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
once take the liberty to except against particular Doctrines or particular Fathers delivering them I may then with out any further proof flatly conclude that nothing can be this way concluded since your adversaries will likewise claim in whatsoever shall thwart them an equal liberty of excepting Now Cousin give me leave to examine a little neerer the three grounds whereon you build the pretended certainty of this Method in resolving your differences out of the Fathers declarations as I collect your sense they are these First That they were faithful Collectors of the general traditions of the Church in their times Secondly that they are sincere conveyers of them to us And Thirdly that the traditions collected and conveyed by them are infallible Should I grant them all to be true it would not follow that they were sufficient till it did appear which I think never will though for the present we will suppose it that there were general traditions preserved in the Church concerning all those points which we dispute of but unless they appear to be true I am sure they cannot pass for sufficient First That they were faithful Collectors of all the traditions of the Church where in faithful I suppose you comprise careful able for in the other single sense of fidelity faithful hath most proper relation to the following condition of Conveyers industry and ability being as fully requisite in this the Collecting part as integrity To this I say that as in one place I have formerly profest how I beleeve them such faithful Collectors of the Churches receptions that is careful and able as well as sincere in many things of greatest importance so in another I think I have said enough whereby to prove it unlikely that in things of less moment such as our controversies the Primitive Fathers did applie their care and abilities to sound the bottome of them whether in this way of collecting the traditions of the Church concerning them or any other Industry requiring alwayes stimulations in the particular businesses where we are to expect it and likewise some leasure remission from other pressing occupations Both which the Primitive Fathers totally wanted by little provocation in our cases and incessant allarms in more weighty ones So that to your first ground I will onely make of new this demand Was the knowledge and Collection of the Churches traditions receptions easie and evident to all careful investigators or hard and difficult If the latter which I beleeve since so many circumstances are requisite to the exact knowledge of the Churches traditions as first certain evidence what is that Church universal whose traditions are so sacred Secondly a clear and unconfus'd delivery of the same unto them lastly not only an exquisite apprehension of the substance of all the doctrines but a perfect intelligence of the degrees and necessities either of belief or practise wherein the Church did hold them if thus hard I say and intricate the Fathers being men and liable as you confess to error how can we be secured that they did not oftentimes mistake them since it is evident that sometimes they did If facill and obvious which is likelyest you take them to be since you prefer them before Scriptures because that you say is difficult how comes it that they disagree having a plain easie and infallible Directory whereby to regulate and conform their judgments And truly Cousin supposing it such I know not how to free divers of them that dissent from one another in matters where tradition is vouched from the imputation of stupidity either in not understanding the common and manifest tenents of the Church or of perversness and malice that knowing them would not own them but by arguing from their variances that they were not all in all matters of Religion careful Collectors of the Churches traditions Which if you once admit we cannot think to conclude any thing from the Fathers till some third authority assure us which of the many for ought appears to us of equal abilities and zeal were the careful Collectors which not and in what particulars they were so and in what not To your second ground that they are sincere Conveyers unto us of the traditions of the Church I say that to the just title of sincere Conveyers two conditions are requisite the one affirmative that they should deliver to us with all their rights that is clearness perspicauity identitie of sense as they received them all the right traditions of the Church And that the Fathers are not likely to have done this may be inferred from what hath been said before of their want of care and industry in collecting the Churches sene concerning our affairs matters being seldome right in the second digestion which were not good in the first The other is negative that they should not deliver any thing for a tradition of the Church universal that was not rightly and evidently such That the Fathers were not Scrupulous in this point my former instances I conceive have sufficiently evinced Wherein it is evident with what confidence to doubtful yea and erroneous doctrines that themselves effected they set this pretended great seal of infallibility Beleeve me Cousin that saying of St. Hierom Ingenium suum facit Ecclesiae Sacramenta belongs not onely unto Origen it may without wrong be extended to most of the Fathers that I have been acquainted with And no marvel that they should sometimes in heat of dispute be transported to vouch for tradition what was not when so often they swerve from what was apparently the universal receptions of the Church as hath been made evident by many examples From