time Hebrew to the Jew pure Greek to the Athenian and Latin to the Roman Lastly if the Fathers Testimonie may not prevaile they being of an uncertain Authority nor Scripture swey as being of an uncertain sence let common reason be heard in the cause which for as much as I can judge of it is as strong for the sufficiencie of Scripture that is its containing all points necessarie to salvation as any prudent man need require for warrant of his belief It is agreed upon by all sides that Man being ordained to a supernatural end nature is not sufficient to lead him thither but that he must have some meanes above it and proportionate to the end such as may either shew him the way if he can discern or lead him in it if he be blind or which is happiest and surest of all both instruct and conduct him in it This last kinde of guidance it were presumption for man to claim however Gods grace may afford it unto some The second it were stupidity for all to expect however some have little hopes without it And therefore it is the first that belongs to man in generall that is a directory to all those pathes and windings without the knowledge of which he cannot arrive to his primary end And by the knowledge of which he may and is responsible himself if he do not follow the direction which if God should withhold from us although I could not venture with some to apply to his Justice that of Pharaoh's requiring brick where he gives no straw nor to pronounce it a stain to his goodnesse should he condemn us for missing the way when he gave us no Map of the Countrey since to a life actually forfeited as all mans was in Adam the least reprieve is a grace a grace to be let row in the Gallies to him that the Gallowes expected A grace to take out of the ditch a man that put out his own eyes though you leave him to grope out the rest of his journey with perpetuall hazards of falling in againe I say though I dare not in this case pronounce the with-holding a directory from us inconsistent with his justice wisdome or goodnesse yet truly I think you will yeeld the man hath not so fitting a belief of Gods mercy wisdom as he ought who conceives that he would suffer those to perish for want of such a necessary directory for whose sake he gave up his own Son to death Now to suppose such a directory from God and to think it defective is again to fall into undue thoughts either of his mercy or of his power nay it is to destroy what you do suppose since the omission of any thing absolutely necessary in a direction makes the direction none This conclusion then I may safely draw and I doubt not but with your consent that the Supernatural Directorie and rule whereby we are through Gods grace and mercy to be instructed in the way to our supernatural end must needs be compleat and sufficient in all parts absolutely necessary to that end It only remains then to shew which is that rule and directory sufficient and compleat in all necessary parts Now as in a journey directions of the way how sufficient how exact soever will little advance you unless you beleeve them or the knowledge of the way unless you have legs to go or somewhat else to carry you so in our Souls progress to beatitude it must have reliance and its instruments of gradation too which is Faith the strongest vehiculum of Humanity to Divinity Now as I said before that the means must be proportionate to the end so it is certain that the way the Organs by which we move in it must be proportionate one to another or we shall never arrive at our end As that let all other things be never so well fitted yet if our way must be thorow the Air or the Sea good legs or directions will little avail us The Organ then of our motion to Heaven being Faith and that Faith the strongest assent of our souls the ground upon which it must march ought to be no less folid then infallibility since the strongest Assent cannot be given but upon the strongest inducement Forasmuch then as particular Tradition that is the unanimous testimony of any Church of what numerous parts soever hath been already concluded fallible and universal Tradition is as it were coincident with Scripture being only as Clemens sayes Strom. lib. 6. p. 679. as it were an unwritten Transcript of that in mens hearts and gives attestation to no materiall Object of Faith but what is deducible thence It follows That Scripture is the ground proportioned by unquestionable infallibity to Faith as correspondent likewise in all things else both to the goodnes of God that gives the directory to our necessities that are to follow it The sufficiency and perfection of Scripture having been shewed and likewise the defectibility of that kinde of Tradition for whose Authority you labour The preferring of this latter before the first in governing the Tenure of our Faith is of consequence such an error as I am sorry should be countenanced by your continuing in it But because the precedency which you give to the Churches Tradition before Scripture is pretended due upon another ground also which I have yet spoke little unto give me leave to say somewhat to that You lay Obscurity to the charge of Scripture That Articles of Faith are not there so plainly exprest that every body can understand them If it were so truely the Laytie of the Church of Rome is much obliged to it for easing them of the trouble of reading what is unintelligible unto them but little beholding unto S. John for passing for a precept of Christ's Search the Scriptures But how shall they take it now forasmuch as the contrary to your Assertion is a manifest Corollary to the proof of Scriptures sufficiencie and perfection the compleatness of a Rule or Directory consisting as well in its Evidence as its Fulness and must need Interpretation as little as Addition Yet let us grant your supposition a while Scripture is obscure you say What follows Tradition is to be preferred Tradition then is easier Tradition is clear say you to the Vulgar I should rather think Tradition impossible to be learn'd since Man can speak but with a few and millions must make up that unless you bring all lines that can be drawn from the Circumference into a Centrical point the Pope But you are too much a friend to the Doctors of the Sorbon to do that Besides if you do so the difficulty will still remain For here the Rule in Geometry will not hold The lines drawn back from the Centre to the Circumference are not equal Men are not all at an equal distance from him all cannot hear him How shall the Vulgar understand him By their Ghostly Fathers You will not attribute to private men a clearer fuller
