its opinion publickly touching the Points at this day controverted it is as impossible that many together that lived in the same time should represent it unto us as that one single person should How could they possibly have seen that which lay as yet concealed How could they possibly measure their Belief by such a Rule as was not yet visible to the World The Chiliasts alledge the Testimonies not of one not of two but of a very great number of the most eminent and the most ancient among the Fathers who were all of their opinion as we shall see hereafter The Answer that is ordinarily made to the Objection is That the Church having not as yet declared its sence touching this Point the Testimonies of these Men bind us not to believe the same which is an evident Argument that a great number in this case signifies no more than a small in the representing unto us what the Belief of the Church hath been and that it is necessary that either by some General Council or else by some other publick way it must have declared its judgment touching any Question in debate that so we may know whether the Fathers have been of the same judgment or no. So that according to this Account we are to raise up again the whole Ancient Church and to call it to account touching every of these particular Points now debated touching which the Testimonies of the Fathers are alledged it being impossible otherwise to give any certain judgment whether that which they say be their own private or else the publick Opinion that is to say whether it be fit to be believed or not So that any man that is but of the meanest judgment may easily perceive how that it is not only a difficult but also almost an impossible thing to gather out of the Writings of the Fathers so much light as is necessary we should have for our satisfaction in matters of so great importance CHAP. X. Reason 10. That it is a very hard matter to know whether the Opinions of the Fathers touching the Controversies of these Times were received by the Church Vniversal or but by some part of it only which yet is necessarily to be known before we can make use of any Allegations out of them BUT suppose that a Father relieving us in this difficult or rather impossible business should tell us in express terms that what he proposeth is the sense and opinion of the Church in his time yet would not this quite deliver us out of the doubtful condition we are in For besides that their words are many times in such cases as these liable to exception suppose that it were certainly and undoubtedly so yet would it concern us then to examine what that Church was whereof he speaketh whether it were the Church Vniversal or only some Particular Church and whether it were that of the whole World or that of some City Province or Country only Now that this is a matter of no small importance is evident from hence because that the opinions of the Church Vniversal in Points of Faith are accounted infallible and necessarily true whereas those of Particular Churches are not so but are confessed to be subject to Errour So that the Question being here touching the Faith which ought not to be grounded upon any thing save what is infallibly true it will concern us to know what the judgment of the Church Vniversal hath been seeing the opinion of no Particular Church can do us any service in this case And that this distinction is also otherwise very necessary appears evidently by this because that the opinions and customs which have been commonly received by the greatest part of Christendom have not always presently taken place in each Particular Church and again those which have been received in some certain Particular Churches have not been entertained by all the rest Thus we find in story that the Churches of Asia minor kept the Feast of Easter upon a different day from all the other parts of Christendom and although the business it self seems to be of no very great importance yet did it nevertheless cause a world of stir in the Church Victor Bishop of Rome by reason of this little difference excommunicating all Asia minor Now each party here alledged their Reasons and Apostolical Tradition for what they did speaking with so great confidence in the justification of their own opinion as that hearing them severally a man would verily believe that each of their opinions was the very sense of the whole Church which notwithstanding was but the opinion of one part of it only The greatest part of Christendom held the Baptism of Hereticks to be good and effectual and received all those who forsaking their Heresie desired to be admitted into the Communion of the Church without re-baptizing them as appears out of St. Cyprian who confesseth that this had also been the custom formerly even in the African Churches themselves And yet notwithstanding Firmilianus Archbishop of Caesaria in Cappadocia testifies that the Churches of Cappadocia had time out of mind believed and practised the contrary and had also in his time so declared and ordained together with the Churches of Galatia and Cilicia in a full Synod held at the City Iconium And about the same time also St. Cyprian and the Bishops of Africk fell upon the same business and embraced this opinion of Re-baptization of Hereticks The Acts of the Council held at Carthage are yet extant where you have 87 Bishops who with one unanimous consent established the same The Custom at Rome in Tertullians time was to receive into the Communion of the Church all Fornicators and Adulterers after some certain Penances which they enjoyned them Tertullian who was a Montanist exclaimed fearfully against this custom and wrote a Book expresly against it which is also extant among his works at this day Who now that should read this Piece of his would not believe that it was the general Opinion of all Catholicks that such sinners were not to be excluded from Penance and the Communion of the Church And yet for all this it is evident out of a certain Epistle of St. Cyprian that even some of the Catholick Bishops of Africa were of the contrary perswasion and the Jesuit Petavius is further of opinion that this Indulgency was not allowed nor practised in the Churches of Spain till a long time after and that the Ancient Rigour which excluded for ever such Offenders from the Communion of the Church was in practice among them till the time of Pacianus Bishop of Barcellona who left not any hopes of Ecclesiastical Absolution either to Idolaters Murtherers or Adulterers as may be seen in his Exhortation to Repentance In the year of our Lord 364. the Council of Laodicea ordained that none but the Canonical Books of the Old and New Testament should be read in Churches giving us withal a Catalogue of the said Books
his own Opinions and Observations as Apostolical and which hath not used his utmost endeavour to gain them the Repute of being Vniversal S. Hierome allows every particular Province full liberty to do herein as they please Let every Province saith he abound in its own Sense and let them account of the Ordinances of their Ancestors as of Apostolical Laws It is true indeed that he speaks in this place onely of certain Observations of things which are in themselves indifferent But yet that which he hath permitted them in these Matters they have practised in all other I shall not here trouble my self to produce any other Reasons to prove the Difficulty of this Inquiry because I should then be forced to repeat a great part of that which hath been already delivered For if it be a very hard matter to attain to any certain knowledge what the Sense of the Writings of the Fathers is as we have proved before how much more difficult a thing will it be to discover whether their Opinions were the Opinions of the particular Churches wherein they lived or else were the Opinions of the Church Universal in their Age the same things which cause Obscurity in the one having as much or rather more reason of doing the like in the other And if you would fully understand how painful an Undertaking this is do but read the Disputations of the Learned of both Parties touching this Point where you shall meet with so many Doubts and Contradictions and such diversity of Opinions that you will easily conclude That this is one of the greatest Difficulties that is to be met withal throughout the whole Study of Antiquity CHAP. XI Reason XI That it is impossible to know exactly what the Belief of the Ancient Church either Vniversal or Particular hath been touching any of those Points which are at this day controverted amongst us BEfore we pass on to the Second Part of this Treatise it seemeth not impertinent to give the Reader this Last Advertisement and to let him know that though all these Difficulties here before represented were removed yet notwithstanding would it still be impossible for us to know certainly out of the Fathers what the Judgment of the whole Ancient Church whether you mean the Church Universal or but any considerable Part thereof hath been touching the Differences which are now on foot in Religion Now that we may be able to make the truth of this Proposition appear it is necessary that we should first of all explain the Terms We understand commonly by the Church especially in these Disputations either all those Persons in General who profess themselves to be of the said Church of what Condition or Quality soever they be or else in a stricter sense the Collective Body of all those who are set over and who are Representatives of the Church that is to say the Clergy So that whether you speak of the Church Universal or of some Particular Church as for example that of Spain or of Carthage this Term may be taken in either of these two senses For by the Church Universal we understand either all those Persons in general who live in the Communion of the Christian Church whether they be of the Laity or of the Clergy or else those Persons onely who are Ecclesiastici or Church-men as we now call them For in the Primitive Times all Christians that lived in the Communion of the Catholicks were called Ecclesiastici In like manner by the Church of Carthage is meant either generally All the Faithful that live in the particular Communion of the Christian Church of Carthage or else particularly and in a stricter sense the Bishop of Carthage with his whole Clergy Now I do not believe that there is any Man but will easily grant me that if we take the Church in the First sense it is impossible to know by way of Testimony given of the same what the Sense and Judgment of it hath been in each several Age touching all the Points of Christian Religion We may indeed collect by way of Discourse what hath been the Belief of the True Members of the Church For there being some certain Articles the Belief whereof is necessarily requisite for the rendring a Man such