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A53931
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A treatise proving Scripture to be the rule of faith writ by Reginald Peacock ... before the Reformation, about the year MCDL.
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Pecock, Reginald, 1395?-1460?; Wharton, Henry, 1664-1695.
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1688
(1688)
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Wing P1043; ESTC R1772
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67,273
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88
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Imprimatur Liber cui Titulus A Treatise of Reginald Peacock c. Guil. Needham R. R. in Christo P. ac D. D. Wilhelm Archiep. Ã Sac. Dom. c. Ian. 12 1687. A TREATISE PROVING SCRIPTURE To be the Rule of Faith. WRIT BY REGINALD PEACOCK Bishop of CHICHESTER before the REFORMATION About the Year MCDL LONDON Printed for Iames Adamson at the Angel and Crown in S. Paul's Church-Yard 1688. PREFACE IF in any part of the Christian Religion an undoubted Certainty and most firm Assurance may justly be required if a scrupulous Examination and curious Enquiry may ever be allowed in Matters of Religion certainly an exact Knowledge of the Rule of Faith will deserve as our first so our chief Consideration For since the Articles of Christianity are not in themselves self-evident nor can be found out by the sole principles of Reason since all revealed Religions are no farther credible than as they can demonstrate their Revelation to have been true and real some Rule was necessary which might propose to Mankind those Articles of Faith which Reason could not suggest and propose them also with such evidence as that the denial of assent should in all become irrational What this determinate Rule is hath been the great Controversie of this and all preceding Ages However all parties agree in affixing some certain properties to it whereby it may be distinguished and indeed without which it can never supply the Office or serve the ends of a true Rule These may be reduced to four Heads That it be able safely and inviolably to convey down all revealed necessary Truths That it be fitted to propose them clearly and invariably to all Mankind That it be independent on all other revealed Articles And lastly that it be assigned as a Rule by God the Author of all revealed Religion If either of the two first Conditions be deficient the Rule will be unuseful if either of the latter uncertain and without authority The Scripture enjoys all these properties in so eminent a manner that no reasonable Doubt can be made of the Truth of it For if we consider that whatsoever is revealed may be pronounced whatsoever is pronounced may be written down and whatsoever is committed to Writing may be preserved safe while those Writings are preserved unaltered we must conclude that any revealed Religion may be intirely and without danger of mistake proposed from written Books to the universal Belief of Mankind since these will afford a standing Rule both to Pastors of teaching of their People and to the People of examining the Doctrine of their Pastors in case of Diffidence The independence of Scripture from all other revealed Articles is no less evident For that these Books were indeed written by those persons whose names they bear and these persons highly credible is known by the same evidences whereby the Authors and Credibility of any other Books are known I mean by the concurrent testimony and consent of all succeeding Ages considered not as a Collection of Men professing the Christian Faith but as persons devoid neither of common sense nor integrity as they must have been if they had mistaken themselves or deluded us in believing and then testifying a matter of fact so easie to be known and more easie to be remembred Being thus assured of the Credibility of Scripture that it was written by such Historians who really either performed or saw those Miracles which they do attest we cannot but believe these Miracles and consequently that the Authors and Founders of the Christian Religion acted by a Divine Commission and may reasonably command our assent to their Revelations Being thus assured of the Divine Authority of the Scriptures we may probably conclude from the nature and end of them but most certainly from their own Testimony that they contain all things necessary to Salvation and are the only Rule of Faith and all this although we did not yet believe any other Article of the Christian Religion On the other side Tradition wants every one of those Conditions which are necessarily required to a Rule of Faith. For first we can never be assured that any Articles were invariably and intirely without any addition or diminution conveyed down to us by Tradition since it hath been in all Times and Ages observed that Matters of Fact much more of Belief not immediately committed to Writing presently degenerated into Fables and were corrupted by the capricious Malice or Ignorance of Men. Nothing can exempt the Tradition of the Christian Religion from this Fate at least from our reasonable suspicions of it but the Infallibility of that Society of Men which conveys down this Tradition But the latter can never be known till this certainty of Tradition be first cleared and presupposed since the Belief of this supposed Infallibility must at last be resolved into the sole truth and certainty of Tradition In the next place Tradition cannot certainly and invariably propose the Belief of Christianity to all private persons For from whence shall this Tradition be received from a Pope or a Council or both or from none of these but only the Universal Church In every one of these Cases infinite difficulties will occur which will singly appear insuperable As who is a true Pope what his intentions in defining were whether he acted Canonically in what sense he hath defined What Councils whether Oecumenical Patriarchal or Provincial may be securely trusted What are the necessary Conditions and Qualifications of a General Council Whether all these Conditions were ever observed in any Council What these Councils are what they have defined what is the true sense and intention of their Definitions From whom must we learn the Belief of the Universal Church if Popes and Councils be rejected From all Christians or only from the Clergy If from the later whether the assent of every member of the Clergy be required If not how great a part may safely dissent from the rest From whom the opinion of the major part is to be received Whether from the Writings of Doctors or the teaching of living Pastors If from the latter whether it be sufficient to hear one or a few Parish Priests or all or at least the major number are personally to be consulted All these Difficulties may be branched out into many more and others no less insuperable be found out which will render the Proposal of Religion by way of Tradition if not utterly impracticable at least infinitely unsafe Thirdly Tradition is so far from being independent on other Articles of the Christian Faith that the Belief of all other Articles must be presupposed to it For since all Sects propose different Traditions and the truth of none of them is self-evident it must first be known which is the true Church before it can be determined which is the true Tradition Now the knowledge of the true Church can be obtained only two ways either from the Truth of her Doctrines or from the external Notes of a