Faith that you doe not most intirely assent unto For my part I doe not know what you understand by an Article of Faith but I am sure I have cited out of St. Austin of the necessity of Childrens partaking of the Eucharist an Article in this discourse which 't is evident he held as an Article both of necessary faith and practice wherein I believe you will refuse to joyne with him As for Epiphanius his over-sights I referre you onely to the Jesuit Petavius and for Eusebius to Cardinall Perron who casts upon him a trifling aspersion but of Arrianism or if his authority suffice not let Jerome Ep. 65. ad Pamach Oc. be heard who gives him this good testimony Impietatis Arrii apertissimus propugnator est Now to your third and last ground That the traditions of the Church are infallible I say that in part we agree in this point for I am perswaded that no man in his right wits will ever deny the firmest assent he hath about him to traditions of the nature which you Character doctrines taught by Christ to his Apostles and by them preached through the world and then again delivered to the ensuing ages by them that had these points inculcated in their hearts by the Apostles in this manner with care and every where handed over from age to age which upon particular occasions the Fathers used to summe up and produce against innovators that would make breaches upon the ancient and generally received faith of the Church-Traditions of this nature Doctrines thus delivered I say we agree to be derived from infallible Authority as well as the Scriptures and it is indifferent unto me whether I receive the waters of life from the Springs themselves from the originall cisternes and conserves into which they did immediarly flow or else conveyed through Aquiducts at sixteen hundred yeares distance so I be certain of the stanchnesse and purity of the pipes That such traditions and so exactly conveyed there are in the Church and to which is due as to the Scripture from every prudent man how ever a Sophister may cavill the strongest assent of his soule we likewise both agree such are those fore-named grand fundamentals of Christianity we agree further that by tradition we are as you say plainly fully and practifically taught how to understand Scripture I mean in those Fundamentals And much more must I agree with you that the businesse and errand of tradition is to deliver it so unto us since for my part I hold that those dignifying circumstances by which tradition may rightly pretend to be infallible belong onely to such doctrines as are either plainly or by necessary consequences deducibly coucht in Scripture in regard of which deductions we agree further that it cannot be denied but that it is as you say an easier and better rule to guide our understandings in the affairs of religion to use the help of such traditions then to resort for that end unto Scriptures alone as to read a book wherein there are difficulties with a judicious comment is likely to be more profitable then onely to peruse the single Text. And this last I assent unto without admitting of the supposition upon which you inferre it to wit that there can by tradition be had a compleat knowledge of all that Christ taught All this we are of accord in but what can you infer from hence to the advantage of the Romish cause since I peremptorily deny that there is such a qualified tradition really belonging to any Tenent of the Church of Rome disapproved by us or that seale with those quarterings and dignifyings wherewith you blazon it set by any of the primitive Fathers which yet were no sufficient warrant to any doctrine that doth so much as border upon our disputes since then I am sure you directed that part of your Letter to the same purpose that the rest I must answer what I conceive it tends to as well as what directly your words beare And as I have profest wherein we agree so now I must set down in what and why we differ concerning these particulars of Tradition and Scripture There are two principall poynts wherein I dissent from you First that in the generall you conceive all Traditions of the Church whatsoever infallible Secondly that you hold the Scripture to be no compleat body of Faith and therefore that we are to give tradition much the preheminency in governing the tenour of ours For the first namely that all the traditions of the Church are infallible I could by one demand of which is that Church whose traditions are infallible either bring you to our confession that the true Church is to be known meerly by its conformity to Scripture in belief and practice or else into a circle whilst you are forc'd to prove the truth and infallibility of the Church by her constant reception of those true and infallible traditions whose truth and infallibility you are at the same time proving by the Churches constant receiving them But I passe it by because I would