an one whosoever rightly understands which these Articles be he may certainly conclude that the True Church whether Universal or Particular hath believed the same But now in the first place this doth not extend to all the Points of Christian Religion but onely to those which are Necessary besides which there are divers others concerning which we may have not only different but even contrary Judgments too and yet not thereby hazard the loss either of the Communion of the Church or of our Inheritance of everlasting Salvation So then this Ratiocination concludeth not save onely of those who are the True Members of the Church For as for those who make but an outward Profession onely of the Truth it being not at all necessary that they should be saved there is in like manner no more necessity of their embracing those Beliefs which are requisite for that end They may under this Mask hide all manner of Opinions how Impious soever they be Lastly that which makes most for our purpose is That this Knowledge is acquired by Discourse whereas we speak here of such a Knowledge as is collected by the hearing of several Witnesses who give in their Testimonies touching the thing which we would know Now the Fathers having written with a purpose of informing us not what each particular Man believed in their time but rather what they thought fit that all Men should have believed we must needs conclude That certainly they have not told us all that they knew touching this particular And consequently therefore partly their Charity and partly also their Prudence may have caused them to pass by in silence all such Opinions either of whole Companies or of particular Persons as they conceived to be not so consonant to the Truth But supposing that they had not any of these considerations and that they had taken upon them to give us a just Account each Man of the Opinions of his particular Church wherein he lived it is evident however that they could never have been able to have attainēd to the end of this their Design For how is it possible that they should have been able to have learnt what the Opinion of every single Person was amongst so vast a Multitude which consisted of so many several Persons who were of so different both Capacities and Dispositions Who will believe that S. Cyprian for example knew all the several Opinions of each particular Person in his Diocess so as to be able to give us an account of the same Who can imagine but that among such a Multitude of People as lived in the Communion of his Church there must needs have been very many who differed in Opinion from him in divers Points of Religion Even
then safely perhaps rely upon the Writings of the Fathers But then on the other side it is so very difficult a matter to meet with such a Conjunction of so many several Quâ—lifications as that I very much doubt whether we shall be ever able to enjoy this happiness or not For first of all for the persons of those men whose Testimonies we alledge he requireth that they should be such as not only Lived but also Taught and which is more persevered too not only in the Faith but in the Communion also of the Catholick Church And then for fear of being surprised and taken at this Word he comes over us with a new supply and qualifies his words with a Restriction of Three Adverbs and tells Us that they must have lived and taught Holily Wisely and Constantly But yet this is not all for besides all this they must have either died in Christ or for Christ So that if they Lived but did not Teach or if they both Lived and Taught but did not Persevere or if they both Lived Taught and also Persevered in the Faith but not in the Communion or else in the Communion but not in the Faith of the Catholick Church or if they yet Lived and Taught Holily but not Wisely or on the contrary Wisely but not Holily and if in the last place after all this having performed all the Particulars before set down they did not at last die either in Christ or for Christ they ought not according to this mans Rule be admitted as Witnesses in this Case Certainly he might have stopped here and not have gone on still with his Modifications as he doth limiting the number and the words of these witnesses For what Christian ever made scruple of receiving the Opinion of such a one as had both Holily Wisely and Constantly lived and taught in the Faith and Communion of the Catholick Church For you might hence very well rest assured that whatsoever he had delivered was True and consequently Fit to be believed for how could he have taught Wisely and Constantly if he had taught any False Doctrine All tha he here therefore promiseth us is no more but this That we should be sure not to be deceived provided that we believed no other Doctrines save what were Holy and True This Promise of his is like that which little Children are wont to make when they tell you that you shall never die if you but eat always Neither do I believe that there is any man in the World so perverse and wilful as not readily to assent to such a man as he assuredly knew to be so qualified as Vincentius Lirinensis would here have him to be But seeing that it is necessary that we should first know the Quality of the Witness before we hear him it remaineth in my judgment that before we do so much as hear any of the Fathers we ought to be first assured that he was so qualified in every particular according to Vincentius his Rule before layed down Now I would very fain have any one inform me how it is possible for us to know this Who will assure us that Athanasius St. Cyrill or what other Father you please both Lived Taught Persevered and Died Holily Wisely and Constantly in the Faith and Communion of the Catholick Church This can never be done without a most Exact Inquiry made both into their Life and their Doctrines which is an Impossible thing considering the many Ages that have passed from Their times down to Ours But yet supposing that this were a Possible thing it would nevertheless be of no use at all as to this Authors purpose For He will have us hear the Fathers to the end that we may be by Them instructed in the Truth Now that we may be rightly informed whether or no they were so Qualified as is before required we ought necessarily to know first of all what the Truth is For how is it otherwise possible that we should be able to judg whether they have taught Holily and Wisely And if you were before-hand instructed in the Truth what need have you then to hear Them and to desire to be instructed in it by Them You may indeed make use of them for the Illustration and Confirmation of that which you knew before but you cannot learn any Truth from them which you knew not before And if you understand the Maxime before alledged in another sense and take this Wisdom and Holiness this Faith and Communion of the Catholick Church therein mentioned for a shadow onely and the Superficies and Outward Appearance of these things and for a Common and Empty Opinion grounded meerly upon the Publick Voice of the People and not upon an Exact Knowledge of the thing it self it will then prove to be manifestly False those Persons who have but the Outward Appearance only and not the Reality of these Qualities being no way fit to be admitted as Witnesses much less to be receiv'd as the Supreme Judges in the Point of the Christian Faith So that this Proposition is either Impossible if you understand it as the words seem to sound or else it is False if you take it in any larger sense The like Exceptions may be made against those other Conditions which he there further requires touching the Number and the Words of these Witnesses For he alloweth not the force of a Law to any thing but what hath been delivered either by All or else by the Greatest part of them If he here by All mean All the Fathers that ever have been or but the Greatest Part of them onely he then puts us upon an Impossibility For taking the whole Number of Fathers that ever have been the Greatest and perhaps too the Best Part of them have not written any thing at all and among those that have written how many hath Time devoured and how many hath the False Dealings of Men either wholly suppressed or else corrupted and altered It is therefore evidently Impossible to know what the Opinions have been either of All or of the Greatest Part of the Fathers in this sense And if he restrains this All and this Greatest Part to those who appear at this day either in their own Books or in Historians and the Writings of other men it will concern us then to inquire Whether or no by All he means All promiscuously without distinguishing them by their several Ages wherein they lived or else Whether he would have us distinguish them into several Classes putting together in the same Rank all those that lived in one and the same Age and receiving for Truth whatsoever we find to have been held and confirmed by the greatest part of them Now both these ways agree in this one thing namely that they render the Judgment of the Christian Faith wholly Casual and make it depend upon divers and sundry Accidents which have been the Cause of the Writings of the Fathers being either preserved or lost For put the case that
