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
corrected by the Hypocrisie or false shew of Reprehension and that by this means both the one and the other might be saved whilst the one who stood up for Circumcision followed S. Peter and those other who refused Circumcision applaud and are taken with S. Paul's Liberty S. Augustine utterly disliking this Exposition of S. Hierome wrote unto him in his ordinary grave and meek way modestly declaring the Reasons why he could not assent unto it which Epistles of his are yet extant The other answers him a thousand strange things but particularly he there protesteth That he will not warrant for sound whatever shall be found in that Book of his And to shew that he doth not do this without good reason he setteth down a certain Passage out of his Preface to it which is very well worth our Consideration For after he hath named the Writings of Origen Didymus Apollinaris Theodorus Herâ—clas Eusebius Emisseâ—us Alexander the Heretick and others he adds That I may therefore plainly tell the truth I confess that I have read all these Authors and collecting together as much as I could in my memory I presently called for a Scribe to whom I dictated either my own Conceptions or those of other Men without remembring either the Order or the Words sometimes or the Sense Do but think now with your self whether or no this be not an excellent rare way of Commenting upon the Scriptures and very well worthy both to be esteemed and imitated by us He then turneth his Speech to S. Augustine saying If therefore thou lightedst upon any thing in my Exposition which was worthy of reprehension it would have stood better with thy Learning to have consulted the Greek Authors themselves and to have seen whether what I have written be to be found in them or not and if not then to have condemned it as my own private Opinion And he elsewhere gives the same answer to Ruffinus who upbraideth him for some absurd Passages in his Commentaries upon the Prophet Daniel Now according to this reckoning if we would know whether or no what we meet with in his Commentaries be his own proper Sense or not we must first turn over the Books of all these ancient Greeks that is to say we must do that which is now impossible to be done seeing that the Writings of the greatest part of them are utterly lost and must not attribute any thing to him as his proper Opinion how clearly and expresly soever it be delivered unless we are first able to make it appear that it is not to be found in any of those Authors out of whose Writings he hath patched up his Commentaries For if any one of them be found to have delivered any thing you here meet with you are to take notice that it belongeth to that Author S. Hierome in this case having been onely his Transcriber or at most but his Translator So that you may be able perhaps by the reading of Books in this manner collected to judge whether the Fathers have had the skill to make a handsom and artificial Connexion and Digestion of those things which they took out of so many several Authors or not but whether or no they believed all that they have set down in their Books you will be no more able to discover than you can judge what Belief any Man is of by the Books he transcribeth or can guess at the Opinions of an Interpreter by the Books he translateth Whence we may conclude that testimonies brought out of such Books as these are of little or no force at all either for or against us And this seemeth to have been the Opinion of Cardinal Bellarmine also where to a certain Objection brought out of one of S. Hierome's Books he makes this Answer That the Author in that place speaketh according to the Opinion of others as he often doth in his Commentaries upon the Epistle to the Ephesians and in other places The like course hath Cardinal Perron taken where the Protestants have urged against the Church of Rome the Authority of S. Hilary touching the Canon of the Scriptures of the Old Testament confidently answering That the Notes cited out of that place of S. Hilary are not his but Origen's in his Commentary upon the First Psalm part of whose Words he had transcribed and put into his own Prologue upon the Psalms and yet S. Hilary neither so much as nameth Origen nor yet gives us any intimation at all whether we are to receive what is there spoken touching the Scriptures as from Origen or from himself And the ground of this Answer of his is taken from what S. Hierome hath testified in divers places namely that S. Hilary hath transcribed the greatest part of his Commentaries out of the said Origen Now if we but rightly consider the account which S. Hierome hath given as we shewed before of all Commentaries in general how can we have any assurance whether that which the Fathers deliver in these kind of Writings be their own proper Opinion or only some other Man 's transcribed And if we can have no assurance hereof how can we then account them of any force at all either for or against us So that it is most evident that this Method which the Fathers have observed in their Expositions of the Scriptures must needs render the things themselves very doubtful how clearly and expresly soever they have delivered themselves But hath it not concerned them to be more careful in their Homilies or Sermons and to deliver nothing there save only what hath been their own proper Opinion and Belief May we not at least in this particular rest assured that they have spoken nothing but from their very soul and that their Tongues have vented here their own Opinions only and not those of other Men Certainly in all reason they should not have uttered any thing in this Sacred Place from whence they taught their People save what they conceived to have been most true And yet besides what we have formerly noted as to this particular namely that they did not always speak out the whole truth but concealed something of it as not so fit for the ears either of the Pagans or of the weaker sort of Christians Cardinal Perron that great and curious Inquirer into all the Customs of the Ancients hath informed us that in regard of the aforesaid Considerations they have sometimes gone further yet For in expounding the Scriptures to the People where the Catechumeni were present if by chance they fell upon any Passage where the Sacraments were spoken of that they might not discover these Mysteries they would then make bold to wrest the Text a little and instead of giving them the true and real Interpretation of the Place which they themselves knew to be such they would only present their Auditory with an Allegorical and Symbolical and as this Cardinal saith an Accidental and Collateral one only to give them some
first Centuries did the Cardinal denies his Sequel replying among other things that to be of the Communion of the Ancients a Man ought not only to believe what they believed but also to believe it in the same manner and in the same Degree that they did that is to say to believe as Necessary to Salvation what they believed as Necessary to Salvation and to believe as profitable to Salvation what they held for such and for lawful and not repugnant to Salvation what they held for lawful and not repugnant to Salvation And thus he goes on and gives us a long and exact Division of the different Degrees of Necessity which may and ought to be considered in all Propositions touching Religion I could heartily wish that this Occasion had carried on this Learned Prelate so far as to have made an Exact Application of this Doctrine and to have truly enformed us of what the greatest part of the World is at this day Ignorant namely in what Degree each Point of the Christian Faith is held either by the Church of Rome or by the Ancient Fathers what things are absolutely Necessary in Religion and what are those other things that are necessary under some certain Conditions only which again are necessary by the necessity of the Means and which by the necessity of the Precept as he there speaks that is to say which are those things that we ought to observe either by reason of their Profit as being Means which are profitable to Salvation and which we are to observe by reason of the Commandment only being enjoined us by such an Authority as we owe Obedience to and after all these Points Which again All and every of the Faithful are bound to believe Expresly and which are those that it is sufficient to believe in gross only and by an Iâ—plicite Faith and Lastly which are those things that we ought actually to do and which are those that it is sufficient if we approve of them only though we do them not So that it appeareth clearly out of these Words of his that to be able to know what the Belief of the Fathers hath been especially in the Points now in debate we ought first to be assured in what degree they believed the same And that this distinction was of very great Consideration with the antient Church it appears sufficiently out of the special regard which it always had unto it opening to or shutting the door against men first of all according to the things which they believed or not believed Secondly according to the different manners how they believed or not believed them For it Excommunicated those who rejected those things that it held as Necessary and so likewise those who pressed as things Necessary such as it held for things probable only But it received with all the sweetness that might be all those who either were Ignorant of or doubted of or indeed denied those things which it accounted though True yet not Necessarily so This appeareth clearly out of an Epistle written by Irenaeus to Victor Bishop of Rome set down by Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History where this holy Man testifieth that although there had been before Victors time the same difference betwixt the Asian and the Roman Church touching the celebration of Easter-day yet notwithstanding they lived in peace and mutual amity together neither were any of the Asian Bishops ever excommunicated at Rome for their dissenting from them either in this or in any other Point but that rather on the contrary Polycarpus coming to Rome in the time of Pope Anicetus after they had had a Conference touching the differences betwixt them and each of them continued still firm in his former opinion yet notwithstanding did they not forbear to hold fair correspondence with each other and to communicate together Anicetus also out of the respect he bare to Polycarpus allowing him the use of his own Church to celebrate the Eucharist in Tertullian in his Book De Praescriptionibus adversus Haereticos requires only that the Rule of Faith as he calls it should continue in its proper Form and Order allowing every Man in all other particulars to make what Inquiries and Discourses he please and to exercise his Curiosity to the height of Liberty which is an evident Argument that He admitted into His Communion all those who not contradicting the Rule of Faith broached any other opinions if so be they held them but as Probable only and proposed not any thing which was contrary to the Rule of Faith The Author of the Apology of Origen published by Ruffinus under the name of Pamphilus was of the same opinion also For having confessed that Origen if not held yet published some certain very strange opinions touching the State of the Soul before the Birth of Man and concerning the Nature of the Stars he wiâ—hal maintains that these opinions do not presently make a Man an Hâ—retick and that even among the Doctors of the Church there was diversity of opinion touching the same But besides all this it is evident that this difference of judgment is even at this day to be found in the Church of Rome where you shall find the Jacobins and the Francâ—sâ—ans maintaining opinions utterly contradictory to each other touching the Conception of the Virgin Mary the one of them maintaining that she was conceived without sin whereas the other utterly deny it And that which makes me wonder the more is that they suffer such Contradictory opinions as these to be held amongst them in such particulars as considered barely in themselves seem yet to be of very great Importance As for Example a Man may either believe that we ougâ—â— to yield to the Cross the Adoration of Latria or if he please he may believe the contrary without losing either by reason of the one or the other the Communion of the Church and Salvation And yet notwithstanding if you but consider the thing in it self it will appear to be a matter of no such Indifferency as people take it for For if the Former of these Opinions be indeed True then must those that are of the other Opinion needs sin very grievously in not worshipping a Subject that is so worthy of Adoration But if it be False then are those Men that maintain the same guilty of a much greater sin by committing so horrible Idolatry What Point is there in Religion that seemeth to be of greater Importance than that touching the Foundation and Head of all Ecclesiastical Power upon the Authority whereof the whole Faith and State of the Church turneth And yet touching this Particular also which is of so great consequence do they suffer Men to maintain Contradictory Opinions some attributing this Dignity to the Pope and others to a General Council Now if the opinion of the First of these be true then is the Faith of the Later built upon a very Erroneous Ground but if the opinion of the Later be
