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
formerly determined by the Orthodox Doct. as appears plainly not only by the Manuscripts but also by the most ancient Editions of this Author and even by Card. Baronius his alledging of this Passage also in the Tenth Tome of his Annals An. Dom. 869. These are they who have quite rased out this following Passage out of Oecumenius For they who defended and favoured the Law introduced also the worshipping of Angels and that because the Law had been given by them And this Custom continued long in Phrygia insomuch that the Council of Laodicea made a Decree forbidding to make any Addresses to Angels or to pray to them whence also it is that we find many Temples among them erected to Michael the Archangel Which Passage David Hâ—eschelius in his Notes upon the Books of Origen against Celsus p. 483. witnesseth That himself had seen and read in the Manuscripts of Oecumenius and yet there is no such thing to be found in any of the Printed Copies Who would believe but that the Breviaries and Missals should have escaped their Razour Yet as it hath been observed by Persons of eminent both Learning and Honesty where it was read in the Collect on S. Peter's day heretofore thus Deus qui B. Petro Apostolo tuo collatis clavibus regni coelestis animas ligandi solvendi Pontificium tradidisti that is O God who hast committed to thy Apostle S. Peter by giving him the Keys of the Heavenly Kingdom the Episcopal Power of Binding and Loosing Souls in the later Editions of these Breviaries and Missals they have wholly left out the word Animas Souls to the end that People should not think that the Popes Autority extended only to Spiritual Affairs and not to Temporal also And so likewise in the Gospel upon the Tuesday following the Third Sunday in Lent they have Printed Dixit Jesus Discipulis suis that is Jesus said to his Disciples whereas it was in the old Books Respiciens Jesus in Discipulos dixit Simoni Petro si peccaverit in te frater tuus Jesus looking back upon his Disciples said unto Simon Peter If thy Brother have offended against thee c. cunningly omitting those words relating to Simon Peter for fear it might be thought that our Saviour Christ had made S. Peter that is to say the Pope subject to the Tribunal of the Church to which he there sends him And if the Council of Trent would but have hearkned to Thomas Passio a Canon of Valencia they should have blotted out of the Pontifical all such Passages as make any mention of the Peoples giving their Suffrage and Consent in the Ordination of the Ministers of the Church and among the rest that where the Bishop at the Ordination of a Priest saith That it was not without good reason that the Fathers had ordained That the Advice of the People should be taken touching the Election of those Persons who were to serve at the Altar to the end that having given their Assent to their Ordination they might the more readily yield Obedience to those who were so Ordained The meaning of this honest Canon was that to take away all such Authorities from the Hereticks the best way would be to blot them all out of the Pontifical to the end that there might be no trace or footstep of them left remaining for the future But they have not contented themselves with corrupting onely in this manner some certain Books out of which perhaps we might have been able to discover what the Opinion and Sense of the Ancients have been but they have also wholly abolished a very great number of others And for the better understanding hereof we are to take notice that the Emperours of the first Ages took all possible care for the stifling and abolishing all such Writings as were declared prejudicial to the True Faith as namely the Books of the Arrians and Nestorians and others which were under a great penalty forbidden to be read but were to be wholly supprest and abolished by the Appointment of these ancient Princes The Church it self also did sometimes call in the Books of such Persons as had been dead long before by a common consent of the Catholick Party as soon as they perceived any thing in them that was not consonant to the present Opinion of the Church as it did at the Fifth General Council in the Business of Theodorus Theodoreius and Ibas all three Bishops the one of Mopsuestia the other of Cyprus and the third of Edissa anathematizing each of their several Writings notwithstanding there Persons had been all dead long before dealing also even in the quiet times of the Church with Origen in the same manner after he had been now dead about three hundred years The Pope then hath not failed to imitate now for the space of many Ages both the one and the other of these rigorous Courses withal encreasing the harshness of them from time to time in so much that in case any of the Opinions of the Ancients hath been by chance found at any time to contradict his we are not to make any doubt but that he hath very carefully and diligently suppressed such Pieces without sparing any