the same no less manifestly when he teacheth That Man is bound explicitly to believe all the Articles of Faith but implicitly whatsoever is delivered in Holy Scripture Here he manifestly supposeth Scripture not Tradition to be the Rule of all Articles of Faith. Otherwise he was obliged by all the Laws of Reason to conclude that an implicit Belief not of all things delivered by Scripture but of all delivered by Tradition is required But the most considerable Testimony of Aquinas is yet behind For inquiring whether the Articles of Faith be conveniently disposed in the Creed he formeth this Objection against it It should seem that the Articles of Faith are inconveniently disposed in the Creed For Holy Scripture is the Rule of Faith to which it is unlawful either to add or to take away For it is said Deut. IV. Ye shall not add to the word which I speak unto you nor take away from it Therefore it was unlawful to compose another Creed in manner of a Rule of Faith after the Promulgation of the Rule of Faith. Here certainly if ever was a fair occasion presented to deny Scripture to be the Rule of Faith. But Aquinas is so far from doing it that he allows it and endeavours to prove that the Composure of a Creed doth not necessarily include either any Addition to or diminution from Scripture For thus he answers To this Objection it is to be answered that the truth of Faith is diffusively contained in Holy Scriptures and divers ways and in some places obscurely so that to collect the true Faith out of Scripture a long Study and Exercise is required to which all those cannot arrive who are necessarily obliged to believe the truth of Faith since many of them taken up with other business cannot attend to study Therefore it was necessary that somewhat manifest should summarily be collected out of the sentences of Holy Scripture which might be proposed to all to be believed which indeed was not added to Holy Scripture but rather taken out of Holy Scripture I have used the greater diligence in representing the Doctrine of Aquinas because he beareth not a single Testimony but carrieth a numerous train of School Divines along with him I proceed now to the Writers of the fifteenth Age contemporary to our Author premising only the Authority of a Learned and Judicious Canonist of the precedent Age. This was Marsilius Patavinus Professor at Padua and Privy Counsellor to Lewis the Emperor who asserteth That we are bound to believe the Pope and Bishops to have received such a Power and Authority from Christ as we can evince from the Words of Scripture was conferred on them and no other But he more plainly afterwards decides the Question when he layeth down this Proposition To no Speech or Writing are we bound to give certain faith and credence or acknowledge them to be true upon pain of damnation except to those which are called Canonical that is which are contained in the Volume of the Bible In the beginning of the fifteenth Age the Council of Constance was held which as Aeneas Sylvius assureth us founded all their Decrees and Definitions upon the Authority of Holy Scripture The most eminent Divine in that Council and indeed of all Christendom at that time was Iohn Gerson Chancellor of Paris who by the unanimous Delegation of all the Bishops drew up the Decrees of the Council a person of that Eminence and Repute that by reason of the known Conformity between his Opinions and the received Doctrines of the Church he was usually styled The most Christian Doctor and when the Bohemians declined the Authority of the Council Cardinal Zabarella could oppose no Argument to them more plausible than the Reputation and Fame of Gerson To find out therefore the received Opinion of the Church in his time he ought in the first place to be consulted Thus then he delivers his Opinion Holy Scripture is the Rule of Faith against which rightly understood no authority or reason of any Man whatsoever is to be admitted Neither is any Custom Constitution or Observation valid if it be proved to be contrary to Holy Scripture This Rule is a common Foundation both to us and those Hereticks against whom I now dispute He was then disputing against the Bohemians the Followers of Husse and Wicliff whom all know to have asserted Scripture to be the Rule of Faith. In another place he hath these words In examining Doctrines it must be first and principally inquired whether the Doctrine be conformable to Holy Scripture as well in it self as in its circumstances This is manifest from the authority of S. Dionysius who pronounceth thus We must not dare to teach any thing of Divine Matters except what is delivered to us in Holy Scripture Of which the Reason is this because Scripture was delivered to us as a sufficient and infallible Rule for the Government of the whole Body of the Church and the members of it even to the end of the World. Scripture therefore is an Art a Rule and a Copy of that Nature that any other Doctrine not conformable to it is either to be rejected as heretical or suspected or at least to be esteemed no part of Religion nor belonging to it Every Revelation is suspected which the Law and the Prophets with the Gospel do not confirm Otherwise they are rather to be esteemed the Delusions of Devils or rather the Capricio's of Mens Brains than Revelations To such Idiots that saying of Christ may justly be objected Ye err not knowing the Scriptures But some will say From the beginning of the Gospel to this day some wholesom Doctrines are found in the Mouths and Writings of Men which the Holy Scripture doth not contain I answer that Scripture contains them all according to some degrees of Catholick Truths Lastly disputing of those Articles of Faith which are necessary to be believed he determines thus It is maniâ—est that the Canon of the Bible is the whole revealed Law of God whose Literal Assertions are founded upon this one only literal Principle At the same time Nicolas Clemangis Doctor of the Sorbon was held in great repute for his extraordinary Learning and Piety who treating of the Rule of Faith and Authority of General Councils placeth the first in Scripture and denieth the latter to be infallible in these words But although the Authority of the Church Militant be very great which founded upon a firm Rock cannot be shaken and against which the Gates of Hell shall never be able to prevail yet we ought not as it should seem to ascribe to it the Titles of the Church Triumphant as that it is infallible and impeccable which as you know often both doth deceive and is deceived It seemeth indeed very odd that any one should prefer the Authority of the Church Militant to the Authority of the Gospel whenas the Church may err in many things the Gospel cannot in