it be once admitted that by such tradition there can be had in all ages a compleat and true knowledg of what Christ taught it cannot be denied but that it is an easier and better rule to guide our understanding in the affairs of Religion then to resort for that end to the Scripture alone And that such tradition is infallible I have endeavoured to prove in another discourse which your Lordship hath so that I will not trouble you here with any repetitions upon that Subject Now when I wrote to your Lordship my opinion of the use to be made of reading the Fathers relying upon them more for what they were taught then for what they teach it was as taking them for faithful Collectors of the tradition that they found general through the Church in their times and sincere conveyers of them to us And this course you shall finde even among the ancientest of them When St. Austin will establish the doctrine of praying for the dead he telleth that it hath been the practise of the whole Church from the Apostles time The like he doth against the Pelagians and upon several other occasions and directeth us to enquire what faith is professed in the Churches established by the Apostles from whom he reckoneth on the uninterrupted succession of Pastors unto his time And by them he deriveth the present Doctrine from the first preachers who had it immediately from Christ Tertullian when he prescribeth against Heresie giveth you a Catalogue of the Bishops of several Churches from the several Apostles that planted them and with the successions of the persons urgeth the succession in those Churches of the Doctrine he seeketh to establish Irenaeus doth the like and generally all of them which they do not onely when they use those formal positive words that the whole Church hath received from the Apostles and holdeth generally such and such a Doctrine but at other times also when they do but intimate it in their discourses which intimation is such as is easily perceptible to whosoever of judgement shall read them impartially Therefore to summon up as short and as plainly as I can the use as I conceive is to be made of reading the Fathers I say that letting pass what they writ as Commentors upon the Scriptures and as Phliosophers and all which is but as Divines and Schollers we are generally to take hold of what they deliver us as Pastors of the Church which appeareth chiefly by what they writ against those they brand with Heresie which they could not do were not those points which they censure against the known and general tradition of the Church And next when they deliver us dogmatically and professedly any doctrine in such sort as we may reasonably conceive they intended we should take it as matter of faith not giving it as conceptions of their own which they bring onely learned arguments on texts of Scripture to maintain In all which a free good judgement will easily discern by reading them which way to incline which I knowing your Lordship to be do beseech you to apply it a little industriously to collect throughout their sense and by what they say to frame a model of the Government Beleif and practise of the Church wherein they lived and then tell me whether it be like yours or ours It is worth the while Criticks labour to get some knowledge of the manners and customes of Ages long since past by little fragments of antiquity that have hardly scaped into their hands And Lawyers get a knowledge of the Government and frame of the State in Kings raigns long agoe by broken and disjoynted Records that they meet with scattered in several Files And these maimed evidences by chance fallen into their Hands do serve to beget a fairer body of knowledge when they know how to make a right use of them and such as will convince an indifferent and equal hearer much more certainly the Fathers works that handle professedly and at large the affairs of the Church and Religion and whereof we have such plenty will fairly inform a rational and discoursing man of the true state of them in their times and what they conceived and had been taught imported Heaven or Hell in mans belief and practise which I am sure your Lordship will allow to carry a great stroke in ours and from which it is madness if not impiety to depart upon less grounds then a demonstration to convince the contrary Though I have already too much trespassed upon your Lordships patience by my tedious Letter yet I may not conclude it till I have said a word or two to the foure instances your Lordship giveth toward the latter end of yours First for the use of Images I doe not conceive it to be a precept given by Christ but since introduced by the Governors of the Church as a thing convenient to raise devotion in the people Now things of that nature may be convenient at one time and unfit at another When I dolatry was fresh in the memory and practise of the world it was dangerous to admit it therefore in the primitive times Justin and Tertullian might have reason to cry it down But because there was no precept of Christ in that behalfe conserved in the Church you see they urge not the authority of Tradition of the Church to beat down their use but arguments of their own and Texts of Scripture produced by them whereas now in times secured from that danger and a great good appearing in them they being as a Father said the bookes of unlettered persons to beget knowledge and stirre up devotion in them as strong arguments and as pregnant Texts of Scripture are produced for their use and to justifie the Governours of the Church in recommending them to the people Your second instance is of Tertullians affirming Christs descent to free the Patriarkes which I conceive not onely he but all the Fathers that