taken up all of them with their particular Charges and Imployments did not know of some opinions of the Prelates of their Age or that either their Modesty or their Charity or the little Eloquence and Repute they had abroad might have made them conceal the same The other Objection is drawn from hence because that these Doctors of the Ancient Church who held some opinions different from those which we read at this day in the Fathers did not publish them at all But I answer first of all that every Man is not able to do so In the next place those that were able were not always willing to do so Divers other Considerations may perhaps also have hindred them from so doing and if they are Wise and Pious Men they are never moved till they needs must And hence it is that oftentimes those opinions which have less truth in them do yet prevail because that Prudence which maintains the True Opinion is Mild and Patient whereas Rashness which defends the False is of a Froward Eager and Ambitious Nature But now let us but imagine how many of the Evidences of this Diversity of opinion may have been made away by those several ways before represented by us as namely having been either devoured by Time or suppressed by Malitious Men for fear lest they should let the World see the Traces of the Truth which they would have concealed But that I may not be thought to bring here only bare Conjectures without any proof at all I shall produce some Examples also for the confirming and clearing of this my Assertion Epiphanius maintains against Aerius whom he ranks among his Haeresiarchae or Arch Hereticks that a Bishop according to the Apostle Saint Paul and the Original Institution of the thing it self is more than a Priest and this he endeavours to prove in many words answering all the Objections that are made to the contrary If you but read the Passage I am confident that when you had done you would not stick to swear that what he hath there delivered was the general opinion of all the Doctors of the Church it being very unlikely that so Great and so Renowned a Prelate would so slatly have denied the opinion which he disputed against if so be any one of his own familiar friends had also maintained the same And yet for all this Saint Hierome who was one of the Principal Lights of our Western Church and who lived at the same time with Epiphanius who was his intimate Friend and a great admirer of his Piety saith expresly that Among the Ancients Bishops and Priests were the same the one being a name of Dignity and the other of Age. And that it may not be thought that this fell from him in discourse only he there falls to proving the same at large alledging several Passages of Scripture touching this Particular and he also repeats the same thing in two or three several places of his Works Whereby it evidently appears that even Positions which have been quite Contradictory to the opinions which have been delivered and maintained by some of the Fathers and proposed in what terms soever have notwithstanding been sometimes either maintained or at least tolerated by some others of 〈◊〉 less Authority S. Hierome himself hath â—alâ— extreamly foul upon Ruffinus and hath traduced divers of his opinions as most Pernicious and Deadly and yet notwithstanding we do not any where find that ever he was accounted as an Heretick by the rest of the Fathers But we shall have occasion hereafter to consider more at large of the like Examples and shall only at present observe that if those Books of S. Hierome which we mentioned a little before should chance to have been lost every Man would then assuredly have concluded with Epiphanius that no Doctor of the Ancient Church ever held that a Bishop and a Priest were one and the same thing in its Institution Who now after all this will assure us that among so many other opinions as have been rejected here and there by the Fathers and that too in as plain terms as these of Epiphanius none of them have ever been defended by some of the Learned of those times Or is it not possible that they may have held them though they did not write in defence of the same Or may they not perhaps have written also in deâ—ence of them and their Books have been since lost How small is the number of those in the Church who had the Ability or at least the 〈◊〉 to write And how much smaller is the number of thoâ—â— whose Wriâ—ings have been able to secure themselves against either the Injury of Time or the Malice of Men It is objâ—cted against the Protestants as we have touched before that S. Hierome commendeth and maintaineth the Adoration of Reliques But yet he himself testifieth that there were some Bishops who defended Vigilantius who held the contrary opinion whom he according to his ordinary Rhetorick calleth His Consorts in Wickedness Who knows now what these Bishops were and whether they deserved any such usage at S. Hieromes hands or no For the Expressions which he useth against them and against their opinion are so full of Gall and of Choler as that they utterly take away all credit from his Testimony But we have insisted long enough upon this Particular and shall therefore forbear to instance any further in others For as much therefore as it is Impossible to discover exactly out of the Fathers what hath been the sense and judgment of the Ancient Church whether taken Universally or Particularly or whether you take the Church for the whole Body of Believers or for the Prelates and Inseriour Clergy only I shall here conclude as formerly that the Writings of the Ancients are altogether Insufficient for the proving the Truth of any of those Points which are at this day controverted amongst Us. THE SECOND BOOK CHAP. I. That the Fathers are not of sufficient Authority for the Deciding of our Controversies in Religion Reason I. That the Testimonies given by the Fathers touching the Belief of the Church are not always True and Certain WE have before shewed how hard a matter it is to discover what the Sense of the Fathers hath been touching the Points at this day controverted in Religion both by reason of the small number of Books we have left us of the Fathers of the First Centuries and those too which we have treating of such things as are of a very different nature from our present Disputes and which besides we cannot be very well assured of by reason of the many Forgeries and monstrous Corruptions which they have for so long a time been subject to as also by reason of their Obscurity and Ambiguity in their Expressions and their representing unto us many times the Opinions rather of others than of their Authors besides those many other Imperfections which are found in them as namely their not informing us in
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
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
the precepts of Rhetorick but sure I am that it agreeth ill enough with S. Hierom's rule which we gave you a little before But let us now observe out of some other more clear and express passages of his what the judgment of this great Aristarchus and Censor of Antiquity hath been touching this Point I know saith he writing to Theophilus Patriarch of Alexandria that I place the Apostles in a distinct rank from all other Writers for as for them they always speak truth but as for those other they erre sometimes like Men as they were What could he have said more expresly in confirmation of our Assertion before laid down There are others saith he both Greeks and Latins who have erred also in Points of Faith whose Names I need not here set down lest I might seem to defend Origen by the Errors of others rather than by his own Worth How then can we confide in them unless we examine their Opinions by their Reasons I shall faith the same Author read Origen as I read others because I find he hath erred in like manner as they have done And in another place speaking in general of Ecclesiastical Writers that is of those which We now call Fathers and of the Faults and Errors that are found in their Books It may be saith he that either they have erred out of meer ignorance or else that they wrote in some other Sense than we understand them or that their Writings have by degrees been corrupted through the ignorance of the Transcribers or else before the appearing of that impudent Devil Arius in the