the Title of a Father Epiphanius must also be excused in the same manner where he assures us That the Church held by Apostolical Tradition the Custom which it had of meeting together thrice a Week for the Celebration of the Holy Eucharist which yet Petavius maketh evidently appear not to have been of Apostolical Institution The Mistakes of Venerable Bede noted and censured elsewhere by Petavius are of the fame nature also The Belief of the Church if I mistake not saith he is That our Saviour Christ lived in the Flesh Thirty three Years or there about till the time of his Passion And he saith moreover That the Church of Rome testifieth that this is Its Belief by the Marks which they yearly set upon their Tapers upon Good Friday whereon they always inscribe a Number of Tears which is less by Thirty three than the common Aera of the Christians He likewise saith in the same place That it is not lawful for any Catholick to doubt whether Jesus Christ suffered on the Cross the XV day of the Moon or not Now Petavius hath proved at large that both these Opinions which Beda delivers unto us as the Churches Belief are nothing less than what he would have them The curious Reader may observe many the like Carriages in the Writings of the Fathers but these here already set down in my judgment do sufficiently justifie the doubt which I have made namely that we ought not to receive as Certain Truths the Testimony which the Fathers give touching the Belief of the Church in their Time Nevertheless that we may not seem to make a breach upon the Honour and Reputation of the Fathers I say that though we should grant that all their Depositions and Testimonies in this Particular were certainly and undoubtedly True yet notwithstanding would they be of little use to us as to our present purpose For first of all there are but very few Passages wherein they testifie plainly and in direct Terms what the Belief of the Church in their Time hath been touching the Points now controverted amongst us This is the Business of an Historian rather than of a Doctor of the Church whose Office is to teach to prove and to exhort the People committed to his Charge and to correct their Vices and Errours telling them what they ought to do or believe rather than troubling them with Discourses of what is done or believed by others But yet when they do give their Testimony what the Belief and Discipline of the Church in their time was this Testimony of theirs ought not to extend save onely to what was apparently such and which besides was apparent to themselves too Now as we have formerly proved they could not possibly know the Sense and Opinions of every particular Christian that lived in their time nor yet of all the Pastors and Ministers who were set over them but of some certain Particular Christians onely Forasmuch therefore as it is confessed even by those very Men who have the Church in greatest esteem that the Belief of Particular Churches is not infallible we may very easily perceive that such Testimonies of the Fathers as these can standus in very little or no stead seeing they represent unto us such Opinions as are not always certainly and undoubtedly True and which consequently are so far from confirming and proving ours as that they rather stand in need of being examined aud proved themselves But yet suppose that the Church of Rome did hold that the Beliefs of Particular Churches were Infallible which yet it doth not yet would not this make any thing at all against the Protestants forasmuch as they are of the clean contrary Opinion Now it is taken for granted on all hands that Proofs ought to be fetched from such things as are confessed and acknowledged by your Adversary whom you endeavour to convince otherwise you will never be able to move him or make him quit his former Opinion Seeing therefore that the Testimonies of the Farthers touching the State of the Faith and Ecclesiastical Discipline of their Times are of this Nature it remaineth that we now consider their other Discourses wherein they have delivered themselves not as Witnesses deposing what they had seen but as Doctors instructing us in what they believed And certainly how Holy and Able soever they were it cannot be denied but that they were still Men and consequently were subject to Error especially in matters of Faith which is a Business so much transcending Humane Apprehension The Spirit of God onely was able to direct their Understandings and their Pens in the Truth and to withhold them from falling into any Error in like manner as it directed the Holy Prophets and Apostles while they wrote the Books of the Old and New Testament Now we cannot be any way assured that the Spirit of God was present always with them to enlighten their Understandings and to make them see the Truth of all those things whereof they wrote They neither pretend to this themselves nor yet doth any one that I know of attribute unto them this Assistance unless it be perhaps the Author of the Gloss upon the Decrees who is of Opinion that we ought to stand to all that the Fathers have written even to the least tittle who yet is very justly called to a round account for this by Alphonsus Ã
its opinion publickly touching the Points at this day controverted it is as impossible that many together that lived in the same time should represent it unto us as that one single person should How could they possibly have seen that which lay as yet concealed How could they possibly measure their Belief by such a Rule as was not yet visible to the World The Chiliasts alledge the Testimonies not of one not of two but of a very great number of the most eminent and the most ancient among the Fathers who were all of their opinion as we shall see hereafter The Answer that is ordinarily made to the Objection is That the Church having not as yet declared its sence touching this Point the Testimonies of these Men bind us not to believe the same which is an evident Argument that a great number in this case signifies no more than a small in the representing unto us what the Belief of the Church hath been and that it is necessary that either by some General Council or else by some other publick way it must have declared its judgment touching any Question in debate that so we may know whether the Fathers have been of the same judgment or no. So that according to this Account we are to raise up again the whole Ancient Church and to call it to account touching every of these particular Points now debated touching which the Testimonies of the Fathers are alledged it being impossible otherwise to give any certain judgment whether that which they say be their own private or else the publick Opinion that is to say whether it be fit to be believed or not So that any man that is but of the meanest judgment may easily perceive how that it is not only a difficult but also almost an impossible thing to gather out of the Writings of the Fathers so much light as is necessary we should have for our satisfaction in matters of so great importance CHAP. X. Reason 10. That it is a very hard matter to know whether the Opinions of the Fathers touching the Controversies of these Times were received by the Church Vniversal or but by some part of it only which yet is necessarily to be known before we can make use of any Allegations out of them BUT suppose that a Father relieving us in this difficult or rather impossible business should tell us in express terms that what he proposeth is the sense and opinion of the Church in his time yet would not this quite deliver us out of the doubtful condition we are in For besides that their words are many times in such cases as these liable to exception suppose that it were certainly and undoubtedly so yet would it concern us then to examine what that Church was whereof he speaketh whether it were the Church Vniversal or only some Particular Church and whether it were that of the whole World or that of some City Province or Country only Now that this is a matter of no small importance is evident from hence because that the opinions of the Church Vniversal in Points of Faith are accounted infallible and necessarily true whereas those of Particular Churches are not so but are confessed to be subject to Errour So that the Question being here touching the Faith which ought not to be grounded upon any thing save what is infallibly true it will concern us to know what the judgment of the Church Vniversal hath been seeing the opinion of no Particular Church can do us any service in this case And that this distinction is also otherwise very necessary appears evidently by this because that the opinions and customs which have been commonly received by the greatest part of Christendom have not always presently taken place in each Particular Church and again those which have been received in some certain Particular Churches have not been entertained by all the rest Thus we find in story that the Churches of Asia minor kept the Feast of Easter upon a different day from all the other parts of Christendom and although the business it self seems to be of no very great importance yet did it nevertheless cause a world of stir in the Church Victor Bishop of Rome by reason of this little difference excommunicating all Asia minor Now each party here alledged their Reasons and Apostolical Tradition for what they did speaking with so great confidence in the justification of their own opinion as that hearing them severally a man would verily believe that each of their opinions was the very sense of the whole Church which notwithstanding was but the opinion of one part of it only The greatest part of Christendom held the Baptism of Hereticks to be good and effectual and received all those who forsaking their Heresie desired to be admitted into the Communion of the Church without re-baptizing them as appears out of St. Cyprian who confesseth that this had also been the custom formerly even in the African Churches themselves And yet notwithstanding Firmilianus Archbishop of Caesaria in Cappadocia testifies that the Churches of Cappadocia had time out of mind believed and practised the contrary and had also in his time so declared and ordained together with the Churches of Galatia and Cilicia in a full Synod held at the City Iconium And about the same time also St. Cyprian and the Bishops of Africk fell upon the same business and embraced this opinion of Re-baptization of Hereticks The Acts of the Council held at Carthage are yet extant where you have 87 Bishops who with one unanimous consent established the same The Custom at Rome in Tertullians time was to receive into the Communion of the Church all Fornicators and Adulterers after some certain Penances which they enjoyned them Tertullian who was a Montanist exclaimed fearfully against this custom and wrote a Book expresly against it which is also extant among his works at this day Who now that should read this Piece of his would not believe that it was the general Opinion of all Catholicks that such sinners were not to be excluded from Penance and the Communion of the Church And yet for all this it is evident out of a certain Epistle of St. Cyprian that even some of the Catholick Bishops of Africa were of the contrary perswasion and the Jesuit Petavius is further of opinion that this Indulgency was not allowed nor practised in the Churches of Spain till a long time after and that the Ancient Rigour which excluded for ever such Offenders from the Communion of the Church was in practice among them till the time of Pacianus Bishop of Barcellona who left not any hopes of Ecclesiastical Absolution either to Idolaters Murtherers or Adulterers as may be seen in his Exhortation to Repentance In the year of our Lord 364. the Council of Laodicea ordained that none but the Canonical Books of the Old and New Testament should be read in Churches giving us withal a Catalogue of the said Books