though they were written perhaps two three four or five hundred years before more than the others As for example It is at this day disputed whether or no the Primitive Church had in their Temples and worshipped the Images of Christ and of Saints This Controversie hath been sometime very eagerly and with much heaâ— and for a long time together debated in the Greek Church That Party which maintained the Affirmative bringing the business before the VII Council held at Nicaea it was there ordained That it should be unlawful for any Man to have the Books of the other Party withal charging every Man to bring what Books they had of that Party to the Patriarch of Constantinople to do with them as we must conceive according as had been required by the Legats of Pope Adrian that is tâ—at they should burn all those Books which had been written against the Venerable Images including no doubt within the same Condemnation all such Writings of the Ancients also as seemed not to favour Images as namely the Epistle of Eusebius to Constantia and that of Epiphanius to John of Hierusalem and others which are not now extant but were in all probability at that time abolished For as for the Epistle of Epiphanius that which we now have is only S. Hieromes Translation of it which happened to be preserved in the Western parts where the passion in the behalf of Images was much less violent than it was in the Eastern but the Original Greek of it is no where to be found Adrian II. in his Council ordained in like manner that the Council held by Photius against the Church of Rome should be burnt together with his other Books and all the Books of those of his Party which
Castro and Melchior Canus Two Spanish Doctors For as much therefore as we are not bound to believe any thing save that which is True it is most evident that we neither may nor ought to believe the Opinions of the Fathers till such time as they appear to us to have been certainly True Now we cannot be certainly assured of this by Their Single Authority seeing that they were but Men who were not always inspired by the Holy Spirit from above and therefore it is necessary that we make use of some other Guides in this our Inquiry namely either of the Holy Scriptures or of Reason or of Tradition or of the Doctrine of the Present Church or of some other such means as they themselves have made use of So that it hence follows that their bare Assertions are no sufficient Ground for us to build any of our Opinions upon they only serve to encline us before hand to the Belief of the same the great opinion which we have of them causing us to conclude that They would never have embraced such an Opinion except it had been True Which manner of Argumentation how ever is at the best but Probable so long as the Persons we have here to do withal are only Men and no more and in this particular Case where the Question is touching Points of Faith it is by no means in the world to be allowed of since that Faith is to be grounded not upon Probabilities but upon necessary Truths The Fathers are like to other great Masters in this Point and their Opinions are more or less Valid in proportion to the Reason and Authority whereon they are grounded only they have this Advantage that their very Name begets in us a readiness and inclination to receive whatsoever comes from them while we think it very improbable that so Excellent men as they were should ever believe any thing that was False Thus in Humane Sciences the saying of an Aristotle is of a far different Value from that of any other Philosopher of less Account because that all men are before-hand possessed with an Opinion that this Great Philosopher would not maintain any thing that was not consonant to Reason But this is Prejudice only for if upon better examination it should be found to be otherwise his Bare Authority would then no longer prevail with us what himself had sometime gallantly said would then here take place namely That it is a sacred thing always to preferre the Truth before Friendship Let the Fathers therefore if you please be the Aristotles in Christian Philosophy and let us have a Reverent esteem of Them and their Writings as they deserve and not be too rash in concluding that Persons of so eminent both Learning and Sanctity should maintain any Erroneous or vain Opinions especially in a matter of so great Importance Yet notwithstanding are we bound withal to remember that they were but Men and that their Memory Understanding or Judgment might sometimes fail them and therefore consequently that we are to examine their Writings by those Principles from whence they draw their Conclusions and not to sit down upon their Bare Assertions till such time as we have discovered them to be True If I were to speak of any other Persons than of the Fathers I should not add any thing more to what hath been already said it having been already in my judgment clearly enough proved that they are not of themselves of Authority enough to oblige us necessarily to follow