ever spake of that particular deliver it in a matter of faith and so it hath been ever held by the Church which word of Descent I take it is to be understood as we all doe the Article of the Creed He descended into Hell that is by his power and operation at least by which he confounded the damned comforted the soules in Purgatory and brought to the sight of God those in Abrahams bosome that is a place of rest where yet they enjoyed not the beatificall vision For to give other motion and place to a soule is a question in Philosophy and concernes not faith and such was the assertion of the Angels copulation with women for many or rather most of the Fathers were of opinion that they were not pure Spirits but had very subtile immortall bodies the contrary of which was never yet delivered as matter of faith howbeit by force of Argument now the corporiety of Angels is exploded out of the Schools and thus supposing that opinion the way is obvious enough in commenting
Faith that you doe not most intirely assent unto For my part I doe not know what you understand by an Article of Faith but I am sure I have cited out of St. Austin of the necessity of Childrens partaking of the Eucharist an Article in this discourse which 't is evident he held as an Article both of necessary faith and practice wherein I believe you will refuse to joyne with him As for Epiphanius his over-sights I referre you onely to the Jesuit Petavius and for Eusebius to Cardinall Perron who casts upon him a trifling aspersion but of Arrianism or if his authority suffice not let Jerome Ep. 65. ad Pamach Oc. be heard who gives him this good testimony Impietatis Arrii apertissimus propugnator est Now to your third and last ground That the traditions of the Church are infallible I say that in part we agree in this point for I am perswaded that no man in his right wits will ever deny the firmest assent he hath about him to traditions of the nature which you Character doctrines taught by Christ to his Apostles and by them preached through the world and then again delivered to the ensuing ages by them that had these points inculcated in their hearts by the Apostles in this manner with care and every where handed over from age to age which upon particular occasions the Fathers used to summe up and produce against innovators that would make breaches upon the ancient and generally received faith of the Church-Traditions of this nature Doctrines thus delivered I say we agree to be derived from infallible Authority as well as the Scriptures and it is indifferent unto me whether I receive the waters of life from the Springs themselves from the originall cisternes and conserves into which they did immediarly flow or else conveyed through Aquiducts at sixteen hundred yeares distance so I be certain of the stanchnesse and purity of the pipes That such traditions and so exactly conveyed there are in the Church and to which is due as to the Scripture from every prudent man how ever a Sophister may cavill the strongest assent of his soule we likewise both agree such are those fore-named grand fundamentals of Christianity we agree further that by tradition we are as you say plainly fully and practifically taught how to understand Scripture I mean in those Fundamentals And much more must I agree with you that the businesse and errand of tradition is to deliver it so unto us since for my part I hold that those dignifying circumstances by which tradition may rightly pretend to be infallible belong onely to such doctrines as are either plainly or by necessary consequences deducibly coucht in Scripture in regard of which deductions we agree further that it cannot be denied but that it is as you say an easier and better rule to guide our understandings in the affairs of religion to use the help of such traditions then to resort for that end unto Scriptures alone as to read a book wherein there are difficulties with a judicious comment is likely to be more profitable then onely to peruse the single Text. And this last I assent unto without admitting of the supposition upon which you inferre it to wit that there can by tradition be had a compleat knowledge of all that Christ taught All this we are of accord in but what can you infer from hence to the advantage of the Romish cause since I peremptorily deny that there is such a qualified tradition really belonging to any Tenent of the Church of Rome disapproved by us or that seale with those quarterings and dignifyings wherewith you blazon it set by any of the primitive Fathers which yet were no sufficient warrant to any doctrine that doth so much as border upon our disputes since then I am sure you directed that part of your Letter to the same purpose that the rest I must answer what I conceive it tends to as well as what directly your words beare And as I have profest wherein we agree so now I must set down in what and why we differ concerning these particulars of Tradition and Scripture There are two principall poynts wherein I dissent from you First that in the generall you conceive all Traditions of the Church whatsoever infallible Secondly that you hold the Scripture to be no compleat body of Faith and therefore that we are to give tradition much the preheminency in governing the tenour of ours For the first namely that all the traditions of the Church are infallible I could by one demand of which is that Church whose traditions are infallible either bring you to our confession that the true Church is to be known meerly by its conformity to Scripture in belief and practice or else into a circle whilst you are forc'd to prove the truth and infallibility of the Church by her constant reception of those true and infallible