which I do not infer that the Fathers had alwayes such erroneous beliefs as their words would many times import but onely that it is likely that they who in heat of dispute or for some ends which they thought very important would recede in their expressions from the confest tradition of the Church in such high constitutive points of Christian Religion would not be scrupulous in the like heats or upon the like ends to misapply the seal of tradition to some points of lesser importance For though it appear a greater falsehood to set a seal surreptitiously where it belongs not yet it is neerer to Rebellion not to conforme to that Authority where the Royal seal is manifestly stamp'd There hath enough been said to maniest that the Fathers that would sometimes thus license themselves be the occasion what it will and the end how pious soever cannot pass for Candid or sincere conveyers of all the Churches receptions unto us and if less punctual in any sure likeliest in our controverted doctrines which rarely had they the occasion to mention but as serving to greater ends there were so many circumstances that might tempt and lead them from the exact punctuallities of a sincere conveyer that I am not much scandalized at their prevarication You shall finde that where Gregory Neoces Ariensis said that
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 soule perspicatious and considerate of what is profitable Lastly to conclude this point let me set before you Macarius Homil. 17. and Theophylact more remote from one another in this article of faith then in the times wherein they lived Macarius telling us that we offer bread and wine the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of his flesh and blood and they which are partakers of the visible bread do eat the flesh of the Lord spiritually And Theophylact teaching the directly contrary doctrin upon the 6. of Saint John Note here saies he that the bread which we eat in the mysteries is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Lords flesh but the very flesh of the Lord and let no body be troubled that the bread should be believed flesh since the bread which he did eate when he walked here was altered into his body and made the same with his holy flesh so would the wafer be turned into his flesh if Christ as man did eat it will the veryest Sacramentary say I have insisted the longer upon this particular as conceiving it the highest point of all our controversies and wherein the Fathers should have most obliged us had they left to posteritie a right and unanimous intelligence of that great mysterie of the Eucharist But the certainest conclusion I can draw from them in this and the rest is of the uncertainty of concluding any thing in our differences from those that differ so much amongst themselves Justin Martyr in Orat. cohort ad Gent. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He should have my vote for a rare Musitian that could contrive those their discords into a Harmony fit to be the measure either of our practise or belief My next Reason is the Fathers variance from themselves a quality of much more prejudice to them then the other for upon contradiction of testimonies how point-blank soever a Judg may fall to examine the fame and reputed integrity of the witnesses in which if he find a difference he will not stick many times to pronounce a sentence according to the intire credit of the men but who will ever give judgement upon ones evidence who in the same businesse is found in contrary tales And here I could run over most of the materialest points wherein I made my former instances and produce almost out of every Father pro con examples not onely of variance but almost of as eminent contradiction as that of St. Augustine concerning Purgatory in Serm. 232. de Tempore where he flatly denies that there is any third place besides Heaven and Hell calling them deceivers that teach it And likewise in his 21. Book de Civitate Dei cap. 16. where he absolutely rejects the opinion of any Purgatory flames before the day of Judgement to another passage in Cap. 24. of Lib. 21. de Civitate Dei where he seemes positively to affirm i◠himselfe but I forbear in regard it would be tedious and likewise for that I am unwilling to presse a point of derogation from those holy Fathers whom I reverence further then I needs must it being sufficient for what I intend to inferre that they appeare oftentimes to vary from their owne positions in divers Articles that we dispute of and others fully as important in which I may be well excused from the trouble to us both of alledging examples since Genebrard and Pamelius thought it their best course to purge the one Origen the other Tertullian from grosse and impious errour in many places by shewing how they teach the cleane contrary in others though by the way I must needs say that Pamelius his manner appeares to be very extravagant for as to some poysonous doctrines of Tertullian a Montanist he rightly applies a cure from some other passage of Tertullian a Catholick so at other times to what hee thought venemous in Tertullian a Catholick he preposterously prescribes an Antitidote out of Tertullian an Heretick as you may see in the eighth of his Paradoxes where he confutes an errour in his Apologetique and de Testimonio Animae Bookes which that Father wrote being a Catholicke with a passage of his Book de Anima composed when he was turned Cataphrygian and yet who so forward as Pamelius when any passage in such bookes makes for us to cry out away with it 't was a saying of Tertullian a Montanist I may well help my cause the best I can by this unsetlednesse of