Fathers which contradicted His Opinion touching the Exposition of a certain passage in St. Luke being objected against Him He never taking the least notice at all of their Testimonies answers That we ought to Interpret and expound the Fathers by St. Luke rather than St. Luke by Them because that They cannot herein say any thing but what they have received from St. Luke Which in my Judgment was very Judiciously spoken of him and besides Exactly agrees with what St. Augustine said before and which may very well be applied to the greatest part of our Differences in all which the Fathers could not know any thing save what they learnt out of the Scriptures so that Their Testimonies in these Cases ought according to the Opinion of this Learned Jesuit to be expounded and interpreted by the Scriptures and not the Scriptures by Them And this is the language of all the rest of them Maâ—donate who was a most bitter enemy of the Protestants as ever there was any having delivered the Judgment of some of the Fathers who were of Opinion that the sons of Zebedee answered not so rightly when being asked by our Saviour whether or no they were able to drink of his Cup and to be Baptized with the Baptism that he was Baptized with they said unto him that they were able adds That for his part he believes that they answered well And in another place expounding the 2 Verse of the 19 Chapter of St. Matthew having first brought in the Interpretations of divers and indeed in a manner of all the Fathers he says at last That he could not be perswaded to understand the place as they did And here you are to note by the way that the meaning of that place is still controverted at this day How then can this man conceive that the Protestants should think themselves bound necessarily to follow the Judgment of this Major part of the Fathers which themselves make so light of In another place where he hath occasion to speak of those words of our Saviour which are at this day in debate amongst us The Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it He is yet much more down-right and says The sense of these words is not rightly given by any Author that I can remember except St. Hilary So likewise upon the 11 Chapter of St. Matthew vers 11. where it is said The least in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than John Baptist The Opinions of the Fathers upon this passage saith he are very different and to speak my mind freely none of them all pleaseth me In like manner upon the sixth Chapter of St. John Ammonius saith he St. Cyril Theophylact and Euthymius answer that all are not drawn because all are not worthy But this comes too near to Pelagianism Salmeron a famous Jesuit says thus Our Adversaries bring Arguments from the Antiquity of the Fathers which I confess hath always been of more esteem than Novelties I answer That every Age hath yielded unto Antiquity c. But yet we must take liberty to say that the later the Doctors are the more quick sighted they are And again Against all this great multitude which they bring against us we answer saith he out of the Word of God Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest judgment Michael Medina disputing at the Council of Trent touching the superiority of a Bishop above a Priest the Authority of St. Hierome and of St. Augustine being produced against him who both held that the difference betwixt them was not of Divine but only of Positive and Ecclesiastical Right answers before the whole Congregation That it is no marvel that they and some others also of the Fathers fell into this Heresie this point being not as then clearly determined of And that no man may doubt of the honesty of the Historian who relateth this do but hear Bellarmineâ— who testifieth That Medina assureth us that St. Hierome was in this point of Aerius his opinion and that not only be but also St. Ambrose St. Augustine Sedulius Primasius Chrysostome Theodoret Oecumenius and Theophylact maintained all of them the same Heresie We need not bring in here any more Examples do but read their Commentaries their Disputations and their other Discourses and you will find them almost in every page either rejecting or correcting the Fathers But I must not pass by the Testimony of Cornelius Mussus Bishop of Bitonto who indeed is more ingenuous and more clear than all the rest O Rome saith he to whom shall we go for Divine Counsels unless to those persons to whose trust the Dispensation of the Divine Mysteries hath been committed We are therefore to hear him who is to us instead of God in things that concern God as God himself Certainly for my own part that I may speak my mind freely in things that belong to the Mysteries of Faith I had rather believe one single Pope than a thousand Augustines Hieromes or Gregories that I may not speak of Richards Scotusses and Williams For I believe and know that the Pope cannot Erre in matters of Faith because that the Authority and Right of determining all such things as are at all Points of Faith resides in the Pope This Passage may seem to some to be both a very bold and a very indiscreet one but yet whosoever shall but examine the thing seriously and as it is in it self and not as it is in its outward appearances only which are contrived for the most part only to amuse the simpler sort of people I am confident he will find that this Author hath both most ingenuously and most truly given the world an account what Esteem the Church of Rome hath of the Fathers For seeing that these men maintain that the Pope is Infallible and they confess withall that the Fathers may have erred who seeth not that they set the Pope very much above the Fathers Neither may it be here replied that they do not all of them hold that the Pope is Infallible For besides that those among them who do contradict this Opinion are both the least and the least considerable part also of the Church of Rome these very men attribute to the present Church in being in every Age this Right of Infallibility which they will not allow the Pope insomuch that a Council now called together is according to their account of much greater Authority than the ancient Fathers So that there is no more difference at all betwixt these men and the fore-mentioned Italian Bishop save only that whereas they will have the Authority of the ancient Fathers to submit to the whole Body of Modern Bishops assembled in a General Council He will have their Authority to be less than that of a single Pope alone All that can be found fault with in that speech of his is
had been written against the See of Rome and he commanded the very same thing also in the VIII Council which is accounted by the Latines for a General Council It is impossible but that in these Fires very many Pieces must needs have perished which might have been of good use to us for the discovering what the opinion of the Ancients was whether touching Images which was the business of the VII Council or that other Controversie touching the Power of the Pope which was the principal Point debated in the Synod held by Photius some of whose Pieces they for the self same reason do at this day keep at Rome under Lock and Key which doubtless they would long ere this have published had they but made as much for the Pope as in all probability they make against him This rigorous proceeding against Books came at length to that height as that Leo X. at the Council of Lateran which brake up An. 1518. decreed That no Book should be printed but what had first been diligently examined at Rome by the Master of the Palace in other places by the Bishop or some other person deputed by him to the same purpose and by the Inquisitor under this penalty That all Book sellers offending herein should forfeit their Books which should be presently burnt in publick and should pay a hundred Ducats when it should be demanded towards the Fabrick of S. Peter a kind of punishment this which we find no examples of in all the Canons of the Ancient Church and should also be suspended from exercising his Function for the space of a whole year This is a General Sentence and which comprehendeth as well the Works of the Fathers as of any others as appeareth plainly by this that the Bishop of Malfi having given in his opinion saying that he concurred with them in relation to New Authors but not to the Old all the rest of the Fathers voted simply for all neither was there any Limitation at all added to this Decree of the Council This very Decree hath been since strongly confirmed by the Council of Trent which appointed also certain persons to take a Review of the Books and Censures and to make a Report of them to the Company To the end that there might be a separation made betwixt the good Grain of Christian Verity and the Darnel of strange Doctrines That is in plain terms that they might blot out of all manner of Books whatsoever relished not well with the gust of the Church of Rome But these Fathers having not the leisure themselves to look to this Pious Work appointed certain Commissaries who should give an account of this matter to the Pope whence afterward it came to pass that Pope Pius IV. first and afterward Sixtus V. and Clement VIII published certain Rules and Indexes of such Authors and Books as they thought fit should be either quite abolished or purged only and have given such strict order for the printing of Books as that in those Countries where this order is observed there is little danger that ever any thing should be published that is either contrary to the Doctrine of the Church of Rome or which maketh any thing for their Adversaries All these Instructions which are too long to be inserted here may be seen at the end of the Council of Trent where they are usually set down at large And in order to these Rules they have since put forth their Indices Expurgatorii as they call them namely that of the Low Countries and of Spain and other places where these Gallants come with their Razor in their hand and sit in judgment upon all manner of Books rasing out and altering as they please Periods Chapters and whole Treatises also often times and that too in the Works of those Men who for the most part were born and bred up and dyed also in the Communion of their own Church If the Church for eight or nine hundred years since had so sharp Razors as these men now have it is then a vain thing for us to search any higher what the judgment of the Primitive Christians was touching any particular Point for whatsoever it was it could not have escaped the hands of such Masters And if the Ancient Church had not heretofore any such Institution as this why then do we who pretend to be such Observers of Antiquity practise these Novelties I know very well that these men make profession of reforming only the Writings of the Moderns but who sees not that this is but a Cloak which they throw over themselves lest they should be accused as guilty of the same cruelty that Jupiter is among the Poets for having behaved himself so insolently against his own Father Those Pieces which they raze so exactly in the Books of the Moderns are the cause of the greater mischief to themselves when they are found in the Writings of the Ancients as sometimes they are For what a senseless thing is it to leave them in where they hurt most and to raze them out where they do little hurt The Inquisition at Madrid puts out these words in the Index of Athanasius Adorari solius Dei est that is God alone is to be worshipped and yet notwithstanding these words are still expresly found in the Text of Athanasius The same Father saith That there were some other Books besides those which he had before set down which in truth were not of the Canon and which the Fathers had ordained should be read to those who were newly come into the Christian Communion and desired to be instructed in the word of Piety reckoning in this number the Wisdom of Solomon Ecclesiâ—sticus Judith Esther Tobit and some other Nevertheless these very Censâ—rs put out in the †Index of Athanasius his Works those words which affirm that the said Books are not at all Canonical In the Index of St. Augustine they put out these wâ—rds Christ hâ—th given the sign of his Body which yet are evidently to be seen in the Text of this Father in his Book against Adimantus Chap. 12. They put out in like manner these words Augustine accounted the Eucharist necessary to be administred to Infants which opinion of S. Augustine is very frequently found expressed either in these very words or the like throughout his Works as we shall see hereafter They likewise put out these words We ought not to build Temples to Angels and yet the very Text of S. Augustine saith If we should erect a Temple of Wood or of Stone to any of the holy Angels should we not be Anathematized And this is the practice of the Censors both in the Low Countries and in Spain in many other particulars which we shall not here set down Now if thou cuttest off such Sentences as these out of the Indexes of these Holy Fathers why dost thou not as well raze them out of the Text also Or if thou leavest
first Centuries did the Cardinal denies his Sequel replying among other things that to be of the Communion of the Ancients a Man ought not only to believe what they believed but also to believe it in the same manner and in the same Degree that they did that is to say to believe as Necessary to Salvation what they believed as Necessary to Salvation and to believe as profitable to Salvation what they held for such and for lawful and not repugnant to Salvation what they held for lawful and not repugnant to Salvation And thus he goes on and gives us a long and exact Division of the different Degrees of Necessity which may and ought to be considered in all Propositions touching Religion I could heartily wish that this Occasion had carried on this Learned Prelate so far as to have made an Exact Application of this Doctrine and to have truly enformed us of what the greatest part of the World is at this day Ignorant namely in what Degree each Point of the Christian Faith is held either by the Church of Rome or by the Ancient Fathers what things are absolutely Necessary in Religion and what are those other things that are necessary under some certain Conditions only which again are necessary by the necessity of the Means and which by the necessity of the Precept as he there speaks that is to say which are those things that we ought to observe either by reason of their Profit as being Means which are profitable to Salvation and which we are to observe by reason of the Commandment only being enjoined us by such an Authority as we owe Obedience to and after all these Points Which again All and every of the Faithful are bound to believe Expresly and which are those that it is sufficient to believe in gross only and by an Iâ—plicite Faith and Lastly which are those things that we ought actually to do and which are those that it is sufficient if we approve of them only though we do them not So that it appeareth clearly out of these Words of his that to be able to know what the Belief of the Fathers hath been especially in the Points now in debate we ought first to be assured in what degree they believed the same And that this distinction was of very great Consideration with the antient Church it appears sufficiently out of the special regard which it always had unto it opening to or shutting the door against men first of all according to the things which they believed or not believed Secondly according to the different manners how they believed or not believed them For it Excommunicated those who rejected those things that it held as Necessary and so likewise those who pressed as things Necessary such as it held for things probable only But it received with all the sweetness that might be all those who either were Ignorant of or doubted of or indeed denied those things which it accounted though True yet not Necessarily so This appeareth clearly out of an Epistle written by Irenaeus to Victor Bishop of Rome set down by Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History where this holy Man testifieth that although there had been before Victors time the same difference betwixt the Asian and the Roman Church touching the celebration of Easter-day yet notwithstanding they lived in peace and mutual amity together neither were any of the Asian Bishops ever excommunicated at Rome for their dissenting from them either in this or in any other Point but that rather on the contrary Polycarpus coming to Rome in the time of Pope Anicetus after they had had a Conference touching the differences betwixt them and each of them continued still firm in his former opinion yet notwithstanding did they not forbear to hold fair correspondence with each other and to communicate together Anicetus also out of the respect he bare to Polycarpus allowing him the use of his own Church to celebrate the Eucharist in Tertullian in his Book De Praescriptionibus adversus Haereticos requires only that the Rule of Faith as he calls it should continue in its proper Form and Order allowing every Man in all other particulars to make what Inquiries and Discourses he please and to exercise his Curiosity to the height of Liberty which is an evident Argument that He admitted into His Communion all those who not contradicting the Rule of Faith broached any other opinions if so be they held them but as Probable only and proposed not any thing which was contrary to the Rule of Faith The Author of the Apology of Origen published by Ruffinus under the name of Pamphilus was of the same opinion also For having confessed that Origen if not held yet published some certain very strange opinions touching the State of the Soul before the Birth of Man and concerning the Nature of the Stars he wiâ—hal maintains that these opinions do not presently make a Man an Hâ—retick and that even among the Doctors of the Church there was diversity of opinion touching the same But besides all this it is evident that this difference of judgment is even at this day to be found in the Church of Rome where you shall find the Jacobins and the Francâ—sâ—ans maintaining opinions utterly contradictory to each other touching the Conception of the Virgin Mary the one of them maintaining that she was conceived without sin whereas the other utterly deny it And that which makes me wonder the more is that they suffer such Contradictory opinions as these to be held amongst them in such particulars as considered barely in themselves seem yet to be of very great Importance As for Example a Man may either believe that we ougâ—â— to yield to the Cross the Adoration of Latria or if he please he may believe the contrary without losing either by reason of the one or the other the Communion of the Church and Salvation And yet notwithstanding if you but consider the thing in it self it will appear to be a matter of no such Indifferency as people take it for For if the Former of these Opinions be indeed True then must those that are of the other Opinion needs sin very grievously in not worshipping a Subject that is so worthy of Adoration But if it be False then are those Men that maintain the same guilty of a much greater sin by committing so horrible Idolatry What Point is there in Religion that seemeth to be of greater Importance than that touching the Foundation and Head of all Ecclesiastical Power upon the Authority whereof the whole Faith and State of the Church turneth And yet touching this Particular also which is of so great consequence do they suffer Men to maintain Contradictory Opinions some attributing this Dignity to the Pope and others to a General Council Now if the opinion of the First of these be true then is the Faith of the Later built upon a very Erroneous Ground but if the opinion of the Later be