traditions whose truth and infallibility you are at the same time proving by the Churches constant receiving them But I passe it by because I would not seeme to argue in any wise captiously and also for that Mr. Chillingworth hath already excellently laid open all the intricasies of this labyrinth And therefore taking the present Romish Church for that you mean I proceed to answer your Arguments wherby in your Letter to the Vicountesse of P. to which you referre me you endeavour to prove all doctrines of the Church received or delivered by way of tradition infallible the chiefe that I finde are in the 12 and 13. conclusions as you call them of that treatise where first for proof of your assertions that no false doctrine of Faith whatsoever can be admitted or creep into the Catholick Church you say that whatsoever the present Church beleeveth as a proposition of faith is upon this ground that Christ taught it as such unto the Church he planted himself a special good ground and that will soon end all controversies in this matter if the ground appear to be well grounded and that the Church of Rome which you suppose the present Catholick do never admit any doctrine of Faith but upon that ground But first the ground can never be made good that whatsoever of Faith the Church of Rome teacheth was ab initio so taught by Christ himself And secondly I beleeve that the Church of Rome her self doth not alwayes in all that she teaches for a tradition of Faith suppose that Christ himself did teach the same for this latter part I am better perswaded of the modesty of the Church of Rome then to think that she will so much as pretend it for all her doctrines as for example that of communicating onely in the bread is a tradition for you will not I suppose vouch Scripture for it unless you mean to apply to it Christ's prayer that the Cup might be removed it is a tradition of Faith yea and I think I may say of necessary faith for unless the Communicants
and consequently the insufficiency of your rule of faith tradition hath been made appeare it will be fit to vindicate the sufficiency of that rule which we relie upon In which work the first hinderance that I meet with is this objection of yours That the particular books of Scripture were written for other particular ends and not to give us a compleat body of faith To which I answer that if by particular books of Scripture you understand each book a part severed from its relation to the whole I then agree with you that every particular book was no more intended for a compleat body of Faith then every particular Chapter for a compleat body of the book or then a Window or a Door to be a compleat body of a House but as the one was designed to give entrance the other light to some room or passage of the Edisice so the several books of Scripture were written some to give entrance to Christianity some to illustrate dark places of the whole some to inform us of matters of fact that we might understand in what chiefly to praise God some to discipline us in matters of practice that we might know how aptliest to serve and please him And others to instruct us in matter of belief that we might learn to relie upon him But on the other side if you remit the least of this abstract and Independent consideration of the particular books of Scripture I must then profess that I stedfastly beleeve that they were all designed to this chief and primary end of composing that compleat body of Faith whereon Christs perfect Church should be built as certainly as so many several parts of a building having each a particular end besides of their erection are yet in the general and main intention all destin'd to the making up of one compleat and intire Fabrick yea further without urging the comparison till it halt I am perswaded that as the Master Architect having an Idaea form'd of the whole directs many a part to the perfection of that when the subordinate workman that frames it thinks of nothing farther then of the peice he is in hand with So oftentimes the Almighty Architect when his Ministers perhaps never look'd further then that service in particular wherein they were imployed some perhaps in a Gospel in an Epistle some he by his infinite Wisdom directed each particular to the making up of the whole and compleat body and rule of Faith the written Word which by his admirable providence he hath and will I am consident ever preserve intire and uncorrupt in all parts necessary to its own perfection and harmony and to mans eternal safety and direction Insomuch that I cannot but think it at the best loss of time to be solicitous after any other rule and irreverence if not impiety to question the sufficiency of this But because my opinion is little considerable with one of so far a better Judgment take in this Point the Opinion of the Fathers which you so much relie upon To begin with Tertullian these are the last words of his 22. Chapter against Hermogines Scriptum esse doceat Hermogenis officina If it be not written saith he let him fear the Woe destin'd to such as shall adde or take away Can any thing be inferred more rightly then from this passage the sufficiency of Scripture and the superfluity of any other rule But take yet somewhat more direct from †Oratio ad Gentiles towards the beginning Athanasius The holy and from God inspired Scriptures saith he are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of themselves sufficient to the discovery of truth I appeal to St Basil himself of all the Fathers the greatest attributer to Tradition in all things wherein regard is justly due unto it Hear what he sayes handling a point wherein Scripture I think is as dark as in any necessary one whatsoever I mean that