we have a Synodical Epistle of Sophronius Patriarch of Jerusalem wherein as the usual Custom was he explaineth the Faith in a very large and particular manner and yet notwithstanding you shall no there meet with any of those Points which are now controverted amongst us Those that shall search more narrowly into the Business will be apt positively to conclude from this their silence that these Points were not at that time any part of the Belief of the Church and certainly this their way of Argumentation seems not to want Reason But as for my own particular it is sufficient for me that it confirmeth the Truth of my Assertion which is That it is if not an impossible yet at least a very hard thing to discover in what degree either of Necessity or Probability the Ancient Fathers held each of those Points which are now debated amongst us seeing that they appear not at all neither in the Expositions of their Faith nor yet in the Determinations of their Councils which are as it were the Catalogues of those Points which they accounted Necessary CHAP. IX Reason IX We ought to know what hath been the Opinion not of one or more of the Fathers but of the whole Ancient Church which is a very hard matter to be found out THose who make most account of the Writings of the Fathers and who urge them the oftnest in their Disputations do inform us That the weight of their Sayings in these Matters proceeds from hence that they are as so many Testimonies of the General Sense and Judgment of the Church to which alone these men attribute the Supreme Power of Judging in Controversies of Religion For if we should consider them severally each by himself and as they stand by their own strength onely they confess that they may chance to erre So that it will follow hence That to the end we may make use of the Testimonies of the Fathers it is not sufficient for us to know whether such or such Sayings be truly theirs and if so what the meaning of them is but we ought further also to be very well assured that they are conformable to the Belief of the Church in their time in like manner as in a Court of Judicature the Opinion of any single Person of the Bench is of no weight at all as to the passing of Judgment unless it be conformable to the Opinion of all the rest or at least of the Major Part of the Company And now see how we are fallen again into new Difficulties For whence and by what means may we learn whether the whole Church in the time of Justin Martyr or of S. Augustine or of S. Hierome maintained the same Opinions in every particular that these Men severally did or not I confess that the Charity of these Men was very great and that they very heartily and constantly embraced the Body and Substance of the Belief of the Church in all Particulars that they saw apparently to be such But where the Church did not at all deliver it self and expresly declare what its Sense was they could not possibly how great soever their desire of so doing might have been follow its Authority as the Rule of their Opinions Wheresoever therefore they treat of Points which were long since decided believed and received expresly and positively by the whole Christian Church either of their own Age or of any of the preceding Ages it is very probable that they did conform to what was believed by the Church so that in these Cases their Saying may very well pass for a Testimony of the Judgment and Sense of the Church it being very improbable that they could be either ignorant what was the Publick Doctrine of the Church or that knowing the same they would not follow it As for example when Athanasius S. Ambrose S. Hierome S. Augustine and others discourse touching the Son of God they speak nothing but what is conformable to the Belief of the Church in General because that the Belief of the Church had then been clearly and expresly delivered upon this Point so that whatsoever they say as to this Particular may safely be received as a Testimony of the Churches Belief And the like may be done in all the other Points which have either been positively determined in any of the General Councils or delivered in any of the Creeds or that any other way appeareth to have been the publick Belief of the Church If the Fathers had but contained themselves within these Bounds and had not taken liberty to treat of any thing save what the Church had clearly delivered its Judgment upon this Rule might then have been received as a General one and what opinion soever we found in them we might safely have concluded it to have been the Sense of the Church that was in their time But the curiosity of Mans Nature together with the Impudence of the Hereticks and the Tenderness of Conscience whether of their own or of others and divers other Reasons perhaps having partly made them willingly and partly forced and as it were constrained them to go on further and to proceed to the search of the Truth of several Points which had not as yet been established by the universal and publick Consent of all Christians it could not be avoided but that necessarily they must in these Inquiries make use of their own proper Light and must deliver upon the same their own private Opinions which the Church which came after them hath since either embraced or rejected I shall not here stand to prove this my Assertion since it is a thing that is confessed on all hands and whereof the Romanists make special use upon all occasions in answering several Objections brought against them out of the Fathers As for example where Cardinal Bellarmine excuseth the Error of Pope John XXII touching the state of the Departed Souls before the Resurrection by saying that the Church in his time had not as yet determined any thing touching this Particular And so likewise where he applies the same Plaister to that in his Judgment so unsound Opinion of Pope Nicolas I who maintained That Baptism administred in the Name of Jesus Christ onely without expressing the other Persons of the Holy Trinity was not withstanding valid and effectual This is a Point saith Bellarmine touching which we find not the Church to have determined any thing And how dangerous and almost Heretical soever the Opinion of those Men seem to him to be who hold That the Pope of Rome may fall into Heresie yet doth he permit Pope Adrian to hold the same not daring to rank him among the Hereticks because that the Church had not as yet clearly and definitively delivered it self touching this Point The same Bellarmine in another Controversie of great importance touching the Canonical Books of the Old Testament finding himself hardly put to it by his Adversaries urging against him the Authority of S. Hierome who casts
so charitable Admonition we should still believe all they say without examining any thing I take it for a Favour saith S. Ambrose when any one that readeth my Writings giveth me an account of what Doubts he there meeteth withal First of all because I may be deceived in those very things which I know And besides many things escape us and some things sound otherwise to some than perhaps they do to me I shall further here desire the Reader to take notice how careful the Ancients were in advising those who lived in their own time to take a strict Examination of their Words As for example where Origen adviseth That his Auditors should prove whatsoever he delivered and that they should be attentive and receive the Grace of the Spirit from whom proceedeth the discerning of Spirits that so as good Bankers they might diligently observe when their Pastor deceiveth them and when he preacheth unto them that which is Pious and True Cyrill likewise in his Fourth Catechesis hath these Words Believe me not saith he in whatsoever I shall simply deliver unless thou find the things which I shall speak demonstrated out of the Holy Scriptures For the Conservation and Establishment of our Faith is not grounded upon the Eloquence of Language but rather upon the Proofs that are brought out of the Divine Scriptures If therefore they would not have those who heard them speak vivâ voce to believe them in any thing unless they had demonstrated the Truth of it out of the Scriptures how much less would they have us now receive without this Demonstration those Opinions which we meet with in their Books which are not onely mute but corrupted also and altered so much and so many several ways as we have formerly shewed Certainly when I see these Holy men on one side crying out unto us that they are Men subject to Errours and that therefore we ought to consider and examine what they deliver and not take it all for Oracle and then on the other side set before my eyes these Worthy Maxims of the Ages following to wit That their Doctrine is the Law of the Church Vniversal and That we are bound to follow it not only according to the sense but according to the Bare Words also and that we are bound to hold all that they have written even to the lest tittle This representation I say makes me call to mind the History of Paul and Barnabas to whom the Lycaonians would needs render Divine Honour notwithstanding all the resistance these Holy men were able to make who could not forbear to rend their garments through the Indignation they were filled with to see that service paid to themselves which was due to the Divine Majesty alone running in amongst them and crying out aloud Sirs why do ye these things We also are Men of like passions with you For seeing that there is none but God whose word is certainly and necessarily True and seeing that on the other side the Word whereon we ground and build our Faith ought to be such who seeth not that it is all one as to invest Man with the Glory which is due to God alone and to place him in a manner in his Seat if we make His Word the Rule and Foundation of our Faith and the Judge of our Differences concerning It I am therefore stedfastly of this Opinion that if these Holy men could now behold from their blessed Mansions where they now live in bliss on high with their Lord and Saviour what things are acted here below they would be very much offended with this False Honour which men confer upon them much against their Wills and would take it as a very great injury offer'd them seeing that they cannot receive this Honour but to the Prejudice and Diminution of the Glory of their Redeemer whom they love a thousand times more than Themselves Or if from out their Sepulchres where the Reliques of their Mortality are now laid up they could but make us hear their sacred voice they would I am very confident most sharply reprove us for this Abuse and would cry out in the words of S. Paul Sirs why do ye these things We also were Men of like Passions with you But yet what need is there either of ransacking their Sepulchers and disturbing their Sacred Ashes or of calling down their Spirits from Heaven seeing that their voice resoundeth loud enough and is heard so plainly in these very Books of theirs which we so imprudently place in that seat which is only due to the Word of God We have heard what the Judgment was of S. Augustine and of S. Hierome the two most eminent Persons in the Western Church touching this Particular let us not then be all afraid having such examples to follow to speak freely our Opinions But now before we go any further I conceive it will be necessary that we answer an Objection that may be brought against us which is that Athanasius S. Cyrill and S. Augustine himself also often times cite the Fathers Besides what some have observed that the Fathers seldom entered into these Lists but when they were provoked by their Adversaries I add further that when we maintain that the Authority of the Fathers is not a sufficient Medium to prove an Article of Faith by we do not thereby presently forbid either the reading or the citing of them The Fathers often quote the Writings of the Learned Heathens the Oracles of the Sibylls and Passages out of the Apocryphal Books Did they therefore think that theâ—e Books were of sufficient Authority to ground an Article of Faith upon God forbid we should entertain so ill an Opinion of them Their Faith was grounded upon the Word of God But yet to evidence the Truth more fully they searched into Humane Records and by this Inquiry made it appear that the Light of the Truth revealed unto Them had in some degree shot its beams also even into the Schools of Men how Close and Shady soever they had been But if they should have produced no other but Humane Authority they would never have been able to have brought over any one person to the Faith But after they had received by Divine Revelation the Matter of our Faith it was very wisely done of them in the next place to prove not the Truth but the Clearness of It by these little Sparks which shot forth their light in the Spirits of Men. And for some the like Reason did S. Augustine Athanasius Cyrill and many other of them make use of Allegations out of the Fathers For after that each of these had grounded upon the Authority of Divine Revelation the Necessity and Efficacy of Grace the Consubstantiality of the Son with the Father and the Union of the Two Natures in Christ they then fell to producing of several Passages out of those Learned Men who had lived before Them to let men see that this Truth was so clear in