Tobit the Book of Wisdom Ecclesiasticus and the Maccabees out of the Canon contrary to the Judgment of the Church of Rome which receiveth them in rids his hands of this Objection after the same manner I confess saith he that S. Hierome held this Opinion because that no General Council had as yet ordained any thing touching these Books Seeing therefore it is most clear both from the Confession of our Adversaries and also by the consideration of the thing it self that the Fathers have venâ—ed in their Writings very many of their own particular Opinions digested out of their own private Meditations and which they had not learnt in the School of the Church who sees not that before we give any certain credit unto their Sayings we ought first to be assured of what Nature they are Whether they were their own particular Opinions onely or the publick Sense of their Age Since it is confessed by all That those of the former sort are not always obligatory necessarily but are such as oftentimes may and sometimes ought to be rejected without any scruple at all You will object perhaps to a Protestant That S. Hierome worshipped the Reliques of Departed Saints How shall I know will he reply upon you again whether this was his private Opinion onely or not If the Authority of this Father for want of being grounded upon some Publick Declaration of the Church could not bind Bellarmine to receive his Opinion touching the Canon of the Old Testament why should this Opinion of his which is not any whit better grounded than the other perswade me to the Worship of Reliques The same will he reply upon you and many times with much more appearance of Reason concerning divers other Testimonies produced out of the Fathers So that whether you would confirm your own Faith or whether you would wrest out of your Adversaries hand this manner of Reply and make good all such Allegations it will concern you to make it clear concerning any Passage whatsoever that you shall urge out of a Father that it is not his own private Opinion but was the Opinion of the Church it self wherein he lived which in my Judgment is a thing that is as hard or harder to be demonstrated than any one of all those things we have yet discoursed of For those means by which we might easily attain to this Knowledge are wanting unto us and those which we have left us are very weak and very little concluding If the Fathers themselves had but taken so much pains as to have distinguished betwixt these two sorts of Opinions informing us in every particular Case which were their own private Opinions only and which were taught by the whole Church or at least had but proposed some of them as Doubtful and others again as Assured Truths in like manner as Origen hath sometimes done they would indeed have eased us very much though to say the truth they would not have wholly cured us of our Grief forasmuch as sometimes as we shall hereafter make it appear they attribute to the Church those things which it is most evident that it never held But they very seldom use to make any such Distinction but commonly â—ent their own private Opinions in the very same manner as they do the publick and sometimes also by reason of the Passion which these Authors may chance naturally to have been subject unto be the thing what it will we shall have them recommending unto us with more eagerness that which they have conceived and brought forth themselves than that which they have received from any other hand so that we shall meet with very little in them that may give us any light in this Particular There would be left us yet another help in this business by comparing that which they say here and there throughout their Writings with the Publick Opinions of the Church which would be a pretty safe and certain Rule to go by had we any where else besides their Books any clear and certain evidence what the Belief of the Church hath been in each several Age touching all Points of Religion and if this were so we should not then need to trouble our selves with the studying the Writings of the Fathers seeing that we read them for no other purpose but only to discover out of them what the opinion of Christendom hath been touching those Points which are at this day controverted betwixt us But now there is no man but knows but this help is wanting to us For setting aside the Creeds and the Determinations of the six first General Councils and of some few of the Provincial you will not meet with any Piece of this nature throughout the whole stock of Antiquity Now as we have already made it appear in the preceding Chapter the Ancient Church hath not any where declared neither in its Creeds nor in the aforesaid Councils what the opinion and sense of it hath been touching the greatest part of those Points which are now in dispute amongst us It followeth therefore that by this means we shall never be able to distinguish in the Writings of the Fathers which were their own private opinions and which they held in common with the rest of the Church If we could indeed learn from any creditable Author that the present Controversies had ever been decided by the Ancient Church we should then readily believe that the Fathers would have followed this their Decision and then although the Coâ—stitutions themselves should not perhaps have come down to our hands yet notwithstanding should we be in some sort obliged to believe that the Fathers who had both seen and assented to the same would also have delivered over the sense of them unto us in their Writings But we meet with no such thing in any Author but it rather appears evidently to the contrary through the whole course of Ecclesiastical Story that these Matters were never so much as started in the first Ages of Christianity so far have they been from being then decided So that it manifestly appeareth from hence that if the Fathers of those Primitive times have by chance said any thing of them they fetched not what they said from the Determinations of the Church which had not as yet declared it self touching the same but vented rather their own private thoughts and opinions Neither will it be to any purpose to object here that the Testimonies of many Fathers together do represent unto us the sence of the Church although the voice of one or two single persons only is not sufficient to do the same For not to answer that that which hath hapned to one may have hapned to many others and that if some particular persons chance to have fallen upon some particular Opinions possibly others may either have accompanied or else have followed them in the same I say further that this Objection is of no force at all in this Particular For seeing that the Church had not as yet declared
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
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
all this it hath not only be called in Question but hath been even utterly condemned also who seeth not that the Consent of many Fathers together although any such thing were to be had upon all the Points now in Debate would yet be no sufficient Argument of the Truth of the same But I shall pass on to the rest We have before heard how that Tertullian St. Cyprian who was both a Bishop and a Martyr Firmilianus Metropolitan of Cappadocia Dionysius Patriarch of Alexandria together with the Synods of Bishops both of Africk Cappadocia Cilicia and Bithynia held all that the Baptism of Hereticks was invalid and null St. Basil who was one of the most Eminent Bishops of the whole Eastern Church held also in a manner the very same Opinion and that a long time too after the Determination of the Council of Nice as appeareth by the Epistle which he wrote to Amphilochius which is also put in among the Publick Decrees of the Church by the Greek Canonists And yet this Opinion is now confessed by all to be Erroneous Many in like manner of the Fathers as namely Tertullian Clemens Alexandrinus Lactantius and Africanus believed that our Saviour Christ kept the Feast of the Passeover but once only after his Baptism And yet notwithstanding this Consent of theirs the Opinion is known to be very false as Petavius also testifieth and besides is expresly contrary to the Text of the Gospel I shall not here say any thing of the Opinion of St. Chrysostom St. Hierome St. Basil and the Fathers of the Council held at Constantinople under the Patriarch Flavianus who seem all to have held that an Oath was utterly unlawful for Christians under the New Testament Neither shall I take any notice in this place of that Conceit of Athanasius St. Basil and Methodius as he is cited by John Bishop of Thessalonica who all believed that the Angels had Bodies to whom we may also add as we have shewed before St. Hilary Justin Martyr Tertullian and very many more of the Fathers who would all of them have the Nature of Angels to be such as was capable of the Passions of Carnal love of which number is even St. Augustine also Whosoever should now conclude from hence that this Fancy of theirs which yet is of no small importance is a Truth would he not be as sharply reproved for it by the Romanists as by those of Geneva But I must not forget that besides St. Cyprian St. Augustine and Pope Innocent I. whose Testimonies we have given in before all the rest of the Doctors in a manner of the first Ages maintained that the Eucharist was necessary for young Infants if at least you dare take Maldonat's word who affirms that this Opinion was in great Request in the Church during the first Six Hundred years after our Saviour Christ Cassander also testifieth that he hath often observed this Practice in the Ancients as indeed is also witnessed by Carolus Magnus and by Ludovicus Pius who lived a long time after the Sixth Century both of which assure us that this Custom continued in the West even in their time as they are cited by Cardinal Perron and the Traces of this Custom do yet remain to this day amongst those Christians who are not of the Communion of the Latine Church For Nicolaus Lyranus who lived somewhat above three hundred years since observed That the Greeks accounted the Holy Eucharist so necessary as that they administred it to little Children also as well as Baptism And even in our Fathers time the Patriarch Jeremias speaking in the name of the whole Creek Church said We do not only Baptize little Children but we also make them partakers of the Lords Supper And a little after we account saith he both Sacraments to be necessary to Salvation for all persons namely Baptism and the Holy Communion The Abyssines also make their Children in like manner Communicate of the Holy Eucharist as soon as ever they are Baptized Which are most evident Arguments that this false Opinion touching the Necessity of the Eucharist hath been of old maintained not by three or four of the Fathers only but by the Major part and in a manner by all of them For we do not hear of so much as one among all the Ancient Fathers who rejected it in express Terms as the Council of Trent hath done in these later Times To conclude the Jesuit Pererius hath informed us and indeed the observation is obvious enough to any man that is never so little conversant in the Writings of those Authors who lived before St. Augustines time that all the Greek Fathers and a considerable part also of the Latines were of Opinion that the Cause of Predestination was the Fore sight which God had either of Mens Good Works or else of their Faith either of which Opinions he assures us is manifestly contrary both to the Authority of the Scriptures and also to the Doctrine of St. Paul So that I conceive we may without troubling our selves any further in making this envious Inquiry into the Errours of the Fathers conclude from what hath been already produced that seeing the Fathers have Erred in so many Particulars not on singly but also many of them together Neither the private Opinion of each particular Father nor yet the unanimous Consent of the Major part of them is a sufficient Argument certainly to prove the Truth of those Points which are at this day controverted amongst Us. CHAP. V. Reason V. That the Fathers have strongly contradicted one another and have maintained Different Opinions in Matters of very Great Importance BEssarion a Greek born who was honoured with the Dignity of Cardinal by Pope Eugenius IV. as a Reward of his earnest desires to and the great pains he took in endeavouring a Reconciliation betwixt the Eastern and the Western Church in a Book which he wrote upon this Subject to the Council of Florence will have the whole Difference betwixt the Greek and Latine Churches to be brought before the Judgment Seat of the Fathers And for as much as he knew that unless the Judges did all agree and were of one Opinion the Cause especially in Matters of Religion necessarily remains undecided he strongly labours to prove that he hath all the Fathers consenting not only with him but which is yet much harder to prove that they are all of the same Opinion also among themselves insomuch that he commands us when ever there appeareth any contrariety in their Writings that we should accuse our own ignorance rather than blame them for contradicting each other We may conclude therefore from what is here laid down by this Author who was both as acute and as Learned a man as any was at this Council that to render the Fathers capable of being the Judges of our Controversies it is necessary that they should be
perhaps that his Hyperbolical way of Expression of a thousand Augustines Hieromes and Gregories all which joyned together he in too disdainful a manner casts down beneath the feet of one single Pope But this height of Expression may be somewhat excused in him considering that such Excesses as these are very ordinary with all high and free-spirited Persons But the Practice of the Church of Rome it self will be able to inform us more truly and clearly what esteem they have of Antiquity For if we ought to stand to the Fathers and not to depart from any thing that they have Authorized nor to Ordain any thing that they were ignorant of how comes it to pass that we at this day see so many several Observations and Customs which were observed by the Ancients now quite laid aside And whence is it that we find in Antiquity no mention at all of many things which are now in great request amongst us There are as it were three principal Parts in Religion namely Points of Belief of Ceremony and of Discipline We shall run them over lightly all three and so far as is necessary only for our present purpose that so we may let the world see that in every one of these three parts they have both abolished and established very many things expresly against the Authority of the Ancients As for the first of these we have formerly given the Reader some Tasts only in the preceding Chapters For we have seen that the Opinion of the greatest part of the Ancient Church touching the State of the Soul till the time of the Resurrection which besides is at this day also maintained by the Greek Church was condemned not much above two hundred years since by the Church of Rome at the Council of Florence and a quite contrary Belief there established as an Article of the Christian Faith We have seen besides that the Opinion of the Fathers of the Primitive Church and even down as far as to the end of the sixth Century after our Saviour Christ and afterwards was that the Eucharist was as necessary to Salvation as Baptism and that consequently it was therefore to be administred to little Children And yet for all this the Council of Trent hath condemned this Opinion as an Error in Faith withal Anathematizing by a Canon made expresly for that purpose all those who ever should maintain the same Let him be Accursed say they whoever shall say that the Eucharist is necessary for little Children before they are come to years of discretion Only that the Fathers might not take offence hereat as having so fearful an Affront put upon them these men have endeavoured to perswade both them and others that they never did believe that which themselves have most clearly and in express Terms protested that they did believe as we have before made it appear which is to double the injury upon them rather than to make them any reparations for it seeing that they deal with them now not as Hereticks only but as Fools also whom a man may at pleasure perswade that they do not believe that which they really do believe We have abundantly heard out of St. Hierome's mouth how that the Opinion of the Chilasts was of old maintained by several of the Ancient Fathers which yet is now condemned as an Error in Faith And indeed the number of these kind of differences in Opinions is almost infinite It was accounted no Error in those days to believe that the Soul was derived from the Father down to the Son according to the ordinary course of Generation but this Opinion would now be accounted an Heresie The Ancients held That it would be an opposing of the Authority of the Scriptures if we should bang up the Picture of any Man in the Church and that we ought not to have any Pictures in our Churches that That which we worship and adore be not painted upon a Wall But now the Council of Trent hath Ordained the quite contrary and says That we ought to have and to keep especially in our Churches the Images of Christ of the Virgin the Mother of God and of the other Saints and that we are to yield unto them all due Honour and Veneration All the Ancient Fathers as far as we can learn out of their Writings believed That the Blessed Virgin Mary was conceived in Original Sin If now the Fathers of the Council of Trent accounted them to be the Judges of Faith what moved them then to imagine that we ought not to believe that they maintained any such Opinion For having delivered their Definitive Sentence in a Decree there passed to this purpose and declared That this Sin which hath spread it self over the whole Mass of Mankind by Propagation and not by Imitation hath seised on every Person in particular They at length conclude That their Intention is not to comprehend within this number the Blessed and Vnspotted Virgin Mary the Mother of God Which Words of theirs it is impossible so to expound as that they shall not in plain Terms give the Lie to All the Fathers For if they mean by these Words that the Virgin Mary was conceived without Sin they flatly establish an Opinion which is contradictory to that of the Fathers which is the grossest manner of giving them the Lie that can be If they mean here no more than this which Sense yet their Words will hardly be ever made to bear that it is not known as a certain Truth that the Virgin Mary was conceived in Sin they however honestly say in plain Terms That these Good Men affirmed as True that which is yet Doubtful and maintained as Certain that which was but Problematical onely and Questionable The Council of Laodicea which is inserted into the Code of the Church Universal putteth not into the Canon of the Old Testament any more than Twenty two Books onely excluding by this means out of this number the Book of Tobit of Judith the Book of Wisdom Ecclesiasticus and the two Books of the Maccabees Melito Bishop of Sardis Origen Cyril of Hierusalem Gregory Nazianzene S. Hilary and Epiphanius do all of them the same Athanasius Ruffinus and S. Hierome expresly reject these very Books and cast them out of the Canon And yet notwithstanding the aforesaid Council of Trent Anathematizeth all those who will not receive as Holy and Canonical all these Books with every part of the same as they are wont to be read in the Church and as they are found in the Old Latin Edition commonly called the Vulgar Translation Where besides the Affront which they have offered to so many of the Ancient and most Eminent among the Fathers and indeed to the Whole Primitive Church it self which received this Conon of Laodicea in amongst its Vniversal Rules they have also established a Position here which was not till then so much as ever heard
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
from the Controversies now in hand p. 8. III. The Writings which go under the names of the Fathers are not all truly such but are a great part of them Supposititious and Forged either long since or of later times p. 11. IV. Those of the Writings of the Fathers which are Legitimate have been in many places corrupted by Time Ignorance and Fraud both Pious and Malitious both in the Former and Later Ages p. 34. V. The Writings of the Fathers are hard to be understood by reason of the Languages and Idioms they wrote in the Manner of their Writing which is for the most part incumbred with Figures and Rhetorical Flourishes and nice Logical Subtilties and the like and also by reason of the Termes which they for the most part used-in a far different sense from what they now bear p. 69. VI. When we meet with an Opinion clearly delivered in the Writings of any of the Fathers we must not from hence conclude that the said Father held that Opinion seeing that we often find them speaking those things which themselves have not believed whether it be when they report the opinion of some other without naming the persons as they frequently do in their Commentaries or in disputing against an Adversary in which kind of Writing they take liberty to say one thing and believe another or whether it be that they concealed their own private Opinion purposely as they have done in their Homilies meerly in compliance to such a part of their Auditory p. 100. VII Supposing that we are well assured that a Father hath clearly delivered his Opinion in any Point we ought notwithstanding to enquire into the time wherein he wrote that Opinion of his whether it were before or after he arrived to Ripeness of Judgment For we see that they have sometimes retracted in their old age what they had written when they were young p. 117. VIII But suppose that a Father hath constantly held one Opinion it will nevertheless concern us to inquire How he held it and in what degree of Belief whether as Necessary or Probable only and then again in what degree of Necessity or of Probability he placed it Beliefs being not all equally either Necessary or Probable p. 123. IX After all this we are to examine whether or no he deliver this as his own particular Opinion only for this cannot necessarily bind our faith or whether he deliver it as the Opinion of the Church in his time p. 136. X. In the next place it will concern us to enquire whether he deliver it for the Judgment of the Church Vniversal or of some particular Church only those things which have been received by the Major Part having not always notwithstanding been received by some particular parts of the Church p. â—4â— XI And after all this whether you take the Church for the Collective Body of Christians or only for the body of the Clergy or Pastors it is notwithstanding impossible to know what the Belief of the whole Church in any Age hath been for as much as it frequently so falls out that the Opinions of these Men who have appeared to the World have not only not been received but on the contrary have also been Opposed and Contradicted by thâ—se Members of the same Church who have not at all appeared to the World who notwithstanding both for their Learning and Piety deserved perhaps to have had as much or more Esteem and Authority than the other p. 151. The Second Book THE second Reason namely that