World they let some things fall from them innocently and not so warily as they might have done and such as can hardly escape the Cavils of wrangling Spirits Which Passage of his is a very excellent and remarkable one and containeth in it a brief yet a clear and full Justification of the greatest part of what we have hitherto delivered in this our Discourse Do but think therefore with how much circumspection we are to read and to weigh these Authors and how careful we ought to be in examining in their Books whether there be not either some fault committed by the Transcriber or some obscurity in the Expression or some negligence in the Conception or lastly some error in the Proposition In another place having set down the Opinions As for their Expositions he resuseth them openly whensoever they do not please him Thus doth he find fault with the Exposition which is given by the greatest part of the Fathers of the Word Israel which they will have to signifie A Man seeing God Notwithstanding that those who interpret it thus are Persons of very great both Authority and Eloquence and whose very shadow saith he in sufficient to bear us down yet cannot we chuse but follow the Authority of the Scriptures and of the Angel and of God who gave this Name of Israel rather than the Power of any Secular Eloquence how great soever it be And in his CXLVI Epistle written to Pope Damasus he saith That there are some who not considering the Text conceive Superstitiously rather than Truly that these words in the beginning of the XLIV Psalm Eâ—â—ctavit cor meum verbum bonum My heart is inditing a good matter are spoken in the Person of the Father And yet the greatest part of those who lived in the time of Arius and a little after him understood these words in the same sense It was likewise the General Opinion in a manner of all Men That Adam was buried upon Mount Calvary and in the very same place where our Saviour Christ was crucified And yet S. Hierome rejecteth this Opinion and which is more he makes himself merry with it without any scruple at all So likewise there were some among the afore-named Ancient Fathers who out of a Pious Affection which they bare to S. Peter maintained That he denied not God but Man and that the sense of the Words of his Denial is I know not him to be a Man for I know that he is God The Intelligent Reader saith the same S. Hierome will easily perceive how idle and frivolous a thing this is to accuse our Saviour as guilty of a Lie by excusing his Apostle For if S. Peter did not deny him our Saviour must necessarily then have lied when he said unto him Verily I say unto thee c. He takes the same liberty also in reprehending S. Ambrose who understands by Gog spoken of in the Prophet Ezechiel the Nation of the Gothes neither do those other Fathers scape his Lash who pleasing themselves too much with their Allegories take Bosra in Isaiah for the Flesh whereas it signifies a Fortress I might here produce very many the like Passages but these few shall now serve as a Taste onely For who seeth not by this time that these Holy Men took not the Fathers who went before them for the Judges or Arbitrators touching the Opinions of the Church and that they did not receive their Testimonies and Depositions as Oracles but reserved the Right which S. Augustine alloweth to every Man of examining them by the Rule of Reason and of the Scripture Neither are we to take any notice at all of S. Hierome when he seems to except out of this number the Writings of Athanasius and of S. Hilary writing to Laeta and telling her That her Daughter Paula might walk securely and with firm footing by the Epistles of the one and the Books of the other and therefore he counselleth her to take delight in these Mens Writings forasmuch as in their Books the Piety of Faith wavereth not And as for all other Authors she may read them but rather to pass her judgment upon them than to follow them For first of all although perhaps there should be some Piece of a Father that should have no Error at all in it as questionless there are many such yet would not this render the Authority of the same Infallible How many such Books are there even of the Moderns wherein neither the one Party nor the other hath been able to discover any the least Error in matter of Faith And yet I suppose no Man will presently conclude from hence that we ought to admit of these Authors as Judges of our Faith A Man may there find of several Authors touching a certain Question that had been proposed unto him that so the Reader might make choice of the best he gives this Reason of his so doing Because saith he we ought not according to the Example of Pythagoras his Scholars to have an eye to the Prejudicated Opinion of the Proposer but rather the Reason of the Thing Proposed Which words of his do sufficiently confirm the Sense which we have formerly given of that Passage of his in the Preface to his second Commentary upon Hosea He presently afterwards adds My purpose 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
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
Those whom we named not long before who were all of the Roman Church cry down as we have said the greatest part of the Decretals of the first Popes Franciscus Turrianus a Jesuite receives them and defends them all in a Tract written by him to that purpose Baronius calls the Recognitions which are attributed to Clemens Romanus A Gulf of Filth and Vncleanness full of prodigious Lies and frantick Fooleries Bellarmine says That this Book was written either by Clemens or else by some other Author as Learned and as Ancient as he Some of them hold those Fragments published by Nicol. Faber under the Name of S. Hilary for good and legitimate Pieces and some others again reject them Erasmus Sixtus Senensis Melchior Canus and Baronius are of opinion That the Book Of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary is falsly attributed to S. Hierome Christophorus à Castro a Spanish Jesuite maintains the contrary Cardinal Cajetan Laurentius Valla Erasmus and some others hold the Books of Dionysius the Areopagite for suspected and spurious Baronius and almost all the rest of their Writers maintain that they are true and legitimate Turrianus Bovin and some others commend unto us the Constitutions of the Apostles for a legitimate Piece But Baronius Possevine Petavius and a great many others speak doubtfully of them And a Man shall find in the Writings of those of the Church of Rome infinite variety of divided Judgments in such Cases as these He that hath a mind to furnish himself with Examples of this Nature may have recourse to their Books and particularly to the Writings of the late Cardinal Perron who differs as much from the rest in this Point of Criticism as he doth for the most part in the Method he observes in his Disputations Now I would willingly be informed what a Man should do amidst these diversities of Judgment and what Path he should take where he meeteth with so disagreeing Guides But yet suppose that these Authors have done their utmost endeavour in this Design without any particular affection or partiality how notwithstanding shall we be satisfied concerning their sufficiency for the performance of their Undertaking Is it a light Business think you to bring the whole stock of Antiquity to the Cruzet and there to purifie and refine it and to separate all the Dross from it which hath so deeply and for the space of so many Ages been not only as it were tied and fastned on to it but even throughly mixed united and incorporated with it This Work requireth the most clear and refined Judgment that can be imagined an exquisite Wit a quick piercing Eye a perfect Ear a most exact knowledge in all History both Ancient and Modern both Ecclesiastical and Secular a perfect knowledge of the Ancient Tongues and a long and continued Conversation with all sorts of Writers both Ancient of the middle Ages and Modern to be able to judge of their Inclinations and which way their Pulse beat to understand rightly the manner of their Expression Invention and Method in Writing each Age each Nation and each Author having their own peculiar ways in all these Now such a Man as this is hardly produced in a whole age As for those Men who in our Times have taken upon them this part of