the Fathers since the noblest pillar of the Roman Church Cardinall Peron so often wrests their variance from themselves so much to the advantage of his See how in his reply to King James p. 374. he makes bold with Gregory the Great with Ruffinus with Jerome touching the Maccabees reception into the Canon wherein I doe not think him more in the wrong in the particular then I believe him right in the generall to wit that the Fathers did often vary their opinions according to their severall greenness or maturity of studies from whence Vincentius Lyrenensis his directions will follow cont haeres c. 39. That the Fathers depositions are onely to be taken who living in the Catholick Faith and Communion holily and wisely did constantly teach and persist even untill their death in Christ and further such only as did receive preserve and deliver their doctrines all or the greatest part manifestly and in one and the same sense wherein what use soever some Papists make of that passage I professe I thinke we are somewhat lesse beholding to him for the certainty of a rule and evidence to guide our faith by then to Archimedes for his Engine to remove the World For the Mathematitian disabuses us and declares that there is not a solid place to be found wheron to fix his instrument but th' other leaves us to that vain search of an impossibility for truly as the case stands I cannot think it less then an impossibility to know with any competent assurance what in all or almost any of our debated questions the Fathers hold with all those solid circumstances whereon Vincentius his rule is grounded of holiness wisdom catholickness immutability of the teachers and perpetual identitie of the doctrins sense if with years they all improved I might be comforted a little by relying on their last dictamens but as I find a S. Augustin that with age retracted his errors so on the other side I meet with a Tertullian that going forward in years and experience went less in his judgement how happie should we both be in one that could assure us in the Legion of Fathers when was the verticle point of each their erudition whether at their summer or winter solstice if I give you the notes of it and tell you then only you have it certain when they are in a perfect and palpable conjunction with Scripture you will think it but an imperfect indication if you say that then they were ariv'd to the high point of their perfection when they were once exactly instructed in the full
said Papias ran into either by a flattery to win upon the Jewes or else as you say by the grosse understanding of a Text in the twentieth of the Apocalypse himselfe being one but of a dull and easie spirit which being taken from him by those that reverenced the antiquity and piety of the man was delivered with recommendation to their successors and so took possession of most of the Doctors of the following Ages As for that of Cerinthus I believe with Sextus Senensis that it was a distinct heresie which fed carnall men with hopes of beastly and sensuall delights for it is not likely that a doctrine taken from such an arch Heretick as Cerinthus could have found such reception among the Catholick Fathers and least of all is it probable that Cerinthus could have fathered it upon St. John whom the Apostle is said to have detested so much that Iraeneus lib. 3. cap. 3. advers haeres a chiefe Champion of the Millenaries in that very Chapter where as you say he reckons up the successions of Bishops in divers Churches relates that when St. John was entring into a Bath where Cerinthus washed himselfe St. John no sooner saw him but he stept back crying out Let us forsake the place lest that enemy of truth draw down the house upon our heads a fit Authour for so foule a Doctrine but one very unlikely to be believed acquainted with Christs whispers to St. John But as this enormous part which passes also with most under the name of Millenaries heresie was generally condemned so the other more spirituall of Papias was and is farre from being approved at this day either by your Church or ours much more from finding so firm and entire assent as you will be obliged to give it by your rule of swallowing for unquestionable and infallible what doctrine soever the Fathers deliver as taught unto them and to be the generall sense of the Christian Church in their times And for proofe that it was delivered for such by Papias who gloried in nothing more then in being a carefull collector of the doctrines taught by the Apostles viva voce I referre you nlyto Nicephorus Calistus Hist Eccles lib. 3. c. 20. That Justine Martyr p. 307. delivered it for such a passage in his Dial. with Tryphon will easily testifie where he saith that he and all in all parts orthodox Christians held it and calls them Christians onely in name with many other circumstances of aggravation that denied it It is true as you say hee confesses a little before that some good and honest Christians did not acknowledge it but this may be an argument how carelesse and oftentimes repugnant to themselves some of the Fathers were in their writings or else how little scrupulous of setting to doubtfull doctrines that seale which you account so sacred but it can no way salve him from having taught it with those circumstances which you esteeme the notes of infallibility That Iraeneus took it and taught it to be of tradition from Christ I think is so manifest that it were superfluous to insist upon particular passages in that Authour And lastly to omit Tertullian and others who clearly me thinks imply as much though not in the very terms What can expresse more a doctrine rightly delivered and