neither the Testimony nor the Preaching of the Fathers is altogether Infallible is proved by these following Considerations p. 1. II. The Fathers themselves witness against themselves that they are not to be believed Absolutely and upon their own bare word p. 11. III. It appeareth plainly by their Manner of Writing that they never intended that their Writings should be our Judges p. 40. IV. They have erred in divers Points not only Singly but also many of them together p. 60. V. They have very much contradicted one the other and have maintained different Opinions in Matters of great Importance p. 112. VI. Lastly to say the truth neither Party alloweth them for Judges but reject them boldly and without any scruple both the one and the other maintaining divers things which the Fathers were ignorant of and rejecting others which were maintained by them the Protestants in those things where the Fathers have gone either against or besides the Scripture the Church of Rome where they oppose against them the Resolutions of their Popes or of Councils Seeing therefore that both Parties attribute the Supream Authority to some other Judges the Fathers though perhaps their Resolutions should be grounded on Divine Authority could never be able notwithstanding to clear their Differences and to reconcile the two Parties p. 126. So that it followeth from hence that our Controversies are to be decided by some other means than that of their Writings and that we are to observe the same Method in Religion that we do in all other Sciences making use of those things wherein we all agree for the clearing of those wherein we differ comparing exactly the Conclusions of both Parties with their Principles which are to be acknowledged and granted by both sides whether it be in Reason or Divine Revelation And as for the Fathers we ought to read them carefully and heedfully and especially without any prejudication on either side searching their Writings for their Opinions and not for our own arguing Negatively concerning those things which we find not in them rather then Affirmatively that is to say holding all those Articles for suspected which are not found in them it being a thing altogether Improbable that those Worthies of the Church were Ignorant of any of the Necessary and Principal Points of Faith but yet not presently receiving for an Infallible Truth whatsoever is found in them for as much as being but Men though Saints they may sometimes have erred either out of pure Ignorance or else perhaps out of Passion which they have not been always wholly free from as appeareth clearly by those Books of theirs which are left Vs The Testimonies of the Lord Faulkland Lord Digby Doctor Taylor Doctor Rivet concerning this learned Book Reader THE Translation of this Tract hath been oft attempted and oftner deâ—â—â—ed by many Noble Personages of this and other Nations among others by Sir Lucius Cary late Lord Viscount Faulkland who with his dear Friend Mr. Chillingworth made very much use of it in all their Writings against the Romanists But the Papers of that learned Nobleman wherein this Translation was half finisht were long since involved in the common loss Those few which have escaped it and the press make a very honourable mention of this Monsieur whose acquaintance the said Lord was wont to say was worth a Voyage to Paris Pag. 202. of his Reply he hath these words This observation of mine hath been confirmed by consideration of
but certainly not on their side who maintain them affirmatively But however this is a most certain truth That throughout the whole Body of the genuine Writings of these Fathers you shall not meet with any thing expresly urged either for or against the greatest part of these Opinions I shall most willingly confess That the belief of every Wise man makes up but One entire Body the Parts whereof have a certain correspondence and relation to each other in such sort as that a Man may be able by those things which he delivers expresly to give a guess what his Opinion is touching other things which he declares himself not at all in it being a thing utterly improbable that he maintains any one Position which shall manifestly clash with his other Tenets or that he rejects any thing that necessarily followeth upon them But besides that this manner of Disputation presupposeth that the Belief of the Ancient Fathers hangs all close together no one Position contradicting another but having all its Parts united and depending one upon another which notwithstanding is not altogether unquestionable as we shall shew elsewhere Besides all this I say it requireth also a sharp piercing Wit which readily and clearly apprehends the Connexions of each several Point an excellent Memory to retain faithfully whatever Positions the Ancients have maintained and a solid Judgment free from all pre-occupation to compare them with the Tenets maintained at this day And what Man soever is endued with all these Qualities I shall account him the fittest Man to make profitable Use of the Writings of the Fathers and the likeliest of any to search into the bottom of them But the mischief of it is that Men so qualified are very rare and hard to be found I shall add here That if you will believe some certain Writers of the Church of Rome this whole Method is vain and useless as is also that which makes use of Argumentation and Reason means which are insufficient and unable in the judgment of these Doctors to bring us to any certainty especially in Matters of Religion wherein their Opinion is we are to rely upon clear and express Texts onely So that according to this account we will not if we be wife believe that the Fathers held any of the aforenamed Points unless we can find them in express terms delivered in their Writings that is to say in the very same terms that we read them in the Decrees and Canons of the Council of Trent Seeing then that according to the Opinion of these Men those Testimonies onely are to be received which are express and likewise that of these Points now controverted there is searcely any thing found expresly delivered by the Fathers we may in my Opinion very Logically and reasonably conclude that it is if not an impossible yet at least a very difficult thing according to these Men to come to the certain knowledge of the Opinion of the Ancients touching the greatest part of the Tenets of the Church of Rome which are at this day rejected by the Protestants CHAP. III. Reason III. That those Writings which go under the Names of the Ancient Fathers are not all truly such but a great part of them suppositions and forged either long since or of later Times I Come now to more important Considerations these two former though they are not in themselves to be despised or neglected being yet but trivial ones in respect of those which follow For there is so great a confusion in the most part of these Books whereof we speak that it is a very hard thing truly to find out who were their Authors and what the Meaning and Sense of them is The first Difficulty proceeds from the infinite number of Forged Books which are falsly attributed to the Ancient Fathers The like having hapned also in all sorts of Learning and Sciences insomuch that the Criticks at this day are sufficiently troubled in discovering both in Philosophy and Humanity which are forged and supposititious Pieces and which are true and legitimate But this Abuse hath not reigned any where more grosly and taken to it self more liberty than toward the Ecclesiastical Writers All Men complain on this both on the one side and on the other and labour all they can to deliver us from these Confusions though oftentimes with little success by reason of the eagerness of their Passion by which they are carried away ordinarily judging of Books according to their own Interest rather than the Truth and rejecting all those that any whit contradict them but defending those which speak of their side how good or bad soever they otherwise chance to be So that to say the truth they judge not of their own Opinions by the Writings of the Fathers but of the Writings of the Fathers by their own Opinions If they speak with Us it is then Cyprian and Chrysostome if not it is some Ignorant Modern Fellow or else some Malicious Person who would fain cover his own filthiness under the rich Garment of these excellent Persons Now if it were Passion onely that rendered the Business obscure we should be able easily to quit our hands of it by stripping it and laying it open to the World and all moderate Men would find enough to rest satisfied with But the worst of it is that this Obscurity oftentimes falls out to be in the things themselves so that it is a very hard and sometimes an impossible thing to clear them whether it be by reason of the Antiquity of the Errour or else by reason of the near resemblance of the â—alse to the True For these Forgeries are not new and of yesteryesterday but the Abuse hath been on foot above fourteen hundred years It is the complaint of the greatest part of the Fathers That the Hereticks to gain their own Dreams the greater Authority vented them under the Names of some of the most eminent Writers in the Church and even of the Apostles themselves Amphilochius Bishop of Iconium who was so much esteemed by the great S. Basil Archbishop of Caesarea wrote a particular Tract on this Subject alledged by the Fathers of the Seventh Council against a certain Passage produced by the Iconoclasts out of I know not what idle Treatise entituled The Travels of the Apostles And I would to God that Tract of this Learned Prelate were now extant if it were it would perhaps do us good service in discovering the Vanity of very many ridiculous Pieces which now pass up and down the World under the Names of the Primitive and most Ancient Christians S. Hierome rejecteth divers Apocryphal Books which are published under the Names of the Apostles and of their first Disciples as namely of S. Peter of Barnabas and others The Gospel of S. Thomas and the Epistle to the Laodiceans are put in the same rank by the Seventh Council Now if these wretched Knaves have been thus sawcy with the Apostles as to make use of
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
that this Epistle was not truly Pope Julius his but had been put upon him by the false dealing of the Hereticks The case was the same with these Ancient Fathers as it is with a Pilot of a Ship who is to stear his Vessel betwixt two Rocks one only whereof he hath discovered the other lying hid under water so that taking no other care save only to avoid the danger which he seeth before his eyes he very easily falleth into that other which he never so much as suspected so that if he split not his Vessel upon it and so be utterly cast away he will very hardly however avoid receiving a brush at least by it Thus these Fathers saw indeed the Rock of Paulus Samosatenus his Doctrine and that of Nestorius but did not at all observe that of Arius or of Eutyches which lay yet under water and concealed and so imploying their utmost endeavours to avoid the danger of the two former which they then only feared they have very hardly escaped falling into or at least touching very near upon the two latter which they then had no thought of at all Do but imagine then how wâ—rily and carefully it concerneth us to walk amidst these Disputes of the Ancients which are so beset with Thorns and with how much judgment we are to distinguish betwixt what things are Principal and what but Accidental only betwixt the Cause and the Means and betwixt the Excess or Defect in their Expressions and their True sense and meaning and then tell me whether you think it reasonable or not that two or three words only which may perhaps accidentally have fallen from them in their Disputations either against the Valentinians and Marcionites or against the Nestorians or Eutychists should be taken as their Definitive Sentences upon such Points as are now controverted amongst us whether touching Free-will or the Properties of the Body of Christ and the nature of the Eucharist But before we close up this matter we are to take notice that the changing of Customs both Civil and Ecclesiastical especially and the variation of Words in their signification do not a little contribute to this Difficulty of understanding the Writings of the Fathers Who knoweth not and indeed who confesseth not both on the one side and on the other that the outward Face of the World and even of the Church it self too is in a manner wholly changed I speak not here of the Doctrine but only of the upper Garment as I may call it and the outward part of the Church Where is the Ancient Discipline What is become of the rigid and severe Rules of those Ancient Times Where are those so mysterious Ceremonies in Baptism and in the Administration of the Eucharist Where are those Customs then used in the Ordination of the Clergy All these things are now quite forgotten and buried the Church by little and little having apparelled it self in other Colours and in another different Garb. The Books then of the Ancients being full of Allusions to thâ—se things which we are in a manner now wholly ignorant of it must necessarily follow from hence that it will be a hard matter for us to guess at their meaning in any such Passages But yet there ariseth much more confusion out of the words they used which we have still retained though in a different signification We have indeed these words Pope Patriarch Mass Oblation Station Procession Mortal Sins Penance Confession Satisfaction Merit Indulgence as the Ancients had and make use of an infinite number of the like Terms but understand them all in a sense almost as far different from theirs as our Age is removed from theirs Just in like manner as of old under the Roman Emperours the names of Offices and of things for a long time continued the same that had been in use in the time of the old Republick but with a sense clear different from what they had formerly born Thus when we light upon any Passage in the Ancients where the Bishop of Rome is called Papa or Pope we presently begin to fancy him with all his Pontificalibus about him and all the Glory at this day belonging to this Name not bating him so much as his Guard of Switzens and his Light-Horses whereas they that are but indifferently versed in these Books know that the name Papa or Pope was given to every Bishop So likewise when we meet with the word exomologesis or Confession we presently fancy a man down upon his knees before his Confessor shriving himself before him in private of all the sins he hath committed The word Mass likewise makes us prick up our ears as if even from those Ancient Times the whole Liturgy and all the Ceremonies used at the Celebration of the Eucharist had been the very same that they are at this day whereas the Learned of both Parties acknowledge that these Names have since that time lost very much of their old and acquired new significations But this which hath been said is enough if not more than needed for the clearing this Point touching the obscurity in the Writings of the Fathers so that we shall here conclude what we proposed at the beginning namely that it is not so easie a matter as people may imagine to discover by their Writings what the sense of the Ancient Church hath been touching the Points at this day controverted amongst Us. CHAP. VI. Reason VI. That the Fathers oftentimes conceal their own Private Opinions and speak those things which themselves believed not whether it be when they report the Opinion of some others without naming the persons as they frequently do in their Commentaries or in disputing against an Adversary where they make use of whatsoever they can or else whether they have done so in compliance to their Auditory as may be observed in their Homilies THE Writings of the Fathers are for the most part of three sorts that is they are either Commentaries upon the Holy Scriptures or Homilies delivered before the People or else they are Polemical Discourses and Disputations with the Hereticks Now we have formerly seen how much their Ornaments of Rhetorick have darkned and rendred their sense obscure in their Writings of the first and second sort and what their Heats of Disputation and Logical Wranglings have caused in those of the later Let us now see if having drawn the Expressions of the Fathers out of these thick Clouds and attained to a clear and perfect understanding of the sense of them we may be able at length to rest assured that we have discovered what their opinions have been I confess I could heartily wish that it were so but considering what they have themselves informed us concerning the nature and manner of their Writings I am much afraid that we neither may nor indeed ought to reckon our selves in any sure condition even then when we are upon these very Terms For as concerning their Commentaries which we have often occasion to consult upon
the Truth when as in his old age taking Pen in hand he reviewed and corrected all that he had ever written during his whole Life faithfully and ingenuously noting whatsoever he thought worthy of reprehension and giving us all those his Animadversions collected together in the Books of his Retractations which in my judgment is the most glorious and most excellent of all those many Monuments which he hath left to Posterity whether you consider here the Learning or the Modesty and Sincerity of the Man S. Hierome reporteth that Origen also long before had in his old age written an Epistle to Fabianus Bishop of Rome wherein he confesseth That he repented him of many things which he had taught and written Neither is there any doubt but that some such like thing may have hapned to most of the other Fathers and that they may have sometime disallowed of that which they had formerly believed as true Now from this consideration there falls in our way a new Difficulty which we are to grapple with in this our Inquiry into the true genuine sense of the Fathers touching our present Controversies For seeing that the Condition and Nature of their Writings is such it is most evident that when we would make use of any of their Opinions it will concern us to be very well assured that they have not only sometime either held or written the same but that they have moreover persevered in them to the end Whence Vincentius Lirinensis in that Passage of his which is so often urged for the making use of the Ancient Authors in deciding our present Controversies thinks it not fit that we should be bound to receive whatsoever they have said for certain and undoubted Truth unless they have assured and confirmed it unto us by their Perseverance in the same as he there speaketh Cardinal Perron also evidently sheweth us the same way by his own practice for disputing about the Canon of the Holy Scriptures which he pretendeth to have been always the very same in the Western Church with that which is delivered unto us by the III Council of Carthage where the Maccabees are reckoâ—ed in among the rest and finding himself hardly pressed by some certain Passages alledged by the Protestants out of S. Hierome to the contrary he answereth the Objection by saying among other things That this Father when he wrote the said Passages was not yet come to the ripeness of his Judgment and perfection of his Studies whereas afterwards when he was now more fully instructed in the truth of the Sense of the Church he changed his Opinion and retracted as this Cardinal saith both in general and in particular whatsoever he had before written in those three Prologues where he had excluded the Maccabees out of the Canon And so likewise to another Objection brought to the same purpose out of the Commentaries of S. Gregory the Great he gives the like answer saying That S. Gregory when he wrote that Piece was not yet come to be Pope but was a plain Deacon only being at that time employed at Constantinople as the Popes Nuncio to the Greeks Now these Answers of his are either insufficient or else it will necessarily follow from hence That we ought not to rest certainly satisfied in the Testimony of any Father except we first be assured that not only he never afterwards retracted that Opinion of his but that besides he wrote it in the strength and ripeness of his Judgment And see now how we are fallen into a new Labyrinth For first of all from whence and by what means may we be able to come truly and certainly to the knowledge of this Secret when as we can hardly meet with any light Conjectures tending to the making of this Discovery namely Whether a Father hath in his old age changed his Opinion touching that Point for which it is produced against us or not If they had all of them been either able or willing to have imitated the Modesty of S. Augustine we should then have had little left to trouble us But you will hardly find any either of the Ancients or of those of Later times that have followed this example unless it be Cardinal Bellarmine who hath lately thought good to revive this Piece of Modesty which had lain dead and buried for the space of so many Ages together by writing a Book of Retractations which Book of his is very diversly received by the Learned as well of the one as of the other Religion But yet if you will stand stiff upon it with Cardinal Perron and not allow the saying of a Father to be of any value unless it were written by him after the Ripeness of his Studies I shall then despair of our ever making any Progress so much as one step forward by this means in the business in hand For will the one and the other Party say upon every Testimony that shall be produced against them how do we know whether this Father had yet arrived to the Ripeness of his Judgment when he wrote this Book or not Who can tell whether or no those days of his Life that he enjoyed after the Writing hereof might not have bestowed as well clearness on his Understanding as Whiteness on his Head and have changed his Judgment as well as his Hair We suppose here that no such thing appeareth in any of his other Writings How many Authors are there who have changed their Opinions and yet have not retracted what they had formerly written But suppose now that we should have lost that particular Tract wherein the Author had given Testimony of the changing of his Opinion what should we do in this cafe If Time should have deprived us of S. Augustine's Retractations and some other of his later Writings as it hath of an infinite number of other Pieces both of his and other of the Fathers which would have been of as great importance to us we must certainly have thought that he had believed that the Cause of Predestination is the Prescience or Foreseeing of the Faith of Men reading but what he saith in one of the Books which he first wrote namely That God hath not elected the Works of any Man according to his Prescience seeing that it is He himself that gives the same to a Man But that he hath elected his Faith by His Presâ—ience that is He hath elected those who He foresaw would believe his Word that is to say He made choice of them to bestow His Holy Spirit upon that so by doing Good Works they might attain everlasting Life Now would the Pelagians and Semipelagians have brought this Passage as an infallible Argument that S. Augustine was of their Opinion but that his Retractations and his other Books which were written afterwards in his later time clearly make it appear that this Argument is of no force at all forasmuch as this Learned Father having afterwards better considered of this Point wholly altered