not seeme to argue in any wise captiously and also for that Mr. Chillingworth hath already excellently laid open all the intricasies of this labyrinth And therefore taking the present Romish Church for that you mean I proceed to answer your Arguments wherby in your Letter to the Vicountesse of P. to which you referre me you endeavour to prove all doctrines of the Church received or delivered by way of tradition infallible the chiefe that I finde are in the 12 and 13. conclusions as you call them of that treatise where first for proof of your assertions that no false doctrine of Faith whatsoever can be admitted or creep into the Catholick Church you say that whatsoever the present Church beleeveth as a proposition of faith is upon this ground that Christ taught it as such unto the Church he planted himself a special good ground and that will soon end all controversies in this matter if the ground appear to be well grounded and that the Church of Rome which you suppose the present Catholick do never admit any doctrine of Faith but upon that ground But first the ground can never be made good that whatsoever of Faith the Church of Rome teacheth was ab initio so taught by Christ himself And secondly I beleeve that the Church of Rome her self doth not alwayes in all that she teaches for a tradition of Faith suppose that Christ himself did teach the same for this latter part I am better perswaded of the modesty of the Church of Rome then to think that she will so much as pretend it for all her doctrines as for example that of communicating onely in the bread is a tradition for you will not I suppose vouch Scripture for it unless you mean to apply to it Christ's prayer that the Cup might be removed it is a tradition of Faith yea and I think I may say of necessary faith for unless the Communicants
beleeve their partaking sufficient it must needs make that great Sacrament of the Church ineffectual and yet I do not think that the Church of Rome or scarce any Jesuite for her will have the confidence to pretend that Christ himself taught the mutilation or the belief of one Elements sufficiency since the contrary practise and belief is so evident for many ages after Christ and it is so easie to discover the very drie root it self of the custome to with-hold the cup from the people The like may be said of other doctrines Now for proof of the ground it self that all doctrines of Faith whatsoever admitted in the present Church were so taught by Christ to the Church which he planted himself you Alledge this argument The reason why the present Church beleeveth any proposition to be of Faith is because the immediate preceding Church of the age before delivered it unto her for such and so you may drive it on say you from age to age until you come to the Apostles and Christ an easie progress and which if you remember Mr. White much insisted upon at that time when Mr. Chillingworth did me the favour to give him a meeting for conference at your lodging although I set a great value upon that Gentlemans learning and fair way of disputation yet I confess his argument hath often made me smile it did so bring into my head that gallant consequence of Charles Thynnes wherewith all you once made me very merry by which he undertook to demonstrate that surely in the world there might be a man so disposed as having a good rise and with a convenient career to leap at once from England to Rome for said he Bring me the best Jumper you know and is it not likely that there may be another that you know not so active as to out-jump him a foot let him be brought I hope you will not deny but he may be out-jumpt an Inch so by inches straws-breadths of outleaping one another why not to a thousand miles I dare say that Mr. Hooper was better satisfied of the corruption of times in his pedigree from King Peppin then I was by that logick of the incorruption of times in his deduction of all Romish Doctrines from Christ nor am I yet better satisfied though I confess by your dwelling on the same Argument I see plainly that what may be liable to much slighting proposed by one man may be delivered with such weight and authority from another as though it convince not yet to require a serious pondering and discussion the scope of your reasoning as I understand it is this deduction ad Impossibile If the present Church say you hold a Doctrine of Tradition it is because all they of the precedent so held it and delivered it and the reason of the preceding Churches holding it so is the same relative to all those of the next before and so on till you come to the first Age of the Church Now this being so there cannot be admitted say you unto the avowed channell of the Church any corrupt Rivolet of erroneous Doctrine unless all they of one Age conspire in an untruth to deceive posterity which is impossible This latter Assertion which I must confess to be strangely jarring to my sense is built upon a supposition of the former which is it self of great ambiguity For besides that as I said formerly I doe not think but that the Church of Rome doth receive some unwritten doctrines for which she dares not pretend to so ancient a pedigree as to have been handed down to her from the Primitive Church that Christ himself hath planted I would fain know when the present Church as you say holds a thing for such because all they of the precedent age in Christs Church delivered it to them for such what is understood by Your all they of the Catholick Church in the age precedent by all they cannot be intended here what you say in your eleventh conclusion namely that you mean the whole Congregation of the faithful spread throughout the whole world for it is a far more evident impossibility then what you drive unto