to give me leave to set down here the whole Passage at length As for these kind of Books saith he speaking of those Books which we Write not with Authority of Commanding but only out of a Design of exercising our selves to benefit others we are so to read them as not being bound necessarily to believe them but as having a liberty left us of judging of what we read Yet notwithstanding that we may not quite shut out these Books and deprive posterity of the most profitable labour of exercising their Language and Stile in the handling and treating of hard Questions we make a Distinction betwixt these Books of Later Writers and the Excellency of the Canonical Authority of the Old and New Testament which having been confirmed in the Apostles time hath since by the Bishops who succeeded them and the Churches which have been propagated throughout the World been placed as it were upon a high Throne there to be reverenced and adored by every Faithful and Godly Vnderstanding And if we chance here to meet with any thing that troubleth us and seemeth Absurd we must not say that the Author of the Book was ignorant of the truth but rather that either our Copy is false or the Interpreter is mistaken in the sense of the place or else that we understand not him aright And as for the Writings of those other Authors who have come after Them the number whereof is almost infinite though coming very far short of this most sacred Excellency of the Canonical Scriptures a man may sometimes find in them the very same truth though it shall not be of equal Authority And therefore if by chance we here meet with such things as seem contrary to the Truth by reason perhaps of our not understanding them only we have our Liberty either in reading or hearing the same to approve of what we like and to reject that which we conceive not to be so right So that except all such passages be made good either by some certain reason or else by the Canonical Authority of the Scriptures and that it be made appear that the thing asserted either really it or else at least that it might have been he that shall reject or not assent to the same ought not in any wise to be reprehended And thus far have we S. Augustine testifying on our side as well here as in many other places which would be too long to be inserted here that those opinions which we find delivered by the Fathers in their Writings are grounded not upon their bare Authority but upon their Reasons and that they bind not our belief otherwise than so far forth as they are consonant either to the Scripture or to Reason and that they ought to be examined by the one and the other as proceeding from persons that are not infallible but possibly may have erred So that it appears from hence that the course which is at this day observed in the World is not of sufficiency enough for the discovery and demonstration of the truth For we are now in doubt suppose what the sense and meaning is of such a piece of Scripture Here shall you presently have the judgment of a Father brought upon the said place quite contrary to the Rule S. Augustine giveth us who would have us examine the Fathers by the Scriptures and not the Scriptures by the Fathers Certainly according to the judgment of this Father the Protestant though a Passage as clear and express as any of the Canons of the Council of Trent should be brought against him out of any of the Fathers ought not to be blamed if he should answer that he cannot by any means assent unto it unless the truth of it be first proved unto him either by some certain Reason or else by the Authority of the Canonical Scriptures and that then and not till then he shall be ready to assent unto it So that according to this Account we are to alledge not the Names but the Reasons of Books to take notice not of the Quality of their Authors but of the Solidity of their Proofs to consider what it is they give us and not the face or hand of him that gives it us and in a word to reduce the dispute from Persons to Things And S. Jerome also seemeth to commend unto us this manner of Proceeding where in the Preface to his second Commentary upon Hosea he hath these words Then saith he that is after the Authors of Books are once departed this life we judge of their worth and parts only not considering at all the Dignity of their Name and the Reader hath regard only to what he reads and not to the Author whose it is So that whether he were a Bishop or a Lay-man a General and a Lord or a common Souldier and a Servant whether he lie in Purple and in Silk or in the vilest and coursest rags he shall be judged not according to his degree of honour but according to the merit and worth of his Works Now he here speaks either of matter of Right or of Fact and his meaning is that either we ought to take this course in our Judgments or else it is a plain Affirmation that it is the practice of the World so to do If his words are to be taken in the first sense he then clearly takes away all Authority from the bare Names of Writers and so would have us to consider the Quality only and weight of their Writings that is to say their Reasons and the force of the Arguments they use If he be to be understood in the second sense he seemeth not to speak truth it being evident that the ordinary course of the world is to be more taken with the titles and names of Books than with the things therein contained But supposing however that this was S. Hieroms meaning we may notwithstanding very safely believe that he approveth of the said course for as much as having this occasion of speaking of it he doth not at all reprehend it If therefore thou hast any mind to stand to his judgment lay me aside the Names of Augustine and of Hierome of Chrysostome and of Cyril and forget for this once the Rochet of the first and the Chair of the second together with the Patriarchal Robe of the two last and observe what they say and not what they were the ground and reason of their opinions and not the dignity of their persons But that which makes me very much wonder is that some of those who have been the most conversant in Antiquity should trouble themselves in stuffing up their Books with declamatory expressions in praise of the Authors they produce not forbearing to recount to you so much as the Nobleness of their Extraction the choiceness of their Education the gallantry of their Parts the eminency of their See and the greatness of their State This manner of writing may perhaps suit well enough with
all which is continually declining after they have once passed the Point of their Vigour and as it were the Flower and Prime of their Strength and Perfection Now I cannot believe that any faithful Christian will deny but that Christianity was in its Height and Perfection in the time of the Blessed Apostles And indeed it would be the greatest injury that could be offered them to say that any of their Successors have either had a greater desire or more Abilities to advance Christianity than they had It will hence follow then That those Times which were nearest to the Apostles were necessarily the purest and less subject to suspicion of Corruptions either in Doctrine or in Manners and Christian Discipline it being but reasonable to believe that if there be any Corruptions crept into the Church they came in by little and little and by degrees as it happens in all other things If any one shall here object That even the very next Age immediately after the times of the Apostles was not without its Errours if we may believe Hegesippus who as he is cited by Eusebius witnesseth that the Church continued a Virgin till the Emperour Trajan's time but that after the death of the Apostles the Conspiracy of Errour began to discover it self with open fce I shall not oppose any thing against this testimony but shall only say that if the Enemy immediately upon the setting of these Stars of the Church their Presence and Light being scarcely shut in had yet the boldness presently to fall to sowing his evil seed how much more had he opportunity to do this in those Ages which were further removed from their Times when as the Sanctity and Simplicity of these great Teachers of the World having now by little and little vanished out of the memories of Men Humane Inventions and new Fancies began to take place So that we may however conclude That supposing that Christianity even in the First Ages hath not been altogether exempt from alteration in Doctrine yet are they much more free from it than the succeeding Ages can pretend to be and are therefore consequently to be preferred before them in all respects it being here something like what the Poets have fancied of the Four Ages of the World where the succeeding Age always came short of the former For as for the Opinion of those Men who think the best way to find out the true Sense of the Ancient Church will be to search the Writings of those of the Fathers chiefly who lived betwixt the time of Constantine the Great till Pope Leo or till Pope Gregory's time that is to say from the end of the Third Century till the beginning of the Seventh I take this as a Confession onely of the small number of Books that are left us of those Ages before Constantine and not that these Men allow that the Authority of these Three later Ages ought to be preferred to that of the Three former If we had but as much Light and as clear Evidences of the Belief of the one as we have of the other I make no question but they would prefer the Former But if they mean otherwise and are indeed of a perswasion that the Church was really more pure after Constantine's time than before they must excuse me if I think that they by this means confess the distrust they have of their own Cause seeing they endeavour to get off as far as they can from the Light of the Primitive times retreating back to those Ages wherein it is most evident there was both less Perfection and Light than before running clean contrary to that excellent Rule which S. Cyprian hath given us That we should have recourse to the Fountain whenever the Channel and Stream of Doctrine and Ecclesiastical Tradition is found to be any whit corrupted But however let their meaning be what it will their Words in my judgment do not a little advantage the Protestants Cause it being a very clear confession That those Opinions about which they contest with them do not at all appear clearly in any of the Books that were written during the Three First Centuries For if they were found clearly in the same what Policy were it then in them to appeal to the Writers of the Three following Centuries to which they very well know that their Adversaries attribute less than to the Former But besides this tacite Confession of theirs the thing is evident namely That there is left us at this day very little of the Writings of the Fathers of the Three First Centuries of Christianity for the deciding of our Differences The blessed Christians of those times contented themselves for the greatest part of them with writing the Christian Faith in the hearts of Men by the