true than doth the Faith of the Former depend upon a Cause which is not Infallible and consequently is Null Now these Different opinions are reconciled by saying that the Church accounting neither of these Beliefs as necessary to Faith a Man is not presently an Heretick for holding the False opinion of the two nor yet is he to be counted Orthodox meerly for holding the True one Seeing therefore that this Particular concerns the Communion of the Church and our Salvation also which dependeth thereon it will behove us to know certainly in what Degree the Ancients placed those Articles which are at this day so eagerly pressed upon the Protestants and whether they held them in the same or in a Higher or else in a Lower Degree of Necessity than they are now maintained by the Church of Rome For unless this be made very clear the Protestants though they should confess which yet they do not that the Fathers did indeed really believe the same might yet alledge for themselves that notwithstanding all this they are not bound to believe the same for as much as all opinions in Religion are not presently Obligatory and such as all Men are bound to believe seeing that there are some that are indeed necessary but some others that are not so They will answer likewise that these opinions are like to those at this day controverted betwixt the Dominicans and the Franciscans or to those other Points debated betwixt the Sorbonists and the Regulars wherein every one is permitted to hold what he pleaseth They will urge for themselves the Determination of the Council of Trent which in express terms distinguisheth betwixt the opinions of the Fathers where having thundred out an Anathema against all those that should maintain that the Administring of the Eucharist was necessary for little Infants they further declare that this Thunderbolt extended not to those Antient Fathers who gave the Communion to little Infants for as much as they maintained and practised this being moved thereunto upon Probable Reasons only and not accounting it necessary to Salvation Seeing therefore that some Errors which have been condemned by Councils may be maintained in such a certain Degree without incurring thereby the danger of their Thunderbolts by the same reason a Man may be ignorant of and even deny some Truths also without running the hazard of being Anathematized Who can assure us may the Protestants further add that the Articles which we reject are not of this kind and such as that though perhaps they may be true it is nevertheless lawful for us not to believe My opinion therefore is that there is no Man now that seeth not that it concerns the Doctors of the Roman Church if they mean to convince their Adversaries out of the Fathers first to make it appear unto them that the Antients held the said Points not only as True but as Necessary also and in the very same Degree of Necessity that they now hold them Now this must needs prove a business of most extream Difficulty and much greater here than in any of the other particulars before proposed And I shall alledge no other Argument for the proof of this than that very Decree we cited before where the Council of Trent hath declared that the Fathers did not Administer the Communion to Infants out of any opinion that it was necessary to Salvation but did it upon some other probable Reasons only For we have not only very good reason to doubt whether the Fathers held this opinion and followed this practice as probable only but it seemeth besides with all Reverence to that Council be it spoken to appear evidently enough out of their Writings that they did hold it as Necessary For do but hear the Fathers themselves and St. Augustine in the first place who saith That the Churches of Christ hold by an Antient and as I conceive saith he an Apostolical Tradition that without Baptism and the Communicating of the Lords Table no Man can come either into the Kingdom of God or unto Salvation or Eternal Life And afterwards having as he conceives proved this out of the Scriptures he addeth further Seeing therefore that no Man can hope either for Eternal Life or Salvation without Baptism and the Body and Blood of Christ thus doth he call the Sacrament of the Eucharist according to the language of his Time as hath been proved by so many Divine Testimonies in vain is it promised to Infants without the participating of these And some three Chapters before treating of those words of our Saviour in S. John Except you eat my Flesh and drink my Blood you can have no Life in you which words he understandeth both there an◠〈◊〉 where of the Communicating of the Eâ—charist he makes a long Discourse to prove that they extend as well to little Infants as to people of riper Ag◠〈◊〉 there any man saith he that dares affirm that thiâ— spâ—ech belongeth not to little 〈…〉 oâ— that they may have life in them without participating of this Body and of this Bloâ—d And this is this constant manner of speaking in eight or ten other Passages in his Works which are too long to be here inserted Pope Innocent I his Contemporany speaketh also after the same manner proving against the Pelagians that Baptism is Necessary for Infants to render them capable of Eternal Life for as much as without Baptism they cannot Communicate of the Eâ—charist which is necessary to Salvation S. Cyprian also long before them spake to the very same sense and this Maldonate affirmeth to have been the opinion of the six first Centuries These things considered we must needs think one of these two things following namely that either the Council of Trent by its Declaration hath made that which hath been to be as if it never had been which is a Power that the Poet Agathâ— in Aristotle would not allow to God himself or else that the Fathers of this Council either out of forgetfulness or otherwise mistook themselves in this account of theirs touching the opinion of the Ancient Church in this particular which in my judgment is the more favourable and the more probable Conceit of the two and if so I shall then desire no more For if these great Personages who were chosen with so much Care and Circumspection out of all parts of Christendom and sent to Trent to deliberate upon and determine a Business of the greatest Importance in the World and were directed by the Legats of so exquisite a Wisdom and digested their Decrees with a judgment so Ripe and slow-paced as that there is scarcely any one word in them but hath its Design if after all this I say these Men should be â—ound to have erred in this their Inquiry in affirming that the Fathers held only as Probable that which they evidently appear to have held as Necessary If Pope Pius VI. with his whole Consistory consisting of
we have a Synodical Epistle of Sophronius Patriarch of Jerusalem wherein as the usual Custom was he explaineth the Faith in a very large and particular manner and yet notwithstanding you shall no there meet with any of those Points which are now controverted amongst us Those that shall search more narrowly into the Business will be apt positively to conclude from this their silence that these Points were not at that time any part of the Belief of the Church and certainly this their way of Argumentation seems not to want Reason But as for my own particular it is sufficient for me that it confirmeth the Truth of my Assertion which is That it is if not an impossible yet at least a very hard thing to discover in what degree either of Necessity or Probability the Ancient Fathers held each of those Points which are now debated amongst us seeing that they appear not at all neither in the Expositions of their Faith nor yet in the Determinations of their Councils which are as it were the Catalogues of those Points which they accounted Necessary CHAP. IX Reason IX We ought to know what hath been the Opinion not of one or more of the Fathers but of the whole Ancient Church which is a very hard matter to be found out THose who make most account of the Writings of the Fathers and who urge them the oftnest in their Disputations do inform us That the weight of their Sayings in these Matters proceeds from hence that they are as so many Testimonies of the General Sense and Judgment of the Church to which alone these men attribute the Supreme Power of Judging in Controversies of Religion For if we should consider them severally each by himself and as they stand by their own strength onely they confess that they may chance to erre So that it will follow hence That to the end we may make use of the Testimonies of the Fathers it is not sufficient for us to know whether such or such Sayings be truly theirs and if so what the meaning of them is but we ought further also to be very well assured that they are conformable to the Belief of the Church in their time in like manner as in a Court of Judicature the Opinion of any single Person of the Bench is of no weight at all as to the passing of Judgment unless it be conformable to the Opinion of all the rest or at least of the Major Part of the Company And now see how we are fallen again into new Difficulties For whence and by what means may we learn whether the whole Church in the time of Justin Martyr or of S. Augustine or of S. Hierome maintained the same Opinions in every particular that these Men severally did or not I confess that the Charity of these Men was very great and that they very heartily and constantly embraced the Body and Substance of the Belief of the Church in all Particulars that they saw apparently to be such But where the Church did not at all deliver it self and expresly declare what its Sense was they could not possibly how great soever their desire of so doing might have been follow its Authority as the Rule of their Opinions Wheresoever therefore they treat of Points which were long since decided believed and received expresly and positively by the whole Christian Church either of their own Age or of any of the preceding Ages it is very probable that they did conform to what was believed by the Church so that in these Cases their Saying may very well pass for a Testimony of the Judgment and Sense of the Church it being very improbable that they could be either ignorant what was the Publick Doctrine of the Church or that knowing the same they would not follow it As for example when Athanasius S. Ambrose S. Hierome S. Augustine and others discourse touching the Son of God they speak nothing but what is conformable to the Belief of the Church in General because that the Belief of the Church had then been clearly and expresly delivered upon this Point so that whatsoever they say as to this Particular may safely be received as a Testimony of the Churches Belief And the like may be done in all the other Points which have either been positively determined in any of the General Councils or delivered in any of the Creeds or that any other way appeareth to have been the publick Belief of the Church If the Fathers had but contained themselves within these Bounds and had not taken liberty to treat of any thing save what the Church had clearly delivered its Judgment upon this Rule might then have been received as a General one and what opinion soever we found in them we might safely have concluded it to have been the Sense of the Church that was in their time But the curiosity of Mans Nature together with the Impudence of the Hereticks and the Tenderness of Conscience whether of their own or of others and divers other Reasons perhaps having partly made them willingly and partly forced and as it were constrained them to go on further and to proceed to the search of the Truth of several Points which had not as yet been established by the universal and publick Consent of all Christians it could not be avoided but that necessarily they must in these Inquiries make use of their own proper Light and must deliver upon the same their own private Opinions which the Church which came after them hath since either embraced or rejected I shall not here stand to prove this my Assertion since it is a thing that is confessed on all hands and whereof the Romanists make special use upon all occasions in answering several Objections brought against them out of the Fathers As for example where Cardinal Bellarmine excuseth the Error of Pope John XXII touching the state of the Departed Souls before the Resurrection by saying that the Church in his time had not as yet determined any thing touching this Particular And so likewise where he applies the same Plaister to that in his Judgment so unsound Opinion of Pope Nicolas I who maintained That Baptism administred in the Name of Jesus Christ onely without expressing the other Persons of the Holy Trinity was not withstanding valid and effectual This is a Point saith Bellarmine touching which we find not the Church to have determined any thing And how dangerous and almost Heretical soever the Opinion of those Men seem to him to be who hold That the Pope of Rome may fall into Heresie yet doth he permit Pope Adrian to hold the same not daring to rank him among the Hereticks because that the Church had not as yet clearly and definitively delivered it self touching this Point The same Bellarmine in another Controversie of great importance touching the Canonical Books of the Old Testament finding himself hardly put to it by his Adversaries urging against him the Authority of S. Hierome who casts
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
at this very day that we may not trouble our selves to look so high we see by experience that there is scarcely that Parish to be found how small soever it be where there are not particular Persons that maintain in many Points of Religion different Opinions from those of their Minister But if we take a whole Diocess together and pass by all those who trouble themselves not at all with the difference of Opinions in Religion whether it be by reason of their want of years or their weakness of Judgment or their malice and take notice only of the rest dividing them according to the difference of their Opinions I am verily perswaded that that part which shall agree in all Points with the Bishop of that Diocess will many times be found to be the least Let a Bishop preach or write what he will touching the Points which are now in Controversie he will very hardly represent unto you the Judgment of half the People of his Diocess Now we must conceive that the temper of the World of old was no other than what it is at this present day and therefore also for this very reason the liberty of embracing what Opinions a man pleased was much greater then than it is now forasmuch as the Church of Rome did not exercise its Power then throughout Christendom so Absolutely as it doth now adays neither did the Pastors or the Princes use that severity and rigour which is now every where practised in our days for the repressing this diversity of Opinions We must therefore necessarily believe that the Opinions of the Faithful were in those days altogether as different if not much more than they are now Whence it will also follow That even the Doctors themselves who lived in those Times could not know all the different Opinions of Men much less could they represent them unto us in their Writings But we shall not stand any longet upon a thing that no Man can deny us but shall rather proceed to the consideration of that which every one no doubt will be ready here to reply upon us touching this Particular namely That it is not necessary that we should know the Opinions in Points of Religion of all particular Persons which are almost infinite in number and for the most part very â—ill grounded and uncertain but that it is sufficient if we know what the Belief hath been of the Pastors and those that have been set over the Church that is to say of the Church taken in the latter sense But yet I confess I do not see that this Rule is so absolutely right as that we ought to walk by it For if we are to take the Church for the Rule and Foundation of our Faith as the Authors of this Reply pretend we ought to do the People in my Judgment ought not then to be here excluded and passed by as a thing of no consideration I confess the Opinions of particular Persons are very different one from the other and the knowledge of some of them is very mean and sometimes also is none at all But yet possibly this Reason may chance to exclude even a good part of the Clergy also from the Authority which they lay claim to in this Particular being it cannot be denied but that both Ignorance and Malice have oftentimes as great a share here proportionably as they have among the very People it self Who sees not that if we must have regard to the Capacity of Men there are sometimes found even among the plain ordinary sort of Christians in a Church those that are more considerable both for their Learning and Piety than the Pastors themselves One of those Fathers of whom we now discourse hath informed us That many times the Clergy have erred the Bishop hath wavered in his Opinion the Rich Men have adhered in their Judgment to the Earthly Princes of this World mean-while the People alone preserved the Faith entire Seeing therefore that it may sometimes happen and that it hath also many times hapned that the Clergy have held Erroneous Opinions while the People onely held the True it is very evident in my judgment that the Opinion of the People in these cases ought not wholly to be neglected And truly S. Cyprian telleth us in divers places That the Church in his time had the People in very great esteem no Business of any importance being then transacted without communicating the same to the People as may be seen by any one in the Epistles of this Father insomuch that The greatest part of the People also were present at the Council of Carthage where the Question touching the Baptism of Hereticks was debated whereof we have already spoken somewhat a little before But because this Point is still controverted I shall let it alone for this time Let us therefore grant since our Adversaries will needs have it so that it is sufficient in this case to know what the Belief was of the Church taken in the later and stricter sense that is to say of the Clergy for even this way it is evident enough that it is a very hard if not an impossible thing truly to discover what it hath been in each several Age. For there is no less diversity of Opinion among the Clergy than there is among the People and many times too there is much more the being conversant in Books ordinarily reducing things into nicer subtilties and giving occasion of raising divers Opinions upon the same Who is he that will undertake to give us an Account what the Opinion is of all the Clergy of one City onely I do not say of a Kingdom or of all Christendom touching all the Articles of Religion Who would be able to perform this if he should undertake it Never was there more exact care taken for the Conservation of Uniformity in Judgment among Christians than is now at this day when there is use made not only of the Censures and Thunderbolts of the Church but even of the Fire and the Sword of the Secular Powers also And yet notwithstanding all this how many Ecclesiastical Persons are there to be found even in those very places where these rigorous Courses are observed with the greatest strictness even at Rome it self and as it were in the Popes own Bosom who differ very much in Judgment touching Points of Religion both from their Equals and from their Superiours In France where by the Blessing of God the Liberty of Conscience is much greater than in other places it would be a wonder if where Four Clergy Men of the more Learned and Politer sort were met together Two of them should not upon some Point or other of the Faith differ in judgment from the Main Body of their Church And here I am to intreat all those who follow Cassander in great numbers adoring the Monuments of the Fathers and who take whatsoever they find in him for the General Sense of the Ancient Christians but to