generally received then Lactantius lib. 7. Institut c. 26. his conclusion of his long discourse upon this subject haec est doctrina sanctorum Prophetarum quam Christiani sequimur hoc est Christiana sapientia Secondly For the necessity of childrens partaking of the Eucharist although the evident practise of the Church for the first six hundred years according to all our records of antiquity might excuse me from proving by any particular instance that some of the Fathers taught the necessity of it for a received tradition yet take this of St. Austin lib. 1. de peccat mer. remiss c. 24. rightly saith he do the Punick Christians call Baptisme by no other names but health and safety nor the Sacraments of Christs body by no other then life unde nisi ex antiquâ ut existimo et Apostolica traditione qua Ecclesiae Christi insitum tenent praeter Baptismum et participationem Dominicae mensae non solum non ad Regnum Dei sed nec ad salutem et vitam aeternam posse quemquam hominum pervenire So direct a passage that I see not how in this point you can avoid the necessity either of retracting your rule of assurance or of incurring an Anathema of the Councel of Trent Sess 21. cap. 4. Can. 4. against any that should hold this very opinion which you finde so delivered and so Majestically sealed by Saint Austin * Tertul. lib. de Idololatria Orig. lib. 7. Cont. Cels Arnob. lib. 6. Lactan. lib. 2. cap. ult Epihan Ep. ad Johan Hierosol inter oper Hier. Epist 60. Ambr. de suga Secul cap. 5. August de fide cap. 7. Thirdly for the use of Images a point likewise of my former letter to which you say that the Fathers do not use the Authority or Tradition of the Church to beat it down I am confident you will confess that affirmation a slip of observation or memory when you shall but cast your Eyes upon those passages of the Fathers for brevity sake quoted onely in the Margin where doubtless in some at least you will finde the interdiction of them so deeply stampt with your supposed great seal of Christianity that if you stick to your own rule it will not be enough to speak indifferently of the matter with the Moderator on your side but you must be as rigid and severe against them as you can imagine any warm brother would be at Edenbourgh for I do not think any Zealot of them all can be more invective in this point then most of those Fathers were many to the abhorring of the very Trade of Imagery but because you do insist somewhat upon justification of the contrary practise at this day in the Romish Church I must beg leave to run over your Allegations and to acquaint you freely how unsatisfied I am in the particulars In the first place you evade the Authority of the Primitive Fathers voucht formerly by me namely of Justine and Tertullian by saying In regard that Idolatry was then fresh in the memory and practice of the world they might well think it dangerous to admit that which the following Governours of the Church might afterwards introduce upon a good ground of raising devotion in the people since things of that nature you say may be convenient at one time and unfit at another And in the next you labour to justifie the use of Images now by saying First that as strong Arguments and as pregnant passages of Scripture are produced for it as formerly against it Secondly by alledging that these times are secure from the danger of Idolatry And lastly by affirming that a great good appeares in them To your infirming of those Ancient
Convenient as it had need since under a less pretension then Necessarie it is hard imposing new duties upon the multitude And the step being so easie though so great from necessarie to absolutely necessary 't is no marvaile that all or most of the Pastors should have delivered it for such to their Flockes and applied to it the seale of most Authority with the multitudes Tradition and so they have swallowed that according to the expression for a necessary duty and given it the generall voague of such in the Church which was farre from being truly so in its first and after so long a progresse untraceable originals So likewise of Christs descent into Hell concerning which I suppose all antiquity agrees in the shell of the Article Descendit ad Inferos though Ruffinus in Symb. says it was left out of the Symbole of the Church of Rome few of the Fathers in the kernell or inward sense that is what was understood by Inferi and how and why Christ descended thither Some taking the Inferi to be a part of Hel others understanding it with a little more colour of reason that resting place called Abrahams Bosome and a part of Heaven Some thinking and rightly as I conceive that he descended virtually onely to triumph over the damned Others that locally yea so farre as to preach in hell and convert there such was the extravagant opinion of Clemens of Alexandria Strom. lib. 6. p 639. one of the learnedest of the pack but all agreeing I say in this outside Descendit ad Inferos or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 No marvell that the more grosse and literall sense should be swallowed by the multitude and gain the name though an errour of common reception handed to them from their Forefathers so that it may be collected out of what hath been said that falshoods may creep into the Church either by want of exact fidelity in the Teachers which want may be generall when the collaterall considerations are generall and the poynts themselves not thought so important as others they serve to Or by the frequent misapprehension of the teached the matter often taking possession of them when the manner of the doctrine usually most considerable is either let slip or