their Opinions But seeing the Question here is touching these great Names which are so highly honoured in the Church to the end that no man may accuse us of endeavouring to rob them of any of the Respect which is due unto them I hold it necessary to examine this business a little more exactly and to make it appear by considering the thing it self that they are of no more Authority neither in Themselves nor in respect of Us than hath been already by Us attributed unto them CHAP. II. Reason 2. That the Fathers themselves testifie against themselves that they are not to be believed Absolutely and upon their Own bare Word in what they deliver in matters of Religion THere is none so fit to inform us what the Authority of the Writings of the Ancients is as the Ancients themselves who in all Reason must needs know this better than we Let us therefore now hear what they testifie in this Particular and if we do indeed hold them in so high Esteem as we make profession of let us allow of their Judgment in this particular attributing neither more nor less unto the Ancients than they Themselves require at our hands St. Augustine who was the Principal Light of the Latine Church being entred into a Contestation with St. Hierome touching the Interpretation before-mentioned of the second Chapter of the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Galatians and finding himself hardly pressed by the Authority of six or seven Greek Writers which were urged against him by the other to rid his hands of them he was fain to make open profession in what account he held that sort of Writers I confess saith he to thy Charity that I only owe to those Books of Scripture which are now called Canonical that Reverence and Honour as to believe stedfastly that none of their Authors ever committed any Error in writing the same And if by chance I there meet with any thing which seemeth to contradict the Truth I presently think that certainly either my Copy is Imperfect and not so Correct as it should be or else that the Interpreter did not so well understand the Words of the Original or lastly that I my self have not so rightly understood Him But as for all other Writers how Eminent soever they are either for Sanctity or Learning I read them so as not presently to conclude whatsoever I there find to be True because They have said it but rather because they convince me either out of the said Canonical Books of Scripture or else by some Probable Reason that what they say is True Neither do I think Brother that thou thy self art of any other Opinion that is to say I do not believe that thou expectest that we should read thy Books as we do those of the Prophets or Apostles of the Truth of whose Writings as being exempt from all Errour we may not in any wise doubt And having afterwards opposed some other the like Authorities against those alledged by St. Hierome he addeth That he had done so notwithstanding that to say the truth he accounted the Canonical Scriptures only to be the Books to which as he said before he owed that ingenuous Duty as to be fully perswaded that the Authors of them never erred or deceived the Reader in any thing This Holy man accounted this Advice to be of so great Importance as that he thought fit to repeat it again in another place and I must intreat my Reader
find that the very same Error was defended by several Doctors of very great Repute in the Church S. Hierome who in divers places of his Commentaries hath excellently and solidly refuted this foolish Fancy says That many among the Learned Christians had maintained the same and to those whom we have already mentioned He addeth Lactantius Victorinus Severus and Apollinaris who is followed in this Point saith he in another place by great multitudes of Christians about us insomuch that I already foresee and presage to my self how many folks anger I shall incur hereby namely because he every where spoke against this Opinion Whence it plainly appears that in his time that is to say about the beginning of the Fifth Century it was still in great request in the Church And indeed how fierce soever he seem to be in his Onset yet he dares not condemn this Opinion absolutely Although we embrace not this Opinion saith he yet can we not condemn it for as much as there have been divers Eminent Personages and Martyrs in the Church who have maintained the same Let every man abound in his own sense and let us leave the judgment of all things to God Whence you see as we may observe by the way that the Fathers have not always held an Opinion in the same degree that we do For St. Hierome conceived this to be a Pardonable Errour which yet we at this day will not endure to hear of If it be here answered that the Church in the Ages following condemned this Opinion as erroneous this is no more than to say that the Churches in the Ages following acknowledged that the joynt Consent of many Fathers together touching one and the same Opinion is no solid Proof of the Truth of the same If Dionysius