Book of his De Anima He also with Irenaeus shuts up the Souls of Men after they are departed this Life into a certain Subterraneous place where they are to remain till the Day of Judgment the Heavens not being to be opened to any of the Faithful till the end of the World onely he allows the Martyrs their entrance into Paradise which he fancies to be some place beneath the Heavens and here he will have them continue till the Last Day It is thy Blood saith he which is the onely Key of Paradise And this place whither the Souls of the Dead go is to continue close shut up till the end of the World according to him who besides is of a quite contrary Opinion from that of Justin Martyr spoken of before and maintains That all Apparitions of Dead Men are onely meer Illusions and Deceits of the Devil and that this Inclosure of the Souls of Men shall continue till such time as the City of the New Jerusalem which is to be all of Precious Stones shall descend Miraculously from Heaven upon the Earth and shall there continue a Thousand years the Saints so long living in it in very great Glory and that during this space the Resurrection of the Faithful is to be accomplished by degrees some of them rising up sooner and some later according to the difference of their Merits And hence are we to interpret that which he says in another place to wit That small Sins shall be punished in Men by the Lateness of their Resurrection and That when the Thousand years are expired and the Destruction of the World and the Conflagration of the Day of Judgment is past we shall all be changed in a moment into the Nature of Angels I pass by his Invectives against Second Marriages and also his evil Opinion of all Marriage in General these Fancies being a part of the Discipline of Montanus his Paraclete But as for his Opinions touching the Baptism of Hereticks he hath many Fellows among the Fathers who held the same namely That their Baptism signified nothing and therefore they never received any Heretick into the Communion of the Catholick Church but they first rebaptized him Cleansing him saith he both in the one and in the other Man that is to say both in Body and Soul by the Baptism of the Truth accounting an Heretick to be in the same or rather in a worse condition than any Pagan And as for the rest he is so far from pressing Men to the Baptizing of their Children while they are young which yet is the present Custom of these Times that he allows and indeed perswades the Contrary not onely in Children but even in Persons of Riper years counselling them to defer it every Man according to his Condition Disposition and Age. And as his Opinion touching this Particular is not much different from that of the Anabaptists of our Time so doth he not much dissent from them neither in some other For he will not allow no more than they do that a Christian should take upon him or execute any Office of Judicature or That he should condemn or bind or imprison or examine any Man or that he should make War upon any or serve in War under any other saying expresly That our Saviour Christ by disarming S. Peter hath from henceforth taken off every Soldiers Belt Which is as much as to say That the Discipline of Christ alloweth not of the Profession of Soldiery So that I cannot but extremely wonder at the Confidence shall I say or rather the Inadvertency of some who will needs perswade us from a certain Passage of this Author which themselves have very much mistaken that this so Innocent and Peaceable Father maintained That Hereticks are to be punished and to be suppressed by inflicting upon them temporal punishments which rigorous proceeding was as far from his thoughts as Heaven is from Earth I shall add here before I go any further that he held that our Saviour Christ suffered death in the Thirtieth year of his Age which is manifestly contrary to the Gospel And he thought also that the Heavenly Grace and Prophecy ended in St. John Baptist the Fulness of the Spirit being from henceforth transferred unto our Saviour Christ St. Cyprian who was Tertullians very great Admirer calling him absolutely The Master and who never let any day pass over his head without reading something of him hath confidently also maintained some of the aforesaid Opinions as namely among others that of the Nullity of Baptism by Hereticks which he desendeth every where very stiffely having also the most Eminent Men of his time consenting with him in this Point as namely Firmilianus Metropolitan of Cappadocia Dionysius Bishop of Alexandria together with the Councils of Africk Cappadocia Pamphilia and Bithynia notwithstanding all the Anger and the Excommunication also of Stephen Bishop of Rome who for his part held a particular Opinion of his own allowing of the Baptism of all sorts of Hereticks without rebaptizing any of them as it appeareth by the Beginning of the LXXIV Epistle of St. Cyprian whereas the Church about some LXV years after at the Council of Nice declared Null the Baptism of the Samosatenians by permitting as it seems that all other Hereticks whatsoever should be received into the Church without being rebaptized But the Fathers of the * II. General Council went yet further rebaptizing all those no otherwise than they would have done Pagans who came in from the Communion either of the Eunomians Montanists Phrygians or Sabellians or indeed any other Hereticks whatsoever save only the Arrians Macedonians Sabbatians Novatians Quartodecimani and Apollinarians all which they received without Rebaptization as you may see in the Greek Copies of the said Council and the VII Canon which Canon you also have in the Greek Code of the Church Universal Num. CLXX And thus you see that Stephen and Cyprian maintained each of them their own particular Opinion in this point the one of them admitting and the other utterly rejecting the Baptism of all manner of Hereticks whereas the two aforenamed General Councils neither admitted nor rejected save only the Baptism of some certain Hereticks only But St. Cyprian however seems to have dealt herein much more fairly than his Adversary seeing that He patiently endured and was not offended with any of those who were of the contrary Opinion as it appears clearly by the Synod of Carthage and as it is also proved by St. Hierome whereas Stephen according to his own hot cholerick Temper declared publickly against Firmilianus his Opinion and Excommunicated all those that dissented from himself The same blessed Martyr of our Saviour Jesus Christ was carried away with that Errour also of his time touching the Necessity of administring the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist to all persons when they were Baptized and
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
and that there can be no great danger either in putting in or at least in leaving any thing in that may yield assistance to it whatsoever the issue of either of these may in the end prove to be And hence hath it come to pass that we have so many ancient Forgeries and also so many strange stories of Miracles and of Visions many taking a delight in feigning as S. Hierome says great Combats which they have had with Devils in Desarts all which things are meerly fabulous in themselves and acknowledged too to be so by the most intelligent of them yet notwithstanding are tolerated and sometimes also recommended to them forasmuch as they account them useful for the setling or encreasing either of the Faith or Devotion of the People What will you say if at this day there are some even of those Men who make profession of being the greatest haters in the world of these subtilties who cannot nevertheless put forth any Book but they must needs be lopping off or falsifying whatsoever doth not wholly agree with the Doctrine they hold for true fearing as themselves say lest such things coming to the eye of the simple Common People might infect them and possess their Heads with new Fancies So firmly hath this Opinion been of old rooted in the Nature of Man Now I will not here dispute whether this proceeding of theirs be lawful or not I shall only say by the way That in my judgment it is a very great shame for the Truth to be established or defended by such falsifications and shifts as if it had not sufficient Weapons both defensive and offensive of its own but that it must be fain to borrow of its Adversary and it is besides a very dangerous course too because that the discovery of any one Cheat oftentimes renders their Cause who practised it wholly suspected insomuch that by making use of such slights as these in Christian Religion either for the gaining to you or confirming the faith of some of the simpler People it is to be feared that you may give distaste to the more understanding sort and so by this means at length may chance to lose the Affections of the simpler sort too But whatsoever this course of Cheating be either in it self or in its Consequences it is sufficient for my purpose that it hath been a long time practised in the Church in matters of Religion for proof whereof I shall here produce some Instances The Hereticks have always been accused of using this Artifice but I shall not here set down what Alterations have been made by the Ancientest of them even in the Scriptures themselves If you would have a Taste of this Practice of theirs go but to Tertullian and Epiphanius and you shall there see how Marcion had clipped and altered the Gospel of S. Luke and those Epistles of S. Paul which he allowed to be such Neither have those other of the Ages following been any whit more conscientious in this Particular as may appear by those Complaints made by Ruffinus in his Exposition upon the Apostle's Creed and in another Treatise written by him purposely on this Subject which is indeed contradicted by S. Hierome but onely in his Hypothesis as to what concerned Origen but not absolutely in his Thesis and by the like Complaints of S. Cyril and divers others of the Ancients and among the Moderns by those very Persons also who have put forth the General Councils at Rome who inform us in the Preface to the First Volume That Time and the Fraud of the Hereticks have been the cause that the Acts of the said Councils have not come to our hands neither entire nor pure and sincere that which hath remained of them and before they grievously bewail that we should be thus deprived of so great and so precious a Treasure Now this Testimony of theirs to me is worth a thousand others seeing it comes from such who in my opinion are evidently interested to speak quite otherwise For if the Church of Rome who is the pretended Mistress and Trustee of the Faith hath suffered any part of the Councils to perish and be lost which is esteemed by them as the Code of the Church what then may the rest have suffered also And what may not the Hereticks and Schismaticks have been able to do And if all these Evidences have been altered by their Fraud how shall we be able by them to come to the knowledge of the Sense and Judgment of the Ancients I confess I am very much amaâ—ed to see these Men make so much reckoning of the Acts of the Councils and to make such grievous Complaints against the Hereticks for having suppressed some of them For if these things are of such use why then do they themselves keep from us the Acts of the Council of Trent which is the most considerable Council both for them and their Party that hath been held in the Christian Church these eight hundred years If it be a Crime in the Hereticks to have kept from us these precious Jewels why are not they afraid lest the blame which they lay on others may chance to return upon themselves But doubtless there is something in the Business that renders these Cases different and I confess I wonder they publish it not the simpler sort for want of being otherwise informed thinking perhaps though it may be without cause that the reason why the Acts of this last Council are kept so close from them is because they know that the publishing of them would be either prejudicial or at least unprofitable to the Greatness of the Church of Rome And they also again on the other side conceive that in those other Acts which they say have been suppressed by the Hereticks there were wonderful Matters to be found for the greater advancing and supporting of the Church of Rome Whatsoever the Reason be I cannot but commend the Ingenuity of these Men who notwithstanding their Interest which seemeth to engage them to the contrary have yet nevertheless confessed That the Councils which we have at this day are neither entire nor uncorrupted But let us now examine whether or no even the Orthodox Party themselves have not also contributed something to this Alteration of the Writings of the Primitive Church Epiphanius reports That in the true and most correct Copies of S. Luke it was written that Jesus Christ wept and that this passage had been alledged by S. Irenaeus but that the Catholicks had blotted out this Word fearing that the Hereticks might abuse it Whether this Relation be true or false I must relie upon the Credit of the Author But this I shall say That it seems to me a clear Argument That these Ancient Catholicks would have made no great scruple of blotting out of the Writings of the Fathers any Word that they found to contradict their own Opinions and Judgment and that with the same Liberty that they inform us