beams of their Sanctity and holy Life and by their Blood shed in Martyrdom without much troubling themselves with the writing of Books Whether it were because as Learned Origen elegantly gives the Reason they were of opinion that the Christian Religion was to be defended by the Innocency of Life and honesty of Conversation rather than by Sophistry and the Artifice of Words or whether because their continual Sufferings gave them not leisure to take Pen in hand and to write Books or else whether it were for some other Reason perhaps which we know not But this we are very well assured of that except the Writings of the Apostles there was very little written by others in these Primitive times which was the cause of so much trouble to Eusebius in the beginning of his History having little or no light to guide him in his Undertaking and treading as himself saith in a new path unbeaten by any that had gone before him Besides the greatest part of those few Books which were written by the Christians of those Times have not come down to our hands but were lost either through the injury of Time that consumeth all things or else have been made away by the malice of Men who have made bold to suppress and smother whatsoever they met with that was not wholly to their gust Of this sort were those five Books of Papias Bishop of Hierapolis the Apology of Quadratus Atheniensis and that other of Aristides the Writings of Castor Agrippa against the XXIV Books of the Heretick Basilides the five Books of Hegesippus the Works of Melito Bishop of Sardis Dionysius Bishop of Corinth Apollinaris Bishop of Hierapolis the Epistle of Pinytus Cretensis the Writings of Philippus Musanus Modestus Bardesanes Pantaenus Rhodon Miltiades Apollonius Serapion Bacchylus Polycrates Bishop of Ephesus Heraclius Maximus Hammonius Tryphon Hippolytus Julius Africanus Dionysius Alexandrinus and others of whom we have no more left save onely their Names and the Titles of their Books which are preserved in Eusebius S. Hierome and others All that we have left us of these Times which is certainly known to be theirs and that no Man doubts of is some certain Discourses of
S. Justin the Philosopher and Martyr who wrote his second Apology a hundred and fifty years after the Nativity of our Saviour Christ the Five Books of S. Irenaeus who wrote not long after him Three excellent and learned Pieces of Clemens Alexandrinus who lived toward the end of the second Century divers Books of Tertullian who was famous about the same time the Epistles and other Treatises of S. Cyprian Bishop of Carthage who suffered Martyrdom about the year of our Saviour CCLXI the Writings of Arnobius and of Lactantius his Scholar and some few others For as for Origen S. Cyprian's Contemporary who alone had we but all his Writings entire would be able perhaps to give us more light and satisfaction in the Business we are now upon than all the rest we have but very little of him left us and the greatest part of that too most miserably abused and corrupted the most learned and almost innumerable Writings of this great and incomparable Person not being able to withstand the violence of Time nor the envy and malice of Men who have dealt much worse with him than so many Ages and Centuries of Years that have passed from his time down to us And thus have I given you an account of well-nigh all that we have left us which is certainly known to have been written by the Fathers of the Three First Centuries For as for those other Pieces which are pretended to have been written in the same times but are indeed either confessed to be supposititious by the Romanists themselves or are rejected by their Adversaries and that upon very good and probable grounds these are not to have any place at all or account here in clearing the Controversie we have now in hand The Writings of the Fourth and Fifth Centuries have I confess out-gone the Former for number and good fortune too the greatest part of them having come down safe to our Hands but they come much short of the other in Weight and Authority especially in the Judgment of the Protestants who maintain and that upon very probable Grounds too That the Christian Religion hath from the beginning had its declinings by little and little losing in every Age some certain degree of its Primitive and Native Purity And besides we have good cause perhaps to fear lest the multitude of Writers of these two Ages trouble us as much as the paucity of them in the three preceding and that as before we suffered under scarcity we now be overwhelmed with their multitude For the multitude of Words and of Books serves as much sometimes to the suppressing of the Sense and Opinion of any Publick Body as Silence it self our Minds being then extremely confounded and perplexed while it labours to apprehend what is the True and Common Opinion of the Whole amidst so many differently-biassed Particulars whereof each endeavours to express the same it being most certain that amongst so great and almost infinite variety of Spirits and Tongues you shall very hardly meet with two Persons that shall deliver to you one and the same Opinion especially in Matters of so high a nature as the Controversies in Religion are after the same form and way of representation how unanimous soever their Consent may otherwise be in the same Opinion And this Variety although it be but in the Circumstances of the thing makes notwithstanding the Foundation it self to appear different also CHAP. II. Reason II. That those Writings which we have of the Fathers of the First Centuries treat of Matters very far different from the present Controversies in Religion BUt suppose that neither the want of Books in the Three First Centuries nor yet the abundance of them in the Three following should bring along with it these inconveniences it will however be very hard to discover out of them what the Opinion of their Authors hath been touching those Points of Christian Religion now controverted For the Matters whereof They treat are of a very different nature these Authors according as the necessity of their times required employing themselves either in justifying the Christian Religion and vindicating it from the aspersion of such Crimes wherewith it was most falsly and injuriously charged or else in laying open to the World the Absurdity and Impiety of Paganism or in convincing the hard-hearted Jews or in confuting the prodigious Fooleries of the Hereticks of those times or in exhortations to the Faithful to Patience and Martyrdom or in expounding some certain Passages and Portions of the Holy Scripture all which things have very little to do with the Controversies of these times of which they never speak Syllable unless they accidentally or by chance let a Word drop from them toward this side or that side yet without the least thought of us or of our Controversies although both the one and the other Party sometimes lights upon Passages wherein they conceive they have discovered their own Opinions clearly delivered though in vain for the most part and without ground just as he did that hearing a Ring of Bells thought they perfectly â—ounded out unto him what he in his own thoughts had fancied Justin Martyr and Tertullian Theophilus and Lactantius Clemens and Arnobius shew the Heathen the vainness of their Religion and of their gods and that Jupiter and Juno were but Mortals and that there is but one onely God the Creator of Heaven and Earth Irenaeus bends his whole Forces against the prodigious Opinions of Basilides the Valentinians and other Gâ—osticks who were the Inventors of the most Chimaerical Divinity that ever came into the fancy of Man Tertullian also whips them as they well deserve it but he especially takes Marcion Hermâ—genes Apelles Praxcas and others to task who maintained That there were Two Gods or Two Principles and confounded the Persons of the Father and the Son Cyprian is wholly upon the Discipline and the Vertues of the Christian Church Arius Macedonius Eunomius Photinus Pelagius and afterwards Nestorius and Eutyches made work for the Fathers of the Fourth and Fifth Centuries The Blasphemies of these Men against the Person or the Natures of our Saviour Christ or against the Holy Ghost and its Grace which have now of a long time lay buried and forgotten were the Matters debated in those times and the subject of the greatest part of the Books then written that have come to our Hands What relation hath any thing of all this to the Business of Transubstantiation and the Adoration of the Eucharist or the Monarchy of the Pope or the Necessity of Auricular Confession or the Worshipping of Images and the like Points which are the Business of the present Controversies and which none of the Ancients hath handled expresly and of set purpose and perhaps too never so much as thought of It is very true indeed that the silence of these Fathers in these Points which some set so much by is not wholly mute and perhaps also it may pass for a very clear Testimony
the other side Ruffinus had some Name in the Church though nothing near so great a one as Cyprian had and this is the reason why the afore-named Merchants have inscribed with S. Cyprian's Name that Treatise upon the Apostles Creed which was written by Ruffinus Besides the Avarice of these Librarii their own Ignorance or at least of those whom they consulted hath in like manner produced no small number of these spurious Pieces For when either the likeness of the Name or of the Stile or of the Subject treated of or any other seeming Reason gave them occasion to believe that such an Anonymous Book was the Work of such or such an ancient Author they presently copied it out under the said Author's Name and thus it came from thenceforth to be received by the World for such and by them to be delivered for such over to Posterity But all the blame is not to be laid upon the Transcribers onely in this particular the Authors themselves have contributed very much to the promoting of this kind of Imposture For there have been found in all Ages some that have been so sottishly ambitious and so desirous at what rate soever to have their Conceptions published to the World as that finding they should never be able to please and get applause abroad of themselves they have vented them under the Name of some of the Fathers chusing rather to see them received and honoured under this false Habit than disdained and slighted under their own true one These Men according as their several Abilities have been have imitated the Stile and Fancy of the Fathers either more or less happily and have boldly presented these Issues of their own Brain to the World under their Names The World the greatest part whereof hath always been the least subtile hath very readily collected preserved and cherished these false Births and hath by degrees filled all their Libraries with them Others have been moved to use the same Artifice not out of Ambition but some other irregular Fancy as those Men have done who having had a particular affection either to such a Person or to such an Opinion have faln to write of the same under the Name of some Author of good Esteem and Reputation with the World to make it pass the more currantly abroad Just as that Priest did who published a Book entituled The Acts of S. Paul and of Tecla and being convinced of being the Author of it in the presence of S. John he plainly confessed that the love that he bare to S. Paul was the onely cause that