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
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
A TREATISE CONCERNING The Right Use OF THE FATHERS IN THE Decision of the CONTROVERSIES that are at this Day in RELIGION Written in FRENCH BY JOHN DAILLE Minister of the Gospel in the Reformed Church at PARIS Hieron Apol. adv Ruffin Fieri potest ut vel simpliciter erraverint Scriptores Ecclesiastici vel alio sensu scripserint vel à librariis imperitis eorum paulatim scripta corrupta sint Vel certè antequam in Alexandria quasi Daemonium meridianum Arius nasceretur innocenter quaedam minùs cautè locuti sunt quae non possint perversorum hominum calumniam declinare LONDON Printed for John Martin and are to be sold by Robert Boulter at the Turks Head in Cornhill M.DC.LXXV To the Noble LADY ANNE MORNAY Lady of Tabarriere and Baroness of St. Hermine c. MADAM IT is now almost four Years since that your Son the late Baron of St. Hermine acquainting me with what manner of Discourse He was ordinarily entertained at Court by those who laboured to advance the Roman Religion the rather to make him disgust the Reformed told me That the Chiefest Argument which they urged against him was Antiquity and the General Consent of all the Fathers of the First Ages of Christianity And although of himself He understood well enough the Vanity of this Argument of theirs yet notwithstanding for his own fuller satisfaction He desired me that I would discover unto Him the very Bottom and Depth of this Business This therefore I did as Exactly as possibly I could and gave Him my Judgment at Large in this Particular Which Discourse of mine He was pleased to like so well that conceiving some hopes from thence that it might happily be of use to others also I shortly after put Pen to Paper and digested it into this Treatise You now see It having therefore been Composed at first for His Service I had resolved also with my self to have Dedicated it to His Name purposing by this small Piece of Service to testifie to the World the Continuation of the Affection I bare to His Progress in Piety But that deadly Blow which snatched Him from us in the Flower of His Age about two Years since at the Famous Siege of Bosledue having left us nothing of Him now save onely the Spoils of His Mortality and the Memory of His Vertue together with our Great Sorrow for having enjoyed Him here so short a time I am constrained Madam to change my former Resolution For to Dedicate my Book to Him in the State wherein He now is in Heaven following the Example of many both Ancients and Modern Writers who have not stuck to direct their Discourses from hence below to those whom God hath taken up into Heaven I cannot perswade my self that the Practise is either Lawful or Fit For besides the Vanity of the Thing should we hold Discourse with one who being at so great and almost infinite a Distance from us cannot possibly hear what we say I should account it also if so be He could hear us a Point of extreme Inhumanity I had almost said Impiety to disturb that Perfect Rest His Blessed Soul now enjoyeth which hath now no more to do with our Debates or Discourses here below but sees the Truth now in a most pure Light and enjoys that Everlasting Bliss wherewith our Saviour hath out of his Mercy crowned His Faith and Perseverance in the Fear of His Name I shall therefore content my self with cherishing and preserving whilst I live the precious Memory of His Worth the Excellency of His Wit the Soundness of His Judgment the Sweetness of His Nature the Fairness of His Carriage and those other Choice Parts wherewith He was accomplished but above all His singular Piety which clearly shone forth in His Words and Actions till the hour of His Death And Madam as for this small Treatise which was at first conceived and composed for Him I thought I could not without being guilty of a piece of Injustice present it to any other but Your Self seeing it hath pleased God notwithstanding the Common Order of Nature to make You Heir to Him to whom it belonged This Consideration only hath emboldned me to present it to Your Hands knowing that the Nature of this Discourse is not so suitable to that Sorrow which hath of late cast a Cloud over Your House it having pleased God after the death of the Son to deprive You of the Father and to the Loss of Your Children to add that also of Your Noble Husband But my desire of avoiding the being Vnjust hath forced Me to be thus Vncivilly Troublesome seeing I accounted it a kind of Theft should I have any longer withheld from You that which was Your Right by this Sad Title of Inheritance Be pleased therefore Madam to receive this Book as a part of the Goods of your Deceased Son which I now honestly restore in the view of the whole World after some times Concealment of it in my Study This Name I know will oblige You to afford it some place in Your Closet which is all that I can at present desire For as for the reading of it besides that Your