Criticism who knows not who sees not that but reads them how many of these forenamed Qualities are wanting in them But yet suppose that such a Man were to be found and that he should take in hand this Discovery I do verily believe that he would be able very easily to find out the Imposture of a bungling Fool that had ill counterfeited the Stamp Colour and Weight in the Piece which he would father upon some other Man or that should for example endeavour to represent either S. Hierome or S. Chrysostome with a stammering Tongue and should make them speak barbarous Language bad Latin and bad Greek or else perhaps should make use of such Terms Things or Authors as were not known to the World till a long time after these Men or should make them treat of Matters far removed from the Age they lived in and maintain Opinions which they never thought of or reject those which they are notoriously known to have held And of this sort for the most part are those Pieces which our Criticks have decried and noted unto us as spurious But if a Man should chance to bring him a Piece of some able Master that should have fully and exactly learnt both the Languages History Manners Alliances and Quarrels of the Family he hath boldly thrust himself into and should be able to make happy use of all these assure your self that our Aristarchus would be here as much puzled to discover this Jugler as they were once in France to convince the Impostures of Martin Guerre Now how can we imagine but that among so many several Persons that have for their several Purposes employed their utmost Endeavours in these kinds of Forgeries there must needs have been in so many Centuries of years very many able Men who have had the skill so artificially to imitate the Fancy and Stile of the Persons whom they act as that it is impossible to discover them Especially if they made choice of such a Name as was the onely thing remaining in the World of that Author so that there is no mark left us either of his Stile Discourse or Opinions to guide us in our Examination And therefore in my judgment he was a very cunning Fellow and made a right choice that undertook to write under the Name of Dionysius the Areopagite for we having not left us any true Legitimate Piece of this Author by which we may examine this Cheat the Discovery must needs be difficult and it would have proved so much the more hard if he had but used a more modest and less swelling manner of Expression Whereas for those others who in the Ages following made bold with the Names of S. Hierome S. Cyprian S. Augustine and the like of whose legitimate Writings we have very many Pieces left us a Man may know them at the first sight meerly by the Stile those Gothick and rude Spirits being no more able to counterfeit the Graces and Elegancies of these great Authors than an Ass is to imitate the Warblings of the Nightingale I confess there is another Help which in my judgment may stand us in more stead in this Particular than all the rest namely the Light and Direction of the Ancients themselves who oftentimes make mention of other Writers of the Church which lived either before or in their own Times S. Hierome among the Latins having taken the pains to make a Catalogue of all those whose Names and Writings he knew of down from the Apostles time to his own which was afterward continued by Gennadius To this we may also add that incomparable Work of the Patriarch Photius which he calls his Bibliotheca and is now published in this
reading of these Books That Time hath by degrees introduced very great Alterations as well in the Doctrine and Discipline of the Ancients as in all other things Our Conclusion therefore shall be That whosoever shall desire to know what the Sense and Judgment of the Primitive Church hath been touching our present Controversies it will be first in a manner as necessary for him as it is difficult exactly to find out both the Name and the Age of each of these several Authors CHAP. IV. Reason IV. That those of the Writings of the Fathers which are Legitimate have been in many Places corrupted by Time Ignorance and Fraud both Pious and Malicious both in the former and later Ages BUt put the case now here that you had by your long and judicious Endeavours severed the True and Genuine Writings of the Fathers from the Spurious and Forged there would yet lie upon you a second Task whose event is like to prove much more doubtful and fuller of difficulty than the former For it would concern you in the next place in reading over those Authors which you acknowledge for Legitimate to distinguish what is the Author 's own and what hath been soisted in by another Hand and also to restore to your Author whatsoever either by Time or Fraud hath been taken away and to take out of him whatsoever hath been added by either of these two Otherwise you will never be able to assure your self that you have discovered out of these Books what the true and proper meaning and sense of your Author hath been considering the great Alterations that by several ways they may have suffered in several Times I shall not here speak of those Errours which have been produced by the Ignorance of the Transcribers Who write as Hierome hath complained of them not what they find but what themselves understand Nor yet of those Faults which necessarily have grown up out of the very Transcribing it being an impossible thing that Books which have been copied out an infinite number of times during the space of ten or twelve Centuries of years by Men of so different Capâ—â—cities and Hands should all this while retain exactly and in every Particular the self-same Juyce the same Form and Body that they had when they first came forth from the Author 's own hand Neither shall I here say any thing of the sufferings of these Books by Moths and a thousand other Injuries of Time by which they have been corrupted while all kind of Learning for so many Ages together lay buried as it were in the Grave the Worms on one side feeding on the Books of the Learned and on the other the Dust defacing them so that it is impossible now to restore them to their first integrity And this is the sad Fate that all sorts of Books have lain under whence hath sprung up so great variety of Readings as are found almost in all Authors I shall not here make any advantage of this though there are some Doctors in the World that have shewed us the way to do it taking advantage from this Consideration to lessen the Authority that the Holy Scriptures of themselves ought to have in the esteem of all Men under this colour That even in these Sacred Writings there are sometimes found varieties of Reading which yet are of very little or no Importance as to the Ground-work If we would tread in these Mens steps and apply to the Writings of the Fathers what they speak and conclude of the Scriptures we could do it upon much better terms than they there being no reason in the Earth to imagine but that the Books of the Ancient Writers have suffered very much more than the Scriptures have which have always been preserved in the Church with much greater care than any other Books have been whatsoever and which have been learnt by all Nations and translated into all Languages which all Sects have retained both Orthodox and Hereticks Catholicks and Schismaticks Greeks and Latins Moscovites and Ethiopians observing diligently the Eye and the Hand one of the other so that there could not possibly happen any remarkable Alteration in them but that presently the whole World as it were would have exclaimed against it and have made their Complaints to have resounded throughout the Universe Whereas on the contrary the Writings of the Fathers have been kept transcribed and read in as careless a manner as could be and that too but by very few and in few Places being but rarely understood by any save those of the same Language which is the cause that so many Faults have both the more easily crept into them and likewise are the more hard to be discovered Besides that the particular Stile and Obscurity of some of them renders the Errours the more important As for example Take me a Tertullian and you shall find that one little Word added or taken away or altered never so little or a Full-point or Comma but out of its place will so confound the Sense that you will