supplanted or else by leisurable yea and at first insensible mistakes either in Teachers or Learners which notwithstanding in long progress of time grow manifest and vast like the ebbings and flowings of the Sea which at the end of some houres make so great a difference when at the brink no man can perceive how much ground each wave doth gain or lose What then shall those discern that look upon the severall billows at a remote and dazzeling distance Nor can your arguments taken from humane Natures prime appetence of Truth serve to conclude an infallibility in whatsoever shal be imbrac'd for a truth by a vast multitude of men of variety of natures dispositions and interests First because no number whatsoever of Individuals but that which makes up the universall can be considered as other then a part wheras your argument is not colourably applied to lesse then the whole It is the infrustrable appetence of truth an appropriate of humane nature in the generall that you insist upon which is not made vain by any multitudes which how great soever is still but a part entertaining of a falshood Secondly because if we admit of your Argument it will conclude for Heretickes once grown numerous as the Arrians were as well as for the best Catholickes since naturall Appetences are not to be suppos'd more frustrate in the one then in the other * Lactantius Divin Inst lib. 5. cap. 13. An boni nostri qualitas ex populi potius pendebit erroribus quam ex conscientia nostra judicio Dei. Thirdly because though I grant your Argument I am never a whit the surer of truth where I finde many professors of a doctrine held as by tradition since the prime naturall appetence of truth whence you draw your ratiocination is to the knowledge of truth not the teaching of it Now in our question this is as much or more requisite in the deliverers then the other in the receivers since they look no further then the hands they had it from and to hold fast in truth what they presented them for such and for so conveyed by their preceders to them And lastly your argumentation cannot be usefull because you extend it only to prove that multitudes cannot agree together on an untruth to complot it whereas to overthrow your imagined infallibility it is enough that they agree in or to an untruth to believe it Between which two there is so great a difference that I think the first very improbable the other very frequent Nay farther I do conceive the very frequencie and if I may so say aptness in Individuals whether few or many which makes a multitude to be led into errors to result from mans natural affection to truth which is such and so transporting that we are glad to embrace and hug the very shadowes of it And being rarely able in our imperfect and deprest condition here to arive to a solid enjoyment of that prime essence of Intellectual delight we grow fond of the appearances and cleave close to what is like it Mans affection to this transcendent expressing it self after the same manner that it usually doth to the other prime fellow appetence of our Nature good which our soul here below interially and naturally aims at in all its pursuances But the onely true good being too farr elevated for it to ascend to a full enjoyment thereof whilst it beares the clogg of flesh upon it our ardor directs it self to what we think of nearest derivation from it But alas we misse even of that and embrace false shadowes for it easily conceiting any thing the same that 's but clad like unto what we love whilst almost all mankind courts pursues and enjoyes what 's ill yet seldome or never but sub ratione boni And thus by easily believing what we fain would have by a naturall passion both to good and truth we are betraid to a mistaking credulity in both Thus Cousin I have presumed to give you an Answer in my immethodical and unpollisht way to what I finde repugnant to my understanding in the discourse to which you refer'd me for proofe of infallibilitie in all the Traditions of the Church of Rome To discusse that learned and eloquent Discourse throughout in any correspondency to its weight and beauty belongs I consesse to farre greater eminence then I have vanity to aim at And therefore what I have ventured upon hath been onely to shew you that although I am in the highest measure delighted yea even ravished with that excellent piece I am nothing a paid therewith in this particular which may serve for an argument that goodnesse many times delights the soul in spite of truth and so proves a transcendent above it Now that the fallibility
in heat against Pelagius but in other differences and those of greater importance I collect and probably if I am not much deceived that their sense is much clearer for us as in the doctrines of Purgatory and of the Eucharist for as touching the first although you may pretend in some that the words and outward shell wherein the Fathers opinions were conveyed belong more to you yet if the matter be carefully pick'd and examined I doubt not but the sense and kernel will prove ours it will be found that when ever any of the Fathers Origen onely excepted and his adherents who held the very flames of Hell but Purgatory Temporal I say those set aside all the expressions of the Fathers this way appear clearly to me to have been understood not of a Purgatory but onely of a probatory fire whether they meant that of affliction or that of the day of judgement as for that place in St. Augustine formerly alledged for Purgatory his best commentator Lod. Vives confesses he could never meet with it in the ancienter copies of that Fathers admirable works however crept into the vulgar Editions In point of