moved him to do it Such was the boldness also of Ruffinus a Priest of Aquileia whom S. Hierome justly reprehendeth so sharply and in so many places who to vindicate Origen's Honour wrote an Apology for him under the Name of Pamphilus a holy and renowned Martyr although the truth of it is he had taken it partly out of the First and Sixth Books that Eusebius had written upon the same Subject and partly made use of his own Invention in it Some such like Fancy it was that moved him also to put forth the Life of one Sextus a Pythagorean Philosopher under the Name of S. Sixtus the Martyr to the end that the Work might be received the more favourably What can you say to this namely That in the very same Age there was a Personage of greater Note than the former who disliking that Hierome had translated the Old Testament out of the Hebrew framed an Epistle under his Name wherein he maketh him repent himself of having done it which Epistle even in S. Hierome's Life-time though without his knowledge was published by the said Author both at Rome and in Africk Who could believe the truth of this bold attempt had not S. Hierome himself related the Story and made complaint of the Injury done him therein I must impute also to a Fancy of the same kind though certainly more innocent than the other the spreading abroad of so many Predictions of our Saviour Jesus Christ and his Kingdom under the Names of the Sibylls which was done by some of the first Christians onely to prepare the Pagans to relish this Doctrine the better as it is objected against them by Celsus in Origen But that which is of greater consequence yet is that even the Fathers themselves have sometimes made use of this Artifice to promote the Interest either of their own Opinions or their Passions We have a notable Example hereof which was objected against the Latins by the Greeks above two hundred years since of two Bishops of Rome Zozimus and Boniface who to authorize the Title which they pretended to have of being Universal Bishops and Heads of the whole Christian Church and particularly of the African forged about the beginning of the Fifth Century certain Canons in the Council of Nice and alledged them for such divers times in the Councils in Africa which notwithstanding after a long and diligent search could never yet be found in any of the Authentick Copies of the said Council of Nice although the African Bishops had taken the pains to send as far as Constantinople Alexandria and Antioch to get the best and truest Copies that they could Neither indeed have the Canons and Acts of the Council of Nice at this day though it hath since that time passed through so many several hands any such thing in itâ— no not in the Editions of those very Men who are the most interested in the Honour of the Popes as that of Dionysius Exiguus who published his Latin Collection of them about the year of our Saviour Christ 525. nor in any other either Ancient or Modern For at for that Authentick Copy of the Council of Nice which one Frier John at the Council of Florence pretended to have been the onely Copy that had escaped the Corruptions of the Arrians and had for this cause been always kept under Lock and Key at Rome with all the safety and care that might be out of which Copy they had transcribed the said Canons I confess this Copy must needs have been kept up very close under Locks and Seals seeing that three of their Popes namely Zozimus Boniface and Celestine could never be able to produce it for the justification of their pretended Title against the African Fathers though in a case of so great Importance And it is a wonderful strange thing to me that this Man who came a thousand years after should now at last make use of it in this cause whereas those very Persons who had it in their custody never so much as mentioned one Syllable of it which is an evident Argument that the Seals of this rare Book were never opened save onely in the Brains of this Doctor where onely it was both framed and sealed up brought forth and vanished all at the same instant the greatest part of those Men that have come after him having laid aside this Chimerical
sundry Passages of Scripture touching the meaning whereof we disagree among our selves hear what S. Hierome saith who was the most Learned of all the Latins and who gives place but very little to any of the Greeks in these Matters What saith he is the business of a Commentary It expoundeth the Words of another Man and declareth in plain Terms the Sense of Things obsâ—urely written it representeth the several Opinions of others and saith Some expound this Passage thus and others interpret it thus These endeavour to prove their Sense and Meaning by such Testimonies and such Reasons to the end that the Intelligent Reader having several Expositions before him and reading the Judgments of divers Men some bringing what he may and others perhaps what he cannot admit of he may judge which among the rest is the truest and like a wise Banker may refuse all adulterated Coin Now I would fain ask whether he ought to be accounted guilty of diversity in his Interpretations or of Contradiction in the Senses given who in one and the some Commentary shall deliver the Expositions of divers Persons and so on as it there followeth in the Place afore-cited He speaketh likewise to the same sense in divers other Places throughout his Works This saith he is the usual manner of Commentaries and the Rule that Commentators go by to set down in their Expositions the several Opinions they have met withal and to deliver both what their own and what the Judgment of others is upon the Place And this is the practice not only of the Interpreters of the Scriptures but of the Expositors also of all kind of Secular Learning as well in the Greek as in the Latin Tongue Now I must needs say that this seems to be a very strange way of Commenting For what light or what certainty can a Reader be able to gather out of such a Rhapsodie of different Opinions tumbled together in a heap without so much as intimating either which is good or bad or probable or necessary or to the purpose or not But seeing it hath pleased S. Hierome to follow this course whatsoever his reason be you see plainly that we are not to take as his whatsoever he hath delivered in his Commentaries And seeing also he speaks in general terms as he doth of the nature and manner of a Commentary we are not to doubt but that the rest of the Fathers have been the greatest part of them of the same Judgment and that consequently they took the same course in those Expositions which we have of theirs So that it will hence follow that notwithstanding that we should chance to find in these kind of Writings of theirs an Opinion or an Interpretation clearly delivered yet may we not from thence presently conclude that this was the Authors own Opinion for perhaps he only delivered it as the Opinion of some other Man Now if the Fathers had been but careful to have taken in Water out of wholesom Fountains only filling up their Commentaries with no other Opinions or Interpretations save only those of Persons of known Piety Faith and Learning this Mixture would have proved the less dangerous by much For notwithstanding that we should often be at a stand and doubt whether that which we there find be the true Sense and Opinion of the Father whose Name it goes under yet however we might still rest assured that though it should not perhaps be his yet must it certainly be the Opinion of some other good Author if not of equal yet of little less Authority than he But the mischief of it is that they took a quite contrary course many times stuffing up their Commentaries with very strange senseless Expositions and sometimes too with dangerous ones and such as were taken out of very suspected Authors and which had no very good Name neither in the Church S. Hierome tells us often and whoever shall but diligently and attentively read him may easily observe as much that his Commentaries which make the greatest and most considerable part of his Works are interwoven throughout with Expositions taken out of Origen Didymus Apollinaris and others who were at that time ill spoken of as Men who too presumptuously put upon the World their own private Opinions Fashioning the Mysteries of the Church out of their own private Fancies as S. Hierome himself sometime said of Origen Now this is wonderful strange to me for no Man is morce fierce in crying down these Authors than he being indeed one of the principal Heads of that Holy League of Theophilus and Epiphanius against Origen and his Party No Man ever reproved any one so sharply as he hath done Ruffinus for offering to present to the view of the Latins the poysonous Doctrines of Origen in those Books of his which he had translated And in the mean time he himself stuffs up his own Commentaries with the same many times without using any preparation at all about them or furnishing his Reader with any Counter-poyson in case he meet with any of them So likewise in his Commentaries upon the Prophets he ever and anon bringeth in divers Expositions out of the Jews themselves insomuch that when you think you are reading and searching after the Opinion and Sense of S. Hierome upon such or such a Passage you often read that of an Heretick or of a Jew If the Fathers would have but taken the pains to have given us notice every time who the Author was whose Opinion they alledged this manner of Commenting upon the Scriptures would have been much more beneficial unto us and less troublesom For the Name would have been useful to us in directing us what account we were to make of such Opinions and Expositions But this they do but very seldom as you may observe out of the Expositions of S. Hilary S. Ambrose and others who robbing poor Origen without any mercy do not yet do him the honour so much as to name him scarcely This is certain that you shall find in S. Ambrose many times whole Periods and whole Pages too taken out of S. Basil but unless my memory fail me very much you shall never find him once named there These Men deliver you the Opinions and Words of other Men just as if they were their own and yet will not be bound to warrant them us for good and sound S. Hierome in his Commentary upon the Epistle to the Galatians expoundeth that Passage where there is mention made of S. Paul's reproving S. Peter by way of Dispensation telling us that S. Paul did not reprehend him as if he had indeed accounted him blame-worthy but only for the better Edification and bringing in of the Gentiles by this seeming Reprehension of his who did but act this part with S. Peter to the end saith he that the Hypocrisie or false shew of observing the Law which offended those among the Gentiles who had believed might be