turn their eyes back a little upon themselves and to consider how many opinions they themselves hold which are not only different but even quite contrary too to the Church in the Communion whereof they live and of which they profess themselves to be Members and by which indeed they subsist The Difference is here so great as that it seems to be as it were one State within another State and one Church within another Church And yet notwithstanding when any of the Doctors of that Party to which they adhere deliver unto us either in their Definitions or in their Sermons or in their Books the common Sense and Judgment of their Church this Intermixture of Opinions is quite laid aside and appears not at all They speak only of the opinions of others passing by those of Cassander which are contrary to them in silence as if they did not at all concern the Church of Rome neither more nor less and yet it is very well known unto us even to us who live at this very day that they are favoured and maintained by very many of the most Eminent Persons of the Roman Clergy it self And if this senseless Sect who forsooth think themselves much more refined in their opinions than the rest of the Body whereof they are a part should chance in time either to fail of it self or to be supprest by force their Memory would so utterly come to nought as that Posterity would not know any thing of their Belief but only by conjecture Every one will then believe that the Church of Rome at this time precisely held to the Doctrine and Opinions that he reads in the Decrees of Trent and in other the like Books and yet notwithstanding we both know and see that among those very Persons which have been Anointed Consecrated and Preferred also by the said Church there is a Party that dissenteth from it in judgment touching divers Important Articles of Faith Let us therefore reckon that the Ancient Church had also its Cassanders and very many even among the Clergy it self who held many opinions which were different from that which was the common Belief of the Church and which it hath at length by little and little sunk as it were under water and wholly swallowed up so that now there is not any Tract of them left us Christianity was either different in the Ancient times from what it is now or else it was the same If it was Different it is then a Piece of meer Sophistry to endeavour to make it seem to be the same and a very great Abuse to produce unto us for this purpose so many several Testimonies out of Antiquity If it were the same it must then without all doubt have produced the same Accidents and have sown the same seeds of diversity of opinions in the spirits of its Clergy Those opinions and observations which now give offence to the Cassandrists would then also have offended some persons or other that were endued with the like Moderation For we are not to conceive but that those First Ages of Christianity brought forth Spirits that were as much and more refined and delicate than ours have done But that we may insist upon this particular no longer it is sufficient for me that I have thus clearly made it appear that in the Ancient Church the whole Clergy of a City or of a Nation much less of the whole World had not necessarily one and the same sense and opinion touching Points of Religion So that it will follow from hence that we cannot know certainly whether those opinions which we meet withal in the Fathers were received by all and every of the Pastors of the Church at that time or not All that you can gather thence is but this at the most that they themselves and some others perhaps of the most eminent amongst them if you please maintained such or such opinions in like manner as that which Bellarmine and others have written touching the Sacrament of the Eucharist will inform Posterity that these Men and many others of our time held these opinions in the Church of Rome But as those who shall conclude from the Books of these Authors that there is at this day no other opinion maintained among the Clergy themselves of the Church of Rome touching this Particular would very much abuse themselves so is it much to be feared that we in like manner deceive our selves when from what we find in Two or Three of the Fathers we conclude that there was at that time no other opinion held in the Christian Church touching those Points whereof they treat save that which they have delivered It is a very hazardous business to take Eight or Ten Men how Holy and Learned soever they may have been as Sureties for all the Doctors of the Church Universal that lived in their Age. This is too little Security for so great a Sum. Now there are Two things which may be objected against that which we have before delivered The First is that if there had been in Antiquity any other opinions touching the Points now in Debate which had been different from those which we now meet with in the Books either of all the Fathers or at least of some few of them they would then both have mentioned and also refuted them But we have already heretofore answered this Objection by saying that the Fathers forbare to speak any thing of this Diversity of opinion partly out of Prudence lest otherwise they might have provoked the Authors of the said opinions which were contrary to their own and so might increase the Difference instead of appeasing it and partly also out of Charity mildly bearing with that which they accounted not any whit dangerous I only speak here of those Differences in opinion which they knew of for there might be a great number of others which they knew not of Who can oblige you to believe that a Monk for example that had retired into a Corner and as it were forsaken the World professing only to instruct a small number of Men and Women in the Rules of Devotion must needs have known what the opinions in Points of Religion of all the Prelates of his Age were Who will pass his word unto us in his behalf that he doth not sometimes reprove that in some Men which yet the Church allowed in an infinite number of others Who will warrant us that all Christendom in his time embraced all his opinions and had no other of their own Possevine answering an Objection made by some touching the Works of Dionysius the Areopagite which S. Hierome hath made no mention of at all saith that it is no great marvel that a Man that lay hid in a Corner of the World should not have seen this Book which the Arrians endeavoured to suppress May not a Man with as much reason say that it is no great wonder if S. Hierome or Epiphanius or any other the like Authors who were
taken up all of them with their particular Charges and Imployments did not know of some opinions of the Prelates of their Age or that either their Modesty or their Charity or the little Eloquence and Repute they had abroad might have made them conceal the same The other Objection is drawn from hence because that these Doctors of the Ancient Church who held some opinions different from those which we read at this day in the Fathers did not publish them at all But I answer first of all that every Man is not able to do so In the next place those that were able were not always willing to do so Divers other Considerations may perhaps also have hindred them from so doing and if they are Wise and Pious Men they are never moved till they needs must And hence it is that oftentimes those opinions which have less truth in them do yet prevail because that Prudence which maintains the True Opinion is Mild and Patient whereas Rashness which defends the False is of a Froward Eager and Ambitious Nature But now let us but imagine how many of the Evidences of this Diversity of opinion may have been made away by those several ways before represented by us as namely having been either devoured by Time or suppressed by Malitious Men for fear lest they should let the World see the Traces of the Truth which they would have concealed But that I may not be thought to bring here only bare Conjectures without any proof at all I shall produce some Examples also for the confirming and clearing of this my Assertion Epiphanius maintains against Aerius whom he ranks among his Haeresiarchae or Arch Hereticks that a Bishop according to the Apostle Saint Paul and the Original Institution of the thing it self is more than a Priest and this he endeavours to prove in many words answering all the Objections that are made to the contrary If you but read the Passage I am confident that when you had done you would not stick to swear that what he hath there delivered was the general opinion of all the Doctors of the Church it being very unlikely that so Great and so Renowned a Prelate would so slatly have denied the opinion which he disputed against if so be any one of his own familiar friends had also maintained the same And yet for all this Saint Hierome who was one of the Principal Lights of our Western Church and who lived at the same time with Epiphanius who was his intimate Friend and a great admirer of his Piety saith expresly that Among the Ancients Bishops and Priests were the same the one being a name of Dignity and the other of Age. And that it may not be thought that this fell from him in discourse only he there falls to proving the same at large alledging several Passages of Scripture touching this Particular and he also repeats the same thing in two or three several places of his Works Whereby it evidently appears that even Positions which have been quite Contradictory to the opinions which have been delivered and maintained by some of the Fathers and proposed in what terms soever have notwithstanding been sometimes either maintained or at least tolerated by some others of 〈◊〉 less Authority S. Hierome himself hath â—alâ— extreamly foul upon Ruffinus and hath traduced divers of his opinions as most Pernicious and Deadly and yet notwithstanding we do not any where find that ever he was accounted as an Heretick by the rest of the Fathers But we shall have occasion hereafter to consider more at large of the like Examples and shall only at present observe that if those Books of S. Hierome which we mentioned a little before should chance to have been lost every Man would then assuredly have concluded with Epiphanius that no Doctor of the Ancient Church ever held that a Bishop and a Priest were one and the same thing in its Institution Who now after all this will assure us that among so many other opinions as have been rejected here and there by the Fathers and that too in as plain terms as these of Epiphanius none of them have ever been defended by some of the Learned of those times Or is it not possible that they may have held them though they did not write in defence of the same Or may they not perhaps have written also in deâ—ence of them and their Books have been since lost How small is the number of those in the Church who had the Ability or at least the 〈◊〉 to write And how much smaller is the number of thoâ—â— whose Wriâ—ings have been able to secure themselves against either the Injury of Time or the Malice of Men It is objâ—cted against the Protestants as we have touched before that S. Hierome commendeth and maintaineth the Adoration of Reliques But yet he himself testifieth that there were some Bishops who defended Vigilantius who held the contrary opinion whom he according to his ordinary Rhetorick calleth His Consorts in Wickedness Who knows now what these Bishops were and whether they deserved any such usage at S. Hieromes hands or no For the Expressions which he useth against them and against their opinion are so full of Gall and of Choler as that they utterly take away all credit from his Testimony But we have insisted long enough upon this Particular and shall therefore forbear to instance any further in others For as much therefore as it is Impossible to discover exactly out of the Fathers what hath been the sense and judgment of the Ancient Church whether taken Universally or Particularly or whether you take the Church for the whole Body of Believers or for the Prelates and Inseriour Clergy only I shall here conclude as formerly that the Writings of the Ancients are altogether Insufficient for the proving the Truth of any of those Points which are at this day controverted amongst Us. THE SECOND BOOK CHAP. I. That the Fathers are not of sufficient Authority for the Deciding of our Controversies in Religion Reason I. That the Testimonies given by the Fathers touching the Belief of the Church are not always True and Certain WE have before shewed how hard a matter it is to discover what the Sense of the Fathers hath been touching the Points at this day controverted in Religion both by reason of the small number of Books we have left us of the Fathers of the First Centuries and those too which we have treating of such things as are of a very different nature from our present Disputes and which besides we cannot be very well assured of by reason of the many Forgeries and monstrous Corruptions which they have for so long a time been subject to as also by reason of their Obscurity and Ambiguity in their Expressions and their representing unto us many times the Opinions rather of others than of their Authors besides those many other Imperfections which are found in them as namely their not informing us in
what degree of Faith we are to hold each particular Point of Doctrine and their leaving us in doubt whether what they teach be the Judgment of the Church or their own private Opinion onely and whether if it be the Judgment of the Church it be of the Church Universal or of some Particular Church only Now the least of these Objections is sufficient to render their Testimony invalid And again on the other side that it may be of force it is necessary that it be clearly and evidently free from all these Defects forasmuch as the Question is here touching the Christian Faith which ought to be grounded on nothing save what is sure and firm Whosoever therefore would make use of any Passage out of a Father he is bound first to make it appear that the Author out of whom he citeth the said Passage lived and wrote in the first Ages of Christianity and besides that the said Person is certainly known to be the Author of that Book out of which the said Passage is quoted and moreover that the Passage cited is sincere and no way corrupted nor altered and likewise that the Sense which he gives of it is the true genuine Sense of the Place and also that it was the Opinion of the Author when he was now come to Riponâ—â—s of Judgment and which he changed not or retrâ—cted afterwards He must also make it appear in what degree he held it and whether he maintained it as his own private Opinion onely or as the Opinion of the Church and lastly whether it were the Opinion of the Church Universal or of some particular Church onely which Inquiry is a Business of so vast and almost infinite labour that it makes me very much doubt whether or no we can be ever able to attain to a full and certain assurance what the Real Positive Sense of the Ancients hath been touching the whole Body of Controversies now debated in this our Age. Hence therefore our principal Question seems to be decided namely Whether the alledging of the Fathers be a sufficient and proper Means for the demonstrating the Truth of all those Articles which are at this day maintained by the Church of Rome and rejected by the Protestants or not For who doth not now see that this kind of proof hath as much or more difficulty in it than the Question it self and that such Testimonies are as Obscure as the Controverted Opinions themselves Notwithstanding that we may not be thought too hastily and upon too light grounds to reject this way of Proceeding we will pass by all that obscurity that is found touching the Opinions of the Ancients and supposing it to be no hard matter to discover what the Opinion and Sense of the Fathers hath been touching the aforesaid Points we will now in this Second Book consider whether or no their Authority be such as that we ought or may without further examination believe on their score what we know them certainly to have believed and to hold it in the same degree that they did There are two sorts of Passages to be observed in the Writings of the Fathers In the one you have them speaking only as Witnesses and testifying what the Belief of the Church was in their Time In the other they propose to you like Doctors their own Private Opinions Now there is a World of difference betwixt these two things For in a Witness there is required only Faithfulness and Truth but in a Doctor Learning and Knowledge The one perswadeth us by the opinion we have of his Veracity the other by the strength of his Arguments The Fathers are Witnesses onely when they barely tell us That the Church in their Times held such or such Opinions And they are then Doctors when getting up as it were into the Chair they propose unto us their own Opinions making them good either out of the Scripture or out of Reason Now as concerning the Testimonies that they give touching the Faith held by the Church in their time I know not whether we ought to receive all they bring for certain Truths or not But this I am sure of that though they should deserve to be received by us for such yet nevertheless would they stand us in very little stead as to the Business now in hand The Reason which moveth me to doubt of the former of these is because I observe that those very Men who are the greatest Admirers of the Fathers do yet confess that although they erre very little or not at all in matter of Right yet nevertheless they are often out and have their failings in matter of Fact because that Right is an Universal thing which is every way Uniform and all of one sort whereas matter of Fact is a thing which is mixed and as it were enchased with divers particular Circumstances which may very easily escape the knowledge of or at least be not so rightly understood by the most clear and piercing Wits Now the condition of the Churches Belief in every particular Age is matter of Fact and not of Right and a Point of History and not an Article of Faith So that it followeth hence that possibly the Fathers may have erred in giving us an account hereof and that therefore their Testimonies in such Cases ought not to be received by us as infallibly True Neither yet may we be thought hereby to accuse the Fathers of Falshood For how often do the honestest Persons that are innocently testifie such things as they thought they had seen which it afterwards appeareth that they saw not at all for Goodness renders not Men infallible The Fathers therefore being but Men might both be deceived themselves in such things and might consequently also deceive those who have confided in them though innocently and without any design of doing so But besides all this it is very evident that they have not been wholly free from Passion neither and there is no Man but knows that Passion very oâ—ten disguiseth things and maâ—â—â—h them appear even to the honestest Men that may be much otherwise than they are insomuch that sometimes they are affectionately carried away with one Opinion and do as much abhor another Which secret Passion might easily make them believe that the Church held that Opinion which they themselves were most taken with and that it rejected that which they themselves disliked especially if there were but the least appearance or shadow of Reason to incline them to this Belief For Men are very easily perswaded to believe what they desire I conceive we may hereto impute that Testimony of S. Hierome where he affirms That the Churches of Christ held That the Souls of Men were immediately Created by God at the instant of their entrance into the Body And yet notwithstanding that doubt which S. Augustine was in touching this Particular and his inclining manifestly to the contrary Opinion which was That the Soul was propagated together with the Body and descended down