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
that a Man may safely build upon them and make them the Judges of Faith and That the Holy Scripture is the onely Rule by which all these things are to be examined And this is that which they All agree upon as far as I have either read or known as any Man may see in the Books of Calvin Bucer Melancthon Luther Beza and the rest who all relie upon the Authority of the Scriptures onely and admit not of any part of the Authority of the Fathers as a sufficient Ground whereon to build any Article of their Belief It is true I confess that some of their First Authors as namely Bucer Peter Martyr and J. Jewell Bishop of Salisbury and in a manner all the Later Writers also alledge the Testimonies of the Fathers but if you but mark it it is onely by way of Confutation and not of Establishing any thing They do it onely to overthrow the Opinions of the Church of Rome and not to strengthen their Own For though they hold That the Doctrine of the Fathers is not so Pure as that of the Apostles yet do they withal believe that it is much Purer than that which is at this day taught by the Church of Rome the Purity of Doctrine having continually decayed and the Impurity of it encreased in such sort as that the further they are removed from the Time of the Apostles the nearer they approach as they say towards the afore-mentioned Falling away spoken of by S. Paul Although the Protestants therefore allow the Scriptures onely for the True Foundation of their Faith yet notwithstanding do they account the Writings of the Fathers to be Necessary also and of good use unto them first of all in the Proving this Decay which they say hath hapned in Christianity and secondly for the making it appear that the Opinions which their Adversaries now maintain were not in those days brought into any Form but were as yet onely in their Seeds As for example Transubstantiation was not as yet an Article of Faith notwithstanding that long ago they did innocently and not foreseeing what the Issue might prove to be believe some certain things out of which being afterwards licked over by passing through divers several Languages Transubstantiation was at length made up So likewise the Supremacy of the Pope had at that time no place in the belief of Men although those small Threds and Root-strings from whence this Vast and Wonderful Power first sprung long since appeared in the World And the like may be said of the greatest part of those other Points which the Protestants will not by any means receive And that this is their Resolution and Sense appears evidently by those many Books which they have written upon this Subject wherein they shew Historically the whole Progress of this Decay in Christianity as well in its Faith as in its Polity and Discipline And truly this their Design seemeth to be very sufficient and satisfactory For seeing that they propose nothing Positively and as an Article of Faith Necessary to Salvation which may not easily and plainly be proved out of the Scripture they have no need to make use of any other Principle for the Demonstration of the Truth Furthermore seeing that those Positive Articles of Faith which they believe are in a manner all of them received and confessed by the Church of Rome as we have said before in the Preface to this Treatise there is no need of troubling a Mans self to prove the same those things which both Parties are agreed upon being never to be proved but are always presupposed in all Disputations Yet notwithstanding if any one have a mind to be informed what the Belief of the Fathers hath been touching the said Articles it is an easie matter for them to make it appear that they also believed all of them as well as themselves as for Example That there is a God a Christ a Salvation a Sacrament of Baptism a Sacrament of the Eucharist and the like Truths the greatest part whereof we have formerly set down in the Beginning of this Discourse And as for those other Articles which are proposed to the World besides all these by the Church of Rome it is sufficient for them that they are able to answer the Arguments which are brought to prove them and to make it by this means appear that they have not any sure Ground at all and consequently neither may nor ought to be received into the Faith of Christians And this is the Vse that the Protestants make of the Fathers evidently making it appear to the World out of them that they did not hold the said Articles as the Church of Rome doth at this day So that their alledging of the Fathers to this purpose onely and indeed their Whole Practice in these Disputes declare evidently enough that they conceive not the Belief of the Church of Rome to be so perfectly and exactly conformable to that of Antiquity especially of the Four or Five First Ages which accords very well with their Hypothesis touching the Corruption of the Christian Doctrine But yet no Man may conclude from hence That they do allow of the Authority of the Fathers as a sufficient Foundation to ground any Article of Faith upon for this is repugnant both to their Doctrine and to the Protestation which they upon all occasions make expresly to the contrary So that I cannot but extremely wonder at the Proceeding of some of our Modern Authors who in their Disputations with the Protestants endeavour to prove the Articles of their Faith by Testimonies brought out of the Fathers whereas the Protestants never go about to make good their own Opinions but onely to overthrow those of their Adversaries by urging the Fathers Testimonies For seeing that they of the Church of Rome maintain That the Church neither hath nor can possibly err in Points of Faith and That its Belief in Matters of Faith hath always been the same that it is at this day it is sufficient for the Protestant to shew by comparing the Doctrine of the Ancient Fathers with that of the Church of Rome that there is great Difference betwixt them neither doth this in any wise bind them to believe throughout whatsoever the Fathers believed it being evident according to their Hypothesis that there may have some Errors crept into their Belief though certainly not such nor so gross ones as have been since entertained by the Church in the Ages succeeding We shall conclude therefore That the Protestants acknowledge not neither in the Fathers nor in their Writings any so Absolute Authority as renders them capable of being received by us as our Supreme Judges in Matters of Religion and such from whom no Appeal can be made Whence it will follow That although the Fathers might really perhaps have such an Authority yet notwithstanding could not their Definitive Sentence put an end to any of our Controversies and therefore it concerns the Church of Rome to have
all which is continually declining after they have once passed the Point of their Vigour and as it were the Flower and Prime of their Strength and Perfection Now I cannot believe that any faithful Christian will deny but that Christianity was in its Height and Perfection in the time of the Blessed Apostles And indeed it would be the greatest injury that could be offered them to say that any of their Successors have either had a greater desire or more Abilities to advance Christianity than they had It will hence follow then That those Times which were nearest to the Apostles were necessarily the purest and less subject to suspicion of Corruptions either in Doctrine or in Manners and Christian Discipline it being but reasonable to believe that if there be any Corruptions crept into the Church they came in by little and little and by degrees as it happens in all other things If any one shall here object That even the very next Age immediately after the times of the Apostles was not without its Errours if we may believe Hegesippus who as he is cited by Eusebius witnesseth that the Church continued a Virgin till the Emperour Trajan's time but that after the death of the Apostles the Conspiracy of Errour began to discover it self with open fce I shall not oppose any thing against this testimony but shall only say that if the Enemy immediately upon the setting of these Stars of the Church their Presence and Light being scarcely shut in had yet the boldness presently to fall to sowing his evil seed how much more had he opportunity to do this in those Ages which were further removed from their Times when as the Sanctity and Simplicity of these great Teachers of the World having now by little and little vanished out of the memories of Men Humane Inventions and new Fancies began to take place So that we may however conclude That supposing that Christianity even in the First Ages hath not been altogether exempt from alteration in Doctrine yet are they much more free from it than the succeeding Ages can pretend to be and are therefore consequently to be preferred before them in all respects it being here something like what the Poets have fancied of the Four Ages of the World where the succeeding Age always came short of the former For as for the Opinion of those Men who think the best way to find out the true Sense of the Ancient Church will be to search the Writings of those of the Fathers chiefly who lived betwixt the time of Constantine the Great till Pope Leo or till Pope Gregory's time that is to say from the end of the Third Century till the beginning of the Seventh I take this as a Confession onely of the small number of Books that are left us of those Ages before Constantine and not that these Men allow that the Authority of these Three later Ages ought to be preferred to that of the Three former If we had but as much Light and as clear Evidences of the Belief of the one as we have of the other I make no question but they would prefer the Former But if they mean otherwise and are indeed of a perswasion that the Church was really more pure after Constantine's time than before they must excuse me if I think that they by this means confess the distrust they have of their own Cause seeing they endeavour to get off as far as they can from the Light of the Primitive times retreating back to those Ages wherein it is most evident there was both less Perfection and Light than before running clean contrary to that excellent Rule which S. Cyprian hath given us That we should have recourse to the Fountain whenever the Channel and Stream of Doctrine and Ecclesiastical Tradition is found to be any whit corrupted But however let their meaning be what it will their Words in my judgment do not a little advantage the Protestants Cause it being a very clear confession That those Opinions about which they contest with them do not at all appear clearly in any of the Books that were written during the Three First Centuries For if they were found clearly in the same what Policy were it then in them to appeal to the Writers of the Three following Centuries to which they very well know that their Adversaries attribute less than to the Former But besides this tacite Confession of theirs the thing is evident namely That there is left us at this day very little of the Writings of the Fathers of the Three First Centuries of Christianity for the deciding of our Differences The blessed Christians of those times contented themselves for the greatest part of them with writing the Christian Faith in the hearts of Men by the beams of their Sanctity and holy Life and by their Blood shed in Martyrdom without much troubling themselves with the writing of Books Whether it were because as Learned Origen elegantly gives the Reason they were of opinion that the Christian Religion was to be defended by the Innocency of Life and honesty of Conversation rather than by Sophistry and the Artifice of Words or whether because their continual Sufferings gave them not leisure to take Pen in hand and to write Books or else whether it were for some other Reason perhaps which we know not But this we are very well assured of that except the Writings of the Apostles there was very little written by others in these Primitive times which was the cause of so much trouble to Eusebius in the beginning of his History having little or no light to guide him in his Undertaking and treading as himself saith in a new path unbeaten by any that had gone before him Besides the greatest part of those few Books which were written by the Christians of those Times have not come down to our hands but were lost either through the injury of Time that consumeth all things or else have been made away by the malice of Men who have made bold to suppress and smother whatsoever they met with that was not wholly to their gust Of this sort were those five Books of Papias Bishop of Hierapolis the Apology of Quadratus Atheniensis and that other of Aristides the Writings of Castor Agrippa against the XXIV Books of the Heretick Basilides the five Books of Hegesippus the Works of Melito Bishop of Sardis Dionysius Bishop of Corinth Apollinaris Bishop of Hierapolis the Epistle of Pinytus Cretensis the Writings of Philippus Musanus Modestus Bardesanes Pantaenus Rhodon Miltiades Apollonius Serapion Bacchylus Polycrates Bishop of Ephesus Heraclius Maximus Hammonius Tryphon Hippolytus Julius Africanus Dionysius Alexandrinus and others of whom we have no more left save onely their Names and the Titles of their Books which are preserved in Eusebius S. Hierome and others All that we have left us of these Times which is certainly known to be theirs and that no Man doubts of is some certain Discourses of