Alexandrinus had been of any other judgment he would never have written against Irenaeus as he did as St. Hierome also testifieth in one of his Books of Commentaries before cited And if we are to have regard to Authority only the Judgment of the succeeding Church cannot then serve us as a certain Guide in this Question to inform us on which side the Truth is For to alledge it in this Case were rather to oppose one Authority against another than to decide the Controversie As Dionysius Alexandrinus St. Hierome Gregory Nazianzene and others conceived not themselves bound to submit to the Authority of Justin Martyr Irenaeus Lactantius Victorinus Severus and others so neither are we any more bound to submit to theirs For their Posterity oweth them no more Respect than they themselves owed to their Ancestors It seemeth rather that in Reason they should owe them less because that look how far distant in time they are from the Apostles who are as it were the Spring and Original of all Ecclesiastical Authority so much doth the Credit and Authority of the Doctors of the Church lose and grow less If Antiquity as we would have it be the Mark of Truth then certainly that which is the most Ancient is also the most Venerable and the most Considerable And if there were no other Argument but this against the Authority of many Fathers unanimously consenting in any Opinion yet would it clearly serve to lessen the same but there are yet behind many others some whereof we shall here produce We have heard before Justin Martyr Irenaeus Tertullian and St. Augustine affirming all of them that Heaven shall not be opened till the Day of Judgment and that during this space of time the Souls of all the Faithful are shut up in some subterraneous place except some small number of those who had the Priviledge of going immediately to Heaven The Author of those Questions and Answers that go under the name of Justin Martyr maintains the same Opinion as you may see in the Answers to the LX and LXXIV Questions And that I may not unprofitably spend both Time and Paper in bringing in all the particular Passages I say in General that both the Major Part and also the most Eminent Persons among the Ancient Fathers held this Opinion either absolutely or at least in part For besides Justin Martyr Irenaeus Tertullian and St. Augustine and the Author of those Questions and Answers we before mentioned which is a very Ancient Piece indeed though falsly fathered upon Justin Martyr it is clear that Origen Lactantius Victorinus St. Ambrose St. Chrysostome Theodoret Oecumenius Aretas Prudentius Theophylact St. Bernard and among the Popes Clemens Romanus and John XXII were all of this Opinion as is confessed by all neither was this so admirable and general Consent of theirs contradicted by any Declaration of the Church for the space of Fourteen Hundred years neither yet did any one of the Fathers so far as we can discover take upon him to refute this Errour as Dionysius Alexandrinus and St. Hierome did to refute the Millenaries all the rest of the Fathers being either utterly silent as to this Particular and so by this their silence going over in a manner into the Opinion of the Major Part or else contenting themselves with declaring sometimes here and there in their Books that they believed that the Souls of the Saints should enjoy the sight of God till the Resurrection never formally denying the other Opinion But that which doth further shew that this Opinion is both very Ancient and hath been also very Common among the Christians is because that even at this day it is believed and defended by the whole Greek Church neither is there any of all those who make Profession of standing to the Writings of the Fathers as the Rule of their Faiths who have rejected it save only the Latines who have expresly also established the contrary at the Council of Florence held in the year of our Lord 1439. which is not above Two Hundred and Twelve years ago Do but fancy now to your selves a Vicentius Lirinensis standing in the midst of this Council and laying before them his own Oracle before mentioned which is That we ought to hold for most certainly and undoubtedly true whatsoever hath been delivered by the Ancients unanimously and by a Common Consent and do but think whether or no he should not have been hissed out by these Reverend Fathers as one that made the Truth which is holy and immutable to depend upon the Authority of Men For these men regarded not at all neither the Multitude nor the Antiquity nor the Learning nor the Sanctity of the Authors of this foolish Opinion but finding it to be false without any more ado rejected it as they thought they had good Reason to do and withal ordained the contrary Now I am verily perswaded that there are very few Points of Faith among all those which the Church of Rome would have the Protestants receive for which there can be alledged either more or more clear and evident Testimonies out of the Fathers than for this For as much therefore as that after