the Truth when as in his old age taking Pen in hand he reviewed and corrected all that he had ever written during his whole Life faithfully and ingenuously noting whatsoever he thought worthy of reprehension and giving us all those his Animadversions collected together in the Books of his Retractations which in my judgment is the most glorious and most excellent of all those many Monuments which he hath left to Posterity whether you consider here the Learning or the Modesty and Sincerity of the Man S. Hierome reporteth that Origen also long before had in his old age written an Epistle to Fabianus Bishop of Rome wherein he confesseth That he repented him of many things which he had taught and written Neither is there any doubt but that some such like thing may have hapned to most of the other Fathers and that they may have sometime disallowed of that which they had formerly believed as true Now from this consideration there falls in our way a new Difficulty which we are to grapple with in this our Inquiry into the true genuine sense of the Fathers touching our present Controversies For seeing that the Condition and Nature of their Writings is such it is most evident that when we would make use of any of their Opinions it will concern us to be very well assured that they have not only sometime either held or written the same but that they have moreover persevered in them to the end Whence Vincentius Lirinensis in that Passage of his which is so often urged for the making use of the Ancient Authors in deciding our present Controversies thinks it not fit that we should be bound to receive whatsoever they have said for certain and undoubted Truth unless they have assured and confirmed it unto us by their Perseverance in the same as he there speaketh Cardinal Perron also evidently sheweth us the same way by his own practice for disputing about the Canon of the Holy Scriptures which he pretendeth to have been always the very same in the Western Church with that which is delivered unto us by the III Council of Carthage where the Maccabees are reckoâ—ed in among the rest and finding himself hardly pressed by some certain Passages alledged by the Protestants out of S. Hierome to the contrary he answereth the Objection by saying among other things That this Father when he wrote the said Passages was not yet come to the ripeness of his Judgment and perfection of his Studies whereas afterwards when he was now more fully instructed in the truth of the Sense of the Church he changed his Opinion and retracted as this Cardinal saith both in general and in particular whatsoever he had before written in those three Prologues where he had excluded the Maccabees out of the Canon And so likewise to another Objection brought to the same purpose out of the Commentaries of S. Gregory the Great he gives the like answer saying That S. Gregory when he wrote that Piece was not yet come to be Pope but was a plain Deacon only being at that time employed at Constantinople as the Popes Nuncio to the Greeks Now these Answers of his are either insufficient or else it will necessarily follow from hence That we ought not to rest certainly satisfied in the Testimony of any Father except we first be assured that not only he never afterwards retracted that Opinion of his but that besides he wrote it in the strength and ripeness of his Judgment And see now how we are fallen into a new Labyrinth For first of all from whence and by what means may we be able to come truly and certainly to the knowledge of this Secret when as we can hardly meet with any light Conjectures tending to the making of this Discovery namely Whether a Father hath in his old age changed his Opinion touching that Point for which it is produced against us or not If they had all of them been either able or willing to have imitated the Modesty of S. Augustine we should then have had little left to trouble us But you will hardly find any either of the Ancients or of those of Later times that have followed this example unless it be Cardinal Bellarmine who hath lately thought good to revive this Piece of Modesty which had lain dead and buried for the space of so many Ages together by writing a Book of Retractations which Book of his is very diversly received by the Learned as well of the one as of the other Religion But yet if you will stand stiff upon it with Cardinal Perron and not allow the saying of a Father to be of any value unless it were written by him after the Ripeness of his Studies I shall then despair of our ever making any Progress so much as one step forward by this means in the business in hand For will the one and the other Party say upon every Testimony that shall be produced against them how do we know whether this Father had yet arrived to the Ripeness of his Judgment when he wrote this Book or not Who can tell whether or no those days of his Life that he enjoyed after the Writing hereof might not have bestowed as well clearness on his Understanding as Whiteness on his Head and have changed his Judgment as well as his Hair We suppose here that no such thing appeareth in any of his other Writings How many Authors are there who have changed their Opinions and yet have not retracted what they had formerly written But suppose now that we should have lost that particular Tract wherein the Author had given Testimony of the changing of his Opinion what should we do in this cafe If Time should have deprived us of S. Augustine's Retractations and some other of his later Writings as it hath of an infinite number of other Pieces both of his and other of the Fathers which would have been of as great importance to us we must certainly have thought that he had believed that the Cause of Predestination is the Prescience or Foreseeing of the Faith of Men reading but what he saith in one of the Books which he first wrote namely That God hath not elected the Works of any Man according to his Prescience seeing that it is He himself that gives the same to a Man But that he hath elected his Faith by His Presâ—ience that is He hath elected those who He foresaw would believe his Word that is to say He made choice of them to bestow His Holy Spirit upon that so by doing Good Works they might attain everlasting Life Now would the Pelagians and Semipelagians have brought this Passage as an infallible Argument that S. Augustine was of their Opinion but that his Retractations and his other Books which were written afterwards in his later time clearly make it appear that this Argument is of no force at all forasmuch as this Learned Father having afterwards better considered of this Point wholly altered
we have a Synodical Epistle of Sophronius Patriarch of Jerusalem wherein as the usual Custom was he explaineth the Faith in a very large and particular manner and yet notwithstanding you shall no there meet with any of those Points which are now controverted amongst us Those that shall search more narrowly into the Business will be apt positively to conclude from this their silence that these Points were not at that time any part of the Belief of the Church and certainly this their way of Argumentation seems not to want Reason But as for my own particular it is sufficient for me that it confirmeth the Truth of my Assertion which is That it is if not an impossible yet at least a very hard thing to discover in what degree either of Necessity or Probability the Ancient Fathers held each of those Points which are now debated amongst us seeing that they appear not at all neither in the Expositions of their Faith nor yet in the Determinations of their Councils which are as it were the Catalogues of those Points which they accounted Necessary CHAP. IX Reason IX We ought to know what hath been the Opinion not of one or more of the Fathers but of the whole Ancient Church which is a very hard matter to be found out THose who make most account of the Writings of the Fathers and who urge them the oftnest in their Disputations do inform us That the weight of their Sayings in these Matters proceeds from hence that they are as so many Testimonies of the General Sense and Judgment of the Church to which alone these men attribute the Supreme Power of Judging in Controversies of Religion For if we should consider them severally each by himself and as they stand by their own strength onely they confess that they may chance to erre So that it will follow hence That to the end we may make use of the Testimonies of the Fathers it is not sufficient for us to know whether such or such Sayings be truly theirs and if so what the meaning of them is but we ought further also to be very well assured that they are conformable to the Belief of the Church in their time in like manner as in a Court of Judicature the Opinion of any single Person of the Bench is of no weight at all as to the passing of Judgment unless it be conformable to the Opinion of all the rest or at least of the Major Part of the Company And now see how we are fallen again into new Difficulties For whence and by what means may we learn whether the whole Church in the time of Justin Martyr or of S. Augustine or of S. Hierome maintained the same Opinions in every particular that these Men severally did or not I confess that the Charity of these Men was very great and that they very heartily and constantly embraced the Body and Substance of the Belief of the Church in all Particulars that they saw apparently to be such But where the Church did not at all deliver it self and expresly declare what its Sense was they could not possibly how great soever their desire of so doing might have been follow its Authority as the Rule of their Opinions Wheresoever therefore they treat of Points which were long since decided believed and received expresly and positively by the whole Christian Church either of their own Age or of any of the preceding Ages it is very probable that they did conform to what was believed by the Church so that in these Cases their Saying may very well pass for a Testimony of the Judgment and Sense of the Church it being very improbable that they could be either ignorant what was the Publick Doctrine of the Church or that knowing the same they would not follow it As for example when Athanasius S. Ambrose S. Hierome S. Augustine and others discourse touching the Son of God they speak nothing but what is conformable to the Belief of the Church in General because that the Belief of the Church had then been clearly and expresly delivered upon this Point so that whatsoever they say as to this Particular may safely be received as a Testimony of the Churches Belief And the like may be done in all the other Points which have either been positively determined in any of the General Councils or delivered in any of the Creeds or that any other way appeareth to have been the publick Belief of the Church If the Fathers had but contained themselves within these Bounds and had not taken liberty to treat of any thing save what the Church had clearly delivered its Judgment upon this Rule might then have been received as a General one and what opinion soever we found in them we might safely have concluded it to have been the Sense of the Church that was in their time But the curiosity of Mans Nature together with the Impudence of the Hereticks and the Tenderness of Conscience whether of their own or of others and divers other Reasons perhaps having partly made them willingly and partly forced and as it were constrained them to go on further and to proceed to the search of the Truth of several Points which had not as yet been established by the universal and publick Consent of all Christians it could not be avoided but that necessarily they must in these Inquiries make use of their own proper Light and must deliver upon the same their own private Opinions which the Church which came after them hath since either embraced or rejected I shall not here stand to prove this my Assertion since it is a thing that is confessed on all hands and whereof the Romanists make special use upon all occasions in answering several Objections brought against them out of the Fathers As for example where Cardinal Bellarmine excuseth the Error of Pope John XXII touching the state of the Departed Souls before the Resurrection by saying that the Church in his time had not as yet determined any thing touching this Particular And so likewise where he applies the same Plaister to that in his Judgment so unsound Opinion of Pope Nicolas I who maintained That Baptism administred in the Name of Jesus Christ onely without expressing the other Persons of the Holy Trinity was not withstanding valid and effectual This is a Point saith Bellarmine touching which we find not the Church to have determined any thing And how dangerous and almost Heretical soever the Opinion of those Men seem to him to be who hold That the Pope of Rome may fall into Heresie yet doth he permit Pope Adrian to hold the same not daring to rank him among the Hereticks because that the Church had not as yet clearly and definitively delivered it self touching this Point The same Bellarmine in another Controversie of great importance touching the Canonical Books of the Old Testament finding himself hardly put to it by his Adversaries urging against him the Authority of S. Hierome who casts