our Age where this great Person hath given us his Judgment of most of the Authors of the Greek Church Now this Help we may make use of two manner of ways The one is in justifying a Book if it be found mentioned by these Authors The other is in rejecting it if they say nothing of it As for the first of these it concludes onely according to the Quality of the Authors who make mention of a suspected Book For some of the Fathers themselves have made use of these kind of Forgeries as we have formerly said others have favoured them because they served their turn some have not been able to discover them and some others have not been willing to do so whatsoever their Reason hath been I shall not here repeat the Names of any of those that have done these things themselves And as for those that have favoured them there are good store of examples as Justin Martyr Theophilus and others who alledge the Sibylls Verses as Oracles which are notwithstanding the greatest part of them forged Clemens Alexandrinus the most Learned and most Polite of all the Fathers in S. Hierome's judgment how often doth he make use of those Apocryphal Pieces which go under the Names of the Apostles and Disciples to whom they were most falsly attributed citing under the Name of Barnabas and of Hermes such Writings as have been forged under their Names And did not the VII Council in like manner make use of a supposititious Piece attributed to Athanasius as we have shewed before and likewise of divers others which are of the same stamp That even the Fathers themselves therefore have not been able always to make a true discovery of these false Wares no Man can doubt considering that of those many necessary Qualifications which we reckoned up before as requisite in this Particular they may oftentimes have failed in some S. Hierome himself the most knowing Man among all the Latin Fathers especially in Matters of this nature sometimes lets them pass without examination as there where he speaks of a certain Tract against Mathematicians attributed to Minutius Foelix If at least saith he the Inscription represent unto us the right Author of the Book And in another place whatsoever his reason was he delivers to us for Legitimate Pieces the Epistles that go about under the Name of S. Paul to Seneca and of Seneca to S. Paul which notwithstanding Cardinal Baronius holds for suspectâ—â— and spurious as doubtless they are But even those Men who have been able to discover these false Pieces have not sometimes been willing to do it either being unwilling to offend the Authors of them or else not daring to cast any disrepute upon those Books which having many good things in them had not in their judgment any false or dangerous Positions in them And this is the reason why they made choice to let such things pass rather than out of a little tenderness of conscience to oppose them there being in their apprehension no danger at all in the one and much trouble and envy in the other And therefore I am of opinion That S. Hierome for example would never have taken the pains nor have undergone the envy in laying open the Forgeries of Ruffinus if the misunderstanding that hapned to be betwixt them had not engaged him to it Neither do I believe that the African Fathers would ever have troubled themselves in convincing the false Allegation of Zozimus but for their own Interest which was thereby called in question For wise and sober Men never use to fall at variance with any Body till they needs must neither do they quickly take notice of any Injury or Abuse offered them unless it be a very great one and such as hath evident danger in it which was not at all perceived or taken notice of at first in these Forgeries which nevertheless have at length by little and little in a manner born down all the good and true Books These Considerations in my opinion make it clearly appear That the Title of a Book is not sufficiently justified by a Passage or two being cited out of it by some of the Ancients and under the same Name As for the other way which rendreth the Authority of a Book doubtful by the Ancients not having made any mention of it I confess it is no more demonstrative than the other forasmuch as it is not impossible that any one or divers of the Fathers may not have met with such a certain Wriâ—â—r that was then extant or else perhaps that they might omit some one of those very Authors which they knew Yet notwithstanding is this the much surer way of the two there being less danger in this case in rejecting a True Piece than in receiving a Forged one the want of the Truth of the one being doubtless much less prejudicial than the receiving the opposite Falshood of the other For as it is a less sin to omit the Good than to commit the Evil that is opposite to it in like manner is it a less Errour not to believe a Truth than to believe the Falshood which is contrary to it And thus we see what confusion there is in the Books of the Ancients and what defect in the Means which is requisite for the distinguishing the False from the True insomuch that as it often falls out it is much easier to judge what we ought to reject than to resolve upon what we may safely receive Let the Reader therefore now judge whether or no these Writings having come down along through so many Ages and passed through so many Hands which are either known to have been notoriously guilty or at least strongly suspected of Forgery the Truth in the mean time having made on its part but very weak resistance against these Impostures it be not a very hard matter to discover amidst the infinite number of Books that are now extant and go under the Names of the Fathers which are those that truly belong to them and which again are those that are falsly imposed upon them And if it be so hard a matter to discover in gross onely which are the Writings of the Fathers how much more difficult a Business will it be to find out what their Opinions are touching the several Controversies now in agitation For we are not to imagine that it is no great matter from which of the Fathers such an Opinion hath sprung so that it came from any one of them for there is altogether as much difference amongst these Ancient Doctors both in respect of Authority Learning and Goodness as among the Modern Besides that an Ages being higher or lower either raiseth or lesseneth the Repute of these Writings in the esteem both of the one Party and of the other as it were so many grains as years And certainly not altogether without good reason it being most evident to any one that hath been but the least versed in the
taken up all of them with their particular Charges and Imployments did not know of some opinions of the Prelates of their Age or that either their Modesty or their Charity or the little Eloquence and Repute they had abroad might have made them conceal the same The other Objection is drawn from hence because that these Doctors of the Ancient Church who held some opinions different from those which we read at this day in the Fathers did not publish them at all But I answer first of all that every Man is not able to do so In the next place those that were able were not always willing to do so Divers other Considerations may perhaps also have hindred them from so doing and if they are Wise and Pious Men they are never moved till they needs must And hence it is that oftentimes those opinions which have less truth in them do yet prevail because that Prudence which maintains the True Opinion is Mild and Patient whereas Rashness which defends the False is of a Froward Eager and Ambitious Nature But now let us but imagine how many of the Evidences of this Diversity of opinion may have been made away by those several ways before represented by us as namely having been either devoured by Time or suppressed by Malitious Men for fear lest they should let the World see the Traces of the Truth which they would have concealed But that I may not be thought to bring here only bare Conjectures without any proof at all I shall produce some Examples also for the confirming and clearing of this my Assertion Epiphanius maintains against Aerius whom he ranks among his Haeresiarchae or Arch Hereticks that a Bishop according to the Apostle Saint Paul and the Original Institution of the thing it self is more than a Priest and this he endeavours to prove in many words answering all the Objections that are made to the contrary If you but read the Passage I am confident that when you had done you would not stick to swear that what he hath there delivered was the general opinion of all the Doctors of the Church it being very unlikely that so Great and so Renowned a Prelate would so slatly have denied the opinion which he disputed against if so be any one of his own familiar friends had also maintained the same And yet for all this Saint Hierome who was one of the Principal Lights of our Western Church and who lived at the same time with Epiphanius who was his intimate Friend and a great admirer of his Piety saith expresly that Among the Ancients Bishops and Priests were the same the one being a name of Dignity and the other of Age. And that it may not be thought that this fell from him in discourse only he there falls to proving the same at large alledging several Passages of Scripture touching this Particular and he also repeats the same thing in two or three several places of his Works Whereby it evidently appears that even Positions which have been quite Contradictory to the opinions which have been delivered and maintained by some of the Fathers and proposed in what terms soever have notwithstanding been sometimes either maintained or at least tolerated by some others of 〈◊〉 less Authority S. Hierome himself hath â—alâ— extreamly foul upon Ruffinus and hath traduced divers of his opinions as most Pernicious and Deadly and yet notwithstanding we do not any where find that ever he was accounted as an Heretick by the rest of the Fathers But we shall have occasion hereafter to consider more at large of the like Examples and shall only at present observe that if those Books of S. Hierome which we mentioned a little before should chance to have been lost every Man would then assuredly have concluded with Epiphanius that no Doctor of the Ancient Church ever held that a Bishop and a Priest were one and the same thing in its Institution Who now after all this will assure us that among so many other opinions as have been rejected here and there by the Fathers and that too in as plain terms as these of Epiphanius none of them have ever been defended by some of the Learned of those times Or is it not possible that they may have held them though they did not write in defence of the same Or may they not perhaps have written also in deâ—ence of them and their Books have been since lost How small is the number of those in the Church who had the Ability or at least the 〈◊〉 to write And how much smaller is the number of thoâ—â— whose Wriâ—ings have been able to secure themselves against either the Injury of Time or the Malice of Men It is objâ—cted against the Protestants as we have touched before that S. Hierome commendeth and maintaineth the Adoration of Reliques But yet he himself testifieth that there were some Bishops who defended Vigilantius who held the contrary opinion whom he according to his ordinary Rhetorick calleth His Consorts in Wickedness Who knows now what these Bishops were and whether they deserved any such usage at S. Hieromes hands or no For the Expressions which he useth against them and against their opinion are so full of Gall and of Choler as that they utterly take away all credit from his Testimony But we have insisted long enough upon this Particular and shall therefore forbear to instance any further in others For as much therefore as it is Impossible to discover exactly out of the Fathers what hath been the sense and judgment of the Ancient Church whether taken Universally or Particularly or whether you take the Church for the whole Body of Believers or for the Prelates and Inseriour Clergy only I shall here conclude as formerly that the Writings of the Ancients are altogether Insufficient for the proving the Truth of any of those Points which are at this day controverted amongst Us. THE SECOND BOOK CHAP. I. That the Fathers are not of sufficient Authority for the Deciding of our Controversies in Religion Reason I. That the Testimonies given by the Fathers touching the Belief of the Church are not always True and Certain WE have before shewed how hard a matter it is to discover what the Sense of the Fathers hath been touching the Points at this day controverted in Religion both by reason of the small number of Books we have left us of the Fathers of the First Centuries and those too which we have treating of such things as are of a very different nature from our present Disputes and which besides we cannot be very well assured of by reason of the many Forgeries and monstrous Corruptions which they have for so long a time been subject to as also by reason of their Obscurity and Ambiguity in their Expressions and their representing unto us many times the Opinions rather of others than of their Authors besides those many other Imperfections which are found in them as namely their not informing us in