that the whole congregation of the faithful throughout the world in one age should confer with and teach the whole congregation of the faithful throughout the world in another If it be understood by all they all the Doctors and Governors of one age to all the faithful throughout the whole world of another I think you will finde that likewise to border upon impossibilitie By All they then as I conceive must be understood all the Doctors and Governors of the Church in one age to all the Doctors and Governors of the Church in another and from them the Doctrines spred among the whole multitudes of the faithful are said to be the traditions of the Catholick Church Now this is so narrow a confinement of universallity to the mouthes of the Doctors or Governors of a present Church that I think it no impossility for all those that have declared themselves in some point in some age to have agreed together on the teaching of somewhat more then was true or at least such a major part of them as the dissentors may well have bin overborn or supprest so that the doctrine may with a succeeding age have past for a tradition generally agreed on and to such a conspiracy methinks they might have been drawn by appearances of good as well as through ill ends As for Example The Doctors conceiving that a great restraint might be laid upon ill-livers by Auricular confession the apprehension of a sensible witnesse being most lively unto them might have complotted to teach the necessity of it to the multitude for an universal tradition which perhaps they knew not to have been such and so in other points as the good or danger might appear more or less to the Governors of the Church so likewise for worse ends in point of the Popes Supremacy it being a Doctrine so essential to the Monarchy of the Church I beleeve it far from impossible that in some age all the Doctors of the Church of Rome that shall be heard may resolve to teach it to their several Congregations for universal tradition since the major part as a Pope Aeneas Sylvius himself confesseth affirms that the Pope is above Councels because he hath so many Bishopricks to bestow the Councels have none besides if your All they of a precedent Church of Christ instructing the present be reduced to so few as the Doctors that are heard deliver their mindes in any one age The natural Argument by which you would prove the impossibility of a conspiracy in an untruth will fall to the ground since that is built upon a supposition that those general traditions which cannot be erroneous because of Humane natures love of truth are delivered by such a multitude of men as contain in them all the variety of dispositions and affections incident to the nature
said Papias ran into either by a flattery to win upon the Jewes or else as you say by the grosse understanding of a Text in the twentieth of the Apocalypse himselfe being one but of a dull and easie spirit which being taken from him by those that reverenced the antiquity and piety of the man was delivered with recommendation to their successors and so took possession of most of the Doctors of the following Ages As for that of Cerinthus I believe with Sextus Senensis that it was a distinct heresie which fed carnall men with hopes of beastly and sensuall delights for it is not likely that a doctrine taken from such an arch Heretick as Cerinthus could have found such reception among the Catholick Fathers and least of all is it probable that Cerinthus could have fathered it upon St. John whom the Apostle is said to have detested so much that Iraeneus lib. 3. cap. 3. advers haeres a chiefe Champion of the Millenaries in that very Chapter where as you say he reckons up the successions of Bishops in divers Churches relates that when St. John was entring into a Bath where Cerinthus washed himselfe St. John no sooner saw him but he stept back crying out Let us forsake the place lest that enemy of truth draw down the house upon our heads a fit Authour for so foule a Doctrine but one very unlikely to be believed acquainted with Christs whispers to St. John But as this enormous part which passes also with most under the name of Millenaries heresie was generally condemned so the other more spirituall of Papias was and is farre from being approved at this day either by your Church or ours much more from finding so firm and entire assent as you will be obliged to give it by your rule of swallowing for unquestionable and infallible what doctrine soever the Fathers deliver as taught unto them and to be the generall sense of the Christian Church in their times And for proofe that it was delivered for such by Papias who gloried in nothing more then in being a carefull collector of the doctrines taught by the Apostles viva voce I referre you nlyto Nicephorus Calistus Hist Eccles lib. 3. c. 20. That Justine Martyr p. 307. delivered it for such a passage in his Dial. with Tryphon will easily testifie where he saith that he and all in all parts orthodox Christians held it and calls them Christians onely in name with many other circumstances of aggravation that denied it It is true as you say hee confesses a little before that some good and honest Christians did not acknowledge it but this may be an argument how carelesse and oftentimes repugnant to themselves some of the Fathers were in their writings or else how little scrupulous of setting to doubtfull doctrines that seale which you account so sacred but it can no way salve him from having taught it with those circumstances which you esteeme the notes of infallibility That Iraeneus took it and taught it to be of tradition from Christ I think is so manifest that it were superfluous to insist upon particular passages in that Authour And lastly to