Bold Assertion of his at once we need go no further than to the very Point it self touching which he proposed it For whom will he ever be able to perswade that All the Fathers have written and said the very same things touching the Procession of the Holy Ghost It is evident that sometimes they will have It to Proceed from the Son also as S. Basil by name hath expressed himself in that Passage of his which is alledged by the Latins out of his Book against Eunomius which Piece yet the Greeks say is forged and as the Fathers of the Western Church have most expresly declared themselves in many places But yet I cannot possibly see how we can say That they have All been of this Opinion I shall not here meddle with those other Authorities produced by the Greeks out of the Fathers which their Adversaries put by as well as they can oftentimes most miserably wresting and stretching upon the Rack the Words and Meaning of the Fathers But that Passage of Theodoret in his Refutation of S. Cyril's Anathema's is so clear and express as that nothing can be more S. Cyril had said in his IX Anathema That the Holy Ghost proceeded Properly from the Son Theodoret answereth That it is both Impious and Blasphemous to say that the Holy Ghost hath its Subsistence from the Son or by the Son If he mean saith he that the Holy Ghost proceedeth properly from the Son as heing of the same Nature with It and as proceeding from the Father we shall willingly agree with him and shall receive his Doctrine as Sound and Pious But if he mean that the Holy Ghost hath its Subsistence from the Son or by the Son we must then reject it as Impious and Blasphemous He could not have thrown by this Proposition of S. Cyril more bluntly or in courser Terms And yet for all this so flat giving him the Lie as it were and his so insolent rejecting of an Opinion that was then received by the Church as the Latins pretend S. Cyril replies no more but this That the Holy Ghost altbough It proceed from the Father yet nevertheless is not a Stranger to the Son since He hath all things common with the Father Why did he not cry out against him as an Heretick as he many times elsewhere doth with much less reason if at least you must needs have it granted you that the Opinion of the Church at that time was That the H. Ghost proceeded from the Son Why did he not take it very ill at his hands that he should in so insolent a manner reject as Impious and Blasphemous a Proposition that was so Holy and so True Why did he not call the Whole Church in to be his Warrant for what he had said if so be it had Really been the General Belief of the Church at that time And how comes it to pass that in stead of all this he rather returns so tame an Answer as seems rather to betray his own Cause and something also to encline to the contrary Opinion of his Adversary For it is evident that neither Theoderet nor yet any of the Modern Greeks ever held That the Holy Ghost was a Stranger to or was Unconcerned in the Son seeing they all confess That these three to wit the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost are One and the same God who is Blessed for ever Whosoever shall but diligently consider these things for we cannot stand any longer upon the Examination of them he cannot in my Judgment but confess that the Church had not as yet declared it self or determined any thing touching this Point and that these Doctors spake herein each Man his own Private Opinion only and according as the Present Occasion of Disputation led him to speak where you shall have them contradicting one another in like manner as is usual in speaking of things not as yet throughly examined or expresly determined insomuch that it would grieve a Man to see how the Greeks and the Latins toil and sweat to no purpose each of them labouring to bring over the Fathers to speak to their Side and fearfully wresting their Words whensoever they seem to be but never so little ambiguous and ever and anon accusing one another of having corrupted the Ancients Writings whensoever they are found to speak expresly against them and when all is done leaving those who either read or hear them without any Prejudice very much unsatisfied whereas it had been much more easie to have honestly confessed at first that which is but too apparent that the Fathers as in this so in many other Points of Religion have not all been of one and the same Perswasion And whereas Bessarion that he may clude this Testimony of Theodoret affirms That he was cast forth of the Church for having denied that the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Son and that he afterwards publickly confessed his Error at the Council of Cbalcedon where he was received into the Church again all this I say is only a Piece of Grecian Confidence which shews more clearly than all the rest how much this Man was carried away with his Passion and the violence of his Affection to the Latin Church For I beseech you in what Ancient Author had he ever read that Theodoret was I do not say Condemned or Excommunicated but so much as Reproved or Accused onely for having maintained any Erroneous Opinion touching the Procession of the Holy Ghost We have the Acts of the Council of Ephesus where he was Excommunicated We have the Letters of S. Cyril wherein he again received into the Communion of the Church John Patriarch of Antioch and all his Followers of which number Theodoret was the Chief We have the Council of Chalcedon where Theodoret after some certain Cryings out of his Adversaries against him was at length received by the whole Assembly as a Catholick Bishop and was admitted to sit amongst them In which of all these Authentick Pieces is there so much as one word spoken touching this Opinion of his concerning the Point of the Proceeding of the Holy Ghost S. Cyril himself that is to say those of his Party did not at all condemn what he said touching this Particular but he rather contented himself in excusing or if you please in defending onely his own Opinion The Business for which Theodoret was questioned in the Councils of Ephesus and of Chalcedon had nothing in the World to do with this touching the Procession of the Holy Ghost for the Question was onely there touching the Two Natures of our Saviour Christ whom Nestorius would needs divide into Two Persons John Patriarch of Antioch Theodoret and divers other Eastern Bishops favouring in some sort his Person or being indeed offended rather at the Proceeding of the Council of Ephesus against him and withal rejecting several things that were contained in the Anathemas of S. Cyril Now with what face could this Man tell us after all
that a Man may safely build upon them and make them the Judges of Faith and That the Holy Scripture is the onely Rule by which all these things are to be examined And this is that which they All agree upon as far as I have either read or known as any Man may see in the Books of Calvin Bucer Melancthon Luther Beza and the rest who all relie upon the Authority of the Scriptures onely and admit not of any part of the Authority of the Fathers as a sufficient Ground whereon to build any Article of their Belief It is true I confess that some of their First Authors as namely Bucer Peter Martyr and J. Jewell Bishop of Salisbury and in a manner all the Later Writers also alledge the Testimonies of the Fathers but if you but mark it it is onely by way of Confutation and not of Establishing any thing They do it onely to overthrow the Opinions of the Church of Rome and not to strengthen their Own For though they hold That the Doctrine of the Fathers is not so Pure as that of the Apostles yet do they withal believe that it is much Purer than that which is at this day taught by the Church of Rome the Purity of Doctrine having continually decayed and the Impurity of it encreased in such sort as that the further they are removed from the Time of the Apostles the nearer they approach as they say towards the afore-mentioned Falling away spoken of by S. Paul Although the Protestants therefore allow the Scriptures onely for the True Foundation of their Faith yet notwithstanding do they account the Writings of the Fathers to be Necessary also and of good use unto them first of all in the Proving this Decay which they say hath hapned in Christianity and secondly for the making it appear that the Opinions which their Adversaries now maintain were not in those days brought into any Form but were as yet onely in their Seeds As for example Transubstantiation was not as yet an Article of Faith notwithstanding that long ago they did innocently and not foreseeing what the Issue might prove to be believe some certain things out of which being afterwards licked over by passing through divers several Languages Transubstantiation was at length made up So likewise the Supremacy of the Pope had at that time no place in the belief of Men although those small Threds and Root-strings from whence this Vast and Wonderful Power first sprung long since appeared in the World And the like may be said of the greatest part of those other Points which the Protestants will not by any means receive And that this is their Resolution and Sense appears evidently by those many Books which they have written upon this Subject wherein they shew Historically the whole Progress of this Decay in Christianity as well in its Faith as in its Polity and Discipline And truly this their Design seemeth to be very sufficient and satisfactory For seeing that they propose nothing Positively and as an Article of Faith Necessary to Salvation which may not easily and plainly be proved out of the Scripture they have no need to make use of any other Principle for the Demonstration of the Truth Furthermore seeing that those Positive Articles of Faith which they believe are in a manner all of them received and confessed by the Church of Rome as we have said before in the Preface to this Treatise there is no need of troubling a Mans self to prove the same those things which both Parties are agreed upon being never to be proved but are always presupposed in all Disputations Yet notwithstanding if any one have a mind to be informed what the Belief of the Fathers hath been touching the said Articles it is an easie matter for them to make it appear that they also believed all of them as well as themselves as for Example That there is