Exquisite Piety which is built upon Infinitely much Firmer Grounds than these Disputes hath no need at all of it I know also that Your present Condition is such as that it would be very Troublesome unto You. And if You shall chance to desire to spend some hours in the Perusal of it it must be hereafter when the Lord by the Efficacy of His Spirit shall have comforted Yours and shall have allayed the Violence of Your Grief to whom I pour out my most earnest Prayers that He would vouchsafe Powerfully to effect the same and to shed forth His most holy Grace upon You and Yours and that He would by His great Mercy preserve Long and Happily that which remaineth of that Goodly and Blessed Family which He hath bestowed upon You. This Madam is one of the most Hearty Prayers of Your most Humble and Obedient Servant DAILLE The Design of the whole WORK THE Fathers cannot be the Judges of the Controversies in Religion at this day betwixt the Papist and the Protestant 1. Because it is if not an impossible yet at least a very difficult thing to find out what their sense hath been touching the same 2. Because that their Sense and Judgment of these things supposing it to be certainly and clearly understood not being Infallible and without all danger of Errour cannot carry with it a sufficient Authority for the satisfying the Vnderstanding which neither can nor indeed ought to believe any thing in point of Religion but what it knows to be certainly True The first of these Reasons is proved by these Mediums following I. We have very little of the Writings of the Fathers especially of the First Second and Third Centuries pag. 1. II. Those Writings which we have of the Fathers of those times treat of matters very far different
Passage of S. Basil alledged by themselves triumphed as if they had got the day baffling and affronting the Greeks in a very disdainful manner and giving them very harsh Language also used notwithstanding such an odd kind of Logick to perswade the receiving of the Exposition which they gave as that even at this day in the last Edition of S. Basil's Works Printed at Paris and Revised by Fronto Ducaeus the Latin Translation follows in this Particular not their Exposition but that of the Greek Schismaticks And some of the Protestants having also had the same success in some particular Points controverted betwixt themselves it lies open to every Mans observation how much obscurity there is found in the Passages cited by both Sides If Tertullian was of the Opinion of the Church of Rome in the Point concerning the Eucharist what could he have uttered more dark and obscure than this Passage is of his in his Fourth Book against Marcion Christ having taken Bread and distributed it to his Disciples made it his Body in saying This is my Body that is to say The Figure of my Body If S. Augustine held Transubstantiation what can the meaning be of these words of his The Lord stuck not to say This is my Body when he delivered onely the Sign of his Body If these Passages and an infinite number of the like do really and truly mean that which Cardinal Perron pretends they do then was there never any thing of obscurity either in the Riddles of the Theban Sphinx or in the Oracles of the Sibyls If you look on the other side you shall meet with some other Passages in the Fathers which seem to speak point-blank against the Protestants as for example where they say expresly That the Bread changeth its nature and That by the Almighty Power of God it becomes the Flesh of the Word and the like And so in all the Controversies betwixt them they produce such Passages as these both on the one side and on the other some whereof seem to be irreconcileable to the Sense of the Church of Rome and some other to the Sense of their Adversaries If Cardinal Perron and those other subsime Wits of both Parties can have the confidence to affirm that they find no difficulty at all in these Particulars we must needs think that either they speak this but out of a Bravado setting a good face upon a bad matter or else that both the Wits and Eye-sight of all the rest of the World are marvelous dull and feeble in finding nothing but Darkness there where these Men see nothing but Light But yet for all this if there be not obscurity in these Writings of the Fathers and that very much too how comes it to pass that even these very Men find themselves ever and anon so tormented to find out the meaning of them How comes it to pass that they are fain to use so many words and make tryal of so many tricks and devices for the clearing of them Whence proceeds it that so often for fear of not being able to satisfie their Readers they are forced to cry down either the Authors or the Pieces out of which their Adversaries produce their Testimonies What strange Sentences and Passages of Authors are those that require more time and trouble in the clearing Them than in deciding the Controversie it self and which multiply Differences rather than determine them