of in Christendom namely That the Old Vulgar Translation of the Bible is to be allowed of as Canonical and Authentick in the Church of God The CL Fathers of the Second General Council and the DCXXX of the Fourth were all of them of Opinion That the Ancients had advanced the See of Rome above that of other Bishops by reason of the Preeminence and Temporal Greatness of the City of Rome over other Cities and for the same reason they also thought good to advance in like manner the Throne of the Patriarch of Constantinople to the same Height with the former by reason of the City where he resided being now arrived to the self-same Height of Dignity with Rome it self I assure you that for all this he should now be Anathema Maranatha whosoever should go about to derive the Supremacy of the Pope from any other Original than from TV ES PETRVS PASCE OVES MEAS The Council of Trent Anathematizeth all those whosoever shall deny that Bishops are a Higher Order than Priests and yet S. Hierome and divers others of the Fathers have openly done the same We have already told you here before That the Church of Rome long since Excommunicated the Greeks because they hold That the Holy Ghost proceedeth not from the Son but from the Father onely And yet for all this Theodoret who expresly also demed in Terms that the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Son as we have shewed in the preceding Chapter was received by the Ancient Church and in particular by Pope Leo too as a True Catholick Bishop without requiring him to declare himself any otherwise or to give them any Satisfaction touching this Point And indeed we might reckon up very many the like Differences betwixt the Roman and the Ancient Church but these Examples we have here produced will suffice to let the World see how the Church of Rome holdeth That the Authority of the Opinions of the Ancients ought to be accounted Supreme We shall proceed in the next place to say something of the Ceremonies in the Christian Religion The first of all is Baptism which takes us out of Natures Stock and engraffs us into Jesus Christ Now it was a Custom heretofore in the Ancient Church to plunge those they Baptized over head and ears in the Water as both Tertullian S. Cyprian Epiphanius and others testifie And indeed they plunged them thus three several times as the same Tertullian and S. Hierome both inform us And this is still the Practice both of the Greek and of the Russian Church even at this very day And yet notwithstanding this Custom which is both so Ancient and so Universal is now abolished by the Church of Rome And this is the reason that the Muscovites say That the Latins are not Rightly and Duly Baptized because they are not wont to use this Ancient Ceremony in their Baptism which they say is expresly enjoyned them in the Canons of Joannes Metropolitanus whom they hold to have been a Prophet And indeed Gregory the Greek Monk who was notwithstanding a great Stickler for the Vnion in the Council of Florence doth yet confess in his Answer to the Epistle of Mark Bishop of Ephesus that it is Necessary in Baptism that the Persons to be Baptized should be thrice dipped over Head and Ears in the Water At their coming out of the Water in the Ancient Church they gave them to eat Milk and Honey as the same Authors witness and immediately after this they made them all Partakers also of the Blessed Communion both great and small whence the Custom still remains in Aethiopia of Administring the Eucharist to Little Children and making them take down a small quantity of it as soon as ever they are Biptised What have these our so great Adorers of Antiquity now done with these Ceremonies Where is the Milk or the Honey or the Eucharist which the Ancient Fathers were wont to administer to all immediately after Baptism Certainly these things notwithstanding the Practice of the Ancients have been now long since buried and forgotten at Rome In Ancient Times they often deferred the Baptising both of Infants and of other People as appears by the History of the Emperours Constantine the Great of Constantius of Theodosius of Valentinian and of Gratian in S Ambrose and also by the Orations and Homilies of Gregory Nazianzen and of S. Basil upon this Subject And some of the Fathers too have been of Opinion that it is fit it should be deferred as namely Tertullian as we have formerly noted of him How comes it to pass now that there is not so much as any the least Trace or Footing of this Custom to be found at this day in the Church of Rome Nay whence is it besides that they will not so much as endure the very mention of it and would abhor the Man that should but go about to put it in practice I shall here forbear to speak of the Times of Administring Baptism which was performed ordinarily in the Ancient Church but onely upon the Eves of Easter-day and of Whitsunday Neither shall I say any thing of the Ceremony of the Paschal Taper and the Albes or White Vestments that the new baptised Persons were used