not be able to find what he would have Whereas in Books of an easie smooth clear Style as the Scriptures for the most part are these Faults are much less prejudicial seeing they cannot in any wise so darken the Sense but that it will be still easie enough to apprehend it But I shall pass by all these minute Punctilioes as more suitable to the Enquiries of the Pyrrhonians and Academicks whose Business it is to question all things than of Christians who onely seek in simplicity and sincerity of heart whereon to build their Faith I shall onely here take notice of such alterations as have been knowingly and voluntarily made in the Writings of the Fathers purposely by our holding our peace to disguise their Sâ—nse or else to make them speak more than they meant And this Forgery is of two sorts The one hath been made use of with a good intention the other out of malice Again The one hath been committed in Times long since past the other in this last Age in our own days and the days of our Fathers Lastly the one is in the Additions made to Authors to make them speak more than they meant the other in subtracting from the Author to eclipse and darken what he would be understood to say Neither ought we to wonder that even those of the honest innocent primitive Times also made use of these Deceits seeing that for a good end they made no great scruple to forge whole Books taking a much stranger and bolder course in my opinion than the other For without all doubt it is a greater Crime to coin false Money than to clip or a little alter the true This Opinion hath always been in the World That to settle a certain and assured estimation upon that which is good and true that is to say upon what we account to be such it is necessary that we remove out of the way whatsoever may be a hinderance to it
formerly determined by the Orthodox Doct. as appears plainly not only by the Manuscripts but also by the most ancient Editions of this Author and even by Card. Baronius his alledging of this Passage also in the Tenth Tome of his Annals An. Dom. 869. These are they who have quite rased out this following Passage out of Oecumenius For they who defended and favoured the Law introduced also the worshipping of Angels and that because the Law had been given by them And this Custom continued long in Phrygia insomuch that the Council of Laodicea made a Decree forbidding to make any Addresses to Angels or to pray to them whence also it is that we find many Temples among them erected to Michael the Archangel Which Passage David Hâ—eschelius in his Notes upon the Books of Origen against Celsus p. 483. witnesseth That himself had seen and read in the Manuscripts of Oecumenius and yet there is no such thing to be found in any of the Printed Copies Who would believe but that the Breviaries and Missals should have escaped their Razour Yet as it hath been observed by Persons of eminent both Learning and Honesty where it was read in the Collect on S. Peter's day heretofore thus Deus qui B. Petro Apostolo tuo collatis clavibus regni coelestis animas ligandi solvendi Pontificium tradidisti that is O God who hast committed to thy Apostle S. Peter by giving him the Keys of the Heavenly Kingdom the Episcopal Power of Binding and Loosing Souls in the later Editions of these Breviaries and Missals they have wholly left out the word Animas Souls to the end that People should not think that the Popes Autority extended only to Spiritual Affairs and not to Temporal also And so likewise in the Gospel upon the Tuesday following the Third Sunday in Lent they have Printed Dixit Jesus Discipulis suis that is Jesus said to his Disciples whereas it was in the old Books Respiciens Jesus in Discipulos dixit Simoni Petro si peccaverit in te frater tuus Jesus looking back upon his Disciples said unto Simon Peter If thy Brother have offended against thee c. cunningly omitting those words relating to Simon Peter for fear it might be thought that our Saviour Christ had made S. Peter that is to say the Pope subject to the Tribunal of the Church to which he there sends him And if the Council of Trent would but have hearkned to Thomas Passio a Canon of Valencia they should have blotted out of the Pontifical all such Passages as make any mention of the Peoples giving their Suffrage and Consent in the Ordination of the Ministers of the Church and among the rest that where the Bishop at the Ordination of a Priest saith That it was not without good reason that the Fathers had ordained That the Advice of the People should be taken touching the Election of those Persons who were to serve at the Altar to the end that having given their Assent to their Ordination they might the more readily yield Obedience to those who were so Ordained The meaning of this honest Canon was that to take away all such Authorities from the Hereticks the best way would be to blot them all out of the Pontifical to the end that there might be no trace or footstep of them left remaining for the future But they have not contented themselves with corrupting onely in this manner some certain Books out of which perhaps we might have been able to discover what the Opinion and Sense of the Ancients have been but they have also wholly abolished a very great number of others And for the better understanding hereof we are to take notice that the Emperours of the first Ages took all possible care for the stifling and abolishing all such Writings as were declared prejudicial to the True Faith as namely the Books of the Arrians and Nestorians and others which were under a great penalty forbidden to be read but were to be wholly supprest and abolished by the Appointment of these ancient Princes The Church it self also did sometimes call in the Books of such Persons as had been dead long before by a common consent of the Catholick Party as soon as they perceived any thing in them that was not consonant to the present Opinion of the Church as it did at the Fifth General Council in the Business of Theodorus Theodoreius and Ibas all three Bishops the one of Mopsuestia the other of Cyprus and the third of Edissa anathematizing each of their several Writings notwithstanding there Persons had been all dead long before dealing also even in the quiet times of the Church with Origen in the same manner after he had been now dead about three hundred years The Pope then hath not failed to imitate now for the space of many Ages both the one and the other of these rigorous Courses withal encreasing the harshness of them from time to time in so much that in case any of the Opinions of the Ancients hath been by chance found at any time to contradict his we are not to make any doubt but that he hath very carefully and diligently suppressed such Pieces without sparing any though they were written perhaps two three four or five hundred years before more than the others As for example It is at this day disputed whether or no the Primitive Church had in their Temples and worshipped the Images of Christ and of Saints This Controversie hath been sometime very eagerly and with much heaâ— and for a long time together debated in the Greek Church That Party which maintained the Affirmative bringing the business before the VII Council held at Nicaea it was there ordained That it should be unlawful for any Man to have the Books of the other Party withal charging every Man to bring what Books they had of that Party to the Patriarch of Constantinople to do with them as we must conceive according as had been required by the Legats of Pope Adrian that is tâ—at they should burn all those Books which had been written against the Venerable Images including no doubt within the same Condemnation all such Writings of the Ancients also as seemed not to favour Images as namely the Epistle of Eusebius to Constantia and that of Epiphanius to John of Hierusalem and others which are not now extant but were in all probability at that time abolished For as for the Epistle of Epiphanius that which we now have is only S. Hieromes Translation of it which happened to be preserved in the Western parts where the passion in the behalf of Images was much less violent than it was in the Eastern but the Original Greek of it is no where to be found Adrian II. in his Council ordained in like manner that the Council held by Photius against the Church of Rome should be burnt together with his other Books and all the Books of those of his Party which