Castro and Melchior Canus Two Spanish Doctors For as much therefore as we are not bound to believe any thing save that which is True it is most evident that we neither may nor ought to believe the Opinions of the Fathers till such time as they appear to us to have been certainly True Now we cannot be certainly assured of this by Their Single Authority seeing that they were but Men who were not always inspired by the Holy Spirit from above and therefore it is necessary that we make use of some other Guides in this our Inquiry namely either of the Holy Scriptures or of Reason or of Tradition or of the Doctrine of the Present Church or of some other such means as they themselves have made use of So that it hence follows that their bare Assertions are no sufficient Ground for us to build any of our Opinions upon they only serve to encline us before hand to the Belief of the same the great opinion which we have of them causing us to conclude that They would never have embraced such an Opinion except it had been True Which manner of Argumentation how ever is at the best but Probable so long as the Persons we have here to do withal are only Men and no more and in this particular Case where the Question is touching Points of Faith it is by no means in the world to be allowed of since that Faith is to be grounded not upon Probabilities but upon necessary Truths The Fathers are like to other great Masters in this Point and their Opinions are more or less Valid in proportion to the Reason and Authority whereon they are grounded only they have this Advantage that their very Name begets in us a readiness and inclination to receive whatsoever comes from them while we think it very improbable that so Excellent men as they were should ever believe any thing that was False Thus in Humane Sciences the saying of an Aristotle is of a far different Value from that of any other Philosopher of less Account because that all men are before-hand possessed with an Opinion that this Great Philosopher would not maintain any thing that was not consonant to Reason But this is Prejudice only for if upon better examination it should be found to be otherwise his Bare Authority would then no longer prevail with us what himself had sometime gallantly said would then here take place namely That it is a sacred thing always to preferre the Truth before Friendship Let the Fathers therefore if you please be the Aristotles in Christian Philosophy and let us have a Reverent esteem of Them and their Writings as they deserve and not be too rash in concluding that Persons of so eminent both Learning and Sanctity should maintain any Erroneous or vain Opinions especially in a matter of so great Importance Yet notwithstanding are we bound withal to remember that they were but Men and that their Memory Understanding or Judgment might sometimes fail them and therefore consequently that we are to examine their Writings by those Principles from whence they draw their Conclusions and not to sit down upon their Bare Assertions till such time as we have discovered them to be True If I were to speak of any other Persons than of the Fathers I should not add any thing more to what hath been already said it having been already in my judgment clearly enough proved that they are not of themselves of Authority enough to oblige us necessarily to follow their Opinions But seeing the Question here is touching these great Names which are so highly honoured in the Church to the end that no man may accuse us of endeavouring to rob them of any of the Respect which is due unto them I hold it necessary to examine this business a little more exactly and to make it appear by considering the thing it self that they are of no more Authority neither in Themselves nor in respect of Us than hath been already by Us attributed unto them CHAP. II. Reason 2. That the Fathers themselves testifie against themselves that they are not to be believed Absolutely and upon their Own bare Word in what they deliver in matters of Religion THere is none so fit to inform us what the Authority of the Writings of the Ancients is as the Ancients themselves who in all Reason must needs know this better than we Let us therefore now hear what they testifie in this Particular and if we do indeed hold them in so high Esteem as we make profession of let us allow of their Judgment in this particular attributing neither more nor less unto the Ancients than they Themselves require at our hands St. Augustine who was the Principal Light of the Latine Church being entred into a Contestation with St. Hierome touching the Interpretation before-mentioned of the second Chapter of the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Galatians and finding himself hardly pressed by the Authority of six or seven Greek Writers which were urged against him by the other to rid his hands of them he was fain to make open profession in what account he held that sort of Writers I confess saith he to thy Charity that I only owe to those Books of Scripture which are now called Canonical that Reverence and Honour as to believe stedfastly that none of their Authors ever committed any Error in writing the same And if by chance I there meet with any thing which seemeth to contradict the Truth I presently think that certainly either my Copy is Imperfect and not so Correct as it should be or else that the Interpreter did not so well understand the Words of the Original or lastly that I my self have not so rightly understood Him But as for all other Writers how Eminent soever they are either for Sanctity or Learning I read them so as not presently to conclude whatsoever I there find to be True because They have said it but rather because they convince me either out of the said Canonical Books of Scripture or else by some Probable Reason that what they say is True Neither do I think Brother that thou thy self art of any other Opinion that is to say I do not believe that thou expectest that we should read thy Books as we do those of the Prophets or Apostles of the Truth of whose Writings as being exempt from all Errour we may not in any wise doubt And having afterwards opposed some other the like Authorities against those alledged by St. Hierome he addeth That he had done so notwithstanding that to say the truth he accounted the Canonical Scriptures only to be the Books to which as he said before he owed that ingenuous Duty as to be fully perswaded that the Authors of them never erred or deceived the Reader in any thing This Holy man accounted this Advice to be of so great Importance as that he thought fit to repeat it again in another place and I must intreat my Reader
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
so charitable Admonition we should still believe all they say without examining any thing I take it for a Favour saith S. Ambrose when any one that readeth my Writings giveth me an account of what Doubts he there meeteth withal First of all because I may be deceived in those very things which I know And besides many things escape us and some things sound otherwise to some than perhaps they do to me I shall further here desire the Reader to take notice how careful the Ancients were in advising those who lived in their own time to take a strict Examination of their Words As for example where Origen adviseth That his Auditors should prove whatsoever he delivered and that they should be attentive and receive the Grace of the Spirit from whom proceedeth the discerning of Spirits that so as good Bankers they might diligently observe when their Pastor deceiveth them and when he preacheth unto them that which is Pious and True Cyrill likewise in his Fourth Catechesis hath these Words Believe me not saith he in whatsoever I shall simply deliver unless thou find the things which I shall speak demonstrated out of the Holy Scriptures For the Conservation and Establishment of our Faith is not grounded upon the Eloquence of Language but rather upon the Proofs that are brought out of the Divine Scriptures If therefore they would not have those who heard them speak vivâ voce to believe them in any thing unless they had demonstrated the Truth of it out of the Scriptures how much less would they have us now receive without this Demonstration those Opinions which we meet with in their Books which are not onely mute but corrupted also and altered so much and so many several ways as we have formerly shewed Certainly when I see these Holy men on one side crying out unto us that they are Men subject to Errours and that therefore we ought to consider and examine what they deliver and not take it all for Oracle and then on the other side set before my eyes these Worthy Maxims of the Ages following to wit That their Doctrine is the Law of the Church Vniversal and That we are bound to follow it not only according to the sense but according to the Bare Words also and that we are bound to hold all that they have written even to the lest tittle This representation I say makes me call to mind the History of Paul and Barnabas to whom the Lycaonians would needs render Divine Honour notwithstanding all the resistance these Holy men were able to make who could not forbear to rend their garments through the Indignation they were filled with to see that service paid to themselves which was due to the Divine Majesty alone running in amongst them and crying out aloud Sirs why do ye these things We also are Men of like passions with you For seeing that there is none but God whose word is certainly and necessarily True and seeing that on the other side the Word whereon we ground and build our Faith ought to be such who seeth not that it is all one as to invest Man with the Glory which is due to God alone and to place him in a manner in his Seat if we make His Word the Rule and Foundation of our Faith and the Judge of our Differences concerning It I am therefore stedfastly of this Opinion that if these Holy men could now behold from their blessed Mansions where they now live in bliss on high with their Lord and Saviour what things are acted here below they would be very much offended with this False Honour which men confer upon them much against their Wills and would take it as a very great injury offer'd them seeing that they cannot receive this Honour but to the Prejudice and Diminution of the Glory of their Redeemer whom they love a thousand times more than Themselves Or if from out their Sepulchres where the Reliques of their Mortality are now laid up they could but make us hear their sacred voice they would I am very confident most sharply reprove us for this Abuse and would cry out in the words of S. Paul Sirs why do ye these things We also were Men of like Passions with you But yet what need is there either of ransacking their Sepulchers and disturbing their Sacred Ashes or of calling down their Spirits from Heaven seeing that their voice resoundeth loud enough and is heard so plainly in these very Books of theirs which we so imprudently place in that seat which is only due to the Word of God We have heard what the Judgment was of S. Augustine and of S. Hierome the two most eminent Persons in the Western Church touching this Particular let us not then be all afraid having such examples to follow to speak freely our Opinions But now before we go any further I conceive it will be necessary that we answer an Objection that may be brought against us which is that Athanasius S. Cyrill and S. Augustine himself also often times cite the Fathers Besides what some have observed that the Fathers seldom entered into these Lists but when they were provoked by their Adversaries I add further that when we maintain that the Authority of the Fathers is not a sufficient Medium to prove an Article of Faith by we do not thereby presently forbid either the reading or the citing of them The Fathers often quote the Writings of the Learned Heathens the Oracles of the Sibylls and Passages out of the Apocryphal Books Did they therefore think that theâ—e Books were of sufficient Authority to ground an Article of Faith upon God forbid we should entertain so ill an Opinion of them Their Faith was grounded upon the Word of God But yet to evidence the Truth more fully they searched into Humane Records and by this Inquiry made it appear that the Light of the Truth revealed unto Them had in some degree shot its beams also even into the Schools of Men how Close and Shady soever they had been But if they should have produced no other but Humane Authority they would never have been able to have brought over any one person to the Faith But after they had received by Divine Revelation the Matter of our Faith it was very wisely done of them in the next place to prove not the Truth but the Clearness of It by these little Sparks which shot forth their light in the Spirits of Men. And for some the like Reason did S. Augustine Athanasius Cyrill and many other of them make use of Allegations out of the Fathers For after that each of these had grounded upon the Authority of Divine Revelation the Necessity and Efficacy of Grace the Consubstantiality of the Son with the Father and the Union of the Two Natures in Christ they then fell to producing of several Passages out of those Learned Men who had lived before Them to let men see that this Truth was so clear in
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
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
Salvation because I conceive with Cassander that all those Passages may and indeed ought to be understood with respect had to the scope and drift of these Authors whose Business there was to confute those Hereticks of Their time who maintained That there was a Fatal Necessity in the Actions of Men by this means depriving them of all manner of Election or Judgment Neither hath the great Learning of Clemens Alexandrinus kept him from falling inâ—o very many the like Errors as for instance where in divers places he says plainly That the Heathen who lived before the coming of our Saviour Christ were justified by Philosophy which was then Necessary for them whereas it is now only Vseful unto them and that this Philosophy was thoâ—â— choolmister of â—he Gentiles which brought them to Christ or served to guide them till the time of his Coming in like manner as the Law did the Jews and that the Greeks were justified by iâ— aloneâ— and that it was given unto them as their Covenant being a step to and as it were a Foundation laid for Christian Philosophy He was of Opinion also in order to this That our Saviour went down into Hell to preach the Gospel to the Departed Souls and that he saved many of them that is all that believed And that the Apostles also after their Death descended likewise into the same place and for the same purpose Conceiving that God otherwise should have been Unjust and an Accepter of Persons if so be he should have condemned all those who died before the Coming of his Son For saith he if He preached to the Living to the end they might not be condemned Vnjustly why should â—e not for the same Reason preach also to those who were departed this Life before his Coming From these and the like Considerations he concludeth That it was necessary that the Souls of all the Dead as well Gentiles as Jews should have been made Partakers of the Preaching of our Saviour and should have had the Beâ—â—fit of the same Dispensation which he used towards others here upon Earth in order either to their Salvation through Repentance or their just Condemnation for their Impenitency He plainly maintains also in several places of his Works That all the Punishments which God inflicts upon Mâ—n tend to their Salvation and are sent them for their Instiuction and Amendment comprehending also within this number even those very Pains which the Damned endure in Hell and from hence it is that he somewhere also affirmeth That wicked Men are to be purged by Fire And hereto doth he refer the Conflagration spoken of by the Stoicks alledging also to this purpose certain Passages out of Plato and out of a certain Philosopher of Ephesus which I conceive to be Heraclitus by all which it clearly appears that he had the same Belief touching the Pains of Hell that his Scholar Origen had who maintains in an infinite number of places up and down his Works That the Pains of Hell are Purgative only and consequently are not Eternal but are to have an end when the Souls of the Damned are once throughly Cleansed and Purified by this Fire He believes also with Justin Martyr That the Angels fell in love with the First Women and that this Love of theirs transported them so far as to make them indiscreetly to discover unto them many Secrets which they ought to have concealed But now quite contrary to Irenaeus who maintains That our Saviour Christ lived upon Earth to the Age of Fifty years Clemens will have him to have Preached in the Flesh but one year onely and to have died in the Thirty first year of his Age. But since it is confessed by both Parties That there are very many absurd Tenets in this Author I shall not meddle any further with him As for Tertullian I confess his very turning Montanist hath taken off indeed very much of the repute which he before had in the Church both for the Fervency of his Pâ—ety and also for his Incomparable Learning But yet besides that a great part of his Works were written while he was yet a Catholick we are also to take notice that this his Montanism put no separation at all betwixt him and other Christians save only in point of Discipline which he according to the Severity of his Nature would have to be most Harsh and Rigorous For as for his Doctrine it is very evident that he constantly kept to the very same Rule and the same Faith that the Catholicks did whence proceeded that tart Speech of his That People rejected Montanus Maximilla and Priscilla not because they had any whit departed from the Rule of Faith but rather because they would have us to Fast oftner than to Marry And this is evident enough out of all those Books which were written by him during the time of his being a Montanist wherein he never disputeth or contendeth about any thing save onely about Discipline And this is ingenuously confessed also by the Learned Nicalaus Rigaltius in his Preface to those IX Books which he hath lately published Now notwithstanding the great Repute which this Father had in the Church and his not departing from it in any thing in Point of Faith yet how many Wild Opinions and Fancies do we meet withal in his Books I shall here speak onely of some of the principal of them passing by his so Dangerous Expressions touching the Person of the Son of God as having touched upon this Particular before But how strange is his manner of Discourse touching the Nature of God whom he seems to render subject to the like Passions that we are as namely to Anger Hatred and Grief He attributes also to him a Corporeal Substance and does not believe as he saith himself that any man will deny but that God is a Body So that we need the less to wonder that he so confidently affirms That there is no Substance which is not Corporeal or that with Justin Martyr and Clemens Alexandrinus he makes the Angelical Nature obnoxious to the Carnal Love of Women which occasioned those words in that Book of his De Virginibus velandis where he says That it is necessary that so dangerous a Face should be veiled which had scandalized even Heaven it self We need no after this think strange of his Doctrine touching the Nature of Mans Soul which he will have to be Corporeal and endued with Form and Figure and to be propagated and derived from the Substance of the Father to the Body of the Son and sowed and engendred with the Body increasing and extending it self together with it and many other the like Dreams in the maintaining whereof he useth so much Subtilty strength of Reason and Eloquence as that you will hardly meet with throughout the whole Stock of Antiquity a more Excellent and more Elegant Piece than that