to wear all Easter-Week because that it may be thought perhaps that these are too light Circumstances although to say the plain truth if we are to regard the Authority of Men and not the Reason of the Things themselves I do not at all see why all the whole Rites should not still be retained as well as those Exorcisms and Renouncings of the Devil and the World with all its Pomp and Vanities which in Imitation of Antiquity are at this day though very improperly acted by them over little Infants though but of a day old As for the Eucharist Cassander sheweth clearly That it was Celebrated in the Ancient Church with Bread and Wine offered by the People and that the Bread was first broken into several Pieces and then Consecrated afterwards and distributed among the Faithful Notwithstanding the contrary Use hath now prevailed neither do they Consecrate any Bread which is offered by the People which was the Ancient Custom but onely little Wafer Cakes made round in the Form of a Deneere which yet is very sharply reproved in the Old Exposition of the Ordo Romanus c. The same Cassaâ—der also gives us an Account at large how that in Ancient Times the Canonical Prayer and the Consecration of the Eucharist was read out with a loud Voice and in such sort as that the People might all of them be able to hear it that so they might say Amen to it whereas the Priest now pronounceth it with a very low Voice so that none of the Congregation can tell what he says and hence it is that this part of the Liturgy is called Secret We
good use unto you and may serve as a Probable Argument of the Truth For is it not a wonderful thing to see that so many Great Wits born in so many several Ages during the space of Fifteen hundred years and in so many several Countries being also of so different Tempers and who in other things were of so contrary Opinions should notwithstanding be found all of them to agree so constantly and unanimously in the Fundamentals of Christianity that amidst so great diversity in Worship they all adore one and the same Christ preach one and the same Sanctification hope all of them for one and the same Immortality acknowledge all of them the same Gospels find therein all of them Great and High Mysteries The exquisite Wisdom and the inestimable Beauty it self of the Discipline of Jesus Christ I confess is the most forcible and certain Argument of the Truth of it yet certainly this Consideration also is in my Opinion no small proof of the same For I beseech you what Probability is there that so many Holy Men who were endued as it appeareth by their Writings with such Admirable Parts with so much strength and clearness of Understanding should all of them be so grosly overseen as to set so High a Price and Esteem upon this Discipline as to suffer even to Death for it unless it had in it some certain Heavenly Virtue for to make an Impression in the Souls of Men What likelyhood is there that Seven or Eight Dogs and as many Atheistical Hogs that Bark and Grunt so Sottishly and Confusedly against This Sacred and Venerable Religion should have better luck in lighting upon the Truth than so many Excellent Men who have all so Unanimously born Testimony to the Truth As for Atheists their Vicious Life ought to render their Testimony suspected to every one notwithstanding they may be otherwise as indeed they conceive themselves to be Able Men. For I beseech you what wonder is it if a Whoremaster or a Bawd or an Ambitious person cry down that Discipline that condemneth these Vices to Everlasting Fire that he that drowneth himself every day and at length vomiteth up his Soul in Wine should hate that Religion which forbiddeth Drunkenness upon pain of Damnation The great Reason that these men have to wish that it were False must needs make any man cease to wonder at their pronouncing it to be False To take any notice of what such wretched Things as these say is all one as if you should judge by taking the Opinion of Common Strumpets of the Equity or Injustice of the Laws that enjoin people to live Honest But the case is clean otherwise with these Holy Men who have so Constantly and so Unanimously taught the Truth of the Christian Religion For seeing they were Men born and brought up in the very same Infirmities with other men we cannot doubt but that they also Naturally had strong Inclinations to those vices which our Saviour Christ forbiddeth and very little Affection to those Virtues which He commandeth For as much therefore as notwithstanding all this They have yet all of them Constantly 〈◊〉 intained that His Doctrine is True Their Testimony certainly in this case neither can nor ought in any wise to be suspected So that although They had not any of those Great and Incomparable Advantages of Parts and Learning above the Enemies of Christianity Their â—are word however is much rather to be taken than the Othersâ— seeing that these men are manifestly carried away by the force of their own vile Affections of which the other cannot possibly be