Tobit the Book of Wisdom Ecclesiasticus and the Maccabees out of the Canon contrary to the Judgment of the Church of Rome which receiveth them in rids his hands of this Objection after the same manner I confess saith he that S. Hierome held this Opinion because that no General Council had as yet ordained any thing touching these Books Seeing therefore it is most clear both from the Confession of our Adversaries and also by the consideration of the thing it self that the Fathers have venâ—ed in their Writings very many of their own particular Opinions digested out of their own private Meditations and which they had not learnt in the School of the Church who sees not that before we give any certain credit unto their Sayings we ought first to be assured of what Nature they are Whether they were their own particular Opinions onely or the publick Sense of their Age Since it is confessed by all That those of the former sort are not always obligatory necessarily but are such as oftentimes may and sometimes ought to be rejected without any scruple at all You will object perhaps to a Protestant That S. Hierome worshipped the Reliques of Departed Saints How shall I know will he reply upon you again whether this was his private Opinion onely or not If the Authority of this Father for want of being grounded upon some Publick Declaration of the Church could not bind Bellarmine to receive his Opinion touching the Canon of the Old Testament why should this Opinion of his which is not any whit better grounded than the other perswade me to the Worship of Reliques The same will he reply upon you and many times with much more appearance of Reason concerning divers other Testimonies produced out of the Fathers So that whether you would confirm your own Faith or whether you would wrest out of your Adversaries hand this manner of Reply and make good all such Allegations it will concern you to make it clear concerning any Passage whatsoever that you shall urge out of a Father that it is not his own private Opinion but was the Opinion of the Church it self wherein he lived which in my Judgment is a thing that is as hard or harder to be demonstrated than any one of all those things we have yet discoursed of For those means by which we might easily attain to this Knowledge are wanting unto us and those which we have left us are very weak and very little concluding If the Fathers themselves had but taken so much pains as to have distinguished betwixt these two sorts of Opinions informing us in every particular Case which were their own private Opinions only and which were taught by the whole Church or at least had but proposed some of them as Doubtful and others again as Assured Truths in like manner as Origen hath sometimes done they would indeed have eased us very much though to say the truth they would not have wholly cured us of our Grief forasmuch as sometimes as we shall hereafter make it appear they attribute to the Church those things which it is most evident that it never held But they very seldom use to make any such Distinction but commonly â—ent their own private Opinions in the very same manner as they do the publick and sometimes also by reason of the Passion which these Authors may chance naturally to have been subject unto be the thing what it will we shall have them recommending unto us with more eagerness that which they have conceived and brought forth themselves than that which they have received from any other hand so that we shall meet with very little in them that may give us any light in this Particular There would be left us yet another help in this business by comparing that which they say here and there throughout their Writings with the Publick Opinions of the Church which would be a pretty safe and certain Rule to go by had we any where else besides their Books any clear and certain evidence what the Belief of the Church hath been in each several Age touching all Points of Religion and if this were so we should not then need to trouble our selves with the studying the Writings of the Fathers seeing that we read them for no other purpose but only to discover out of them what the opinion of Christendom hath been touching those Points which are at this day controverted betwixt us But now there is no man but knows but this help is wanting to us For setting aside the Creeds and the Determinations of the six first General Councils and of some few of the Provincial you will not meet with any Piece of this nature throughout the whole stock of Antiquity Now as we have already made it appear in the preceding Chapter the Ancient Church hath not any where declared neither in its Creeds nor in the aforesaid Councils what the opinion and sense of it hath been touching the greatest part of those Points which are now in dispute amongst us It followeth therefore that by this means we shall never be able to distinguish in the Writings of the Fathers which were their own private opinions and which they held in common with the rest of the Church If we could indeed learn from any creditable Author that the present Controversies had ever been decided by the Ancient Church we should then readily believe that the Fathers would have followed this their Decision and then although the Coâ—stitutions themselves should not perhaps have come down to our hands yet notwithstanding should we be in some sort obliged to believe that the Fathers who had both seen and assented to the same would also have delivered over the sense of them unto us in their Writings But we meet with no such thing in any Author but it rather appears evidently to the contrary through the whole course of Ecclesiastical Story that these Matters were never so much as started in the first Ages of Christianity so far have they been from being then decided So that it manifestly appeareth from hence that if the Fathers of those Primitive times have by chance said any thing of them they fetched not what they said from the Determinations of the Church which had not as yet declared it self touching the same but vented rather their own private thoughts and opinions Neither will it be to any purpose to object here that the Testimonies of many Fathers together do represent unto us the sence of the Church although the voice of one or two single persons only is not sufficient to do the same For not to answer that that which hath hapned to one may have hapned to many others and that if some particular persons chance to have fallen upon some particular Opinions possibly others may either have accompanied or else have followed them in the same I say further that this Objection is of no force at all in this Particular For seeing that the Church had not as yet declared
so charitable Admonition we should still believe all they say without examining any thing I take it for a Favour saith S. Ambrose when any one that readeth my Writings giveth me an account of what Doubts he there meeteth withal First of all because I may be deceived in those very things which I know And besides many things escape us and some things sound otherwise to some than perhaps they do to me I shall further here desire the Reader to take notice how careful the Ancients were in advising those who lived in their own time to take a strict Examination of their Words As for example where Origen adviseth That his Auditors should prove whatsoever he delivered and that they should be attentive and receive the Grace of the Spirit from whom proceedeth the discerning of Spirits that so as good Bankers they might diligently observe when their Pastor deceiveth them and when he preacheth unto them that which is Pious and True Cyrill likewise in his Fourth Catechesis hath these Words Believe me not saith he in whatsoever I shall simply deliver unless thou find the things which I shall speak demonstrated out of the Holy Scriptures For the Conservation and Establishment of our Faith is not grounded upon the Eloquence of Language but rather upon the Proofs that are brought out of the Divine Scriptures If therefore they would not have those who heard them speak vivâ voce to believe them in any thing unless they had demonstrated the Truth of it out of the Scriptures how much