piece of Labour in hand if he should go about to win the Franciscan Friers over to this Belief S. Ambrose one of the most Firm Pillars of the Church in his Time is not yet free from the like Failings no more than the rest For first of all he agrees with S. Hilary in this last Point and maintains That All in General shall be proved by Fire at the Last Day and that the Just shall pass through it but that theVnbelievers shall continue in it After the end of the World saith he the Angels being sent forth to sever the Good from the Bad shall that Baptism be performed when all Iniquity shall be consumed in a Furnace of Fire that so the Just may shine like the Sun in the Kingdom of God their Father And although though a Man be such a one as Peter or as John yet nevertheless shall he be Baptized with this Fire For the Great Baptizer shall come for so I call Him as the Angel Gabriel did saying He shall be Great and shall see a multitude of People standing before the Gate of Paradise and shall brandish the fiery Sword and shall say unto those who are on his Right Hand who are not guilty of any grievous Sins Enter ye in c. He says the same in another place also where he exempteth none from this Fiery Trial save onely our Saviour Christ alone It is Necessary saith he that All that desire to return into Paradise should be proved by this Fire For it is not without some Mystery that it is written That God having driven Adam and Eve out of Paradise He is said to place at the Entrance of Paradise a Flaming Sword which turned every way All must pass through the Flames whether it be John the Evangelist whom our Saviour loved so much that He said concerning him to Peter c. Or whether it be Peter himself who had the Keys of Heaven committed unto him and who walked upon the Sea He must be able to say We have passed through the Fire c. But as for S. John this Brandishing of the Flaming Sword will soon be dispatched for him because there is no Iniquity found in him who was so beloved of the Truth c. But the other that is Peter shall be tried as Silver is and I shall be tried like Lead I shall burn till all the Lead is quite melted down and if there be no Silver at all found in me wretched Man that I am I shall be cost into the lowest Pit of Hell As for the Resurrection of the Dead his Opinion is That All shall not be raised at once but by degrees one after another by a Long yet Certain Order those who were Believers rising first according to the degrees of their Merits Whereto we are to refer that which he hath elsewhere delivered saying That Those who are raised up in the First Resurrection shall come to Grace without Judgment but as for the rest who are reserved for the Second Resurrection they shall burn with Fire till they have fulfilled the full space of time betwixt the First and the Second Resurrection or if they do not finish this time they shall continue very long in their Torments I shall leave to the Reader to take the pains in examining whether or no that Passage of his can be reconciled to any good sense where he says That before the Publication of the Law of Moses Adultery was not an unlawful thing We are to take notice in the first place saith he that Abraham living before the giving of the Law by Moses and before the Gospel in all Probability Adultery was not as yet forbidden the Crime is punished after the time of the Law made which forbiddeth it for things are not condemned before the Law but by the Law and whether those Discourses of his which you meet with in his Books De Instit Virg. ad Virg. de Virg. and in other places do not much disgrace and cast Slurs upon the Honour of Marriage I shall also leave to the Consideration of the Judicious Reader whether there be more of Solidity or of Subtilty in that Exposition which he gives us of the Promise made by God to Noah after the Flood telling him That he had set his Bow in the Clouds to be a Token of a Covenant betwixt him and the whole Earth upon which words S. Ambrose utterly and fiercely denies that by this Bow is meant the Rain-bow but will have it to be I know not what strange Allegorical Bow Far be it from us saith he that we should call This God's Bow for This Bow which is called Iris the Rain bow is seen indeed in the Day time but never appears at all in the Night And therefore he understands by this Bow the Invisible Power of God by which He keepeth all things in one certain Measure enlarging and abating it as he sees cause Neither do I know whether that Opinion of his which you have in his First Book De Spiritu Sancto is any whit more justifiable where he affirms That Baptism is avialable and Legitimate although a Man should Baptize in the Name either of the Son or of the Holy Ghost onely without mentioning the other two Persons of the Trinity Epiphanius as he was a Man of a very good honest and plain Nature and if I may have leave to speak my own Opinion a little too Credulous and withal very eager and fierce in maintaining whatsoever he thought was Right and True so hath he the more easily been induced both to deliver and to receive things for Solid which yet were not so and to stand stifly in the defending of them after he had once embraced the same It would take up both too much time and Paper if I should go about to give you a List of all those things wherein he hath failed if you please you may have an Account of a good number of them in the Notes of the Jesuite Petavius his Interpreter who makes bold to correct him many times and sometimes also very uncivilly too As first of all he accuseth him of Obscurity and of Falshood also in the Opinion he held touching the Year and Day of our Saviour's Nativity saying that some of his Expressions touching this Point are more Obscure and Dark than the Riddles of Sphinx And truly he hath reason enough to say so of what he hath delivered touching the Year of our Saviours Nativity but as for the Day of that Year whether it were the Sixth of January as Epiphanius held with the Church of Egypt or else whether it were the Twenty fifth of December which is the General Opinion at this day I think it very great rashness for any Man to affirm either the one or the other neither of these Opinions having any better Ground the one than the other He likewise in plain terms gives him the Lie upon that place
find that the very same Error was defended by several Doctors of very great Repute in the Church S. Hierome who in divers places of his Commentaries hath excellently and solidly refuted this foolish Fancy says That many among the Learned Christians had maintained the same and to those whom we have already mentioned He addeth Lactantius Victorinus Severus and Apollinaris who is followed in this Point saith he in another place by great multitudes of Christians about us insomuch that I already foresee and presage to my self how many folks anger I shall incur hereby namely because he every where spoke against this Opinion Whence it plainly appears that in his time that is to say about the beginning of the Fifth Century it was still in great request in the Church And indeed how fierce soever he seem to be in his Onset yet he dares not condemn this Opinion absolutely Although we embrace not this Opinion saith he yet can we not condemn it for as much as there have been divers Eminent Personages and Martyrs in the Church who have maintained the same Let every man abound in his own sense and let us leave the judgment of all things to God Whence you see as we may observe by the way that the Fathers have not always held an Opinion in the same degree that we do For St. Hierome conceived this to be a Pardonable Errour which yet we at this day will not endure to hear of If it be here answered that the Church in the Ages following condemned this Opinion as erroneous this is no more than to say that the Churches in the Ages following acknowledged that the joynt Consent of many Fathers together touching one and the same Opinion is no solid Proof of the Truth of the same If Dionysius Alexandrinus had been of any other judgment he would never have written against Irenaeus as he did as St. Hierome also testifieth in one of his Books of Commentaries before cited And if we are to have regard to Authority only the Judgment of the succeeding Church cannot then serve us as a certain Guide in this Question to inform us on which side the Truth is For to alledge it in this Case were rather to oppose one Authority against another than to decide the Controversie As Dionysius Alexandrinus St. Hierome Gregory Nazianzene and others conceived not themselves bound to submit to the Authority of Justin Martyr Irenaeus Lactantius Victorinus Severus and others so neither are we any more bound to submit to theirs For their Posterity oweth them no more Respect than they themselves owed to their Ancestors It seemeth rather that in Reason they should owe them less because that look how far distant in time they are from the Apostles who are as it were the Spring and Original of all Ecclesiastical Authority so much doth the Credit and Authority of the Doctors of the Church lose and grow less If Antiquity as we would have it be the Mark of Truth then certainly that which is the most Ancient is also the most Venerable and the most Considerable And if there were no other Argument but this against the Authority of many Fathers unanimously consenting in any Opinion yet would it clearly serve to lessen the same but there are yet behind many others some whereof we shall here produce We have heard before Justin Martyr Irenaeus Tertullian and St. Augustine affirming all of them that Heaven shall not be opened till the Day of Judgment and that during this space of time the Souls of all the Faithful are shut up in some subterraneous place except some small number of those who had the Priviledge of going immediately to Heaven The Author of those Questions and Answers that go under the name of Justin Martyr maintains the same Opinion as you may see in the Answers to the LX and LXXIV Questions And that I may not unprofitably spend both Time and Paper in bringing in all the particular Passages I say in General that both the Major Part and also the most Eminent Persons among the Ancient Fathers held this Opinion either absolutely or at least in part For besides Justin Martyr Irenaeus Tertullian and St. Augustine and the Author of those Questions and Answers we before mentioned which is a very Ancient Piece indeed though falsly fathered upon Justin Martyr it is clear that Origen Lactantius Victorinus St. Ambrose St. Chrysostome Theodoret Oecumenius Aretas Prudentius Theophylact St. Bernard and among the Popes Clemens Romanus and John XXII were all of this Opinion as is confessed by all neither was this so admirable and general Consent of theirs contradicted by any Declaration of the Church for the space of Fourteen Hundred years neither yet did any one of the Fathers so far as we can discover take upon him to refute this Errour as Dionysius Alexandrinus and St. Hierome did to refute the Millenaries all the rest of the Fathers being either utterly silent as to this Particular and so by this their silence going over in a manner into the Opinion of the Major Part or else contenting themselves with declaring sometimes here and there in their Books that they believed that the Souls of the Saints should enjoy the sight of God till the Resurrection never formally denying the other Opinion But that which doth further shew that this Opinion is both very Ancient and hath been also very Common among the Christians is because that even at this day it is believed and defended by the whole Greek Church neither is there any of all those who make Profession of standing to the Writings of the Fathers as the Rule of their Faiths who have rejected it save only the Latines who have expresly also established the contrary at the Council of Florence held in the year of our Lord 1439. which is not above Two Hundred and Twelve years ago Do but fancy now to your selves a Vicentius Lirinensis standing in the midst of this Council and laying before them his own Oracle before mentioned which is That we ought to hold for most certainly and undoubtedly true whatsoever hath been delivered by the Ancients unanimously and by a Common Consent and do but think whether or no he should not have been hissed out by these Reverend Fathers as one that made the Truth which is holy and immutable to depend upon the Authority of Men For these men regarded not at all neither the Multitude nor the Antiquity nor the Learning nor the Sanctity of the Authors of this foolish Opinion but finding it to be false without any more ado rejected it as they thought they had good Reason to do and withal ordained the contrary Now I am verily perswaded that there are very few Points of Faith among all those which the Church of Rome would have the Protestants receive for which there can be alledged either more or more clear and evident Testimonies out of the Fathers than for this For as much therefore as that after
all of the same Judgment and Opinion in Point of Religion And certainly this is a most clear Truth For if there be any Contradiction amongst them or Dissenting in Opinion they will leave our Controversies more Perplexed rather than Decided and in stead of Uniting will rather Distract us and rend us into many Parts That we may therefore be able to come to the knowledge of the Truth in this Particular it will concern us first of all to examine whether that which Bessarion addeth hereupon be true also or not namely That the Opinions of the Fathers do never clash one with the other touching the Points of our Religion Now although this were so yet would it not Necessarily follow from hence that their Judgment must needs be therefore Infallible forasmuch as even an Error may either by the Consent of the several Parties or by Accident or else by some other the like means happen to meet with an Unanimous Entertainment by several Persons But now in case this should prove to be false then certainly we may make this Infallible Conclusion That we ought to seek out for other Judges of our Controversies than the Writings of the Fathers We shall therefore shew by way of addition to the rest of our Proofs that this Assertion of his is more Bold than True and that there are very many Real Differences to be found among the Ancient Fathers in Matters of Religion We have already touched before upon some of them by the bye onely as lying in our way speaking of other Matters and therefore we shall onely lightly run them over again as namely first of all That Disagreement in Opinion of the most Ancient among the Fathers Justine Martyr Irenaeus and Tertullian on the one side and Dionysius Alexandrinus Gregory Nazianzene and S. Hierome on the other the First of these promising us very seriously the Delights and Pleasures of a Thousand years and the Diamonds and the Saphires of a New Earthly Jerusalem with all its Glory and Prosperity but the other very coursely and in downright Terms reproving this their Conceit as being an idle Fancy fit to be entertained by Little Children and Old Women only and which seems to have been derived rather from the Dreams of the Jews than from the Doctrine of the Apostles The like to this was that Difference betwixt the Bishops of Asia and Pope Victor about the Observation of Easter-day and of Cyprian and Stephen about the Baptism of Hereticks in all which Differences the Heat was so high as that it went on as far as to Excommunicating each other If Bessarion now could but make it appear to us that these were not Real but Seeming Contradictions onely I should then make no question at all but that he would as easily reconcile Fire and Water or whatever things else in Nature are the most Contrary the one to the other We have heard that Tertullian maintained That the Soul was Ex Traduce and was propagated from the Father to the Son by the Natural Course of Generation and that S. Augustine likewise enclined to the same Opinion to whom if we will believe S. Hierome we must add a very considerable number of the Western Church also who were all of the same Perswasion But S. Hierome rejects them all and their Opinion and says That the Soul is created Immediately by God at the very instant that it is united to the Body adding withal as we have formerly noted unto you That this is the Belief of the Church in this Point S. Hierome and those of his Faction held That all that Reprehension used by S. Paul to S. Peter which we find mentioned in the Epistle to the Galatians was onely a Feigned Business purposely Acted betwixt the two Apostles by an Agreement made betwixt themselves S. Augustine with those of his Side maintains the contrary and says That the thing was Real and was meant heartily and seriously and as it is related by S. Paul and that there was no Cunning or Under-hand Dealing in the Business or any Scene laid betwixt S. Peter and him And S. Hierome pursued this Dispute with so much heat and earnestness as that besides those Epistles of his which are full of Gall and Choler written against S. Augustine touching this Particular he yet in his Commentaries also which were Pieces that he wrote in his Quieter Tempe◠many times takes occasion to gird underhand at S. Augustine upon this old Quarrel betwixt them So that certainly he must needs be quite out of his Wits whoever shall seriously go about to maintain that these two Fathers were perfectly of One Opinion and agreed upon this Point Justine Martyr is of Opinion that it was the Real Ghost of Samuel that appeared to Saul being raised up by the Enchantments of the Witch at Endor Others say it was but a Fantasm Some of them hold That the meeting together of the Faithful at the Eucharist thrice a week is an Apostolical Tradition Others believe the contrary Some enjoyn us to Fast on Saturdays others forbid the same under the penalty of being accounted no less than the Murtherers of Christ Some of them conceive that our Saviour Christ suffered Death in the Fortieth or Fiftieth year of his Age Others again would perswade us that he died in the Thirtieth or Thirty first year of his Age Both which Opinions are manifestly contrary to the Text of the Gospel which tells us clearly That after his Baptism that is to say after the Thirtieth year of his Age he conversed above Three and under Five years upon the Earth Some of them as we are informed by these Latinized Greeks allow of these Terms Cause and Effect in the Doctrine of the Trinity but some others again do not so Some of them are of Opinion That there is a certain Order or Distinction of Priority in the Persons of the Trinity others again there are who will not endure to hear of this Expression Those of the Western Church call the Son only The Image of the Father but the Greek Church maketh this Name extend to the Holy Ghost also S. Basil will not allow of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in discoursing of the Son Others again make use of it without any scruple at all I doubt very much whether Bessarion had ever seen the Apologies and Invectives of S. Hierome and of Ruffinus who were yet both of them Fathers and of good Repute too in the Church both that of their own time and of the Ages following although they were not both of them of equal Esteem Neither do I believe he remembred that Quarrel that there was betwixt Theophilus and Epiphanius on the one part and S. Chrysostome on the other For certainly their Carriage toward each other in this their Debate doth not shew them to have been so very good Friends and so well agreed upon the Point debated But now to overthrow this
Bold Assertion of his at once we need go no further than to the very Point it self touching which he proposed it For whom will he ever be able to perswade that All the Fathers have written and said the very same things touching the Procession of the Holy Ghost It is evident that sometimes they will have It to Proceed from the Son also as S. Basil by name hath expressed himself in that Passage of his which is alledged by the Latins out of his Book against Eunomius which Piece yet the Greeks say is forged and as the Fathers of the Western Church have most expresly declared themselves in many places But yet I cannot possibly see how we can say That they have All been of this Opinion I shall not here meddle with those other Authorities produced by the Greeks out of the Fathers which their Adversaries put by as well as they can oftentimes most miserably wresting and stretching upon the Rack the Words and Meaning of the Fathers But that Passage of Theodoret in his Refutation of S. Cyril's Anathema's is so clear and express as that nothing can be more S. Cyril had said in his IX Anathema That the Holy Ghost proceeded Properly from the Son Theodoret answereth That it is both Impious and Blasphemous to say that the Holy Ghost hath its Subsistence from the Son or by the Son If he mean saith he that the Holy Ghost proceedeth properly from the Son as heing of the same Nature with It and as proceeding from the Father we shall willingly agree with him and shall receive his Doctrine as Sound and Pious But if he mean that the Holy Ghost hath its Subsistence from the Son or by the Son we must then reject it as Impious and Blasphemous He could not have thrown by this Proposition of S. Cyril more bluntly or in courser Terms And yet for all this so flat giving him the Lie as it were and his so insolent rejecting of an Opinion that was then received by the Church as the Latins pretend S. Cyril replies no more but this That the Holy Ghost altbough It proceed from the Father yet nevertheless is not a Stranger to the Son since He hath all things common with the Father Why did he not cry out against him as an Heretick as he many times elsewhere doth with much less reason if at least you must needs have it granted you that the Opinion of the Church at that time was That the H. Ghost proceeded from the Son Why did he not take it very ill at his hands that he should in so insolent a manner reject as Impious and Blasphemous a Proposition that was so Holy and so True Why did he not call the Whole Church in to be his Warrant for what he had said if so be it had Really been the General Belief of the Church at that time And how comes it to pass that in stead of all this he rather returns so tame an Answer as seems rather to betray his own Cause and something also to encline to the contrary Opinion of his Adversary For it is evident that neither Theoderet nor yet any of the Modern Greeks ever held That the Holy Ghost was a Stranger to or was Unconcerned in the Son seeing they all confess That these three to wit the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost are One and the same God who is Blessed for ever Whosoever shall but diligently consider these things for we cannot stand any longer upon the Examination of them he cannot in my Judgment but confess that the Church had not as yet declared it self or determined any thing touching this Point and that these Doctors spake herein each Man his own Private Opinion only and according as the Present Occasion of Disputation led him to speak where you shall have them contradicting one another in like manner as is usual in speaking of things not as yet throughly examined or expresly determined insomuch that it would grieve a Man to see how the Greeks and the Latins toil and sweat to no purpose each of them labouring to bring over the Fathers to speak to their Side and fearfully wresting their Words whensoever they seem to be but never so little ambiguous and ever and anon accusing one another of having corrupted the Ancients Writings whensoever they are found to speak expresly against them and when all is done leaving those who either read or hear them without any Prejudice very much unsatisfied whereas it had been much more easie to have honestly confessed at first that which is but too apparent that the Fathers as in this so in many other Points of Religion have not all been of one and the same Perswasion And whereas Bessarion that he may clude this Testimony of Theodoret affirms That he was cast forth of the Church for having denied that the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Son and that he afterwards publickly confessed his Error at the Council of Cbalcedon where he was received into the Church again all this I say is only a Piece of Grecian Confidence which shews more clearly than all the rest how much this Man was carried away with his Passion and the violence of his Affection to the Latin Church For I beseech you in what Ancient Author had he ever read that Theodoret was I do not say Condemned or Excommunicated but so much as Reproved or Accused onely for having maintained any Erroneous Opinion touching the Procession of the Holy Ghost We have the Acts of the Council of Ephesus where he was Excommunicated We have the Letters of S. Cyril wherein he again received into the Communion of the Church John Patriarch of Antioch and all his Followers of which number Theodoret was the Chief We have the Council of Chalcedon where Theodoret after some certain Cryings out of his Adversaries against him was at length received by the whole Assembly as a Catholick Bishop and was admitted to sit amongst them In which of all these Authentick Pieces is there so much as one word spoken touching this Opinion of his concerning the Point of the Proceeding of the Holy Ghost S. Cyril himself that is to say those of his Party did not at all condemn what he said touching this Particular but he rather contented himself in excusing or if you please in defending onely his own Opinion The Business for which Theodoret was questioned in the Councils of Ephesus and of Chalcedon had nothing in the World to do with this touching the Procession of the Holy Ghost for the Question was onely there touching the Two Natures of our Saviour Christ whom Nestorius would needs divide into Two Persons John Patriarch of Antioch Theodoret and divers other Eastern Bishops favouring in some sort his Person or being indeed offended rather at the Proceeding of the Council of Ephesus against him and withal rejecting several things that were contained in the Anathemas of S. Cyril Now with what face could this Man tell us after all