a God a Christ a Salvation a Sacrament of Baptism a Sacrament of the Eucharist and the like Truths the greatest part whereof we have formerly set down in the Beginning of this Discourse And as for those other Articles which are proposed to the World besides all these by the Church of Rome it is sufficient for them that they are able to answer the Arguments which are brought to prove them and to make it by this means appear that they have not any sure Ground at all and consequently neither may nor ought to be received into the Faith of Christians And this is the Vse that the Protestants make of the Fathers evidently making it appear to the World out of them that they did not hold the said Articles as the Church of Rome doth at this day So that their alledging of the Fathers to this purpose onely and indeed their Whole Practice in these Disputes declare evidently enough that they conceive not the Belief of the Church of Rome to be so perfectly and exactly conformable to that of Antiquity especially of the Four or Five First Ages which accords very well with their Hypothesis touching the Corruption of the Christian Doctrine But yet no Man may conclude from hence That they do allow of the Authority of the Fathers as a sufficient Foundation to ground any Article of Faith upon for this is repugnant both to their Doctrine and to the Protestation which they upon all occasions make expresly to the contrary So that I cannot but extremely wonder at the Proceeding of some of our Modern Authors who in their Disputations with the Protestants endeavour to prove the Articles of their Faith by Testimonies brought out of the Fathers whereas the Protestants never go about to make good their own Opinions but onely to overthrow those of their Adversaries by urging the Fathers Testimonies For seeing that they of the Church of Rome maintain That the Church neither hath nor can possibly err in Points of Faith and That its Belief in Matters of Faith hath always been the same that it is at this day it is sufficient for the Protestant to shew by comparing the Doctrine of the Ancient Fathers with that of the Church of Rome that there is great Difference betwixt them neither doth this in any wise bind them to believe throughout whatsoever the Fathers believed it being evident according to their Hypothesis that there may have some Errors crept into their Belief though certainly not such nor so gross ones as have been since entertained by the Church in the Ages succeeding We shall conclude therefore That the Protestants acknowledge not neither in the Fathers nor in their Writings any so Absolute Authority as renders them capable of being received by us as our Supreme Judges in Matters of Religion and such from whom no Appeal can be made Whence it will follow That although the Fathers might really perhaps have such an Authority yet notwithstanding could not their Definitive Sentence put an end to any of our Controversies and therefore it concerns the Church of Rome to have
perhaps that his Hyperbolical way of Expression of a thousand Augustines Hieromes and Gregories all which joyned together he in too disdainful a manner casts down beneath the feet of one single Pope But this height of Expression may be somewhat excused in him considering that such Excesses as these are very ordinary with all high and free-spirited Persons But the Practice of the Church of Rome it self will be able to inform us more truly and clearly what esteem they have of Antiquity For if we ought to stand to the Fathers and not to depart from any thing that they have Authorized nor to Ordain any thing that they were ignorant of how comes it to pass that we at this day see so many several Observations and Customs which were observed by the Ancients now quite laid aside And whence is it that we find in Antiquity no mention at all of many things which are now in great request amongst us There are as it were three principal Parts in Religion namely Points of Belief of Ceremony and of Discipline We shall run them over lightly all three and so far as is necessary only for our present purpose that so we may let the world see that in every one of these three parts they have both abolished and established very many things expresly against the Authority of the Ancients As for the first of these we have formerly given the Reader some Tasts only in the preceding Chapters For we have seen that the Opinion of the greatest part of the Ancient Church touching the State of the Soul till the time of the Resurrection which besides is at this day also maintained by the Greek Church was condemned not much above two hundred years since by the Church of Rome at the Council of Florence and a quite contrary Belief there established as an Article of the Christian Faith We have seen besides that the Opinion of the Fathers of the Primitive Church and even down as far as to the end of the sixth Century after our Saviour Christ and afterwards was that the Eucharist was as necessary to Salvation as Baptism and that consequently it was therefore to be administred to little Children And yet for all this the Council of Trent hath condemned this Opinion as an Error in Faith withal Anathematizing by a Canon made expresly for that purpose all those who ever should maintain the same Let him be Accursed say they whoever shall say that the Eucharist is necessary for little Children before they are come to years of discretion Only that the Fathers might not take offence hereat as having so fearful an Affront put upon them these men have endeavoured to perswade both them and others that they never did believe that which themselves have most clearly and in express Terms protested that they did believe as we have before made it appear which is to double the injury upon them rather than to make them any reparations for it seeing that they deal with them now not as Hereticks only but as Fools also whom a man may at pleasure perswade that they do not believe that which they really do believe We have abundantly heard out of St. Hierome's mouth how that the Opinion of the Chilasts was of old maintained by several of the Ancient Fathers which yet is now condemned as an Error in Faith And indeed the number of these kind of differences in Opinions is almost infinite It was accounted no Error in those days to believe that the Soul was derived from the Father down to the Son according to the ordinary course of Generation but this Opinion would now be accounted an Heresie The Ancients held That it would be an opposing of the Authority of the Scriptures if we should bang up the Picture of any Man in the Church and that we ought not to have any Pictures in our Churches that That which we worship and adore be not painted upon a Wall But now the Council of Trent hath Ordained the quite contrary and says That we ought to have and to keep especially in our Churches the Images of Christ of the Virgin the Mother of God and of the other Saints and that we are to yield unto them all due Honour and Veneration All the Ancient Fathers as far as we can learn out of their Writings believed That the Blessed Virgin Mary was conceived in Original Sin If now the Fathers of the Council of Trent accounted them to be the Judges of Faith what moved them then to imagine that we ought not to believe that they maintained any such Opinion For having delivered their Definitive Sentence in a Decree there passed to this purpose and declared That this Sin which hath spread it self over the whole Mass of Mankind by Propagation and not by Imitation hath seised on every Person in particular They at length conclude That their Intention is not to comprehend within this number the Blessed and Vnspotted Virgin Mary the Mother of God Which Words of theirs it is impossible so to expound as that they shall not in plain Terms give the Lie to All the Fathers For if they mean by these Words that the Virgin Mary was conceived without Sin they flatly establish an Opinion which is contradictory to that of the Fathers which is the grossest manner of giving them the Lie that can be If they mean here no more than this which Sense yet their Words will hardly be ever made to bear that it is not known as a certain Truth that the Virgin Mary was conceived in Sin they however honestly say in plain Terms That these Good Men affirmed as True that which is yet Doubtful and maintained as Certain that which was but Problematical onely and Questionable The Council of Laodicea which is inserted into the Code of the Church Universal putteth not into the Canon of the Old Testament any more than Twenty two Books onely excluding by this means out of this number the Book of Tobit of Judith the Book of Wisdom Ecclesiasticus and the two Books of the Maccabees Melito Bishop of Sardis Origen Cyril of Hierusalem Gregory Nazianzene S. Hilary and Epiphanius do all of them the same Athanasius Ruffinus and S. Hierome expresly reject these very Books and cast them out of the Canon And yet notwithstanding the aforesaid Council of Trent Anathematizeth all those who will not receive as Holy and Canonical all these Books with every part of the same as they are wont to be read in the Church and as they are found in the Old Latin Edition commonly called the Vulgar Translation Where besides the Affront which they have offered to so many of the Ancient and most Eminent among the Fathers and indeed to the Whole Primitive Church it self which received this Conon of Laodicea in amongst its Vniversal Rules they have also established a Position here which was not till then so much as ever heard
which amount in all in the Old Testament to the number of twenty two only without making any mention at all of those other Books which Cardinal Perron calls Posthumous namely Ecclesiasticus the Book of Wisdom the Maccabâ—es Judith and Tobit All the Canons of this Council were afterwards inserted into the Code of the Church Universal where you have this very Canon also Num. 163. that is as much as to say they were received as Rules of the Catholick Church Who would believe now but that this Declaration of the Canon of the Scriptures was at that time received by all Christian Churches And yet notwithstanding you have the Churches of Africk meeting together in the Synod at Carthage about the year of our Lord 397. and ordaining quite contrary to the former Resolution of Laodicea that among those Books which were allowed to be read in Churches the Maccabees Judith Tobit Ecclesiasticus and the Book of Wisdom which two last they also reckon among the Books written by Solomon should be taken into the number Who knoweth not the difference that there was in the first Ages of Christianity betwixt the Eastern and the Western Churches touching the Fasting upon Saturdays the Church of Rome maintaining it is lawful and all the rest of the World accounting it unlawful Whence it was that we had that so bold Canon passed in the Council at Constantinople in Trullo in these words Vnderstanding that in the City of Rome in the time of the Holy Fast of Lent they fast on Saturdays contrary to the Custom and Tradition of the Church it seemeth good to this Holy Council that in the Roman Church they inviolably also observe that Canon which saith that whosoever shall be found to fast either upon the Lords day or upon the Saturday excepting only that one Saturday if he be a Clergie-man he shall be deposed but if be be of the Laity he shall be excommunicated Who knoweth not after how many several ways the Fast of