less would they have us now receive without this Demonstration those Opinions which we meet with in their Books which are not onely mute but corrupted also and altered so much and so many several ways as we have formerly shewed Certainly when I see these Holy men on one side crying out unto us that they are Men subject to Errours and that therefore we ought to consider and examine what they deliver and not take it all for Oracle and then on the other side set before my eyes these Worthy Maxims of the Ages following to wit That their Doctrine is the Law of the Church Vniversal and That we are bound to follow it not only according to the sense but according to the Bare Words also and that we are bound to hold all that they have written even to the lest tittle This representation I say makes me call to mind the History of Paul and Barnabas to whom the Lycaonians would needs render Divine Honour notwithstanding all the resistance these Holy men were able to make who could not forbear to rend their garments through the Indignation they were filled with to see that service paid to themselves which was due to the Divine Majesty alone running in amongst them and crying out aloud Sirs why do ye these things We also are Men of like passions with you For seeing that there is none but God whose word is certainly and necessarily True and seeing that on the other side the Word whereon we ground and build our Faith ought to be such who seeth not that it is all one as to invest Man with the Glory which is due to God alone and to place him in a manner in his Seat if we make His Word the Rule and Foundation of our Faith and the Judge of our Differences concerning It I am therefore stedfastly of this Opinion that if these Holy men could now behold from their blessed Mansions where they now live in bliss on high with their Lord and Saviour what things are acted here below they would be very much offended with this False Honour which men confer upon them much against their Wills and would take it as a very great injury offer'd them seeing that they cannot receive this Honour but to the Prejudice and Diminution of the Glory of their Redeemer whom they love a thousand times more than Themselves Or if from out their Sepulchres where the Reliques of their Mortality are now laid up they could but make us hear their sacred voice they would I am very confident most sharply reprove us for this Abuse and would cry out in the words of S. Paul Sirs why do ye these things We also were Men of like Passions with you But yet what need is there either of ransacking their Sepulchers and disturbing their Sacred Ashes or of calling down their Spirits from Heaven seeing that their voice resoundeth loud enough and is heard so plainly in these very Books of theirs which we so imprudently place in that seat which is only due to the Word of God We have heard what the Judgment was of S. Augustine and of S. Hierome the two most eminent Persons in the Western Church touching this Particular let us not then be all afraid having such examples to follow to speak freely our Opinions But now before we go any further I conceive it will be necessary that we answer an Objection that may be brought against us which is that Athanasius S. Cyrill and S. Augustine himself also often times cite the Fathers Besides what some have observed that the Fathers seldom entered into these Lists but when they were provoked by their Adversaries I add further that when we maintain that the Authority of the Fathers is not a sufficient Medium to prove an Article of Faith by we do not thereby presently forbid either the reading or the citing of them The Fathers often quote the Writings of the Learned Heathens the Oracles of the Sibylls and Passages out of the Apocryphal Books Did they therefore think that theâ—e Books were of sufficient Authority to ground an Article of Faith upon God forbid we should entertain so ill an Opinion of them Their Faith was grounded upon the Word of God But yet to evidence the Truth more fully they searched into Humane Records and by this Inquiry made it appear that the Light of the Truth revealed unto Them had in some degree shot its beams also even into the Schools of Men how Close and Shady soever they had been But if they should have produced no other but Humane Authority they would never have been able to have brought over any one person to the Faith But after they had received by Divine Revelation the Matter of our Faith it was very wisely done of them in the next place to prove not the Truth but the Clearness of It by these little Sparks which shot forth their light in the Spirits of Men. And for some the like Reason did S. Augustine Athanasius Cyrill and many other of them make use of Allegations out of the Fathers For after that each of these had grounded upon the Authority of Divine Revelation the Necessity and Efficacy of Grace the Consubstantiality of the Son with the Father and the Union of the Two Natures in Christ they then fell to producing of several Passages out of those Learned Men who had lived before Them to let men see that this Truth was so clear in
was watred with Tigris and Euphrates there had been neither River nor Willow nor any Aquatick Tree The same Author also demandeth as if it had been a most indissoluble Question if taken in the Literal sense who the Daughter of Babylon is and why she is called Miserable which is so easie a Question as that any Child almost might very easily resolve it without torturing the Text with Allegories So likewise in his exposition of the 146 Psalm he understandeth by the Clouds wherewith God is said to cover the Heavens the Writings of the Prophets and by the Rain which he prepareth for the Earth the Evangelical Doctrine by the Mountains which bring forth Grass the Prophets and Apostles by the Beasts he understands Men and by the young Ravens the Gentiles assuring us withal that it would not be onely Erroneous but rather very Irreligious to take these words in the Literal sense May not this be called rather Sporting with than Expounding of the Scriptures So likewise in another place speaking of the Fowls of the Air which our Saviour said neither reaped nor gathered into Barns he understands by these the Devils and by the Lilies of the Field which spin not the Angels I should much abuse the Readers patience if I should here set down the strange Discourses he hath upon the Story of the two Possessed with Devils who were healed by our Saviour in the Country of the Gergesens and upon the Leap which the Devils made the neighbouring Herd of Swine take into the Sea and of the Swine-herds running away into the City and of the Citizens coming forth and intreating our Saviour to depart out of their Coasts or if I should but give you the whole entire Exposition which he hath made of these words Vers 29. Chap. 10. of St. Matthew Are not two Sparrows sold for a Farthing c. where by the two Sparrows he understandeth Sinners whose Souls and Bodies having been made to flye upward and to mount on high sell themselves to sin for meer Trifles and things of no value by this means becoming both as one the Soul by sin thickning as it were into a Body and such other like wild Fancies the reading whereof would astonish a man of any judgment rather than edifie him Neither is St. Ambrose any whit more serious where expounding those words of our Saviour Matth. 17. 