what degree of Faith we are to hold each particular Point of Doctrine and their leaving us in doubt whether what they teach be the Judgment of the Church or their own private Opinion onely and whether if it be the Judgment of the Church it be of the Church Universal or of some Particular Church only Now the least of these Objections is sufficient to render their Testimony invalid And again on the other side that it may be of force it is necessary that it be clearly and evidently free from all these Defects forasmuch as the Question is here touching the Christian Faith which ought to be grounded on nothing save what is sure and firm Whosoever therefore would make use of any Passage out of a Father he is bound first to make it appear that the Author out of whom he citeth the said Passage lived and wrote in the first Ages of Christianity and besides that the said Person is certainly known to be the Author of that Book out of which the said Passage is quoted and moreover that the Passage cited is sincere and no way corrupted nor altered and likewise that the Sense which he gives of it is the true genuine Sense of the Place and also that it was the Opinion of the Author when he was now come to Riponâ—â—s of Judgment and which he changed not or retrâ—cted afterwards He must also make it appear in what degree he held it and whether he maintained it as his own private Opinion onely or as the Opinion of the Church and lastly whether it were the Opinion of the Church Universal or of some particular Church onely which Inquiry is a Business of so vast and almost infinite labour that it makes me very much doubt whether or no we can be ever able to attain to a full and certain assurance what the Real Positive Sense of the Ancients hath been touching the whole Body of Controversies now debated in this our Age. Hence therefore our principal Question seems to be decided namely Whether the alledging of the Fathers be a sufficient and proper Means for the demonstrating the Truth of all those Articles which are at this day maintained by the Church of Rome and rejected by the Protestants or not For who doth not now see that this kind of proof hath as much or more difficulty in it than the Question it self and that such Testimonies are as Obscure as the Controverted Opinions themselves Notwithstanding that we may not be thought too hastily and upon too light grounds to reject this way of Proceeding we will pass by all that obscurity that is found touching the Opinions of the Ancients and supposing it to be no hard matter to discover what the Opinion and Sense of the Fathers hath been touching the aforesaid Points we will now in this Second Book consider whether or no their Authority be such as that we ought or may without further examination believe on their score what we know them certainly to have believed and to hold it in the same degree that they did There are two sorts of Passages to be observed in the Writings of the Fathers In the one you have them speaking only as Witnesses and testifying what the Belief of the Church was in their Time In the other they propose to you like Doctors their own Private Opinions Now there is a World of difference betwixt these two things For in a Witness there is required only Faithfulness and Truth but in a Doctor Learning and Knowledge The one perswadeth us by the opinion we have of his Veracity the other by the strength of his Arguments The Fathers are Witnesses onely when they barely tell us That the Church in their Times held such or such Opinions And they are then Doctors when getting up as it were into the Chair they propose unto us their own Opinions making them good either out of the Scripture or out of Reason Now as concerning the Testimonies that they give touching the Faith held by the Church in their time I know not whether we ought to receive all they bring for certain Truths or not But this I am sure of that though they should deserve to be received by us for such yet nevertheless would they stand us in very little stead as to the Business now in hand The Reason which moveth me to doubt of the former of these is because I observe that those very Men who are the greatest Admirers of the Fathers do yet confess that although they erre very little or not at all in matter of Right yet nevertheless they are often out and have their failings in matter of Fact because that Right is an Universal thing which is every way Uniform and all of one sort whereas matter of Fact is a thing which is mixed and as it were enchased with divers particular Circumstances which may very easily escape the knowledge of or at least be not so rightly understood by the most clear and piercing Wits Now the condition of the Churches Belief in every particular Age is matter of Fact and not of Right and a Point of History and not an Article of Faith So that it followeth hence that possibly the Fathers may have erred in giving us an account hereof and that therefore their Testimonies in such Cases ought not to be received by us as infallibly True Neither yet may we be thought hereby to accuse the Fathers of Falshood For how often do the honestest Persons that are innocently testifie such things as they thought they had seen which it afterwards appeareth that they saw not at all for Goodness renders not Men infallible The Fathers therefore being but Men might both be deceived themselves in such things and might consequently also deceive those who have confided in them though innocently and without any design of doing so But besides all this it is very evident that they have not been wholly free from Passion neither and there is no Man but knows that Passion very oâ—ten disguiseth things and maâ—â—â—h them appear even to the honestest Men that may be much otherwise than they are insomuch that sometimes they are affectionately carried away with one Opinion and do as much abhor another Which secret Passion might easily make them believe that the Church held that Opinion which they themselves were most taken with and that it rejected that which they themselves disliked especially if there were but the least appearance or shadow of Reason to incline them to this Belief For Men are very easily perswaded to believe what they desire I conceive we may hereto impute that Testimony of S. Hierome where he affirms That the Churches of Christ held That the Souls of Men were immediately Created by God at the instant of their entrance into the Body And yet notwithstanding that doubt which S. Augustine was in touching this Particular and his inclining manifestly to the contrary Opinion which was That the Soul was propagated together with the Body and descended down
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
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
the precepts of Rhetorick but sure I am that it agreeth ill enough with S. Hierom's rule which we gave you a little before But let us now observe out of some other more clear and express passages of his what the judgment of this great Aristarchus and Censor of Antiquity hath been touching this Point I know saith he writing to Theophilus Patriarch of Alexandria that I place the Apostles in a distinct rank from all other Writers for as for them they always speak truth but as for those other they erre sometimes like Men as they were What could he have said more expresly in confirmation of our Assertion before laid down There are others saith he both Greeks and Latins who have erred also in Points of Faith whose Names I need not here set down lest I might seem to defend Origen by the Errors of others rather than by his own Worth How then can we confide in them unless we examine their Opinions by their Reasons I shall faith the same Author read Origen as I read others because I find he hath erred in like manner as they have done And in another place speaking in general of Ecclesiastical Writers that is of those which We now call Fathers and of the Faults and Errors that are found in their Books It may be saith he that either they have erred out of meer ignorance or else that they wrote in some other Sense than we understand them or that their Writings have by degrees been corrupted through the ignorance of the Transcribers or else before the appearing of that impudent Devil Arius in the World they let some things fall from them innocently and not so warily as they might have done and such as can hardly escape the Cavils of wrangling Spirits Which Passage of his is a very excellent and remarkable one and containeth in it a brief yet a clear and full Justification of the greatest part of what we have hitherto delivered in this our Discourse Do but think therefore with how much circumspection we are to read and to weigh these Authors and how careful we ought to be in examining in their Books whether there be not either some fault committed by the Transcriber or some obscurity in the Expression or some negligence in the Conception or lastly some error in the Proposition In another place having set down the Opinions As for their Expositions he resuseth them openly whensoever they do not please him Thus doth he find fault with the Exposition which is given by the greatest part of the Fathers of the Word Israel which they will have to signifie A Man seeing God Notwithstanding that those who interpret it thus are Persons of very great both Authority and Eloquence and whose very shadow saith he in sufficient to bear us down yet cannot we chuse but follow the Authority of the Scriptures and of the Angel and of God who gave this Name of Israel rather than the Power of any Secular Eloquence how great soever it be And in his CXLVI Epistle written to Pope Damasus he saith That there are some who not considering the Text conceive Superstitiously rather than Truly that these words in the beginning of the XLIV Psalm Eâ—â—ctavit cor meum verbum bonum My heart is inditing a good matter are spoken in the Person of the Father And yet the greatest part of those who lived in the time of Arius and a little after him understood these words in the same sense It was likewise the General Opinion in a manner of all Men That Adam was buried upon Mount Calvary and in the very same place where our Saviour Christ was crucified And yet S. Hierome rejecteth this Opinion and which is more he makes himself merry with it without any scruple at all So likewise there were some among the afore-named Ancient Fathers who out of a Pious Affection which they bare to S. Peter maintained That he denied not God but Man and that the sense of the Words of his Denial is I know not him to be a Man for I know that he is God The Intelligent Reader saith the same S. Hierome will easily perceive how idle and frivolous a thing this is to accuse our Saviour as guilty of a Lie by excusing his Apostle For if S. Peter did not deny him our Saviour must necessarily then have lied when he said unto him Verily I say unto thee c. He takes the same liberty also in reprehending S. Ambrose who understands by Gog spoken of in the Prophet Ezechiel the Nation of the Gothes neither do those other Fathers scape his Lash who pleasing themselves too much with their Allegories take Bosra in Isaiah for the Flesh whereas it signifies a Fortress I might here produce very many the like Passages but these few shall now serve as a Taste onely For who seeth not by this time that these Holy Men took not the Fathers who went before them for the Judges or Arbitrators touching the Opinions of the Church and that they did not receive their Testimonies and Depositions as Oracles but reserved the Right which S. Augustine alloweth to every Man of examining them by the Rule of Reason and of the Scripture Neither are we to take any notice at all of S. Hierome when he seems to except out of this number the Writings of Athanasius and of S. Hilary writing to Laeta and telling her That her Daughter Paula might walk securely and with firm footing by the Epistles of the one and the Books of the other and therefore he counselleth her to take delight in these Mens Writings forasmuch as in their Books the Piety of Faith wavereth not And as for all other Authors she may read them but rather to pass her judgment upon them than to follow them For first of all although perhaps there should be some Piece of a Father that should have no Error at all in it as questionless there are many such yet would not this render the Authority of the same Infallible How many such Books are there even of the Moderns wherein neither the one Party nor the other hath been able to discover any the least Error in matter of Faith And yet I suppose no Man will presently conclude from hence that we ought to admit of these Authors as Judges of our Faith A Man may there find of several Authors touching a certain Question that had been proposed unto him that so the Reader might make choice of the best he gives this Reason of his so doing Because saith he we ought not according to the Example of Pythagoras his Scholars to have an eye to the Prejudicated Opinion of the Proposer but rather the Reason of the Thing Proposed Which words of his do sufficiently confirm the Sense which we have formerly given of that Passage of his in the Preface to his second Commentary upon Hosea He presently afterwards adds My purpose is