oftentimes serving as a Covert and retreating-place to both Parties The sense and meaning of these words is debated This is my Body For the explaining of them there is brought this Passage out of Tertullian and that other out of S. Augustine Now I would have any Man speak in his conscience what he thinks whether or not these words are not as clear or clearer than those Passages which they alledge out of these Fathers as they are explained by the different Parties I desire Reader no other judge than thy self whosoever thou art only provided that thou wilt but vouchsafe to read and examine that which is now said upon these places and withal consider the strange Turnings and Windings-about that they make us take to bring us to the right sense and meaning of them In a word if the most able Men that are did not find themselves extreamly puzled and perplexed in distinguishing the Legitimate Writings of the Fathers from the Spurious it is not likely that the Censors of the Low-Countries who are all choice pickt Men should be forced to shew us so ill an Example of finding a way to help our selves when the Authority of the Ancients is strongly pressed against us by our Adversaries as they do in excusing the expressions of the Fathers sometimes by some handsomlâ— contrived invention and imputting some convenient probable sense upon them That which hath been said I am confident is sufficient to convince any reasonable Man of the Truth of this Assertion of ours namely that it is a very hard matter to understand the sense and opinions of the Fathers by their Books But that we may leave no doubt behind us let us briefly consider some few of the principal Causes of this Difficulty Certainly the Fathers having been Wise Men all of them both spoke and wrote to be understood insomuch that having both the will and the ability to do it it seemeth very strange that they should not be able to attain to the end they aimed at But we must here call to mind what we have said before namely that these Controversies of ours being not in their time yet sprung up they had no occasion neither was it any of their design either to speak or write any thing of them For these Sages stirred up as few doubts in matters of Religion as they could Besides that their times furnished them with sufficient matter of Disputes in Points which were then in agitation without so much as thinking of Ours now on foot And they have very clearly delivered their sense in all those Controversiâ—s which they have handled Even Tertullian himself who is the most obscure amongst them all hath notwithstanding delivered himself so clearly in the debates betwixt him and Marcion and others that there is no place left for a Man to doubt what his opinions were in the points debated of I am therefore fully perswaded that if they had lived in these times or that the present Controversies had been agitated in their times they would have delivered their judgment upon them very plainly and expresly But seeing they have not touched upon them but only by the By and as they câ—me accidentally into their way rather than upon any set purpose we are not to think it strange if we find them not to have spoken out and given their sense clearly as to these Debates of ours For as any Man may easily observe in the ordinary course of things those things that happen without design are never clear and full but ambiguous and doubtful and oftentimes
to give me leave to set down here the whole Passage at length As for these kind of Books saith he speaking of those Books which we Write not with Authority of Commanding but only out of a Design of exercising our selves to benefit others we are so to read them as not being bound necessarily to believe them but as having a liberty left us of judging of what we read Yet notwithstanding that we may not quite shut out these Books and deprive posterity of the most profitable labour of exercising their Language and Stile in the handling and treating of hard Questions we make a Distinction betwixt these Books of Later Writers and the Excellency of the Canonical Authority of the Old and New Testament which having been confirmed in the Apostles time hath since by the Bishops who succeeded them and the Churches which have been propagated throughout the World been placed as it were upon a high Throne there to be reverenced and adored by every Faithful and Godly Vnderstanding And if we chance here to meet with any thing that troubleth us and seemeth Absurd we must not say that the Author of the Book was ignorant of the truth but rather that either our Copy is false or the Interpreter is mistaken in the sense of the place or else that we understand not him aright And as for the Writings of those other Authors who have come after Them the number whereof is almost infinite though coming very far short of this most sacred Excellency of the Canonical Scriptures a man may sometimes find in them the very same truth though it shall not be of equal Authority