20. If you have Faith as a grain of Mustard seed ye shall say to this Mountain Remove hence to yonder place c. By this Mountain saith St. Ambrose is meant the Devil It would be too tedious a business to set down here at length all that might be collected of this nature out of him he that hath any mind to see more Examples of this kind may read but his Homilies upon the 118. Psalm which Piece of his will indeed be otherwise very well worth any mans reading as being a very excellent one and full of Eloquence and sound Doctrine But yet perhaps a man would find it a troublesom business to make any handsom defence for him where he makes bold sometimes to use the Sacred words of the Scriptures in his own sportful Fancies as where he applies to Valentinian and Gratian that which is spoken of Christ and the Church in the Canticles O that thou wert as my Brother that sucked the breasts of my Mother When I should find thee without I would kiss thee c. I would lead thee and bring thee into my Mothers house c. I would cause thee to drink of Spiced Wine and of the juyce of my Pomegranates His left hand should be under my head and his right hand should embrace me In this place saith he is meanâ— the Emperour Gratian of Râ—nowned Memory who teâ—â—eth his Brother that he is furnished with the fruits of divers Vertues And to the same purpose doth he make Application of divers other Passages of this Sacred Canticle and with so great Licence as to say the truth no Poet ever lashed out with more liberty and freedom than he hath done in that Book of his I shall here purposely pass by what I might produce of this nature out of Gregory Nazianzen St. Augustine and almost all the rest of the Fathers for this that we have already brought is enough and indeed more than we needed for our present purpose Let the Reader therefore now judge whether or no the Fathers by this their manner of Writing have not clearly enough witnessed against themselves that their Intention when they wrote these their Books never was either to bound and determine our Faith or to decide our differences touching the same I must needs confess that they were Persons who were endued with very large Gifts of the Spirit and with a most lively and clear Understanding for the diving into the Truth But yet those that have the greatest â—hare of these Gifts have it yet to very little purpose if so be they imploy it not all and every part of it to the utmost of their power when the business they are to treat of is of so great both difficulty and importance and such as to the deciding and discussing whereof we can never bring either more attention or diligence than is needful Now that the Fathers have not observed this Course in their Writings appeareth clearly enough by what hath been formerly said Their Books therefore are not to be received by us either as Definitive Sentences or Final Judgments upon our present Controversies I confess that these small trivial Errors ought not to take off any thing of the Opinion we have of the Greatness and Gallantry of their Parts I believe they might very easily have avoided the falling into them if they would but have taken the pains to have looked a little better about them And I â—m of Opinion that they fell into them meerly by inadvertency only which may also sometimes happen even to the greatest Masters that are in any Sciences whatsover I shall as willingly also yield to you if you desire it that they have sometimes done these things purposely letting fall here and there throughout their Writings such little slips from their Pen sportingly and by way of Recreation or else out of a design of exercising our Wits But certainly whatsoever the Reason were seeing that they had no mind to use any more either care or diligence in the composing of their Books we may very well and indeed we ought to conclude from hence that they had never any Intention that these Books of theirs should be our Judges These Innocent Faults these Mistakes these Oversights these Forgetfulnesses and these Sportings of theirs do sufficiently declare for their part that we are to make our Addresses to some others and that they have not so sadly delivered their Opinions as if they had sate on the Seat of Judgment but rather have spoken as in their Chamber venting their own private Opinions only and not as our
they maintain only such things as are eithe Expresly delivered in the Scriptures or else are Evidently deduced from thence and such as have also been expounded the greatest part of them and interpreted by the Ancients not in their own private Writings only but even in their Creeds and Synodical Determinations also They pretend not either to any Particular Revelation oâ— Secret Tradition or any other New Principle of Doctrine Their Faith is grounded only upon the Old and which is the Most Authentick Instrument of Christianity the New Testament Only in their Expositions either of the Doctrines therein Contained or other Passages They produce some few things that are not at all found in the Fathers But these things being not Necessary to Salvation the Argument which is brought from the Silence of the Fathers herein is not sufficient to prove the Falseness of them Time Experience Assistance of others and the very Errours also of the Fathers having as They say now laid that Open to Them which was Heretofore more Difficult and hard to be discovered and taken notice of in Divine Revelation Who knoweth not that a Dwarf mounted upon a Giants shoulders looketh higher and seeth further than the Giant himself It would be ridiculous in any man that should conclude that That which the Dwarf pretends to discover is not at all in Nature because then the Giant must also have seen it Neither would He be much wiser that should accuse the Dwarf of Presumption because forsooth He hath told Us that whereof the Giant said not a word seeing that it is the Giant to whom the Dwarf is beholding for the greatest part of His Knowledge And this is Our Case say the Protestants We are mounted upon the Shoulders of that Great and High Giant Antiquity That advantage which we have above it by its means enables us to see many things in Divine Revelation which it did not see But yet however this cannot be any occasion of Presumption to us because we see more than it did for as much as it is this very Antiquity to which we owe a great part of this our Knowledge It is Certainly therefore very Clear that as for the Protestants and what concerns the Positive Points of Their Faith they are wholly without the Compass of this Dispute And as for those of the Church of Rome They cannot for the Reasons before given make any Advantage of the Testimony of the Ancients for the proving of any of those Points of Doctrine which They maintain save only of those wherein their Adversaries agree with them and therefore if they would have us to come over to Their Belief They must Necessarily have recourse to some other kind of Proofs But yet I do not see but that we may very well make Inquiry into Antiquity touching many Articles which are now maintained by those of the Church of Rome and if we find that the Ancients have not said any thing at all of the same we may then positively conclude That they are not to be accounted as any part of the Christian Religion I confess that there are some of them against which this Argument is of no force at all as namely those which they do not account Necessary to Salvation and which both the Ancients heretofore might have been and we also at this day may be ignorant of But certainly this Argument in my Judgment would be utterly unanswerable against such Points as they press as Necessary and whereon indeed they would have our Salvation wholly to depend As for Example The Supreme Authority of the Pope and of the Church which owneth him as Its Head The Adoration of the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist the Sacrifice of the Mass the Necessity of Auricular Confession and the like For if so be they are of so great Importance as they would make us believe it would be a Point of high Impiety to say That the Fathers knew not any thing at all of them in like manner as it would be a most absurd thing to maintain That though they did know them they would not yet speak any one word of them in all those Books which we have of theirs at this day And if they had said any thing at all of them in their Writings we have no reason in the World to suspect that possibly those Passages where mention was made of them may have been rased out or corrupted and altered by false hands seeing that this Piece of Knavery would have been done to the disadvantage of those who had these Books in their Custody We have rather very good reason to suspect that whatsoever Alterations there are they have been made in favour of the Church of Rome as we have proved before in the First Book If therefore after so long a time and after so many Indexes as they of the Church of Rome have put forth and so great a desire as they have had to find these Doctrines of theirs in the Writings of the Fathers and the little Conscience that they have sometimes made of foisting into the Writings of the Fathers what they could not find there We can still notwithstanding make it appear