the Word of God as that all that went before them had both seen and acknowledged the same The Consideration whereof was both Pleasing and Useful unto them For what can more delight a Faithful Heart than to find that the chiefest and most Eminent Persons in the Church had long since held the same Opinions touching our Saviour Jesus Christ and His Grace that We now hold at this day But yet it does not hence presently follow that though these Holy men should have met with these Articles of our Faith in the Writings of their Predecessours only without finding any Foundation of them in the Canonical Scriptures they would notwithstanding firmly have believed and embraced the same contenting themselves with the Bare Authority of their Predecessours S. Augustine professeth plainly that in such a Case they might better have rejected them and not be blamed for so doing neither than have received them unless they would incur the imputation of being over Credulous For it is a point of too much Credulity to believe any thing without Reason and He further affirmeth that where men speak without either Scripture or Reason their bare Authority is not sufficient to oblige us to believe what they propose unto us So that it hence appeareth that Humane Testimonies are alledged not to prove the Truth of the Faith but only to shew the Clearness of it after it is once well grounded Now the Question at this day betwixt us and the Church of Rome is not concerning the Clearness of the Truth of the Articles they believe and press upon the World but it yet lies upon them to prove even the very Ground and Foundation of them Shew me therefore will a Protestant here say either out of some Text of Scripture or else by some Evident Reason that there is any such place as Purgatory and that the Eucharist is not Bread and that the Pope is the Monarch and Head of the Church Universal and then I shall be very glad to try if for our greater comfort we may be able to find in the Authors of the Third or Fourth Century these Truths embraced by the Fathers of those times But to begin with these is to invert the Natural Order of things We ought first to be assured that the Thing is before we make inquiry whether it hath been believed or not For to what purpose is it to find that the Ancients believed it unless we find withal in their Writings some Reason of this their Belief And again on the other side what harm is it to us to be ignorant whether Antiquity believed it or not so long as we know that the Thing is And whereas there are some who to establish the Supream Authority of the Fathers alledge the Counsel which Sisinnius a Novatian and Agellius his Bishop gave of old to Nectarius Archbishop of Constantinople and by him to Theodosius the Emperour which was that they should demand of the Arrians whether or not they would stand to what the Fathers who died before the breaking forth of their Heresie had delivered touching the Point debated betwixt them this is hardly worth our consideration For this was a Trick only devised by a subtil head and which is worse by a Schismatick and consequently to be suspected as a Captious Proposal purposely made to entrap the Adverse party rather than any free and ingenuous way of Proceeding For if this manner of Proceeding had been right and good how came it to pass that among so many Catholick Bishops as there were none of them all advised it How came it to pass that they were so ignorant of the Weapons wherewith the Enemies of the Church were to be encountred How came it about that it should be proposed only by a young fellow who was a Schismatick too And if it were approved of as right and good Counsel why did Gregory Nazianzene S. Basil and so many other of the Fathers who wrote in that Age against the Arrians deal with them wholly in a manner out of the Scriptures And certainly those Holy men besides their Christian Candor which obliged them to this way of Proceeding took a very wise course in so doing For if this Controversie had been to be decided by the Authority of Humane Writers I know not how any man should have been able to make good that which this Gallant so confidently affirmeth in the place aforecited namely That none of the Ancients ever said that the Son of God had any beginning of his Generation considering those many strange Passages that we yet at this day meet with touching this Particular in the Books of the First Fathers which is the reason also why the Arrians alâ—ledged their Testimonies as we see they do in the Books of Athanasius Hilary and others of the Ancients who wrote against them But what need we insist so long upon a Story which is rejected by Cardinal Baronius as being an idle Tale devised by Zozomene who was a Novatian in favour of those of his own Sect. The Counsel of Vincentius Lirinensis which he gives us in a certain little Discourse of his which is very highly prised by Gennadius is accounted by many men much more worthy of our Consideration For having first told us that he speaks not of any Authors Save only of such who having holily wisely and constantly lived preached and persevered in the Catholick Faith and Communion obtained the favour at length either to dye faithfully in Christ or else had the happiness of being crowned with Martyrdom for Christs sake he further addeth That we are to receive as undoubtedly true certain and definitive whatsoever all the aforesaid Authors or at least the greatest part of them have clearly frequently and constantly affirmed with an Vnanimous Consent receiving retaining and delivering it over to others as it were joyntly and making up all of them but one Common and Vnanimous Council of Doctors But this Passage of his is so far from advancing the Supreme Authority which some would attribute to the Fathers in Matters of Faith that on the contrary I meet with something in it that makes me more doubt of their Authority than I did before For I find by this mans discourse that whatsoever his reason was whether good or bad he clearly appears to have had a very great desire of bringing all Differences in Religion before the Judgment seat of the Fathers and to the same end he labours to prove with the same eagerness and passion that their Judgment is inâ—allible in these Cases But in the mean time I find him so perplexed and troubled in bringing out that which he would have as that it appears sufficiently that he saw well enough that what he desired was not so agreeable to Truth For he hath so qualified his Proposition and bound it in with so many Limitations as that it is very probable that if all these Conditions which he here requires were any where to be found we might
Vincentius should have cleared by this excellent course of his some Point or other which had been controverted he must have thanked the Fire the Water the Moths or the Worms for having spared those Authors which he made use of and for having consumed all those other that wrote in favour of the Adverse Party for otherwise he should have been an Heretick And if we should decide our Differences in Matters of Faith after this manner we should do in a manner as he did who gave Judgment upon the Suits of Law that came before him by the Chances he threw with Three Dice Do but imagine now what an endless labour it would be for a Man either to go and heap up together and run over all the Authors that ever have written one with another or else to distinguish them into their several Ages they wrote in and to examine them by Companies And do but imagine again what satisfaction a Man should be able to get from hence and where we should be in case we should find as it is possible it may sometimes so fall out as we shall shew hereafter that the Sense and Judgment of this Greatest Part should prove to be either contrary to or perhaps besides the Sense and Meaning either of the Scriptures or of the Church And again how senseless a thing were it to make the Suffrages of Equal Authority of Persons that are so Unequal themselves either in respect of their Merit Learning Holy Life and Soundness of Faith and that a Rheticius whom S. Hierome censured so hardly a little before should be reckoned Equal with S. Augustine or a Philastrius be as good a Man as S. Hierome There is perhaps among the Fathers such a One whose Judgment is of more weight than a Hundred others and yet forsooth will this Man have us to make our Doubles and our Sons to go for as much as our Crowns and Pistols And lastly What reason in the World is there that although perhaps the Persons themselves were equal in all things we should yet make their Words also of equal force which are oftentimes of very different and unequal Authority some of them having been uttered as it were before the Bar the Books having been produced both Parties heard and the whole Cause througly examined and the other perhaps having been cast forth by their Authors at all adventure as it were either in their Chamber or else in Discourse walking abroad or else perhaps by the By while they were treating of some other Matter But our Friend here to prevent in some sort this later Inconvenience requires that the Word of this Greatest Part which he will allow to be fit to be Authorised must have been uttered by them Clearly Often and Constantly and then and not till then doth he allow them for Certain and Undoubted Truth And now you see he is got into another Hold. For I would very fain be informed how it is possible for us to know whether these Fathers which we thus have called out of their Graves to give us their Judgment touching the Controversies in Religion affirmed those things which we find in their Writings Clearly Often and Constantly or not If in this his pretended Council of Doctors you will not allow the Right of giving their Suffrage to those of whom it may be doubted that they either expressed themselves obscurely or gave in their Testimonies but seldom or have but weakly maintained their own Opinion I pray you tell me whom shall we have left at last to be the Judges in the Decision of our present Controversies As for the Apostles Creed and the Determinations of the Four First General Councils which are assented unto and approved of by all the Protestant Party I confess we may by this way of Trial allow them as Competent Judges in these Matters But as for all the rest it is evident by what hath been delivered in the First Part of this Treatise that we can never admit of them if they are thus to be Qualified and to have all the afore-mentioned Conditions We may therefore very well conclude That the Expedient here proposed by this Author is either Impossible or else not so safe to be put in practice so that I shall rather approve of S. Augustine's Judgment touching the Authority of the Fathers I should not have insisted so long upon the Examination of this Proposal of his had I not seen it to have been in so high Esteem with many Men and indeed with some of the Learned too For in earnest after S. Augustine and S. Hierome have delivered their Judgments it matters not much what this Man shall have believed to the contrary But yet before we finish this Point let us a little examine this Author both by S. Augustine's and by his own Rule before laid down S. Augustine thinks us not bound to believe the Saying of any Author except he can prove the Truth of it unto us either by the Canonical Scriptures or else by some Probable Reason What Text of Scripture or what Reason hath this Man alledged to prove the Truth of what he hath proposed So that whatsoever his Opinion be he must not take it amiss if according to the Advice and Practice of S. Augustine we take leave to dissent from him especially considering we have so many Reasons to reject That which he without any Reason given would have us to receive And thus you see that according to the Judgment of S. Augustine the Saying of this Vincentius Lirinensis although you should reckon him among the most Eminent of the Fathers doth not at all oblige us to give our Assent unto it And yet you will find that his Testimony would be yet of much less force and weight if you but examine the Man by his own Rule For according to him we are not to hearken to the Fathers except they both Lived and Taught Holily and Wisely even unto the hour of their Death Who is there now that will pass his word for him that he himself was one of this number Who shall assure us that he was not either an Heretick himself or at least a Favourer of Hereticks For is it not evident enough that he favoured the Semipelagians who at that time swarmed in France railing against the very Name and Memory of S. Augustine and who were condemned by the whole Church Who may not easily see this by his manner of Discourse in his Commonitorium tending this way where he seems to intimate unto us under hand That Prosper and Hilary had unjustly slandered them and that Pope Celestine who also wrote against them had been misinformed And may not he also be strongly suspected to have been the Author of those Objections made against Prosper which are called Objectiones Vincentianae Vincent's Objections The great Commendations also which are given him by Gennadius very much confirm this suspicion it being clear that this Author was of the same Sect