omit Tertullian and others who clearly me thinks imply as much though not in the very terms What can expresse more a doctrine rightly delivered and generally received then Lactantius lib. 7. Institut c. 26. his conclusion of his long discourse upon this subject haec est doctrina sanctorum Prophetarum quam Christiani sequimur hoc est Christiana sapientia Secondly For the necessity of childrens partaking of the Eucharist although the evident practise of the Church for the first six hundred years according to all our records of antiquity might excuse me from proving by any particular instance that some of the Fathers taught the necessity of it for a received tradition yet take this of St. Austin lib. 1. de peccat mer. remiss c. 24. rightly saith he do the Punick Christians call Baptisme by no other names but health and safety nor the Sacraments of Christs body by no other then life unde nisi ex antiquâ ut existimo et Apostolica traditione qua Ecclesiae Christi insitum tenent praeter Baptismum et participationem Dominicae mensae non solum non ad Regnum Dei sed nec ad salutem et vitam aeternam posse quemquam hominum pervenire So direct a passage that I see not how in this point you can avoid the necessity either of retracting your rule of assurance or of incurring an Anathema of the Councel of Trent Sess 21. cap. 4. Can. 4. against any that should hold this very opinion which you finde so delivered and so Majestically sealed by Saint Austin * Tertul. lib. de Idololatria Orig. lib. 7. Cont. Cels Arnob. lib. 6. Lactan. lib. 2. cap. ult Epihan Ep. ad Johan Hierosol inter oper Hier. Epist 60. Ambr. de suga Secul cap. 5. August de fide cap. 7. Thirdly for the use of Images a point likewise of my former letter to which you say that the Fathers do not use the Authority or Tradition of the Church to beat it down I am confident you will confess that affirmation a slip of observation or memory when you shall but cast your Eyes upon those passages of the Fathers for brevity sake quoted onely in the Margin where doubtless in some at least you will finde the interdiction of them so deeply stampt with your supposed great seal of Christianity that if you stick to your own rule it will not be enough to speak indifferently of the matter with the Moderator on your side but you must be as rigid and severe against them as you can imagine any warm brother would be at Edenbourgh for I do not think any Zealot of them all can be more invective in this point then most of those Fathers were many to the abhorring of the very Trade of Imagery but because you do insist somewhat upon justification of the contrary practise at this day in the Romish Church I must beg leave to run over your Allegations and to acquaint you freely how unsatisfied I am in the particulars In the first place you evade the Authority of the Primitive Fathers voucht formerly by me namely of Justine and Tertullian by saying In regard that Idolatry was then fresh in the memory and practice of the world they might well think it dangerous to admit that which the following Governours of the Church might afterwards introduce upon a good ground of raising devotion in the people since things of that nature you say may be convenient at one time and unfit at another And in the next you labour to justifie the use of Images now by saying First that as strong Arguments and as pregnant passages of Scripture are produced for it as formerly against it Secondly by alledging that these times are secure from the danger of Idolatry And lastly by affirming that a great good appeares in them To your infirming of those Ancient
once take the liberty to except against particular Doctrines or particular Fathers delivering them I may then with out any further proof flatly conclude that nothing can be this way concluded since your adversaries will likewise claim in whatsoever shall thwart them an equal liberty of excepting Now Cousin give me leave to examine a little neerer the three grounds whereon you build the pretended certainty of this Method in resolving your differences out of the Fathers declarations as I collect your sense they are these First That they were faithful Collectors of the general traditions of the Church in their times Secondly that they are sincere conveyers of them to us And Thirdly that the traditions collected and conveyed by them are infallible Should I grant them all to be true it would not follow that they were sufficient till it did appear which I think never will though for the present we will suppose it that there were general traditions preserved in the Church concerning all those points which we dispute of but unless they appear to be true I am sure they cannot pass for sufficient First That they were faithful Collectors of all the traditions of the Church where in faithful I suppose you comprise careful able for in the other single sense of fidelity faithful hath most proper relation to the following condition of Conveyers industry and ability being as fully requisite in this the Collecting part as integrity To this I say that as in one place I have formerly profest how I beleeve them such faithful Collectors of the Churches receptions that is careful and able as well as sincere in many things of greatest importance so in another I think I have said enough whereby to prove it unlikely that in things of less moment such as our controversies the Primitive Fathers did applie their care and abilities to sound the bottome of them whether in this way of collecting the traditions of the Church concerning them or any other Industry requiring alwayes stimulations in the particular businesses where we are to expect it and likewise some leasure remission from other pressing occupations Both which the