that they are not to be found there at all After all this I say who can possibly doubt but that the Fathers were ignorant of them Who will ever be perswaded to believe that they held them as Necessary to Salvation And if they were not known to be such then how can any body imagine that they should at length come to be such now My Opinion therefore is That although the Authority of the Fathers be not sufficient to prove the Truth of those Articles which are now maintained by the Church of Rome against the Protestants although the Ancients should perhaps have believed the same it may notwithstanding serve to prove the Falseness of them in case that we should find by the Fathers that the Ancients were either wholly ignorant of them or at least acknowledged them not for such as they would now have us believe them to be which is a Business that so nearly concerns the Protestants as that to be able to bring about their Design I conceive they ought to employ a good part of their time in reading over the Books of the Ancients Onely it is requisite that either Party when they undertake so tedious and so important a Business as this is should come very well provided of all Necessary Parts as namely of the Knowledge of the Language and of History and should also be very well read in the Scriptures and that they use herein their utmost Diligence and Attention and withal read over exactly whatsoever we have left us of the Fathers not omitting any thing that Possibly they can get because a little short Passage many times gives a Man very much Light in the finding out their Meaning and not think as some who much deceive themselves do that they perfectly know what the Sense and Belief of the Ancients was because
our Age where this great Person hath given us his Judgment of most of the Authors of the Greek Church Now this Help we may make use of two manner of ways The one is in justifying a Book if it be found mentioned by these Authors The other is in rejecting it if they say nothing of it As for the first of these it concludes onely according to the Quality of the Authors who make mention of a suspected Book For some of the Fathers themselves have made use of these kind of Forgeries as we have formerly said others have favoured them because they served their turn some have not been able to discover them and some others have not been willing to do so whatsoever their Reason hath been I shall not here repeat the Names of any of those that have done these things themselves And as for those that have favoured them there are good store of examples as Justin Martyr Theophilus and others who alledge the Sibylls Verses as Oracles which are notwithstanding the greatest part of them forged Clemens Alexandrinus the most Learned and most Polite of all the Fathers in S. Hierome's judgment how often doth he make use of those Apocryphal Pieces which go under the Names of the Apostles and Disciples to whom they were most falsly attributed citing under the Name of Barnabas and of Hermes such Writings as have been forged under their Names And did not the VII Council in like manner make use of a supposititious Piece attributed to Athanasius as we have shewed before and likewise of divers others which are of the same stamp That even the Fathers themselves therefore have not been able always to make a true discovery of these false Wares no Man can doubt considering that of those many necessary Qualifications which we reckoned up before as requisite in this Particular they may oftentimes have failed in some S. Hierome himself the most knowing Man among all the Latin Fathers especially in Matters of this nature sometimes lets them pass without examination as there where he speaks of a certain Tract against Mathematicians attributed to Minutius Foelix If at least saith he the Inscription represent unto us the right Author of the Book And in another place whatsoever his reason was he delivers to us for Legitimate Pieces the Epistles that go about under the Name of S. Paul to Seneca and of Seneca to S. Paul which notwithstanding Cardinal Baronius holds for suspectâ—â— and spurious as doubtless they are But even those Men who have been able to discover these false Pieces have not sometimes been willing to do it either being unwilling to offend the Authors of them or else not daring to cast any disrepute upon those Books which having many good things in them had not in their judgment any false or dangerous Positions in them And this is the reason why they made choice to let such things pass rather than out of a little tenderness of conscience to oppose them there being in their apprehension no danger at all in the one and much trouble and envy in the other And therefore I am of opinion That S. Hierome for example would never have taken the pains nor have undergone the envy in laying open the Forgeries of Ruffinus if the misunderstanding that hapned to be betwixt them had not engaged him to it Neither do I believe that the African Fathers would ever have troubled themselves in convincing the false Allegation of Zozimus but for their own Interest which was thereby called in question For wise and sober Men never use to fall at variance with any Body till they needs must neither do they quickly take notice of any Injury or Abuse offered them unless it be a very great one and such as hath evident danger in it which was not at all perceived or taken notice of at first in these Forgeries which nevertheless have at length by little and little in a manner born down all the good and true Books These Considerations in my opinion make it clearly appear That the Title of a Book is not sufficiently justified by a Passage or two being cited out of it by some of the Ancients and under the same Name As for the other way which rendreth the Authority of a Book doubtful by the Ancients not having made any mention of it I confess it is no more demonstrative than the other forasmuch as it is not impossible that any one or divers of the Fathers may not have met with such a certain Wriâ—â—r that was then extant or else perhaps that they might omit some one of those very Authors which they knew Yet notwithstanding is this the much surer way of the two there being less danger in this case in rejecting a True Piece than in receiving a Forged one the want of the Truth of the one being doubtless much less prejudicial than the receiving the opposite Falshood of the other For as it is a less sin to omit the Good than to commit the Evil that is opposite to it in like manner is it a less Errour not to believe a Truth than to believe the Falshood which is contrary to it And thus we see what confusion there is in the Books of the Ancients and what defect in the Means which is requisite for the distinguishing the False from the True insomuch that as it often falls out it is much easier to judge what we ought to reject than to resolve upon what we may safely receive Let the Reader therefore now judge whether or no these Writings having come down along through so many Ages and passed through so many Hands which are either known to have been notoriously guilty or at least strongly suspected of Forgery the Truth in the mean time having made on its part but very weak resistance against these Impostures it be not a very hard matter to discover amidst the infinite number of Books that are now extant and go under the Names of the Fathers which are those that truly belong to them and which again are those that are falsly imposed upon them And if it be so hard a matter to discover in gross onely which are the Writings of the Fathers how much more difficult a Business will it be to find out what their Opinions are touching the several Controversies now in agitation For we are not to imagine that it is no great matter from which of the Fathers such an Opinion hath sprung so that it came from any one of them for there is altogether as much difference amongst these Ancient Doctors both in respect of Authority Learning and Goodness as among the Modern Besides that an Ages being higher or lower either raiseth or lesseneth the Repute of these Writings in the esteem both of the one Party and of the other as it were so many grains as years And certainly not altogether without good reason it being most evident to any one that hath been but the least versed in the