suspected Guilty And as for those Differences in Opinion which are sometimes found amongst Them touching some certain Points of Religion some whereof we have formerly set down these thing are so far from taking off any thing from the weight of Their Testimonies as that on the Contrary they add rather very much unto the same For this must acquit their Consenting of all suspicion that some perhaps might have that it proceeded from some Combination or some Correspondence and Mutual Intelligence When thou findst them so disagreeing among themselves touching so many several Points it is an evident Argument that they have not learnt their knowledge from one another nor yet have all agreed upon the same thing by common Deliberation but have all of them collected it out of a serious Examination and Consideration of the things themselves And if we received no other Benefit by the Writings of the Fathers than this yet were this however very much But now that the Benefit and Contentment which we shall receive from this Consideration may not be interrupted and disturbed by our meeting with so many several Private Opinions of theirs we are to take notice that Christianity consisteth not in Subtilties nor in the great number of Articles The Efficacy of them is much more Considerable than the Number A great part of these Points of Faith and the end of all the â—est is Sanctification that is to say A pure worship of God and A Hearty Charity towards Men. Thou maist therefore boldly conclude That Man to be a true Observer of This Discipline that thou shalt find to have a True and Right Sense and Apprehension of these Two Points Though perhaps he be ignorant of those Other that lie rather in Speculation than in Practise thou oughtest not to reject him for that And if being carried away with his own Curiosity or some other reason he chance to err in some of those other Articles bear with him notwithstanding As God forgives us our Sins so doth He also forgive us our Errours The Hay and the Stubble and the Chaffe shall be consumed But yet He that buildeth therewith shall be saved if so be He but hold fast to the Foundation Neither oughtest thou to be troubled if thou now and then meetest with some Ignorant or perhaps some Erroneous Passages in the Fathers touching these Points They are never a whit the less Christians for this and may for all this have been most Faithful Servants of Jesus Christ There is not any Face in the World so Beautiful but that it hath some Speckle or Blemish in it Yet is it not either the less esteemed or the less beloved for this The Natural condition of Mortal Men and Things is to have some Mixture in it of Imperfection But now besides what hath been hitherto said we may in my opinion make another very Considerable Vse of the Fathers For there sometimes arise such troublesome Spirits as will needs broach Doctrines devised of their own Head which are not at all grounded upon any Principle of the Christian Religion I say therefore that the Authority of the Ancients may very Properly and Seasonably be made use of against the Impudence of these Men by shewing that the Fathers were utterly Ignorant of any such Fancies as these men propose to the World And if this can be proved we ought then certainly to conclude that
no such Doctrine was ever preached to Mankind either by our Saviour Christ or by His Apostles For what Probability is there that those Holy Doctors of Former Ages from whose hands Christianity hath been derived down unto us should be Ignorant of any of those things which had been Revealed and Recommended by our Saviour as Important and Necessary to Salvation It is true indeed that the Fathers being deceived either by some False manner of Argumentation or else by some Seeming Authority do sometimes deliver such things as have not been revealed by our Saviour Christ but are evidently either False or Ill grounded as we have formerly shewed in those Examples before produced by us It is true moreover that among those things which have been revealed by our Saviour Christ in the Scripture which yet are not Absolutely Necessary to Salvation the Fathers may have been ignorant of some of them either by reason that Time had not as yet discovered what the sense of them was or else because that for lack of giving good heed unto them or by their being carried away with some Passion They did not then perceive what hath since been found out But that they should all of them have been Ignorant of any Article that is Necessarily Requisite to Salvation is altogether Impossible For after this Account They should all have been deprived of Salvation which I suppose every honest Soul would tremble at the thought of I say then and as I conceive have sufficiently proved in this Treatise that an Argument which concludeth the Truth of any Proposition from the Fathers having maintained the same is very Weak and Ill-grounded as supposing that which is Clearly False namely That the Fathers maintained nothing which had not been Revealed by