Primitive Fathers totally wanted by little provocation in our cases and incessant allarms in more weighty ones So that to your first ground I will onely make of new this demand Was the knowledge and Collection of the Churches traditions receptions easie and evident to all careful investigators or hard and difficult If the latter which I beleeve since so many circumstances are requisite to the exact knowledge of the Churches traditions as first certain evidence what is that Church universal whose traditions are so sacred Secondly a clear and unconfus'd delivery of the same unto them lastly not only an exquisite apprehension of the substance of all the doctrines but a perfect intelligence of the degrees and necessities either of belief or practise wherein the Church did hold them if thus hard I say and intricate the Fathers being men and liable as you confess to error how can we be secured that they did not oftentimes mistake them since it is evident that sometimes they did If facill and obvious which is likelyest you take them to be since you prefer them before Scriptures because that you say is difficult how comes it that they disagree having a plain easie and infallible Directory whereby to regulate and conform their judgments And truly Cousin supposing it such I know not how to free divers of them that dissent from one another in matters where tradition is vouched from the imputation of stupidity either in not understanding the common and manifest tenents of the Church or of perversness and malice that knowing them would not own them but by arguing from their variances that they were not all in all matters of Religion careful Collectors of the Churches traditions Which if you once admit we cannot think to conclude any thing from the Fathers till some third authority assure us which of the many for ought appears to us of equal abilities and zeal were the careful Collectors which not and in what particulars they were so and in what not To your second ground that they are sincere Conveyers unto us of the traditions of the Church I say that to the just title of sincere Conveyers two conditions are requisite the one affirmative that they should deliver to us with all their rights that is clearness perspicauity identitie of sense as they received them all the right traditions of the Church And that the Fathers are not likely to have done this may be inferred from what hath been said before of their want of care and industry in collecting the Churches sene concerning our affairs matters being seldome right in the second digestion which were not good in the first The other is negative that they should not deliver any thing for a tradition of the Church universal that was not rightly and evidently such That the Fathers were not Scrupulous in this point my former instances I conceive have sufficiently evinced Wherein it is evident with what confidence to doubtful yea and erroneous doctrines that themselves effected they set this pretended great seal of infallibility Beleeve me Cousin that saying of St. Hierom Ingenium suum facit Ecclesiae Sacramenta belongs not onely unto Origen it may without wrong be extended to most of the Fathers that I have been acquainted with And no marvel that they should sometimes in heat of dispute be transported to vouch for tradition what was not when so often they swerve from what was apparently the universal receptions of the Church as hath been made evident by many examples From which I do not infer that the Fathers had alwayes such erroneous beliefs as their words would many times import but onely that it is likely that they who in heat of dispute or for some ends which they thought very important would recede in their expressions from the confest tradition of the Church in such high constitutive points of Christian Religion would not be scrupulous in the like heats or upon the like ends to misapply the seal of tradition to some points of lesser importance For though it appear a greater falsehood to set a seal surreptitiously where it belongs not yet it is neerer to Rebellion not to conforme to that Authority where the Royal seal is manifestly stamp'd There hath enough been said to maniest that the Fathers that would sometimes thus license themselves be the occasion what it will and the end how pious soever cannot pass for Candid or sincere conveyers of all the Churches receptions unto us and if less punctual in any sure likeliest in our controverted doctrines which rarely had they the occasion to mention but as serving to greater ends there were so many circumstances that might tempt and lead them from the exact punctuallities of a sincere conveyer that I am not much scandalized at their prevarication You shall finde that where Gregory Neoces Ariensis said that
of man which I doubt much whether it can truly be affirmed of all the Christians of the world I am sure it cannot of the poor number of Doctors and Governors in any one age among them But to let this supposition pass supposing that the present Church understands what is meant by All they of the preceding though I do not and that all the present receives she receives as delivered to her by all those of the preceding age let us examine a little that which you inferr upon it to wit That this being so no false proposition of faith nay as you say afterwards no false doctrine whatsoever can be admitted into the Church in any age unless they of that age do unanimously conspire to deceive their children and youngers in telling them they were taught by their Fathers what indeed they were not That this is not impossible since only the Doctors Pastors of the Church are to be understood by All they hath been already shown But is there no other way say you but this