of the Trinity Believe what 's written saith * Hom. 29. advers Calum stan Trin. page 623. he what is not written seek not And in another place It is a manifest falling from the Faith sayes †De vera ac Pia side page 251. he and an argument of Arrogance either to reject any of those things that are written or to introduce any that are not of the written And lastly to sum up all that can be said by a Protestant in one sentence of a Father of greatest Learning and authority Listen but to St. Augustine De doctrina Christian lib. 2. cap. 9. In its quae appertè in Scriptura positasunt inveniuntur illa omnia quae continent fidem moresque vivendi He had need be a confident Sophister that would undertake to evade these Authorities but yet if they may not be admitted let Scripture be heard for it self It is a priviledge and preeminence solely peculiar to that sacred Volume to be Witness Advocate and Judge in its own cause Surely the Spirit spake in St. Paul when he told Timothy That holy Writ was able to make him wise unto salvation 2 Tim. 3. in fine And when numbring up almost all the particular parts that can be required to the compleat Institution of a Christian he concludes that in these by Scripture the man of God is made perfect and fitted to every good work And I am confident by the same Spirit he spake his own minde when he spake ours so directly to the Corinthians Vt dicsatis in nobis supra id quod scriptum est non sapere Epist 1. cap. 4. Where by the way it is to be noted that the Apostle applies this doctrine as an Antidote to that very inconvenience which I have heard some Papists object against the reliance on the search and use of Scripture namely that by it those of greater capacity were lkely to be blown up and to glory in their clearer discerning over weaker whereas the guidance of the Church and Tradition was equaller to all To this I say 't is worth observing what he delivers as it were by way of reason for the contrary Doctrine to wit of confining our selves to Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I profess Consin that these and many other passages of Scripture which for brevities sake I note only in the * Deut. cap. 4. cap. 12. Epist ad Gal. cap. 1. Margent prenounce to me in as clear a sense as may be the sufficiencie of Scripture and supersluity of relying on tradition for a rule of faith And yet I sweare I am none of those of whom St. Basil speaks p. 621. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 How they may sound or what other sense they may bear to you I know not since now adayes Gods Word proves to men of divers opinions as the Apostles language when the devided tongues had sat upon them in Dr. * This was likewise the fantastique opinion of the Authour of the book de Spiritu sancto fathered upon Cyprian Alabasters conceit to severall Nations at one and the same
time Hebrew to the Jew pure Greek to the Athenian and Latin to the Roman Lastly if the Fathers Testimonie may not prevaile they being of an uncertain Authority nor Scripture swey as being of an uncertain sence let common reason be heard in the cause which for as much as I can judge of it is as strong for the sufficiencie of Scripture that is its containing all points necessarie to salvation as any prudent man need require for warrant of his belief It is agreed upon by all sides that Man being ordained to a supernatural end nature is not sufficient to lead him thither but that he must have some meanes above it and proportionate to the end such as may either shew him the way if he can discern or lead him in it if he be blind or which is happiest and surest of all both instruct and conduct him in it This last kinde of guidance it were presumption for man to claim however Gods grace may afford it unto some The second it were stupidity for all to expect however some have little hopes without it And therefore it is the first that belongs to man in generall that is a directory to all those pathes and windings without the knowledge of which he cannot arrive to his primary end And by the knowledge of which he may and is responsible himself if he do not follow the direction which if God should withhold from us although I could not venture with some to apply to his Justice that of Pharaoh's requiring brick where he gives no straw nor to pronounce it a stain to his goodnesse should he condemn us for missing the way when he gave us no Map of the Countrey since to a life actually forfeited as all mans was in Adam the least reprieve is a grace a grace to be let row in the Gallies to him that the Gallowes expected A grace to take out of the ditch a man that put out his own eyes though you leave him to grope out the rest of his journey with perpetuall hazards of falling in againe I say though I dare not in this case pronounce the with-holding a directory from us inconsistent with his justice wisdome or goodnesse yet truly I think you will yeeld the man hath not so fitting a belief of Gods mercy wisdom as he ought who conceives that he would suffer those to perish for want of such a necessary directory for whose sake he gave up his own Son to death Now to suppose such a directory from God and to think it defective is again to fall into undue thoughts either of his mercy or of his power nay it is to destroy what you do suppose since the omission of any thing absolutely necessary in a direction makes the direction none This conclusion then I may safely draw and I doubt not but with your consent that the Supernatural Directorie and rule whereby we are through Gods grace and mercy to be instructed in the way to our supernatural end must needs be compleat and sufficient in all parts absolutely necessary to that end It only remains