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
so many Eminent and Wise Men hath approved and confirmed this Mistake of theirs not perceiving it at all what can we or indeed what ought we to expect from any other hands whose soever they be as touching the Points now controverted betwixt us in comparison of which a Man may very well say that all the Difficulty that this Matter now spoken of yieldeth is nothing at all wherein notwithstanding this whole Council mistook it self Where shall we find a M that after this their Failing can have the courage to adventure upon so Difficult and so Intricate an undertaking Who can promise himself success there where so Great a Council hath failed The very hope of effecting so weighty a Matter can hardly be excused from the guilt of High Prâ—sumption For first of all the Fathers tell us very seldom in what Degree either of Necessity or Probability they held their Opinions and even when they do tell us their Expressions being such as we have observed of them we ought not presently to conclude any thing from them without first examining them throughly For many tâ—mes when they would recommend unto us such things as they accounted profitable for us they would speak of them as if they had been Necessary and so again to take off our Belief of and to divert our affections from such things as they conceived either to be simply false or otherwise unprofitable for us they represented them as the most detestable and pernicious things that could be Whosoever fasteth upon the Lords day or upon any Saturday except that one Saturday he meaneth Easter-Eve he is a murtherer of Christ said S. Ignatius Who would not think hearing these so Tragical Expressions of his that certainly he was speaking of the very Foundation of the whole Christian Religion And yet the Business he there speaks of was only the Observation of a certain part of a Positive Law and which yet as most are of opinion was at that time received but by a part onely of the Church the belief and observation whereof was so far from being reckoned among those things that were Necessary that it was scarcely placed in the first Degree of Probability and is now at length utterly abolished too This manner of Discoursing is very frequently used by Tertullian S. Ambrose and especially by S. Hierome who are all so eager for the Side which they take to that you would think in reading them that all those whom they commend were very Angels and all those other whom they speak against arrant Devils that whatsoever they maintain are the very Foundations and Ground-work of the Christian Religion and whatsoever they refute is meer Atheism and the highest Impiety that may be Certainly S. Hierome writing to a certain Roman Matron named Furia who was a Widow and disswading her from marrying again discourseth of this Matter in the very same manner as he would have done in disswading her from the committing of Murther And here are we to call to mind again the divers Reasons of the obscurity of the Fathers and particularly that of their Rhetorick all which have place in this Particular rather than in any other So that there seemeth to be but one onely Certain way left us to discover in what degree they placed the Propositions of Christian Doctrine namely their Creeds and Expositions of their Faith whether they were General or Particular ones and the Determinations of their Councils and Ecclesiastical Assemblies For we may very well believe that they held as necessary all such Points as they made profession of in such a manner Anathematizing all such as should deny the same And by this Rule we may indeed assure our selves that they held as Necessary the greatest part of all those Points wherein we at this day agree among our selves And some of these we have formerly set down in our Preface for they are most of them either delivered expresly in their Creeds or else positively determined in their Councils and the Contradictors of them there expresly condemned But yet this Rule will scarcely be of any use at all to us in the Decilion of our present Controversies For some of them appear not at all neither in that Rule of Faith so often mentioned by Tertullian nor in the Nicen Creed nor in that of Coâ—stantiâ—ople nor in the Determinations of the Council of Ephesus nor yet in those of Chalcedon The first of these Councils Anathematized Arius the second Macedonius the third Nestorius and the fourth Eutyches and yet nevertheless are the several Tenets of these very Men at this day received and maintained by one Side or other Nay which is more the aforesaid Articles do not at all appear neither in the two following Councils namely the second Council of Constantinople which condemned certain Writings of Theodorus Theodoretus and Ibas as we have touched before nor yet in the III Council of Constantinople which Anathematized the Monothelites and was held about the year of our Lord DCLXXXI And yet have these Six first Councils if you will believe the Fathers of the VII established and confirmed all those things which had been taught in the Catholick Church down from the Primitive Times whether by Writing or by Vnwritten Tradition So that it will hence follow that these Points which appear not here in the said Six first Councils at all were not delivered from the beginning neither in Writing nor otherwise Only about the Eighth Century and so for a good while afterward we find mention of one of those Points now controverted among us namely that touching Images which was diversly and contrarily determined in the Councils of Constantinople of Nicaea and of Francfort the Second of these Councils enjoyning the Vse and Adoration of Images whereas the First had utterly forbid it and the last of these Councils taking off and correcting as it were the Excesses of the other Two What can you say to this that neither in the Writings of Particular Men which yet are usually more copious and fuller than the Determinations of Councils are there is so much as any mention made of the said Points Epiphanius in the Conclusion of his Treatise of Heresies gives us two Discourses in the one whereof he setteth down the Order Customs and Discipline of the Church in his time wherein I must needs say that there are very many things which much differ from the Customs that are at this day observed by us both of the one side and of the other In the other is contained an Exposition of the Faith of the Church set down at large which he calleth The Pillar of the Truth the Hope and Assurance of Immortality And yet of all those Controversies which are at this day debated amongst us you shall there meet with onely one which is touching the Local Descent of our Saviour Christ into Hell which yet is an Article of very small importance as every one knows In the Acts of the Sixth Council
which amount in all in the Old Testament to the number of twenty two only without making any mention at all of those other Books which Cardinal Perron calls Posthumous namely Ecclesiasticus the Book of Wisdom the Maccabâ—es Judith and Tobit All the Canons of this Council were afterwards inserted into the Code of the Church Universal where you have this very Canon also Num. 163. that is as much as to say they were received as Rules of the Catholick Church Who would believe now but that this Declaration of the Canon of the Scriptures was at that time received by all Christian Churches And yet notwithstanding you have the Churches of Africk meeting together in the Synod at Carthage about the year of our Lord 397. and ordaining quite contrary to the former Resolution of Laodicea that among those Books which were allowed to be read in Churches the Maccabees Judith Tobit Ecclesiasticus and the Book of Wisdom which two last they also reckon among the Books written by Solomon should be taken into the number Who knoweth not the difference that there was in the first Ages of Christianity betwixt the Eastern and the Western Churches touching the Fasting upon Saturdays the Church of Rome maintaining it is lawful and all the rest of the World accounting it unlawful Whence it was that we had that so bold Canon passed in the Council at Constantinople in Trullo in these words Vnderstanding that in the City of Rome in the time of the Holy Fast of Lent they fast on Saturdays contrary to the Custom and Tradition of the Church it seemeth good to this Holy Council that in the Roman Church they inviolably also observe that Canon which saith that whosoever shall be found to fast either upon the Lords day or upon the Saturday excepting only that one Saturday if he be a Clergie-man he shall be deposed but if be be of the Laity he shall be excommunicated Who knoweth not after how many several ways the Fast of Lent was Anciently observed in divers Churches an account whereof is given you by Irenaeus in that Pious Epistle of his which he wrote to Victor part whereof Eusebius setteth down in his Ecclesiastical History Who doth not also know that the opinions and expressions of the Greek Church touching Free-will and Predestination are extremely different from what the Church believed and taught in S. Augustines time and so downward And as concerning the Discipline of the Church do but hear Anastasius Bibliothecarius upon the VI Canon of the VII General Council which enjoyneth all Metropolitans to hold Provincial Synods once a year Neither let it at all trouble thee saith he that we have not this Decree seeing that there are some others found among the Canons whose Authority nevertheless we not admit of For some of them are in force and are observed in the Greek Church and others again in certain other Provinces only As for example the XVI and XVII Canons of the Council of Laodicea are observed only among the Greeks and the VI and the VIII Canons of the Council of Africk are received by none but the Africans only I could here