for falshood to creep into the Church Truely me-thinks on the contrary it is with error and necessary truths in the body Ecclesiastick as with life and death in the body natural And as there is onely one way for life to enter at but a thousand gates for death so for necessary truths there is but one ordinary avenne to the Church namely by Scripture read or taught but for error to get in at a thousand passages without supposing such a general conspiracie For though many times when an error hath had a long Current we cannot point directly at the spring yet are we ne're a whit less certain that it had an entrance because we know not at which doore Nilus hath a head though Geographers cannot say directly where it is And lines many times that at first appear parallels to the eie by that time they have been lengthned a great while prove apparently uneven though no man can assigne the point whereat the deflexion began The doctrine of the Chiliasts a doctrine which if any other surely that may well be said to have been a generally received tenent of the Church universal for some ages since in the whole Church for above 250. years after Christ there appears not in that point one dissenting vote till Dionysius of Alexandria oppos'd it An error 't is true and yet I hope you will not be so uncharitable as to accuse all the ancient Fathers of the second Centenary that they complotted to deceive posterity by teaching them a falshood for Apostolique tradition you are more favorable to them then so in the last part of the Letter where you your self discover a way how without conspiracy this error and so another may have overspread the Church by the Authority of one man delivering it for a whisper of the Apostles And truly Cousin what ever else may be said more probable in the particular I am confident 't is most true in the general that the worke is easie from one man of credits Asseveration to possess vast Multitudes with firme perswasions of a falshood and more in matters of Religion then in civil things since in those this pium credere prevailes much and most will rather take upon trust what many affirm and they discern no ill in then put themselves to the oft-times endless troubles of examining Credulity being so easie and natural Disproving so difficult I warrant you the Common Faith of Romulus Ascent into Heaven would have had upon your grounds as rational assertours in the State of Rome as any tradition by us questioned at this day in the sea of Rome See in that politique invention of Julius Proclus what power the imagined pietie of one man hath to make a fiction pass for an Epidemicall veritie which as Tertullian sayes Apol. cap. 8. Ab uno aliquando principe exorta exinde in traduces linguarum aurium serpat ita modici seminis vitium caetera rumoris obscurat ut nemo recogitet num primum illud os mendatium seminaverit The Jewes a much more numerous multitude heretofore and still I think equal in number to any Christian Church of one denomination were the most Religious the most scrupulous conservators of unwritten truths in their Cabala And yet what an error posfesses the whole Nation and did so long before the curse fell upon them concerning their Messias whose coming long before Christ and since they all expected and do expect in a temporal kingdome of which they did derive and do continue to posteritie the hopes by Universal tradition or if you will say that they build the doctrine not upon tradition but Scripture yet I am sure you cannot denie but that they continue the interpretation of Scripture that way by tradition which comes all to one Did you grant the possibility of a Multitudes Conspiracie I am sure you would denie it in this which is confestly the point upon which all of them agree that their supreme felicitie depended It would pass for a very fallacious reasoning to drive up this belief to the Patriarkes and so conclude it infallible because the present age received it for a tradition from the preceding and that from the Antepenultime and so forward Or because the instant where the error was admitted amongst them cannot Digito monstrari dicere hic est For truly Cousin partly through a natural desire in all men that others should think as they do or do what they think convenient from whence there springs an aptness in the teachers to applie to their opinions the strongest Authorities they can devise whether they do justly belong unto them or no and partly through an aptness of the ignorant which are the greatest part of Auditours to swallow more and retain better the words and the outward literal part of what is taught them then either to examine or hold fast the precise and inward sense It may well happen that multitudes may mumble the shell when a few have the kernell and looking superficially only upon the outward stamp toss up and down for currant among them counterfeit oft-times and Adulterate Coine The mistake is ordinary and the propagation of the error easie for instance sake in the doctrine of praying for the dead many of the Doctors of the Church who believed that all the souls of the departed were kept in certain receptacles untill the general resurrection conceiving that prayer for the beatitude of the dead came all to one with praying for the hastening of Christs Kingdome might teach it others thinking it no prophanation of prayer to imploy that holy Act even where we know it cannot availe since Christ himself prayed to have the bitter Cup of his passion removed and all the Doctours generally holding such prayers a convenient testimony of charity in the living whether they were Commemorative Eucharisticall or supplicatorie easily might the practice pass into a common doctrine Now the word Necessarie being often used for