then to shew which is that rule and directory sufficient and compleat in all necessary parts Now as in a journey directions of the way how sufficient how exact soever will little advance you unless you beleeve them or the knowledge of the way unless you have legs to go or somewhat else to carry you so in our Souls progress to beatitude it must have reliance and its instruments of gradation too which is Faith the strongest vehiculum of Humanity to Divinity Now as I said before that the means must be proportionate to the end so it is certain that the way the Organs by which we move in it must be proportionate one to another or we shall never arrive at our end As that let all other things be never so well fitted yet if our way must be thorow the Air or the Sea good legs or directions will little avail us The Organ then of our motion to Heaven being Faith and that Faith the strongest assent of our souls the ground upon which it must march ought to be no less folid then infallibility since the strongest Assent cannot be given but upon the strongest inducement Forasmuch then as particular Tradition that is the unanimous testimony of any Church of what numerous parts soever hath been already concluded fallible and universal Tradition is as it were coincident with Scripture being only as Clemens sayes Strom. lib. 6. p. 679. as it were an unwritten Transcript of that in mens hearts and gives attestation to no materiall Object of Faith but what is deducible thence It follows That Scripture is the ground proportioned by unquestionable infallibity to Faith as correspondent likewise in all things else both to the goodnes of God that gives the directory to our necessities that are to follow it The sufficiency and perfection of Scripture having been shewed and likewise the defectibility of that kinde of Tradition for whose Authority you labour The preferring of this latter before the first in governing the Tenure of our Faith is of consequence such an error as I am sorry should be countenanced by your continuing in it But because the precedency which you give to the Churches Tradition before Scripture is pretended due upon another ground also which I have yet spoke little unto give me leave to say somewhat to that You lay Obscurity to the charge of Scripture That Articles of Faith are not there so plainly exprest that every body can understand them If it were so truely the Laytie of the Church of Rome is much obliged to it for easing them of the trouble of reading what is unintelligible unto them but little beholding unto S. John for passing for a precept of Christ's Search the Scriptures But how shall they take it now forasmuch as the contrary to your Assertion is a manifest Corollary to the proof of Scriptures sufficiencie and perfection the compleatness of a Rule or Directory consisting as well in its Evidence as its Fulness and must need Interpretation as little as Addition Yet let us grant your supposition a while Scripture is obscure you say What follows Tradition is to be preferred Tradition then is easier Tradition is clear say you to the Vulgar I should rather think Tradition impossible to be learn'd since Man can speak but with a few and millions must make up that unless you bring all lines that can be drawn from the Circumference into a Centrical point the Pope But you are too much a friend to the Doctors of the Sorbon to do that Besides if you do so the difficulty will still remain For here the Rule in Geometry will not hold The lines drawn back from the Centre to the Circumference are not equal Men are not all at an equal distance from him all cannot hear him How shall the Vulgar understand him By their Ghostly Fathers You will not attribute to private men a clearer fuller
the Church universal Such were their Symboles such Irenaeus his unity of Faith in lib. 1. cap. 2. such Origens introduction to his book de principiis such Tertullians rule of Faith in his prescription against Hereticks such Epiphanius his conclusion of his work which he calls the settlement of truth assurance of immortality such likewise to fit you with some of all ages was that work of Gennadius written within these two hundred years De rectâ Christianorum Fide I will not say in some of which but in all which together there is not one Article of Faith received by the Church of Rome and rejected by us so much as mentioned save only in Epiphanius of Christs discent into Hel a Point variously and uncertainly understood among the Fathers as shall in another place be demonstrated Now for farther proof of the little agitation or great neglect of our controverted points in the Primitive times although it will follow of consequence to what hath been allready alledged yet I beseech you let me appeal to your own observation Do you know of any of the Fathers for the first four hundred years that hath purposely and of designe composed the least Treatise of any one of our questions or in some other tract handled them so much as in a formal digestion Inform me I beseech you for I profess all the works that ever I have met with of them appear to have been wholy directed either to deride the Pagans to confute Philosophers to convince the Jewes to confound prodigious Heresies or deliver precepts of good life or else to expound some passages of Scripture most useful to the same ends These appear to me to have been the sole objects both of their wills and abilities to combate And shall we venture to give sentence in our intricate disputes upon words or passages that by the by may seem to concern them either casually let fall or directed to other purposes in most of which in my conscience we finde our own opinions as rationally as Whittington his turn Lord Major