produce divers other Examples but these may suffice to shew that the Opinions and Customs which have been received in one Part of the Church have not always been entertained in all the rest Whence it evidently follows that all that is acknowledged as the opinion or observation of the Church ought not therefore presently to pass for an Universal Law The Protestant alledgeth for the justifying his Canon of the Scriptures the Council of Laodicea before mentioned Thou answerest him perhaps that this indeed was the opinion of the Churches but it was only of some particular Churches I shall not here enter into an Examination whether this Answer be well grounded or not it is sufficient for me that I can safely then conclude from hence that according to this account before you can make use of any Opinion or Testimony out of any of the Fathers it is necessary that you first make it appear not only that it was the Opinion of the Church at that time but you must further also clearly demonstrate unto us what Churches opinion it was whether of the Church Universal or else of some Particular Church only It is objected against the Protestants that Epiphanius testifieth that the Church admitted not into the higher Orders of the Ministry any save those that were Virgins or professed Continency Now to make good this Allegation it is necessary that it be first proved that the Church he there speaks of was the Church Universal For will the Protestant reply upon you as Laodicea hath had as it seems a particular Opinion touching the Canon of the Scriptures possibly also Cyprus may in like manner have had its particular Resolutions touching the Ordination of the Clergy The like may be said of the greatest part of those other Observations and Opinions of the Ancient Church Now how difficult a business it will be to clear these Matters which are so full of perplexity and to distinguish of Antiquity at this so great a distance of time severing that which was Publick from what was Particular and that which was Provincial from what was National and what was National from that which was Vniversal any Man may be able to give some kind of guess but none can throughly understand save he that hath made trial of it Do but fancy to your selves a City that hath lain ruinated a thousand years no part whereof remains save onely the Ruines of Houses lying all along here and there confusedly all the rest being covered all over with Thorns and Bushes Imagine then that you have met with one that will undertake to shew you precisely where the Publick Buildings of the City stood and where the Private which were the Stones that belonged to the one and which belonged to the other and in a word who in these confused Heaps where the Whole lies all together will notwithstanding separate ye the one from the other The very same Task in a manner doth he undertake who ever shall go about truly and precisely to distinguish the Opinions of the Ancient Church This Antiquity is now of Eleven or Twelve hundred years standing and the Ruines of it are now onely left us in the Books of the Writers of that Time which also have met with none of the best entertainment in their Passage through the several Ages down to our time as we have shewed before How then dare we entertain the least hope that amidst this so great Confusion we should be able yet to distinguish the Pieces and to tell which of them honoured the Publick Temple and which went to the furnishing of Private Chappels onely especially considering that the Private ones have each of them ambitiously endeavoured to make their own pass for Publick For where is the Province or the City or the Doctor that hath not boastingly cried up
from the Father to the Son this doubt I say of his manifestly proveth that the Church had not as yet at that time embraced or concluded upon the former of these Opinions it being a thing utterly improbable that so modest a Man as S. Augustine was would have cast off the general Opinion of the Church and have taken up a particular Fancy of his own But the Passion wherewith S. Hierome was at that time carried away against Ruffinus a great part of the Learned Men of his time being also of the said Opinion easily wrought in him a belief that it was the Common Judgment and Opinion of the whole Christian Church From the same Root also sprung that Errour of John Bishop of Thessalonica if at least it be an Errour who affirmed That the Opinion of the Church was That Angels are not wholly Incorporeal and Invisible but that they have Bodies though of a very Rare and thin Substance not much unlike those of the Fire or the Air. For those who published the General Councils at Rome conceive this to have been his own private Opinion onely And if so neither shall we need at present to examine the Truth of this their Conceit you then plainly see that the Affection this Author bare to his own Opinion carried him so far away as to make him father upon the whole Church what was indeed but his own particular Opinion though otherwise he were a Man who was highly esteemed by the VII Council which not onely citeth him among the Fathers but honours him also with the Title of a Father Epiphanius must also be excused in the same manner where he assures us That the Church held by Apostolical Tradition the Custom which it had of meeting together thrice a Week for the Celebration of the Holy Eucharist which yet Petavius maketh evidently appear not to have been of Apostolical Institution The Mistakes of Venerable Bede noted and censured elsewhere by Petavius are of the fame nature also The Belief of the Church if I mistake not saith he is That our Saviour Christ lived in the Flesh Thirty three Years or there about till the time of his Passion And he saith moreover That the Church of Rome testifieth that this is Its Belief by the Marks which they yearly set upon their Tapers upon Good Friday whereon they always inscribe a Number of Tears which is less by Thirty three than the common Aera of the Christians He likewise saith in the same place That it is not lawful for any Catholick to doubt whether Jesus Christ suffered on the Cross the XV day of the Moon or not Now Petavius hath proved at large that both these Opinions which Beda delivers unto us as the Churches Belief are nothing less than what he would have them The curious Reader may observe many the like Carriages in the Writings of the Fathers but these here already set down in my judgment do sufficiently justifie the doubt which I have made namely that we ought not to receive as Certain Truths the Testimony which the Fathers give touching the Belief of the Church in their Time Nevertheless that we may not seem to make a breach upon the Honour and Reputation of the Fathers I say that though we should grant that all their Depositions and Testimonies in this Particular were certainly and undoubtedly True yet notwithstanding would they be of little use to us as to our present purpose For first of all there are but very few Passages wherein they testifie plainly and in direct Terms what the Belief of the Church in their Time hath been touching the Points now controverted amongst us This is the Business of an Historian rather than of a Doctor of the Church whose Office is to teach to prove and to exhort the People committed to his Charge and to correct their Vices and Errours telling them what they ought to do or believe rather than troubling them with Discourses of what is done or believed by others But yet when they do give their Testimony what the Belief and Discipline of the Church in their time was this Testimony of theirs ought not to extend save onely to what was apparently such and which besides was apparent to themselves too Now as we have formerly proved they could not possibly know the Sense and Opinions of every particular Christian that lived in their time nor yet of all the Pastors and Ministers who were set over them but of some certain Particular Christians onely Forasmuch therefore as it is confessed even by those very Men who have the Church in greatest esteem that the Belief of Particular Churches is not infallible we may very easily perceive that such Testimonies of the Fathers as these can standus in very little or no stead seeing they represent unto us such Opinions as are not always certainly and undoubtedly True and which consequently are so far from confirming and proving ours as that they rather stand in need of being examined aud proved themselves But yet suppose that the Church of Rome did hold that the Beliefs of Particular Churches were Infallible which yet it doth not yet would not this make any thing at all against the Protestants forasmuch as they are of the clean contrary Opinion Now it is taken for granted on all hands that Proofs ought to be fetched from such things as are confessed and acknowledged by your Adversary whom you endeavour to convince otherwise you will never be able to move him or make him quit his former Opinion Seeing therefore that the Testimonies of the Farthers touching the State of the Faith and Ecclesiastical Discipline of their Times are of this Nature it remaineth that we now consider their other Discourses wherein they have delivered themselves not as Witnesses deposing what they had seen but as Doctors instructing us in what they believed And certainly how Holy and Able soever they were it cannot be denied but that they were still Men and consequently were subject to Error especially in matters of Faith which is a Business so much transcending Humane Apprehension The Spirit of God onely was able to direct their Understandings and their Pens in the Truth and to withhold them from falling into any Error in like manner as it directed the Holy Prophets and Apostles while they wrote the Books of the Old and New Testament Now we cannot be any way assured that the Spirit of God was present always with them to enlighten their Understandings and to make them see the Truth of all those things whereof they wrote They neither pretend to this themselves nor yet doth any one that I know of attribute unto them this Assistance unless it be perhaps the Author of the Gloss upon the Decrees who is of Opinion that we ought to stand to all that the Fathers have written even to the least tittle who yet is very justly called to a round account for this by Alphonsus Ã