our Saviour Christ For this would be such a kind of Argumentation as if a man should prove by the General Agreement herein of the Fathers that all the Departed Souls are shut up together in a certain Place or Receptacle till the Day of Judgment or that the Encharist is Necessarily to be administred to Little Infants and the like where every one sees how Insufficient and Invalid this way of Argumentation is And to say the truth such is the Proceeding of the Church of Rome when they go about to prove by the Authority of the Fathers those Articles which they propose to the World and which are rejected by the Protestants I say moreover that to conclude upon the Nullity or Falseness of any Article that is not of the number of those that are Necessary to Salvation from the general Silence of the Fathers touching the same is a very Absurd way of Arguing as supposing a thing which is also Manifestly False Namely that the Fathers must Necessarily have seen and Clearly known All and every of those things which Jesus Christ hath revealed in His Word Such a kind of Argument would it be thought among the Franciscans if any one should conclude against them from the Silence of the Fathers that our Saviour Christ hath not at all revealed that the Blessed Virgin Mary was conceived without Sin But yet I confess again on the other side that in those Points that are accounted as Absolutely Necessary to Salvation an Argument that should be drawn from the General Silence of the Fathers to prove the Nullity or Falseness of it would be very Pertinent and indeed Unanswerable As for example His manner of Argumentation would be very Rational and Solid that should conclude that those Means of Salvation which are proposed by a Mahomet suppose or a David George or the like Sectaries are Null and contrary to the Will of our Saviour Christ how much soever these Men may seem to Honour Him seeing that none of ehe Ancient Christians speak so much as one syllable of it and are utterly ignorant of all those Secrets that these Wretches have preached to their Disciples and delivered as Infallible and Necessary Means of Salvation After this manner did Irenaeus dispute against the Valentinians and other of the Gnosticks who vented their own sensâ—less Dreams and Absurd Issues of their Own Brain saying That the Creator of the World was but an Angelâ— and that there were above Him certain Divine Powers which They called Aeones that is to say Ages some of them making more of these and others fewer and some reckoning to the number of CCCLXV and an infinite number of other the like Prodigies never shewing any Ground for the same either in Reason or out of the Scripture Irenaeus therefore that he might make it appear to the World that this so Strange Doctrine was produced out of their Own Brain only goes about and visiteth the Arohives of all the Churches that had been either Planted or Watered by the Holy Apostles turns over all their Records Evidences and Ancient Monuments and these Aeones Achamot and Barbele of the Gnosticks no where appearing nor so much as any the least Part or Trace of them He concludeth that the Apostles had never delivered over any such thing to their Disciples neither by Writing nor by Word of Mouth as these Impostors pretended they had For certainly if they had done so the memory of it could not have been so utterly lost This is also the Method that Tertullian followed in his Disputations against these very Hereticks and others the like in the 22 Chapter of his Book De Praescriptionibus adversus Haereticos and in other places The Practice of these Great Persons who made use of it themselves will here serve to prove unto us that this Course is Right and Good And thus you see that the Authority of the Fathers is of very great Use in the Church and serveth as an Out-work to the Scriptures for the repelling the Presumption of those who would forge a New Faith But forasmuch as those who broach New Doctrines of their own Head do Ordinarily slight the Holy Scriptures as those very Hereticks did whom Iraeneus confuted who impudently accused Them of not being Right and that they are of no Authority and speak in very Ambiguous Terms and that they are not able to inform a man of the Truth unless they are acquainted with Tradition the Truth having been delivered as These men pretended not in Writing but by Word of Mouth For this Reason I say and for other the like are the Writings of the â—athers of very great Use in these Disputes and I conceive This to be one of the Principal ends for which the Divine Providence hath in despite of So many Confusions and Changes preserved so many of them safe down to our times If therefore the Protestants should propose of their Own Head and should press as Absolutely Necessary to Salvation any Positive Article which doth not at all appear in Antiquiâ—y without all Question this Course might with very good Reason be made use of against Them But it is most Evident that there is no such thing at all in their Belief for