of London in the ring of bells or some melancholy Lover his Mistrisses picture in the graine of Wainscote and their intentions as rightly as Eudocia Homers and another Virgils when they made him Evangelize so little do I regard what they say in this our case but to their silence I attribute much and think it strongly expressive but nothing to the advantage of those that impose for necessary Articles of Faith Doctrines that those renowned Oracles of the Church either never heard of or thought not worth their mentioning Thus noble Cousin I have laid before you the principal reasons that led me to deny the Fathers Testimonies to have such a validity whereon we may justly pass a verdict in our questions of Religion which I beseech you not to take as meant in a way of further derogation from them then in those very particulars for there is no man living that in the general payes them more reverence then my self in the highest admiration of their erudition and piety And therefore where I have mark'd out their heates against one another and contradictions let them be understood to have sprung from holy fervor and zeal in whatsoever they were for the time perswaded was good and true when I note their variance from themselves let it recommend their ingenuity that would so clearly avow their own fallibility when I tax them for dissenting from us all in this age although S. Austin when the Donatists press him with antiquity sticks not to say that the younger Doctors are sharper sighted yet let not my words be driven farther then this modest since you so call it flattery to our selves not of seeing clearer or sharper then they but onely by their helps further as dwarfs upon Gyants shoulders And lastly when I deny them the ability to determine our points of controversies let it be of no more derogation from their learning and judgement then it were of lessening to an Ambassador or of flattery to his followers to say that at a publike audience some of them could give a good account of the things in the lower end of the room when he himself could say little or nothing of them having onely past them by with his attentions intirely fixt upon the higher and more noble objects These were the Considerations that possest me when I wrote my former Letter although I had then the leisure but to point at a few of them and since I cannot speak to you but with truth and freedom I must here profess they remain in full force with me still your Letter having given me great contentment but little satisfaction for I can by no means yeeld that there is any Assurance much less infallibility in the Rule which you at the first prescribed and still insist on of judging our Controversies by the Fathers namely to use our liberty of reason only in what they teach of themselves with confirmations out of Scripture or probable Arguments but to resign it up in an entire and implicite Assent to what they tell us they were taught and deliver to us as delivered to them for the received sense of the Church which is to be understood you say not only when they use these formall positive Words That the Church hath received from the Apostles and holdeth generally such and such a Doctrine but at other times also when they do but intimate it in their Discourses where by the way I must needs tell you I ever thought intimations likelyer to beget Disputes then to end them If in this positive Rule you reserve a Liberty to except some particulars so delivered or some Catholick Fathers so delivering them Then without more adoe it is evident that this Way nothing can be decided for your Adversaries will claim in what thwarts them the like liberty of excepting If you lay the Rule absolutely generall to wit that what Article soever is delivered directly or by imtimation from the Fathers to have been a received Doctrine of the Church ought to be swallowed for an infallible verity it will easily be made appear that this method must betray you not only into some Protestant Tenents but also into Beliefs on both sides confessed to be erroneous It must draw you to be a Millenary it must draw you to hold a necessity of Childrens partaking the Eucharist it must draw you to abhorr that use of Images as Idolatrous and finally it must force you to reject out of the Canon those Books which we esteem Apochryphall for all these doe the Fathers deliver with somewhat more then intimations that they were taught to them as derived from the Apostles and from generall receptions of the Catholique Church First for the doctrine of the Millenaries I conceive you make a right judgement of the originall thereof from Papias whom St. Jerome the best Critick in Ecclesiasticall Antiquity sayes to have been the first Authour of it which error it is probable the
and evidenter capacity to instruct then the whole Body of Scripture Or if you do What are Private Instructions of kin to Traditions Thomas of Aquine puts in this kinde the highest complement upon Idiots towards the beginning of his first Book adversus Gentiles by sinking down the learnedst to their level For he teaches us I remember to this effect That the wisest ought not to embrace by Natural Reason and Discourse any Article in Religion were it as manifest as that the Whole is bigger then the Part since there may be one so ignorant as to have no notion of what the Whole is or what the Part. And Religion that imparts all alike must be grounded says he upon some Principle common and equal to all Herein the Doctor I must needs say is rightly Angelique for he walks to me in the clouds If he mean by that Principle Faith I understand not how that can be severed either from Reason and Discourse of which it is the last result or from Grace which is not