to read the Ancients to prove all things and to hold fast that which is good and not to depart from the Faith of the Catholick Church according to the Rule which he hath commended unto us in his LXXVI Epistle where he adviseth us to read Origen Tertullian Novatus Arnobius Apollinaris and some other of the Ecclesiastical Writers but with this caution that we should make choice of that which is good but take heed of embracing that which is not so according to the Apostle who bids us prove all things but hold fast onely that which is good And this is the course he constantly takes censuring with the greatest Liberty that may be the Opinions and Expositions of all those who went before him He gives you freely his Judgment of every one of them affirming That Cyprian scarcely touched the Scriptures at all that Victorinus was not able to express his own Conceptions that Lactantius is not so happy in his Endeavours of proving our Religion as he is in overthrowing that of others that Arnobius is very uneven and confused and too luxuriant that S. Hilary is too swelling and incumbred with too long Periods I shall not here set before you what he saith of Origen Theodorus Apollinaris and of the Chiliasts whose professed Enemy he hath declared himself and whom he reproveth very sharply upon all Occasions whensoever they come in his way and yet himself confesseth them all to have been Men of very great Parts giving even Origen himself who is the most dangerous Writer of them all this Testimony That none but the ignorant can deny but that next to the Apostles he was one of the greatest Masters of the Church But that I may not meddle with any but such whose Names have never been cried down in the Church do but mark how he deals with Rhetitius Augustudunensis an Ecclesiastical Author There are saith he an infinite number of things in his Commentaries which in my judgment shew very mean and poor and a little after He seemeth to have had so ill an Opinion of others as to have a conceit that no Man was able to judge of his Faults He taketh the same liberty also in rejecting their Opinions and Expositions and sometimes not without passing upon them very tart Girds too He justifies the Truth of the Hebrew Text of the Old Testament and findeth an infinite number of Faults in the Translation of the LXX against almost the general consent not onely of the more Ancient Writers but also of those too who lived in his own time who all esteemed it as a Divine Piece He scoffs at the conceit of those Men who believed that the LXX Interpreters being put severally into Seventy distinct Cells were inspired from above in the Translation of the Bible Let them keep saith he speaking of his own Backbiters by way of scorn with all my heart in the Seventy Cells of the Alexandrian Pharos for fear they should lose their Sails of their Ships and be forced to bewail the loss of their Cordage perhaps the same Truth as S. Augustine saith a little before but it will not be of equal Authority with that of the Canonical Books Besides as Cardinal Baronius hath observed this last Passage of S. Hierome ought to be understood onely in the Point touching the Holy Trinity concerning which there were at that time great Disputes betwixt the Catholicks and the Arians for otherwise if his words be taken in a General sense they will be found to be false as to S. Hilaries particular who hath had his failings in some certain things as we shall see hereafter In a word although S. Hierome were to be understood as speaking in a General sense as his words indeed seem to bear yet might the same thing possibly happen to him here which he hath observed hath oftentimes befallen to others namely to be mistaken in his Judgment For we are not to imagine that he would have us have a greater Opinion of him than he himself hath of other Men. And S. Augustine told him as we have before shewed that he did not believe that he expected Men should judge any otherwise of him And I suppose we may very safely keep to S. Augustine's Judgment and believe with him that S. Hierome had never any intention that we should receive all his Positions as Infallible Truths but rather that he would have us to read and examine his Writings with the same freedom that we do those of other Men. And if we have no mind to take S. Augustine's word in this Particular let us yet take S. Hierome's own who in his second Commentary upon the Prophet Habakkuk saith And thus have I delivered unto you my sense in brief but if any one produce that which is more exact and true take his Exposition rather than mine And so likewise upon the Prophet Zephaniah he saith We have now done our utmost endeavour in giving an Allegorical Exposition of the Text but if any other can bring that which is more Probable and agreeable to Reason than that which we have delivered let the Reader be swaied by his Authority rather than by ours And in another place he speaketh to the same purpose in these words This we have delivered according to the utmost of our poor Ability and have given you a short touch of the divers Opinions both of our own Men and of the Jews yet if any Man can give me a better and truer Account of these Things I shall be very ready to embrace the same Is this now I would fain ask to bind up our Tongues and our Belief so as that we have no further liberty of refusing what he hath once laid down before us or of searching into the Reasons and Grounds of his Opinions No let us rather make use of that Liberty which they all allow us let us hearken to them but as they themselves advise us when what they deliver is grounded upon Reason and upon the Scriptures If they had not made use of this Caution in the reading of those Authors who went before them the Christian Faith had now been wholly stuffed up with the Dreams of an Origen or an Apollinaris or some other the like Authors But neither the Excellency of the Doctrine nor yet the Resplendency of their Holy Life which no Man can deny to have shone forth very eminently in the Primitive Fathers were able so to dazle the eyes of those that came after them as that they could not distinguish betwixt that which was Sound and True in their Writings and that which was Trivial and False Let not therefore the Excellency of those who came after them hinder us either from passing by or even rejecting their Opinions when we find them built upon weak Foundations You see they confess themselves that this may very possibly be we should therefore be left utterly inexcusable if after this their
the Word of God as that all that went before them had both seen and acknowledged the same The Consideration whereof was both Pleasing and Useful unto them For what can more delight a Faithful Heart than to find that the chiefest and most Eminent Persons in the Church had long since held the same Opinions touching our Saviour Jesus Christ and His Grace that We now hold at this day But yet it does not hence presently follow that though these Holy men should have met with these Articles of our Faith in the Writings of their Predecessours only without finding any Foundation of them in the Canonical Scriptures they would notwithstanding firmly have believed and embraced the same contenting themselves with the Bare Authority of their Predecessours S. Augustine professeth plainly that in such a Case they might better have rejected them and not be blamed for so doing neither than have received them unless they would incur the imputation of being over Credulous For it is a point of too much Credulity to believe any thing without Reason and He further affirmeth that where men speak without either Scripture or Reason their bare Authority is not sufficient to oblige us to believe what they propose unto us So that it hence appeareth that Humane Testimonies are alledged not to prove the Truth of the Faith but only to shew the Clearness of it after it is once well grounded Now the Question at this day betwixt us and the Church of Rome is not concerning the Clearness of the Truth of the Articles they believe and press upon the World but it yet lies upon them to prove even the very Ground and Foundation of them Shew me therefore will a Protestant here say either out of some Text of Scripture or else by some Evident Reason that there is any such place as Purgatory and that the Eucharist is not Bread and that the Pope is the Monarch and Head of the Church Universal and then I shall be very glad to try if for our greater comfort we may be able to find in the Authors of the Third or Fourth Century these Truths embraced by the Fathers of those times But to begin with these is to invert the Natural Order of things We ought first to be assured that the Thing is before we make inquiry whether it hath been believed or not For to what purpose is it to find that the Ancients believed it unless we find withal in their Writings some Reason of this their Belief And again on the other side what harm is it to us to be ignorant whether Antiquity believed it or not so long as we know that the Thing is And whereas there are some who to establish the Supream Authority of the Fathers alledge the Counsel which Sisinnius a Novatian and Agellius his Bishop gave of old to Nectarius Archbishop of Constantinople and by him to Theodosius the Emperour which was that they should demand of the Arrians whether or not they would stand to what the Fathers who died before the breaking forth of their Heresie had delivered touching the Point debated betwixt them this is hardly worth our consideration For this was a Trick only devised by a subtil head and which is worse by a Schismatick and consequently to be suspected as a Captious Proposal purposely made to entrap the Adverse party rather than any free and ingenuous way of Proceeding For if this manner of Proceeding had been right and good how came it to pass that among so many Catholick Bishops as there were none of them all advised it How came it to pass that they were so ignorant of the Weapons wherewith the Enemies of the Church were to be encountred How came it about that it should be proposed only by a young fellow who was a Schismatick too And if it were approved of as right and good Counsel why did Gregory Nazianzene S. Basil and so many other of the Fathers who wrote in that Age against the Arrians deal with them wholly in a manner out of the Scriptures And certainly those Holy men besides their Christian Candor which obliged them to this way of Proceeding took a very wise course in so doing For if this Controversie had been to be decided by the Authority of Humane Writers I know not how any man should have been able to make good that which this Gallant so confidently affirmeth in the place aforecited namely That none of the Ancients ever said that the Son of God had any beginning of his Generation considering those many strange Passages that we yet at this day meet with touching this Particular in the Books of the First Fathers which is the reason also why the Arrians alâ—ledged their Testimonies as we see they do in the Books of Athanasius Hilary and others of the Ancients who wrote against them But what need we insist so long upon a Story which is rejected by Cardinal Baronius as being an idle Tale devised by Zozomene who was a Novatian in favour of those of his own Sect. The Counsel of