sense and meaning of these words lest otherwise by misinterpreting the same you might chance to fall into the one or the other of these two Precipices If you have recourse to the Fathers in this case you shall have some of them referring it to the Vnion of the Affection and of the Will and others again to the Vnity of Essence and of Nature So likewise this other passage in the same Evangelist My Father is greater than I is very considerable also in the Question touching the Divinity of Jesus Christ And yet there are some among the Fathers who understand the words as spoken indefinitely of the Son of God although the rest of them do ordinarily restrain them to his Humanity These words also of St. John The Word was made Flesh are of no small consideration in the Disputes against Nestorius and Eutyches Now if you bring the business before the Fathers you shall have some of them expounding these words by comparing them with those passages in St. Paul where it is said that Christ was made sin and a Curse for us but St. Cyril saith that we must take heed how we interpret the words so It would be an endless Task if I should here go about to reckon up all the Differences and Contrarieties of Judgment that are to be found in the Fathers Those that have a mind to see any more of them may have recourse to some of our late Commentators whose usual course is to bring in all together the several Interpretations of the Fathers upon those Books which they Comment upon as Maldonate hath done upon the Gospels Cardinal Tolet upon St. John Bened. Justinianus upon the Epistles of St. Paul and others where they will find that there is scarcely any one Verse that the Ancients have understood all of them after one and the â—ame manner And which is yet worse than this besides this Contrariety and Difference of Interpretation you will often meet with very many cold and empty Expositions and it is very seldom that you shall find there that solid simplicity which we ought to expect from all those who take upon them the Interpretation of the Holy Scriptures For as much therefore as we many times meet with Contrariety of Judgment as well in their Expositions of the Scriptures as in their Opinions we may safely conclude that they are not of sufficient Authority to be admitted as the Supreme Judges of our Controversies that Contradiction which is often found amongst them evidently shewing that they are not Infallible Judges such as it is requisite that they should be for the making good of all those Points which are at this day maintained by the Church of Rome against the Protestants CHAP. VI. Reason VI. That neither those of the Church of Rome nor the Protestants do acknowledge the Fathers for their Judges in Points of Religion but do both of them reject such of their Opinions and Practices as are not for their Gust An Answer to two Objections that may be made against what hath been here delivered in this Discourse THus far have we laboured to prove that the Writings of the Fathers have not Authority enough in themselves for to be received as Definitive Sentences passed upon our Differences in Religion Let us now in the last place see how much they have in respect of us For although a Sentence of Judgment should be good and valid in it self as being pronounced by one who is a competent and lawful Judge duly and according to the Forms of Law yet notwithstanding would not this serve to determine the Controversie if so be the Authority of this Judge be denied by either of the Parties unless as it is in worldly Affairs the Law be armed with such a Power as is able to force those that are obstinate to submit to Reason for as much as the Question is here touching Religion which is a Holy and Divine thing to the embracing whereof men ought to be perswaded and not compelled since force hath no place here For although perhaps they could compel men outwardly to render some such respect to the Writings of the Fathers yet notwithstanding would not this serve to make any impression of the Belief of the same in the heart of any one The same Divisions would still remain in the minds of men which you are first of all to pull up by the roots if ever you intend to reconcile them to each other and to make them agree in Point of Religion For the certain determination therefore of all Differences of this nature it is necessary that both Parties be perswaded that the Judge who is to pronounce Sentence upon the same hath as much Authority as it requisite for that purpose Notwithstanding therefore that the Fathers should have clearly and positively pronounced what they had thought touching the Point in hand which yet they have not done as we have proved before Let us suppose further that they had been endued with all those qualities which are requisite for the rendring a man fit to be a Supreme Judge and from whom there can be no Appeal which yet is not so as we have already clearly proved yet notwithstanding would all this be to no purpose unless this Authority were acknowledged by both Parties The Old Testament is a Book which was written by Divine Inspiration and is endued with so supreme an Authority as that every part of it ought to be believed Yet doth not this work any whit at all with a Pagan because he doth not acknowledge any such excellent worth to be in it In like manner is it between the New Testament and the Jew neither can it decide the Differences betwixt the Jews and us not because it is not of sufficient Authority in it self but because it is not so to the Jew And indeed he were worthy to be laughed at whosoever should alledge in disputing against the Pagans the Authority of the Old Testament or that of the New for the bringing of a Jew over to our Belief Suppose therefore that the Writings of the Fathers were clear upon our Questions nay which is more let it be granted moreover if you please that they were written by Divine Inspiration and are of themselves of a full and undeniable Authority I say still that they cannot decide our Debates if so be that either of the Parties shall refuse to acknowledge this great and admirable dignity to be in them much less if both Parties shall refuse to allow them to have this Priviledge Let us now therefore see in what account the several Parties have the Fathers and whether they acknowledge them as the Supreme Judges of their Religion or at least as Arbitrators whose definitive Sentence ought to stand firm and inviolable As for our Protestants of France whom their Adversaries would fain perswade if they could to receive the Fathers for Judges in Religion and to whom consequently they ought not
according to the Laws of a legitimate Disputation to alledge for the proof of any Point in debate any other Principles than what they do allow of it is evident that they attribute to the Fathers nothing less than such an Authority For in the Confessing of Faith they declare in the very beginning of it That they hold the Scriptures to be the Rule of their Faith and as for all other Ecclesiastical Writings although they account them to be useful yet nevertheless do they not conceive that a man may safely build any Article of Faith upon them And indeed seeing that they believe as the tell you immediately after that the Scripture containeth all things necessary both for the service of God and the Salvation of mens Souls they have no need of any other Judge and should in vain have recourse to the Writings of the Ancients the Authority whereof how great soever it be is still much less both in it self and also in respect of us than that of the Bible In the next place they seriously profess that their intent is to reform the Christian Doctrine according to this Rule and to retain firmly what Articles of Faith soever are therein delivered and to reject constantly all those that are not there found laid down how high and eminent soever the Authority be that shall resciâ—d the one or establish the other in the Belief of Men. It is not Lawful say they for Men nor yet for the Angels themselves either to add to or to diminish from or to alter it neither may Antiquity nor Customs nor Multitude nor Judgments nor Humane Wisdom nor Definitive Sentences nor Edicts nor Decrees nor Councils nor Visions nor Miracles be brought in opposition to it but on the contrary rather all other things ought to be examined regulated and reformed by it These be their own Words If therefore they will not depart from this their Belief which is as it were the Foundation and Key of their whole Reformation they cannot receive the Fathers who lived in the Second Third and Fourth and so in the following Centuries as Judges nor yet Absolutely and Simply as Witnesses in the Points of Faith For they all hold That that Pure Simple and Holy Doctrine which was taught and preached by the Apostles at the beginning of Christianity and delivered over unto us by themselves in the New Testament hath been by little and little altered and corrupted Time which changeth all things continually mixing among it some Corruption or other sometimes a Jewish or a Heathenish Opinion and sometimes again some Nice Observation otherwhiles some Superstitious Ceremony or other whilst one building upon the Foundation with Stubble another with Hay a third with Wood the Body seems at length by little and little to have become quite another thing than it Anciently was we having in stead of a Palace of Gold and of Silver a House built up of Plaister Stone Wood and Mud and the like pitiful Stuff In like manner say they as we see that Brooks of Water the farther distant they are from their Springs the more Filth they contract and the more doth their Water lose of its first Purity And as a Man the more he groweth in years the more doth that Native Simplicity which appeared in him in his Infancy decay his Body and his Mind are changed and he is so much altered by little and little through Study Art and Cunning that at length he seemeth to be clean another Man In like manner say they hath it â—ared with Christianity And here they presently urge that notable Passage out of S. Paul in his Second Epistle to the Thessalonians where he speaks of a Great Falling away which then in his time began already to work secretly and insensibly but was not to break forth till a long time after as you see it is in all Great Things whether in Nature or in the Affairs and Occurrences that happen to Mankind which are all conceived and hatched slowly and by degrees and are sometimes a whole Age before they are brought forth Now according to this Hypothesis which as I conceive is equally common to us of France and all other Protestants whatsoever the Doctrine of the Church must Necessarily have suffered some Alteration in the Second Age of Christianity by admitting the Mixture of some New Matter into its Belief and Policy and so likewise in the Third Age some other Corruption must necessarily have got in and so in the Fourth Fifth and the rest that follow the Christian Religion continually losing something of Its Original Purity and Simplicity and on the other side still contracting all along some new Impurities till at length it came to the highest Degree of Corruption in which condition they say they found it and have now at last by the Guidance of the Scriptures restored it to the self-same State wherein it was at the Beginning and have as it were fixed it again upon its true and proper Hinge from whence partly by the Ignorance and partly by the Fraud of Men during the space of so many Ages together it had by little and little been removed This therefore being their Opinion they cannot admit of as the Rule of all their Doctrine the Writings of any of the Fathers who lived from the Apostles time down to ours without betraying and contradicting themselves For according to what they maintain touching the Progress of Corruption in Religion there hath been some Alteration in the Christian Doctrine both in the Second Third and all the following Ages And then again according to what they conceive and believe of their own Reformation their Doctrine is the very same that was in the time of the Apostles as being taken immediately out of their Books If therefore they should examine it by what the Fathers of the Second Century believed there must necessarily be something found in the Doctrine of the Fathers which is not in theirs and the Difference will be much greater if the Comparison be made betwixt it and the Doctrine of the Third Fourth and the following Ages in all which according to their Hypothesis the Corruption hath continually encreased For if their Doctrines were in every respect conformable to each other and had in them neither more nor less the one than the other there must necessarily then follow one of these two things namely That either this Corruption which they presuppose to be in the Belief and Politie of the Church is not that Secret which worked in S. Paul's time or else That their Reformation is not the Pure and Simple Doctrine of the Apostles the Members of which Division are contradictory to those two Positions which as we have said they all of them unanimously maintain So that to avoid this Contradiction it concerns them constantly to persevere in that which they profess is their Belief in their Confession of Faith to wit That there are no Ecclesiastical Writings whatsoever that are of so sufficient Authority as