common If he mean by the Principle that Tradition of the Church which you relie on I know not how that can be an easie guidance to the Ignorant since it is so difficult a matter to the wisest to know which is the right Church whose Traditions are so sacred for unless that appear neither the Ignorant nor the Wise are like to be much satisfied in conscience by governing the tenour of their Faith according unto them If we must judge of the Church by Bellarmine's Marks in what mis-mazes shall the Ignorant be guided whilst we finde the most Knowing involved in such intricacies in the examination of what is meant by Visibility Succession and Conformity with Antiquity and to what Society of Christians those attributes belong If you will have the true Church known by Scripture which is surely the easiest and best course even in the opinion of many learned Papists what is that but to flee back and make Tradition clear and certain by that Rule from which you flee as from what you judge obscure to Tradition that you pretend to be evident And then the Protestants will have reason to take it heavily that they should be condemned for founding each part of their Religion upon the same ground whereon the Papists build all theirs at once Yea great reason shall we have to resent it unless a Patent be produced from God Almighty declaring the Rule of Faith for such a Commodity as may be taken from Scripture in gross but not by retail Now that I have answered your Objections I will not be nice in declaring unto you to the full my sence concerning the Sufficiencie and Perspicuity of Scripture I believe that those Canonical Books which God by his providence hath preserved unto these Times and which are acknowledged by all Christians to have been Divinely dictated do make up a compleat Body of all the material objects of Faith necessary to salvation whether explicitely or implicitely necessary to be believed I further believe that in that blessed Sacrary there is not onely an inclusive sufficiencie to wit a perfect comprisal of all Saving Doctrines absolutely essential to Christianity but an exclusive also that is such a sufficiencie as excludes and forbids any Doctrines should be imposed on Christians for a necessary Article of Faith that is not recorded there Nobis curiositate opus non est post Christum Jesum nec inquisitione post Evangelium cùm credimus nihil desideramus ultra credere hoc enim prius credimus non esse quod ultra credere debemus Tert. de prax advers Haeret. cap. 8. And lastly I believe that all points whatsoever of Christian Religion are there set down as perspicuously and as clearly intelligible to all capacities as they are clearly necessary to be believed by all And that God's mercy in the merits of Christ accepting alike the Faith resultant from the dark mists of the Ignorant and from the clearest intelligence of the Learned The Lamb may wade to his bliss thorow the same water thorow which the Elephant may swim Quicquid est mihi crede in Scripturis illis altum divinum est inest omnino verit as reficiendis instaur andÃsque animis accommodatissima disciplina plane it a modificata ut nemo inde haurire non possit quod tibi satis est si modo ad hauriendum devote pie ut vera Religio poscit accedat Here is the saying of Heraclitus most truely applicable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nor truely do I conceive besides God's equalizing capacities by his own gracious acceptance that there needs more then a very ordinary one to understand the Scripture in all points absolutely necessary to salvation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It may be as well understood of the Word of God as of God the Word to whom Clemens pag. 56. advers Gent. applies the saying Magnifice igitur salubriter Spiritus sanctus ita Scriptur as sanctas modificavit ut locis apertioribus famae occurreret obscurioribus autem fastidia detergeret Nihil enim fere de illis obscuritatibus eruitur quod non planissimè dictum alibi reperiatur Aug. The great difficulties and obscurities which are there found I understand chiefly to be in those less material points wherein mens part-taking subtilties have given to God's Word many various acceptions whilst not seeking the doctrines of Scripture but those that themselves are imbued with in it they use it not as the straight and stedfast Rule to judge of and avoid Obliquity by for which it was ordained but rather as a Lesbian Rule to be bent and deflected according to the several purposes of their own Architecture Verifying of the heavenly food of the soul that fantastick imagination of Israel's heavenly food of the body Manna which was said to have been to all differing palats the morsel that each one would have it and the taste that his mouth was made to Since then I am thus perswaded that God hath lodged within us a Pilot Reason how weak soever yet proportionate to the Vessel and the Voyage and that he hath likewise laid open before us a clear and faithful Card that varies not for any Elevation Scripture you must pardon me Cousin if I chuse rather to steer by that Compass thorow the depths of Religion to our Haven of rest and beatitude then like those ancient Navigators that wanted a true Directory to coast it from Doctors to Fathers from Fathers to Popes from Popes to Councels and from all these to but pretended unerring Tradition Quare oportet in care maxime in qua vitae ratio versatur sibi quemque confidere suóque judicio ac propriis sensibus nati ad investigandam perpendendam Veritatem quà m credentem alienis erroribus decipi tanquam ipsum Rationis expertem Dedit omnibus Deus pro virili portione sapientiam ut inaudita investigare possent audita perpendere nec quia nos illi