Vincentius Lirinensis which he gives us in a certain little Discourse of his which is very highly prised by Gennadius is accounted by many men much more worthy of our Consideration For having first told us that he speaks not of any Authors Save only of such who having holily wisely and constantly lived preached and persevered in the Catholick Faith and Communion obtained the favour at length either to dye faithfully in Christ or else had the happiness of being crowned with Martyrdom for Christs sake he further addeth That we are to receive as undoubtedly true certain and definitive whatsoever all the aforesaid Authors or at least the greatest part of them have clearly frequently and constantly affirmed with an Vnanimous Consent receiving retaining and delivering it over to others as it were joyntly and making up all of them but one Common and Vnanimous Council of Doctors But this Passage of his is so far from advancing the Supreme Authority which some would attribute to the Fathers in Matters of Faith that on the contrary I meet with something in it that makes me more doubt of their Authority than I did before For I find by this mans discourse that whatsoever his reason was whether good or bad he clearly appears to have had a very great desire of bringing all Differences in Religion before the Judgment seat of the Fathers and to the same end he labours to prove with the same eagerness and passion that their Judgment is inâ—allible in these Cases But in the mean time I find him so perplexed and troubled in bringing out that which he would have as that it appears sufficiently that he saw well enough that what he desired was not so agreeable to Truth For he hath so qualified his Proposition and bound it in with so many Limitations as that it is very probable that if all these Conditions which he here requires were any where to be found we might
recourse to some other way of Proof if they intend to prevail upon their Adversaries to receive the aforesaid Articles But what will you say now if we make it appear to you that the Church of Rome it self doth not allow that the Fathers have any such Authority I suppose that if we are able to do this there is no Man so perverse as not to confess That this Proceeding of theirs in grounding their Articles of Faith upon the Sayings of the Fathers is not onely very Insufficient but very Inconvenient also For how can it ever be endured that a Man that would perswade you to the Belief of any thing should for that purpose make use of the Testimony of some such Persons as neither you nor himself believe to be Infallibly True and so fit to be trusted Let us now therefore see whether those of the Church of Rome really have themselves so great an Esteem of the Fathers as they would be thought to have by this their Proceeding or not Certainly several of the Learned of that Party have upon divers occasions let us see plain enough that they make no more account of them than the Protestants do For whereas these require That the Authority of the Fathers be grounded upon that of the Scripture and therefore receive nothing that they deliver as Infallibly True unless it be grounded upon the Scripture passing by or rejecting whatsoever they propose either besides or contrary to the Sense of the Scripture the other in like manner will have the Judgment of the Fathers depend upon that of the Church in present being in every Age and approve pass by or condemn all such Opinions of theirs as the Church either approveth passeth by or condemneth So that although they differ in this That the one attributeth the Supremacy to the Scripture and the other to the Present Church of their Age yet notwithstanding they both agree in this That both the one and the other of them equally deprive the Fathers of the same Insomuch that they both of them spend their time unprofitably enough whilst they trouble themselves to plead their Cause before this Inferiour Court where the wrangling and cunning Tricks of the Law have so much place where the Judgments are hard to be got and yet harder to be understood and when all is done are not Supreme but are such as both Parties believe they may lawfully appeal from whereas they might if they pleased let alone these troublesom and useless Beatings about and come at the first before the Supreme Tribunal whether it be that of the Scriptures or of the Church where the Suits are not so long and where the Subtilty of Pleading is of much less use where the Sentences also are more clear and express and which is the Chiefest thing of all such as we cannot appeal from But that we may not be thought to impose this Opinion upon the Church of Rome unjustly let us hear them speak themselves Cardinal Cajetan in his Preface upon the Five Books of Moses spâ—â—king of his own Annotations upon the same saith thus If you chance there to meet with any New Exposition which is agreeable to the Text and not Contrary either to tbe Scriptures or to the Doctrine of the Church although perhaps it differ from that which is given by the whole Current of the Holy Doctors I shall desire the Readers that they would not too hastily reject it but that they would rather censure charitably of it Let them remember to give every man his due there are none but the Authors of the Holy Scriptures alone to whom we attribute such Authority as that we ought to believe whatsoever they have written But as for others saith St. Augustine of how great Sanctity and Learning so ever they may have been I so read them as that I do not believe what they have written because they have written it Let no man therefore reject a new Exposition of any Passage of Scripture under pretence that it is contrary to what the Ancient Doctors gave but let him rather diligently examine the Text and the contexture of the Scripture and if he find that it accordeth well therewith let him praise God who hath not tyed the Exposition of the Scriptures to the sense of the Ancient Doctors but to the whole Scripture it self under the censure of the Catholick Church Melchior Canus Bishop of the Canary Islands having before declared himself according as St. Augustine hath done saying that the Holy Scriptures only are exempt from all error he further adds But there is no man how holy or learned soever he be that is not sometimes deceived that doth not sometimes dote that doth not sometimes slip And then alledging some of those examples which we have before produced he concludes in these words Let us therefore read the Ancient Fathers with all due Reverence yet notwithstanding for as much as they were but Men with Choice and Judgment And a little after he saith That the Fathers sometimes fail and bring forth Monsters besides the ordinary course of Nature And in the same place he saith that To follow the Ancients in all things and to tread every where in their steps as little Cbildren use to do in play is nothing else but to disparage our own Parts and to confess our selves to have neither Judgment nor Skill enough for the searching into the Trutâ— No let us follow them as Guides but not as Masters It is very true saith Ambrosius Catharinus in like manner that the Sayings and Writings of the Fathers have not of themselves any so absolute Authority as that we are bound to assent to them in all things The Jesuits also themselves inform us sufficiently in many places that they do not reckon themselves so tyed to follow the Judgment of the Fathers in all things as people may imagine Petavius in his Annotations upon Epiphanius confesseth freely That the Fathers were men that they had their failings and that we ought not maliciously to search after their Errors that we may lay them open to the world but that we may take the liberty to note them when ever they come in our way to the end that none be deceived by them and that we ought no more to maintain or defend their Errors than we ought to imitate their Vices if at least they had any and again That many things have slipped from them which if they were examined according to the exact Rule of Truth could not be reconciled to any good sense and that Himself hath observed That they are out sufficiently whensoever they speak of such Points of Faith as were not at all called in question in Their time And to say the truth He often rejects both Their Opinions and Their Expositions also and sometimes very Uncivilly too as we have touched before speaking of his Notes upon Epiphanius And in one place the Authority of some of the
of in Christendom namely That the Old Vulgar Translation of the Bible is to be allowed of as Canonical and Authentick in the Church of God The CL Fathers of the Second General Council and the DCXXX of the Fourth were all of them of Opinion That the Ancients had advanced the See of Rome above that of other Bishops by reason of the Preeminence and Temporal Greatness of the City of Rome over other Cities and for the same reason they also thought good to advance in like manner the Throne of the Patriarch of Constantinople to the same Height with the former by reason of the City where he resided being now arrived to the self-same Height of Dignity with Rome it self I assure you that for all this he should now be Anathema Maranatha whosoever should go about to derive the Supremacy of the Pope from any other Original than from TV ES PETRVS PASCE OVES MEAS The Council of Trent Anathematizeth all those whosoever shall deny that Bishops are a Higher Order than Priests and yet S. Hierome and divers others of the Fathers have openly done the same We have already told you here before That the Church of Rome long since Excommunicated the Greeks because they hold That the Holy Ghost proceedeth not from the Son but from the Father onely And yet for all this Theodoret who expresly also demed in Terms that the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Son as we have shewed in the preceding Chapter was received by the Ancient Church and in particular by Pope Leo too as a True Catholick Bishop without requiring him to declare himself any otherwise or to give them any Satisfaction touching this Point And indeed we might reckon up very many the like Differences betwixt the Roman and the Ancient Church but these Examples we have here produced will suffice to let the World see how the Church of Rome holdeth That the Authority of the Opinions of the Ancients ought to be accounted Supreme We shall proceed in the next place to say something of the Ceremonies in the Christian Religion The first of all is Baptism which takes us out of Natures Stock and engraffs us into Jesus Christ Now it was a Custom heretofore in the Ancient Church to plunge those they Baptized over head and ears in the Water as both Tertullian S. Cyprian Epiphanius and others testifie And indeed they plunged them thus three several times as the same Tertullian