Lent was Anciently observed in divers Churches an account whereof is given you by Irenaeus in that Pious Epistle of his which he wrote to Victor part whereof Eusebius setteth down in his Ecclesiastical History Who doth not also know that the opinions and expressions of the Greek Church touching Free-will and Predestination are extremely different from what the Church believed and taught in S. Augustines time and so downward And as concerning the Discipline of the Church do but hear Anastasius Bibliothecarius upon the VI Canon of the VII General Council which enjoyneth all Metropolitans to hold Provincial Synods once a year Neither let it at all trouble thee saith he that we have not this Decree seeing that there are some others found among the Canons whose Authority nevertheless we not admit of For some of them are in force and are observed in the Greek Church and others again in certain other Provinces only As for example the XVI and XVII Canons of the Council of Laodicea are observed only among the Greeks and the VI and the VIII Canons of the Council of Africk are received by none but the Africans only I could here produce divers other Examples but these may suffice to shew that the Opinions and Customs which have been received in one Part of the Church have not always been entertained in all the rest Whence it evidently follows that all that is acknowledged as the opinion or observation of the Church ought not therefore presently to pass for an Universal Law The Protestant alledgeth for the justifying his Canon of the Scriptures the Council of Laodicea before mentioned Thou answerest him perhaps that this indeed was the opinion of the Churches but it was only of some particular Churches I shall not here enter into an Examination whether this Answer be well grounded or not it is sufficient for me that I can safely then conclude from hence that according to this account before you can make use of any Opinion or Testimony out of any of the Fathers it is necessary that you first make it appear not only that it was the Opinion of the Church at that time but you must further also clearly demonstrate unto us what Churches opinion it was whether of the Church Universal or else of some Particular Church only It is objected against the Protestants that Epiphanius testifieth that the Church admitted not into the higher Orders of the Ministry any save those that were Virgins or professed Continency Now to make good this Allegation it is necessary that it be first proved that the Church he there speaks of was the Church Universal For will the Protestant reply upon you as Laodicea hath had as it seems a particular Opinion touching the Canon of the Scriptures possibly also Cyprus may in like manner have had its particular Resolutions touching the Ordination of the Clergy The like may be said of the greatest part of those other Observations and Opinions of the Ancient Church Now how difficult a business it will be to clear these Matters which are so full of perplexity and to distinguish of Antiquity at this so great a distance of time severing that which was Publick from what was Particular and that which was Provincial from what was National and what was National from that which was Vniversal any Man may be able to give some kind of guess but none can throughly understand save he that hath made trial of it Do but fancy to your selves a City that hath lain ruinated a thousand years no part whereof remains save onely the Ruines of Houses lying all along here and there confusedly all the rest being covered all over with Thorns and Bushes Imagine then that you have met with one that will undertake to shew you precisely where the Publick Buildings of the City stood and where the Private which were the Stones that belonged to the one and which belonged to the other and in a word who in these confused Heaps where the Whole lies all together will notwithstanding separate ye the one from the other The very same Task in a manner doth he undertake who ever shall go about truly and precisely to distinguish the Opinions of the Ancient Church This Antiquity is now of Eleven or Twelve hundred years standing and the Ruines of it are now onely left us in the Books of the Writers of that Time which also have met with none of the best entertainment in their Passage through the several Ages down to our time as we have shewed before How then dare we entertain the least hope that amidst this so great Confusion we should be able yet to distinguish the Pieces and to tell which of them honoured the Publick Temple and which went to the furnishing of Private Chappels onely especially considering that the Private ones have each of them ambitiously endeavoured to make their own pass for Publick For where is the Province or the City or the Doctor that hath not boastingly cried up
Castro and Melchior Canus Two Spanish Doctors For as much therefore as we are not bound to believe any thing save that which is True it is most evident that we neither may nor ought to believe the Opinions of the Fathers till such time as they appear to us to have been certainly True Now we cannot be certainly assured of this by Their Single Authority seeing that they were but Men who were not always inspired by the Holy Spirit from above and therefore it is necessary that we make use of some other Guides in this our Inquiry namely either of the Holy Scriptures or of Reason or of Tradition or of the Doctrine of the Present Church or of some other such means as they themselves have made use of So that it hence follows that their bare Assertions are no sufficient Ground for us to build any of our Opinions upon they only serve to encline us before hand to the Belief of the same the great opinion which we have of them causing us to conclude that They would never have embraced such an Opinion except it had been True Which manner of Argumentation how ever is at the best but Probable so long as the Persons we have here to do withal are only Men and no more and in this particular Case where the Question is touching Points of Faith it is by no means in the world to be allowed of since that Faith is to be grounded not upon Probabilities but upon necessary Truths The Fathers are like to other great Masters in this Point and their Opinions are more or less Valid in proportion to the Reason and Authority whereon they are grounded only they have this Advantage that their very Name begets in us a readiness and inclination to receive whatsoever comes from them while we think it very improbable that so Excellent men as they were should ever believe any thing that was False Thus in Humane Sciences the saying of an Aristotle is of a far different Value from that of any other Philosopher of less Account because that all men are before-hand possessed with an Opinion that this Great Philosopher would not maintain any thing that was not consonant to Reason But this is Prejudice only for if upon better examination it should be found to be otherwise his Bare Authority would then no longer prevail with us what himself had sometime gallantly said would then here take place namely That it is a sacred thing always to preferre the Truth before Friendship Let the Fathers therefore if you please be the Aristotles in Christian Philosophy and let us have a Reverent esteem of Them and their Writings as they deserve and not be too rash in concluding that Persons of so eminent both Learning and Sanctity should maintain any Erroneous or vain Opinions especially in a matter of so great Importance Yet notwithstanding are we bound withal to remember that they were but Men and that their Memory Understanding or Judgment might sometimes fail them and therefore consequently that we are to examine their Writings by those Principles from whence they draw their Conclusions and not to sit down upon their Bare Assertions till such time as we have discovered them to be True If I were to speak of any other Persons than of the Fathers I should not add any thing more to what hath been already said it having been already in my judgment clearly enough proved that they are not of themselves of Authority enough to oblige us necessarily to follow their Opinions But seeing the Question here is touching these great Names which are so highly honoured in the Church to the end that no man may accuse us of endeavouring to rob them of any of the Respect which is due unto them I hold it necessary to examine this business a little more exactly and to make it appear by considering the thing it self that they are of no more Authority neither in Themselves nor in respect of Us than hath been already by Us attributed unto them CHAP. II. Reason 2. That the Fathers themselves testifie against themselves that they are not to be believed Absolutely and upon their Own bare Word in what they deliver in matters of Religion THere is none so fit to inform us what the Authority of the Writings of the Ancients is as the Ancients themselves who in all Reason must needs know this better than we Let us therefore now hear what they testifie in this Particular and if we do indeed hold them in so high Esteem as we make profession of let us allow of their Judgment in this particular attributing neither more nor less unto the Ancients than they Themselves require at our hands St. Augustine who was the Principal Light of the Latine Church being entred into a Contestation with St. Hierome touching the Interpretation before-mentioned of the second Chapter of the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Galatians and finding himself hardly pressed by the Authority of six or seven Greek Writers which were urged against him by the other to rid his hands of them he was fain to make open profession in what account he held that sort of Writers I confess saith he to thy Charity that I only owe to those Books of Scripture which are now called Canonical that Reverence and Honour as to believe stedfastly that none of their Authors ever committed any Error in writing the same And if by chance I there meet with any thing which seemeth to contradict the Truth I presently think that certainly either my Copy is Imperfect and not so Correct as it should be or else that the Interpreter did not so well understand the Words of the Original or lastly that I my self have not so rightly understood Him But as for all other Writers how Eminent soever they are either for Sanctity or Learning I read them so as not presently to conclude whatsoever I there find to be True because They have said it but rather because they convince me either out of the said Canonical Books of Scripture or else by some Probable Reason that what they say is True Neither do I think Brother that thou thy self art of any other Opinion that is to say I do not believe that thou expectest that we should read thy Books as we do those of the Prophets or Apostles of the Truth of whose Writings as being exempt from all Errour we may not in any wise doubt And having afterwards opposed some other the like Authorities against those alledged by St. Hierome he addeth That he had done so notwithstanding that to say the truth he accounted the Canonical Scriptures only to be the Books to which as he said before he owed that ingenuous Duty as to be fully perswaded that the Authors of them never erred or deceived the Reader in any thing This Holy man accounted this Advice to be of so great Importance as that he thought fit to repeat it again in another place and I must intreat my Reader