recourse to some other way of Proof if they intend to prevail upon their Adversaries to receive the aforesaid Articles But what will you say now if we make it appear to you that the Church of Rome it self doth not allow that the Fathers have any such Authority I suppose that if we are able to do this there is no Man so perverse as not to confess That this Proceeding of theirs in grounding their Articles of Faith upon the Sayings of the Fathers is not onely very Insufficient but very Inconvenient also For how can it ever be endured that a Man that would perswade you to the Belief of any thing should for that purpose make use of the Testimony of some such Persons as neither you nor himself believe to be Infallibly True and so fit to be trusted Let us now therefore see whether those of the Church of Rome really have themselves so great an Esteem of the Fathers as they would be thought to have by this their Proceeding or not Certainly several of the Learned of that Party have upon divers occasions let us see plain enough that they make no more account of them than the Protestants do For whereas these require That the Authority of the Fathers be grounded upon that of the Scripture and therefore receive nothing that they deliver as Infallibly True unless it be grounded upon the Scripture passing by or rejecting whatsoever they propose either besides or contrary to the Sense of the Scripture the other in like manner will have the Judgment of the Fathers depend upon that of the Church in present being in every Age and approve pass by or condemn all such Opinions of theirs as the Church either approveth passeth by or condemneth So that although they differ in this That the one attributeth the Supremacy to the Scripture and the other to the Present Church of their Age yet notwithstanding they both agree in this That both the one and the other of them equally deprive the Fathers of the same Insomuch that they both of them spend their time unprofitably enough whilst they trouble themselves to plead their Cause before this Inferiour Court where the wrangling and cunning Tricks of the Law have so much place where the Judgments are hard to be got and yet harder to be understood and when all is done are not Supreme but are such as both Parties believe they may lawfully appeal from whereas they might if they pleased let alone these troublesom and useless Beatings about and come at the first before the Supreme Tribunal whether it be that of the Scriptures or of the Church where the Suits are not so long and where the Subtilty of Pleading is of much less use where the Sentences also are more clear and express and which is the Chiefest thing of all such as we cannot appeal from But that we may not be thought to impose this Opinion upon the Church of Rome unjustly let us hear them speak themselves Cardinal Cajetan in his Preface upon the Five Books of Moses spâ—â—king of his own Annotations upon the same saith thus If you chance there to meet with any New Exposition which is agreeable to the Text and not Contrary either to tbe Scriptures or to the Doctrine of the Church although perhaps it differ from that which is given by the whole Current of the Holy Doctors I shall desire the Readers that they would not too hastily reject it but that they would rather censure charitably of it Let them remember to give every man his due there are none but the Authors of the Holy Scriptures alone to whom we attribute such Authority as that we ought to believe whatsoever they have written But as for others saith St. Augustine of how great Sanctity and Learning so ever they may have been I so read them as that I do not believe what they have written because they have written it Let no man therefore reject a new Exposition of any Passage of Scripture under pretence that it is contrary to what the Ancient Doctors gave but let him rather diligently examine the Text and the contexture of the Scripture and if he find that it accordeth well therewith let him praise God who hath not tyed the Exposition of the Scriptures to the sense of the Ancient Doctors but to the whole Scripture it self under the censure of the Catholick Church Melchior Canus Bishop of the Canary Islands having before declared himself according as St. Augustine hath done saying that the Holy Scriptures only are exempt from all error he further adds But there is no man how holy or learned soever he be that is not sometimes deceived that doth not sometimes dote that doth not sometimes slip And then alledging some of those examples which we have before produced he concludes in these words Let us therefore read the Ancient Fathers with all due Reverence yet notwithstanding for as much as they were but Men with Choice and Judgment And a little after he saith That the Fathers sometimes fail and bring forth Monsters besides the ordinary course of Nature And in the same place he saith that To follow the Ancients in all things and to tread every where in their steps as little Cbildren use to do in play is nothing else but to disparage our own Parts and to confess our selves to have neither Judgment nor Skill enough for the searching into the Trutâ— No let us follow them as Guides but not as Masters It is very true saith Ambrosius Catharinus in like manner that the Sayings and Writings of the Fathers have not of themselves any so absolute Authority as that we are bound to assent to them in all things The Jesuits also themselves inform us sufficiently in many places that they do not reckon themselves so tyed to follow the Judgment of the Fathers in all things as people may imagine Petavius in his Annotations upon Epiphanius confesseth freely That the Fathers were men that they had their failings and that we ought not maliciously to search after their Errors that we may lay them open to the world but that we may take the liberty to note them when ever they come in our way to the end that none be deceived by them and that we ought no more to maintain or defend their Errors than we ought to imitate their Vices if at least they had any and again That many things have slipped from them which if they were examined according to the exact Rule of Truth could not be reconciled to any good sense and that Himself hath observed That they are out sufficiently whensoever they speak of such Points of Faith as were not at all called in question in Their time And to say the truth He often rejects both Their Opinions and Their Expositions also and sometimes very Uncivilly too as we have touched before speaking of his Notes upon Epiphanius And in one place the Authority of some of the
Fathers which contradicted His Opinion touching the Exposition of a certain passage in St. Luke being objected against Him He never taking the least notice at all of their Testimonies answers That we ought to Interpret and expound the Fathers by St. Luke rather than St. Luke by Them because that They cannot herein say any thing but what they have received from St. Luke Which in my Judgment was very Judiciously spoken of him and besides Exactly agrees with what St. Augustine said before and which may very well be applied to the greatest part of our Differences in all which the Fathers could not know any thing save what they learnt out of the Scriptures so that Their Testimonies in these Cases ought according to the Opinion of this Learned Jesuit to be expounded and interpreted by the Scriptures and not the Scriptures by Them And this is the language of all the rest of them Maâ—donate who was a most bitter enemy of the Protestants as ever there was any having delivered the Judgment of some of the Fathers who were of Opinion that the sons of Zebedee answered not so rightly when being asked by our Saviour whether or no they were able to drink of his Cup and to be Baptized with the Baptism that he was Baptized with they said unto him that they were able adds That for his part he believes that they answered well And in another place expounding the 2 Verse of the 19 Chapter of St. Matthew having first brought in the Interpretations of divers and indeed in a manner of all the Fathers he says at last That he could not be perswaded to understand the place as they did And here you are to note by the way that the meaning of that place is still controverted at this day How then can this man conceive that the Protestants should think themselves bound necessarily to follow the Judgment of this Major part of the Fathers which themselves make so light of In another place where he hath occasion to speak of those words of our Saviour which are at this day in debate amongst us The Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it He is yet much more down-right and says The sense of these words is not rightly given by any Author that I can remember except St. Hilary So likewise upon the 11 Chapter of St. Matthew vers 11. where it is said The least in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than John Baptist The Opinions of the Fathers upon this passage saith he are very different and to speak my mind freely none of them all pleaseth me In like manner upon the sixth Chapter of St. John Ammonius saith he St. Cyril Theophylact and Euthymius answer that all are not drawn because all are not worthy But this comes too near to Pelagianism Salmeron a famous Jesuit says thus Our Adversaries bring Arguments from the Antiquity of the Fathers which I confess hath always been of more esteem than Novelties I answer That every Age hath yielded unto Antiquity c. But yet we must take liberty to say that the later the Doctors are the more quick sighted they are And again Against all this great multitude which they bring against us we answer saith he out of the Word of God Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest judgment Michael Medina disputing at the Council of Trent touching the superiority of a Bishop above a Priest the Authority of St. Hierome and of St. Augustine being produced against him who both held that the difference betwixt them was not of Divine but only of Positive and Ecclesiastical Right answers before the whole Congregation That it is no marvel that they and some others also of the Fathers fell into this Heresie this point being not as then clearly determined of And that no man may doubt of the honesty of the Historian who relateth this do but hear Bellarmineâ— who testifieth That Medina assureth us that St. Hierome was in this point of Aerius his opinion and that not only be but also St. Ambrose St. Augustine Sedulius Primasius Chrysostome Theodoret Oecumenius and Theophylact maintained all of them the same Heresie We need not bring in here any more Examples do but read their Commentaries their Disputations and their other Discourses and you will find them almost in every page either rejecting or correcting the Fathers But I must not pass by the Testimony of Cornelius Mussus Bishop of Bitonto who indeed is more ingenuous and more clear than all the rest O Rome saith he to whom shall we go for Divine Counsels unless to those persons to whose trust the Dispensation of the Divine Mysteries hath been committed We are therefore to hear him who is to us instead of God in things that concern God as God himself Certainly for my own part that I may speak my mind freely in things that belong to the Mysteries of Faith I had rather believe one single Pope than a thousand Augustines Hieromes or Gregories that I may not speak of Richards Scotusses and Williams For I believe and know that the Pope cannot Erre in matters of Faith because that the Authority and Right of determining all such things as are at all Points of Faith resides in the Pope This Passage may seem to some to be both a very bold and a very indiscreet one but yet whosoever shall but examine the thing seriously and as it is in it self and not as it is in its outward appearances only which are contrived for the most part only to amuse the simpler sort of people I am confident he will find that this Author hath both most ingenuously and most truly given the world an account what Esteem the Church of Rome hath of the Fathers For seeing that these men maintain that the Pope is Infallible and they confess withall that the Fathers may have erred who seeth not that they set the Pope very much above the Fathers Neither may it be here replied that they do not all of them hold that the Pope is Infallible For besides that those among them who do contradict this Opinion are both the least and the least considerable part also of the Church of Rome these very men attribute to the present Church in being in every Age this Right of Infallibility which they will not allow the Pope insomuch that a Council now called together is according to their account of much greater Authority than the ancient Fathers So that there is no more difference at all betwixt these men and the fore-mentioned Italian Bishop save only that whereas they will have the Authority of the ancient Fathers to submit to the whole Body of Modern Bishops assembled in a General Council He will have their Authority to be less than that of a single Pope alone All that can be found fault with in that speech of his is