and S. Hierome both inform us And this is still the Practice both of the Greek and of the Russian Church even at this very day And yet notwithstanding this Custom which is both so Ancient and so Universal is now abolished by the Church of Rome And this is the reason that the Muscovites say That the Latins are not Rightly and Duly Baptized because they are not wont to use this Ancient Ceremony in their Baptism which they say is expresly enjoyned them in the Canons of Joannes Metropolitanus whom they hold to have been a Prophet And indeed Gregory the Greek Monk who was notwithstanding a great Stickler for the Vnion in the Council of Florence doth yet confess in his Answer to the Epistle of Mark Bishop of Ephesus that it is Necessary in Baptism that the Persons to be Baptized should be thrice dipped over Head and Ears in the Water At their coming out of the Water in the Ancient Church they gave them to eat Milk and Honey as the same Authors witness and immediately after this they made them all Partakers also of the Blessed Communion both great and small whence the Custom still remains in Aethiopia of Administring the Eucharist to Little Children and making them take down a small quantity of it as soon as ever they are Biptised What have these our so great Adorers of Antiquity now done with these Ceremonies Where is the Milk or the Honey or the Eucharist which the Ancient Fathers were wont to administer to all immediately after Baptism Certainly these things notwithstanding the Practice of the Ancients have been now long since buried and forgotten at Rome In Ancient Times they often deferred the Baptising both of Infants and of other People as appears by the History of the Emperours Constantine the Great of Constantius of Theodosius of Valentinian and of Gratian in S Ambrose and also by the Orations and Homilies of Gregory Nazianzen and of S. Basil upon this Subject And some of the Fathers too have been of Opinion that it is fit it should be deferred as namely Tertullian as we have formerly noted of him How comes it to pass now that there is not so much as any the least Trace or Footing of this Custom to be found at this day in the Church of Rome Nay whence is it besides that they will not so much as endure the very mention of it and would abhor the Man that should but go about to put it in practice I shall here forbear to speak of the Times of Administring Baptism which was performed ordinarily in the Ancient Church but onely upon the Eves of Easter-day and of Whitsunday Neither shall I say any thing of the Ceremony of the Paschal Taper and the Albes or White Vestments that the new baptised Persons were used to wear all Easter-Week because that it may be thought perhaps that these are too light Circumstances although to say the plain truth if we are to regard the Authority of Men and not the Reason of the Things themselves I do not at all see why all the whole Rites should not still be retained as well as those Exorcisms and Renouncings of the Devil and the World with all its Pomp and Vanities which in Imitation of Antiquity are at this day though very improperly acted by them over little Infants though but of a day old As for the Eucharist Cassander sheweth clearly That it was Celebrated in the Ancient Church with Bread and Wine offered by the People and that the Bread was first broken into several Pieces and then Consecrated afterwards and distributed among the Faithful Notwithstanding the contrary Use hath now prevailed neither do they Consecrate any Bread which is offered by the People which was the Ancient Custom but onely little Wafer Cakes made round in the Form of a Deneere which yet is very sharply reproved in the Old Exposition of the Ordo Romanus c. The same Cassaâ—der also gives us an Account at large how that in Ancient Times the Canonical Prayer and the Consecration of the Eucharist was read out with a loud Voice and in such sort as that the People might all of them be able to hear it that so they might say Amen to it whereas the Priest now pronounceth it with a very low Voice so that none of the Congregation can tell what he says and hence it is that this part of the Liturgy is called Secret We
what Canon of the Ancient Church those single Masses which are now celebrated and said every day where none Communicates but the Priest alone who Consecrates the Host were instituted or permitted and withal how that Respect which they pretend they bear to Antiquity can stand with that Canon of the Council of Trent which saith Whosoever shall say that those Masses wherein the Priest alone Communicateth Sacramentally are unlawful and fit to be abolished let him be Accursed seeing that these kind of Masses were utterly unknown to the Ancient Church as Cassander proveth at large in his Consultatio de Articulis Religionis written to the Emperour Ferdinand But that which most of all gives offence to those that are devoted to Aâ—â—tiqâ—ity is the Custom which the Church of Rome hath introduced and established by the express Decrees and Canons of two of their General Councils the one holden at Constance and the other at Trent of not allowing the Communion of the Cup to any save only to the Priest who Consecrates the same excluding by this means first of all all the Laity and secondly all the Priests also and other of the Clergie who had not the Consecrating of it whereas the whole Ancient Church for the space of fourteen hundred years admitted both the one and the other to the Communion of the Holy and Blessed Cup as well as to the participation of the Consecrated Bread as those of these two Councils themselves confess in the Preface to this New Constitution And this is still the practice also at this day among all Christians throughout the World both Russians Greeks Armenians Ethiopians Protestants and all others in general except the Latines only who are of the Communion of the Church of Rome But besides that the Ancients permitted this Communion under both Kinds as they use to speak it seemeth which is yet much more that unless it were in some extraordinary Cases they did not at all permit the Communicating under one Kind only For otherwise why should Pope Leo give this very thing as a mark to distinguish the Manichees from the Catholicks When they sometimes are present at our Mysteries saith he that so they may hide their infidelity they so order the matter in their participating of these Mysteries as that they receive the body of Christ into their unworthy mouth but will noâ— take into it one drop of the Blood of our Redemption and he further adds That he gives his Auditory this advertiseâ—â—â—â— that thâ—y may know these men by this Mark. Should this Pope now arise from his grave and come into the World again he would certainly believe that all those who adhere to his See were turned Manichees except the Consecrating Priests only How bâ—sides will you be able without this Hypothesis to explain that Dâ—cree of Pope Gelasius which saith We are informed that there are some who having taken a small portion of the Sacred Body only forbear to partake of the Cup of the Consecrated Blood doing this as we hear out of I know not what superstitious conceit wherewith they are possessed We therefore will that they either partake of the whole Sacrament or else that they be wholly put back from communicating of either for asmuch as there cannot without very great Sacriledge any division be made in one and the same Mystery And in the last place what can you otherwise say to that story which is related by the Accusers of Ibas Bishop of Edessa how that having one time made but a very scanty provision of Wine for the service of the Altar which after it had been begun to be distributed about to the Communicants began quickly to fail He perceiving this beckned to those who delivered about the Holy Body that they should come back again because there was no more left of the blood of our Saviour For what need was there of making them to give over their business because there was no more Wine if so be it was at that time lawful to distribute the Bread alone without the other Kind of Wine If the Councils of Trent and of Constance had accounted the Authority of the Fathers to have been Supreme how came it to pass that they abolished that which had for so long time and so constantly been observed by them And how again doth this other Canon of the Council of Trent suit with that Respect which they pretend to bear toward Antiquity where it is said that Whosoever shall say that the Holy Catholick Church hath not been induced by just Causes and Reasons to communicate to the Laity and even to the Priests too who do not Consâ—â—rate under the Kind of Bread only or that it hath â—rred in this Point let him be Accursed For it seemeth to be no very easie matter to be able to acquit the Modern Church without condemning the Ancient seeing their Practices have been manifestly contradictory to each other the Modern Church forbidding that which the Ancient permitted and the Ancient Church seeming to have expresly forbid that which the Modern commandeth How can you say that the one had just Reasons for what it did unless you withal grant that the other in doing the contrary had either no Reason at all or else but very unjust ones seeing it is most clear that neither the World nor the Times are any whit changed within this two hundred years from what they were before For it is impossible for any man to alledge any Reason for the Practice of the Moderns which should not in like manner have obliged the Ancients nor again to produce any Reason for the contrary Practice of the Ancients which doth not in like manner oblige the Moderns So that of necessity either the one or the other of them must needs have been guilty either of Errour or at least of Negligence and of Ignorance We may very well therefore conclude that the Church of Rome seeing it believes it self to be Infallible manifestly in this particular condemned the Ancient Church as guilty of Ignorance or of Negligence at the least which in my Judgment seems not so well to become those persons who do nothing else but continually preach unto us the Honour of Antiquity But here now will all the true Honourers of Antiquity have as good sport as can be For as for those Reasons by which the Fathers of the Council of Trent were induced to make the aforementioned Decree how will they say may we be able to come to the knowledge whether they were just or not seeing that they themselves produce none at all Whereas the Reasons which moved the Ancients to do as they did and which you have set down at large in a certain Discourse printed at Paris at the end of Cassanders Works are very solid and clear and in my judgment very full both of Wisdom and of Charity But we shall not need to enter any further into this Contestation it