sense and meaning of these words lest otherwise by misinterpreting the same you might chance to fall into the one or the other of these two Precipices If you have recourse to the Fathers in this case you shall have some of them referring it to the Vnion of the Affection and of the Will and others again to the Vnity of Essence and of Nature So likewise this other passage in the same Evangelist My Father is greater than I is very considerable also in the Question touching the Divinity of Jesus Christ And yet there are some among the Fathers who understand the words as spoken indefinitely of the Son of God although the rest of them do ordinarily restrain them to his Humanity These words also of St. John The Word was made Flesh are of no small consideration in the Disputes against Nestorius and Eutyches Now if you bring the business before the Fathers you shall have some of them expounding these words by comparing them with those passages in St. Paul where it is said that Christ was made sin and a Curse for us but St. Cyril saith that we must take heed how we interpret the words so It would be an endless Task if I should here go about to reckon up all the Differences and Contrarieties of Judgment that are to be found in the Fathers Those that have a mind to see any more of them may have recourse to some of our late Commentators whose usual course is to bring in all together the several Interpretations of the Fathers upon those Books which they Comment upon as Maldonate hath done upon the Gospels Cardinal Tolet upon St. John Bened. Justinianus upon the Epistles of St. Paul and others where they will find that there is scarcely any one Verse that the Ancients have understood all of them after one and the â—ame manner And which is yet worse than this besides this Contrariety and Difference of Interpretation you will often meet with very many cold and empty Expositions and it is very seldom that you shall find there that solid simplicity which we ought to expect from all those who take upon them the Interpretation of the Holy Scriptures For as much therefore as we many times meet with Contrariety of Judgment as well in their Expositions of the Scriptures as in their Opinions we may safely conclude that they are not of sufficient Authority to be admitted as the Supreme Judges of our Controversies that Contradiction which is often found amongst them evidently shewing that they are not Infallible Judges such as it is requisite that they should be for the making good of all those Points which are at this day maintained by the Church of Rome against the Protestants CHAP. VI. Reason VI. That neither those of the Church of Rome nor the Protestants do acknowledge the Fathers for their Judges in Points of Religion but do both of them reject such of their Opinions and Practices as are not for their Gust An Answer to two Objections that may be made against what hath been here delivered in this Discourse THus far have we laboured to prove that the Writings of the Fathers have not Authority enough in themselves for to be received as Definitive Sentences passed upon our Differences in Religion Let us now in the last place see how much they have in respect of us For although a Sentence of Judgment should be good and valid in it self as being pronounced by one who is a competent and lawful Judge duly and according to the Forms of Law yet notwithstanding would not this serve to determine the Controversie if so be the Authority of this Judge be denied by either of the Parties unless as it is in worldly Affairs the Law be armed with such a Power as is able to force those that are obstinate to submit to Reason for as much as the Question is here touching Religion which is a Holy and Divine thing to the embracing whereof men ought to be perswaded and not compelled since force hath no place here For although perhaps they could compel men outwardly to render some such respect to the Writings of the Fathers yet notwithstanding would not this serve to make any impression of the Belief of the same in the heart of any one The same Divisions would still remain in the minds of men which you are first of all to pull up by the roots if ever you intend to reconcile them to each other and to make them agree in Point of Religion For the certain determination therefore of all Differences of this nature it is necessary that both Parties be perswaded that the Judge who is to pronounce Sentence upon the same hath as much Authority as it requisite for that purpose Notwithstanding therefore that the Fathers should have clearly and positively pronounced what they had thought touching the Point in hand which yet they have not done as we have proved before Let us suppose further that they had been endued with all those qualities which are requisite for the rendring a man fit to be a Supreme Judge and from whom there can be no Appeal which yet is not so as we have already clearly proved yet notwithstanding would all this be to no purpose unless this Authority were acknowledged by both Parties The Old Testament is a Book which was written by Divine Inspiration and is endued with so supreme an Authority as that every part of it ought to be believed Yet doth not this work any whit at all with a Pagan because he doth not acknowledge any such excellent worth to be in it In like manner is it between the New Testament and the Jew neither can it decide the Differences betwixt the Jews and us not because it is not of sufficient Authority in it self but because it is not so to the Jew And indeed he were worthy to be laughed at whosoever should alledge in disputing against the Pagans the Authority of the Old Testament or that of the New for the bringing of a Jew over to our Belief Suppose therefore that the Writings of the Fathers were clear upon our Questions nay which is more let it be granted moreover if you please that they were written by Divine Inspiration and are of themselves of a full and undeniable Authority I say still that they cannot decide our Debates if so be that either of the Parties shall refuse to acknowledge this great and admirable dignity to be in them much less if both Parties shall refuse to allow them to have this Priviledge Let us now therefore see in what account the several Parties have the Fathers and whether they acknowledge them as the Supreme Judges of their Religion or at least as Arbitrators whose definitive Sentence ought to stand firm and inviolable As for our Protestants of France whom their Adversaries would fain perswade if they could to receive the Fathers for Judges in Religion and to whom consequently they ought not
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
is sufficient for my purpose that the Church of Rome in doing thus hath manifestly abolished a very ancient Custom in the Church Besides these Ceremonies which were practised by the Fathers in Baptism and in the Eucharist they have said by many other also which have been heretofore in use in the Church I shall not here speak of the Fasting upon Saturdays which is observed by the Church of Rome contrary to the ancient practice of the whole Christian Church besides who all accounted it unlawful because this difference in Practice is as ancient as St. Augustine's time and therefore ought not to be imputed to the Modern Church of Rome I shall for the same reason also pass by that which Firmilianâ—s saith namely how that in his time that is to say about two hundred and fifty years after the Nativity of our Saviour Christ Those of Rome did not in all things observe whatsoever had been delivered from the beginning and that they did in vain alledge the Authority of the Apostles But this I shall desire the Reader to take notice of that anciently it was a general Custom throughout all Christendom not to Kneel neither upon the Lords days nor upon any day bâ—twixt Easter day and Whitsunday which Custom hath been generally abolished by the whole Church of Rome and yet notwithstanding whether you consider the Antiquity or whether you look upon the Authority of those who both practised this themselves and also recommended it to our observation you will hardly find any more venerable Custom than this For the Author of the Questions and Answers attributed to Justin Martyr makes mention of this Custom and withal gives the Reason and Ground of it and besides proveth by a certain passage which he produceth out of Irenaeus that it had its beginning in the Apostolical Times Tertullian also speaks of it and both Epiphanius and St. Hierome reckon it among the Institutions of the Church and which is yet more than all this the Sacred General Council of Nice authorized the same by an express Canon made to that purpose For as much as there are some say these CCC XVIII Venerable Fathers who Kneel upon the Lords Day and upon the days of Pentecost to the end that in all Parishes or as we now speak Dioceses there may be the same Order observed in all things this Holy Synod ordaineth that on these days they all pray Standing And this ancient Constitution was revived again and explained in the Council of Constantinople in Trullo toward the end of the seventh Century where it was expresly forbidden to Kneel during the space of those twenty four hours that pass betwixt Saturday Evening and Sunday Evening Every body knows also how that they have abrogated the Fast that was wont to be observed upon the Fourth day of the week that is to say on Wednesday which yet was the Practice of the Ancients as appears by what we find in Ignatius in Peter Bishop of Alexandria and a Martyr in Epiphanius Clemens Alexandrinus and others By the same Liberty have those Vigils been abolished which were ordinarily kept by the Ancient Church and both approved and defended also by St. Hierome against Vigilantius who found fault with them though his Opinion hath now at length found more favour in the World than St. Hierome's The same Father in another place delivers unto us for an Apostolical Tradition that Custom which they had in his time of not suffering the people to depart out of the Church upon Easter Eve till midnight was past What is now become of this Custom which was not only an ancient one but was derived also from the Apostles themselves if you dare believe St. Hierome We are informed from several Hands that that Command of Abstaining from Blood and from Things strangled was for a long time observed in the Church And it appears evident enough that iâ— was most Religiously kept in the Primitive times both by the Testimony of Tertullian and of Eusebius And the Council of Constantinople in Trullo excommunicates all those of the Laity and deposeth all those of the Clergie that shall offend therein And Pamelius in his Notes upon Tertullians Apologeticks informs us that it is not long since the observation of this Custom was first laid a side among Christians it being not much above four hundred 〈◊〉 since there was some certain Penalties appointed for those that should violate the same And yet notwithstanding for all its Antiquity and Vniversality it is at length quite vanished the Church of Rome having in very gentle wise and by little and little laid it asleep â—no man that I know of having taken the least notice either of the Time when or the Manner how this was done Only this we all see plainly enough that it is now quite out of Use The like may be said of that Custom of Praying for the Saints Departed which was clearly the Practice of the Ancients We pray saith Epiphanius for the Just the Fathers the Patriarchs the Prophets Apostles Evangelists Martyrs c. that we may distinguish the Lord Jesus Christ from the order of Men by that Honour which we pay unto Him We have also some of their Prayers to this purpose yet remaining as namely in the Liturgy of St. James And in the Syriack Liturgie of St. Basil after they had mentioned the Patriarchs the Prophets John Baptist St. Stephen the Virgin Mary and all the rest of the Saint they at last added We daily send up our Prayers and Supplications unto thee for them And a little after Lord remember also saith the Priest all those who are departed this life and the Orthodox Bishops who have made a clear and open Profession of the true Faith from the Apostles Peter and James to this day of Ignatius Dionysius c. And then he saith with a loud voice Remember also Lord those who have persevered even to Blood for the Word of a Good Fear So likewise in the Liturgy of St. Chrysostom We offer unto thee this Reasonable Service for all those who havâ— departed in thy Faith c. And yet notwithstanding the Church of Rome hath utterly abolished this Custom and without all question believes that you could not do the Saints a greater injury than if you should now make any such Supplications for them Those that are curious may obserue many other the like differences betwixt the Antients and the Church of Rome in their Customs and Ceremonies Neither is there any whit less in their Discipline One of the chiefest of these Differences and which is indeed the Original of a great part of the rest is in the Elections and Ordinations of Ecclesiastical Ministers which is the true Basis and Ground-work of the Discipline and Ministry of the Church It is clear that in the Primitive times they depended partly on the People and not wholly on
by him making good that which is Doubtful by that which is Certain and clearing that which is Obscure by that which is Evident And this is the Rule that I conceive we ought to walk by in the Disputes that are betwixt us at this day The Word of God is our Common Book let us therefore search into It for that upon which we may ground our own Belief and by which we may overthrow the Opinion of our Adversary As for example it is there said clearly and expresly That that which our Saviour Christ took at his Last Supper was Bread and herein we All agree But it is not at all there expressed whether this Bread were afterward changed or annihilated or not And this is now the Question in Dispute amongst us We ought therefore according to the Counsel of Scholarius to prove this by some other things which are there delivered clearly And if thou dost this thou hast got the Victory If not I do not at all see why or how thou canst oblige any one to believe it In like manner the Scripture telleth us in as express Terms as may be That our Saviour Christ commanded His Apostles to Take and Eat and to Drink that which He gave them in Celebrating the Eucharist But It doth not at all say that he commanded them to Offer the same in Sacrifice either Then or Afterwards And this is now the Question which it concerns those of the Church of Rome if they will have us believe it to prove by some other things which are clearly and expresly delivered in the Word of God The Scripture in like manner saith expresly That Jesus Christ is the Mediator betwixt God and Man and That He is the Head of the Church and That He purgeth us by His Blood from our Sins Now in all this both Sides are fully agreed But it is not at all there expressed That the Departed Saints are Mediators and That the Pope is the Head of the Church and That our Souls are in part cleansed from their Sins by the Fire of Purgatory And herein lies the Controversie betwixt us The Learned Scholarius his Opinion herein would now be that certainly those who propose these Points as Articles of Faith deduce and collect them from some things which are clearly delivered in the Scriptures for otherwise they are not to be pressed as Truths And although that in matters of Religion or indeed in any other things of Importance a Man may very well be excused for not believing a thing when there appears not any such Reason as may oblige him to believe it yet notwithstanding if those who reject the Articles now debated betwixt us have a mind to go further yet and to prove positively the Falseness of them you see this Author hath laid them down the way by which they are to proceed He accounteth those very absurd that require at your hands that you should shew them all things expresly delivered in the Scripture and this ought principally to be understood of Negative Propositions of which no Science giveth you any certain account forasmuch as to go about to number them all up would be both an infinite and also an unprofitable useless piece of Work It is sufficient to deliver the Positive Truth For as whatsoever rightly followeth thereupon is True in like manner whatsoever clasheth with or contradicteth the same is False wouldst thou therefore demonstrate those Propositions that are pressed upon thee to be False Do but compare them with those things that are clearly and expresly delivered in the Scripture And if thou findest them contrary to any thing there set down receive them not by any means As for example If a Protestant not contenting himself with having answered all those Reasons which are brought to prove that there is such a Place as Purgatory shall yet desire to go further and to make it appear that the Opinion is False he is in this case to have recourse to the Scriptures and to examine it by those things which are there clearly and expresly delivered touching the State of the Soul after it is departed this Life and touching the Cause and Means of the Expiation of our Sins and the like And if the Opinion of Purgatory be found to contradict any thing there delivered then according to Scholarius it ought not to be received by any means But the brevity which we proposed to our selves in this Discourse permitteth us not to prosecute this Point any further As for the Second Question it is no very hard matter to resolve it For although we do not indeed allow any Supreme and Infallible Authority to the Writings of the Fathers yet do we not therefore presently account them Vseless If there were nothing of Vse in Religion saving what was also Infallible we should have but little good of any Humane Writings Those who have written in our own Age or a little before are of no Authority at all either against the one or the other Party Yet notwithstanding do we both read them and also reap much benefit from them How much more advantage then may we make by studying the Writings of the Fathers whose Piety and Learning was for the most part much greater than that of the Moderns S. Augustine believed them not in any thing otherwise than as he found what they delivered to be grounded upon Reason and yet notwithstanding he had them in a very great esteem The like may be said of S. Hierome who had read almost all of them over notwithstanding that he takes liberty sometimes to reprove them something sharply where he finds them not speaking to his mind Though you should deprive them not onely of this Supremacy which yet they never sought after but should rob them also of their Proper Nomes yet notwithstanding would they still be of very great Vse unto us For Books do not therefore profit us because they were of such or such a Man 's Writing but rather because they instruct us in those things that are Good and Honest and keep us out of Errour and make us abhor those things that are Vicious Blot out if you please the Name of S. Augustine out of the Title of those excellent Books of his De Civitate Dei or those other which he wrote De Doctrinâ Christianâ His Writings will instruct you never a whit the less neither will you find any whit the less benefit by them The like may be said of all the rest First of all therefore you shall find in the Fathers very many earnest and zealous Exhortations to Holiness of Life and to the Observation of the Discipline of Jesus Christ Secondly you shall there meet with very strong and solid Proofs of those Fundamental Principles of our Religion touching which we are all agreed and also many excellent things laid open tending to the right understanding of these Mysteries and also of the Scriptures wherein they are contained In this very particular their Authority may be of