the Eucharist I believe my former instances will deserve a confession of the ballances being so equally poysed in this affaire as far forth as expression at least that the overbearance of either scale is hardly perceptible but did I grant that their words weighed incomparably more on your side yet I should not doubt to challenge their sense for us and that most confidently upon this reason That supposing the Fathers to have believed as we doe the Sacrament to be Bread great reason might they have notwithstanding to raise the majesty of it in their expressions and to term it the body of Christ it being usuall and thought necessary in the primitive times to wrap up the Sacraments of the Church in mysteries that the Catechumens might be possest with a more awfull reverence towards them and be whetted and fan'd as it were to a more keen and ardent desire of being admitted unto them especially the danger being much more easie for them to think too meanly of what bore the name of Christs body but was palpably bread then that they should fall to adore that for God which their eare onely told them was the flesh of Christ and all their other senses assured them to be the commonest food of mankind wheras supposing them to have believed as the Church of Rome doth that the Sacrament is the very Flesh and blood of our Saviour and to be received with the same reverence that belongs to God himselfe there can be no warrantable reason why they should at any time lessen the majesty of so sacred an object of our adoration or give it so often the name of those ordinary elements whose evidence to our sense should they alwayes have said all they could invent of dignifying would still have been apt enough to give an allay to the faith and veneration that 's pretended to These being as I conceive two of the most important Articles of difference between your Church and ours what hath been said will suffice to manifest unto you that throughout this discourse I decline not the trial by the Fathers out of any distrust of our cause for truly though I will not allow their Writings to be the proper tribunall at which our controversies are to be judged I should be content to referre with you the whole matter to their arbitration and voluntarily to allow them that determinating power which in right they cannot claim so farre am I from acknowledging a greater conformity in the Church of Rome then in ours to what they teach to have been either the Government Practice or Beliefe of the primitive times nor yet should I refuse them for Arbitrators as peremptorily as I doe for Judges I would not think my pains lost or study of the Fathers not worth the while For besides the addition of knowledge and general improvement of the Soul which one must be a very stupid Reader of the Fathers not to advance in by the helps of their great and universal learning besides the admirable excitations to piety and zeale I conceive that even in the affair of directing us to a soul-saving Religion a Christian by searching into their ancient memorials may as you say reap a far greater advantage then either Criticks or Lawyers do in their several Sciences from their worm-eaten monuments of Antiquity for they Cousin from those maymed evidences of broken and disjoynted Records draw out principles it is true so probable as may prudentially induce a rational and equal Surveyers assent from which they frame perhaps some such text whereby indifferent men do consent to be regulated but we by our holy search into the Sacraries of former ages are led to a text already divinely framed A text perfectly comprizing all parts requisite to the supreme Science it concerns A text whose very affirmation is an uncontroulable resolution from our Records of antiquity wee draw not only Topical Arguments but proofs to any discoursing man above demonstration such as it were madness and impiety to reject upon any argument to the contrary and this in all points of Religion mistake me not I mean that do really and confestly on all hands import Heaven or Hell in mens beliefs and practise and from hence though I should deny the Fathers any usefulness at all in our controversies yet I should extreamly gratulate to my self the labour and ambition to be in some good measure skill'd in their Antiquities and to you your great and according to your principles most judicious progress in them Your next advice is that I should apply my understanding and industry to build up as well as to pull down and to examine as strictly the reasons of my own belief to see whether that be wel grounded as those for the contrary opinion to observe whether that be concludingly demonstrated I must confess I ever thought it a superfluous labour to seek to establish one part of a contradiction by any further proof then the destruction of the other and you your self supposing our Tenents contradictory do warrant that for a truth to me sufficiently proved and press on me a necessity of imbracing whatsoever is contradictory to a falshood 'T is true that St Jerome passes upon Lactantius a censure in a wish Vtinam tam nostra confirmare putuissit quam facile aliena distruxit but his case and ours are not alike 't was not so convincing an Argument Paganism is ridiculous Judaism exolete Therefore Christians are in every thing in the right as 't is with us the Church and tradition is not infallible in all things therefore fallible in some the bread is not transubstantiated therefore it remains bread There is no third place for us after death besides heaven and hell and no fall from the one and no redemption from the other therefore no Purgatorie In these and the like cases