And therefore if by chance we here meet with such things as seem contrary to the Truth by reason perhaps of our not understanding them only we have our Liberty either in reading or hearing the same to approve of what we like and to reject that which we conceive not to be so right So that except all such passages be made good either by some certain reason or else by the Canonical Authority of the Scriptures and that it be made appear that the thing asserted either really it or else at least that it might have been he that shall reject or not assent to the same ought not in any wise to be reprehended And thus far have we S. Augustine testifying on our side as well here as in many other places which would be too long to be inserted here that those opinions which we find delivered by the Fathers in their Writings are grounded not upon their bare Authority but upon their Reasons and that they bind not our belief otherwise than so far forth as they are consonant either to the Scripture or to Reason and that they ought to be examined by the one and the other as proceeding from persons that are not infallible but possibly may have erred So that it appears from hence that the course which is at this day observed in the World is not of sufficiency enough for the discovery and demonstration of the truth For we are now in doubt suppose what the sense and meaning is of such a piece of Scripture Here shall you presently have the judgment of a Father brought upon the said place quite contrary to the Rule S. Augustine giveth us who would have us examine the Fathers by the Scriptures and not the Scriptures by the Fathers Certainly according to the judgment of this Father the Protestant though a Passage as clear and express as any of the Canons of the Council of Trent should be brought against him out of any of the Fathers ought not to be blamed if he should answer that he cannot by any means assent unto it unless the truth of it be first proved unto him either by some certain Reason or else by the Authority of the Canonical Scriptures and that then and not till then he shall be ready to assent unto it So that according to this Account we are to alledge not the Names but the Reasons of Books to take notice not of the Quality of their Authors but of the Solidity of their Proofs to consider what it is they give us and not the face or hand of him that gives it us and in a word to reduce the dispute from Persons to Things And S. Jerome also seemeth to commend unto us this manner of Proceeding where in the Preface to his second Commentary upon Hosea he hath these words Then saith he that is after the Authors of Books are once departed this life we judge of their worth and parts only not considering at all the Dignity of their Name and the Reader hath regard only to what he reads and not to the Author whose it is So that whether he were a Bishop or a Lay-man a General and a Lord or a common Souldier and a Servant whether he lie in Purple and in Silk or in the vilest and coursest rags he shall be judged not according to his degree of honour but according to the merit and worth of his Works Now he here speaks either of matter of Right or of Fact and his meaning is that either we ought to take this course in our Judgments or else it is a plain Affirmation that it is the practice of the World so to do If his words are to be taken in the first sense he then clearly takes away all Authority from the bare Names of Writers and so would have us to consider the Quality only and weight of their Writings that is to say their Reasons and the force of the Arguments they use If he be to be understood in the second sense he seemeth not to speak truth it being evident that the ordinary course of the world is to be more taken with the titles and names of Books than with the things therein contained But supposing however that this was S. Hieroms meaning we may notwithstanding very safely believe that he approveth of the said course for as much as having this occasion of speaking of it he doth not at all reprehend it If therefore thou hast any mind to stand to his judgment lay me aside the Names of Augustine and of Hierome of Chrysostome and of Cyril and forget for this once the Rochet of the first and the Chair of the second together with the Patriarchal Robe of the two last and observe what they say and not what they were the ground and reason of their opinions and not the dignity of their persons But that which makes me very much wonder is that some of those who have been the most conversant in Antiquity should trouble themselves in stuffing up their Books with declamatory expressions in praise of the Authors they produce not forbearing to recount to you so much as the Nobleness of their Extraction the choiceness of their Education the gallantry of their Parts the eminency of their See and the greatness of their State This manner of writing may perhaps suit well enough with
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