its opinion publickly touching the Points at this day controverted it is as impossible that many together that lived in the same time should represent it unto us as that one single person should How could they possibly have seen that which lay as yet concealed How could they possibly measure their Belief by such a Rule as was not yet visible to the World The Chiliasts alledge the Testimonies not of one not of two but of a very great number of the most eminent and the most ancient among the Fathers who were all of their opinion as we shall see hereafter The Answer that is ordinarily made to the Objection is That the Church having not as yet declared its sence touching this Point the Testimonies of these Men bind us not to believe the same which is an evident Argument that a great number in this case signifies no more than a small in the representing unto us what the Belief of the Church hath been and that it is necessary that either by some General Council or else by some other publick way it must have declared its judgment touching any Question in debate that so we may know whether the Fathers have been of the same judgment or no. So that according to this Account we are to raise up again the whole Ancient Church and to call it to account touching every of these particular Points now debated touching which the Testimonies of the Fathers are alledged it being impossible otherwise to give any certain judgment whether that which they say be their own private or else the publick Opinion that is to say whether it be fit to be believed or not So that any man that is but of the meanest judgment may easily perceive how that it is not only a difficult but also almost an impossible thing to gather out of the Writings of the Fathers so much light as is necessary we should have for our satisfaction in matters of so great importance CHAP. X. Reason 10. That it is a very hard matter to know whether the Opinions of the Fathers touching the Controversies of these Times were received by the Church Vniversal or but by some part of it only which yet is necessarily to be known before we can make use of any Allegations out of them BUT suppose that a Father relieving us in this difficult or rather impossible business should tell us in express terms that what he proposeth is the sense and opinion of the Church in his time yet would not this quite deliver us out of the doubtful condition we are in For besides that their words are many times in such cases as these liable to exception suppose that it were certainly and undoubtedly so yet would it concern us then to examine what that Church was whereof he speaketh whether it were the Church Vniversal or only some Particular Church and whether it were that of the whole World or that of some City Province or Country only Now that this is a matter of no small importance is evident from hence because that the opinions of the Church Vniversal in Points of Faith are accounted infallible and necessarily true whereas those of Particular Churches are not so but are confessed to be subject to Errour So that the Question being here touching the Faith which ought not to be grounded upon any thing save what is infallibly true it will concern us to know what the judgment of the Church Vniversal hath been seeing the opinion of no Particular Church can do us any service in this case And that this distinction is also otherwise very necessary appears evidently by this because that the opinions and customs which have been commonly received by the greatest part of Christendom have not always presently taken place in each Particular Church and again those which have been received in some certain Particular Churches have not been entertained by all the rest Thus we find in story that the Churches of Asia minor kept the Feast of Easter upon a different day from all the other parts of Christendom and although the business it self seems to be of no very great importance yet did it nevertheless cause a world of stir in the Church Victor Bishop of Rome by reason of this little difference excommunicating all Asia minor Now each party here alledged their Reasons and Apostolical Tradition for what they did speaking with so great confidence in the justification of their own opinion as that hearing them severally a man would verily believe that each of their opinions was the very sense of the whole Church which notwithstanding was but the opinion of one part of it only The greatest part of Christendom held the Baptism of Hereticks to be good and effectual and received all those who forsaking their Heresie desired to be admitted into the Communion of the Church without re-baptizing them as appears out of St. Cyprian who confesseth that this had also been the custom formerly even in the African Churches themselves And yet notwithstanding Firmilianus Archbishop of Caesaria in Cappadocia testifies that the Churches of Cappadocia had time out of mind believed and practised the contrary and had also in his time so declared and ordained together with the Churches of Galatia and Cilicia in a full Synod held at the City Iconium And about the same time also St. Cyprian and the Bishops of Africk fell upon the same business and embraced this opinion of Re-baptization of Hereticks The Acts of the Council held at Carthage are yet extant where you have 87 Bishops who with one unanimous consent established the same The Custom at Rome in Tertullians time was to receive into the Communion of the Church all Fornicators and Adulterers after some certain Penances which they enjoyned them Tertullian who was a Montanist exclaimed fearfully against this custom and wrote a Book expresly against it which is also extant among his works at this day Who now that should read this Piece of his would not believe that it was the general Opinion of all Catholicks that such sinners were not to be excluded from Penance and the Communion of the Church And yet for all this it is evident out of a certain Epistle of St. Cyprian that even some of the Catholick Bishops of Africa were of the contrary perswasion and the Jesuit Petavius is further of opinion that this Indulgency was not allowed nor practised in the Churches of Spain till a long time after and that the Ancient Rigour which excluded for ever such Offenders from the Communion of the Church was in practice among them till the time of Pacianus Bishop of Barcellona who left not any hopes of Ecclesiastical Absolution either to Idolaters Murtherers or Adulterers as may be seen in his Exhortation to Repentance In the year of our Lord 364. the Council of Laodicea ordained that none but the Canonical Books of the Old and New Testament should be read in Churches giving us withal a Catalogue of the said Books
Invention being ashamed to make use of it any longer And to say truth that which these Men answer by way of excusing the said Popes is not any whit more probable namely That they took the Council of Nice and that of Sardica in which those Canons they alledge are really found for one and the same Council For whom will these Men ever be able to perswade That two Ecclesiastical Assemblies betwixt which there passed near twenty two whole years called by two several Emperors and for Matters of a far different nature the one of them for the Explanation of the Christian Faith and the other for the Re-establishing of two Bishops in their Thrones and in Places very far distant from each other the one at Nicaea in Bithynia the other at Sardica a City of Illyricum the Canons of which two Councils are very different both in substance number and authority the one of them having always been received generally by the whole Church but the other having never been acknowledged by the Eastern Church should yet notwithstanding be but one and the same Council How can they themselves endure this who are so fierce against the Greeks for having offered to attribute which they do notwithstanding with more appearance of truth to the Sixth Council those CII Canons which were agreed upon ten years after at Constantinople in an Assembly wherein one party of the Fathers of the Sixth Council met How came it to pass that they gave any credit to the Ancient Church seeing that in the Greek Collection of her Ancient Canons those of the Council of Sardica are quite left out and in the Latin Collection of Dionysius Exiguus made at Rome eleven hundred years since they are placed not with those of the Council of Nice nor yet immediately after them as if they all made up but one Body betwixt them but are put in a place a great way behind after the Canons of all the General Councils that had been held till that very time he lived in And how comes it to pass that these Ancient Popes who alledged these Canons if they believed these Councils to be both one did not say so The African Bishops had diverse and sundry times declared That these Canons which were by them alledged were not at all to be found in their Copies Certainly therefore if those who had cited them had thought the Council of Nice and that of Sardica to have been both but one Council they would no doubt have made answer That 〈◊〉 Canons were to be found in this pretended Second Part of the Council of Nice among those which had been agreed upon at Sardica especially when they saw that these careful Fathers for the clearing of the Controversie betwixt them had resolved to send to this purpose as far as Constantinople and Alexandria And yet for all this there is not the least Syllable tending this way said by them And certainly if the Canons of the Council of Sardica had been in those days reputed as a part of the Council of Nice it is a very strange thing that so many Learned and Religious Prelates as there were at that time in Africk as namely Aurelius Alypius and even S. Augustine that glorious Light not of the African onely but of the whole Ancient Church should have been so ignorant in this particular But it is a wonder beyond all belief that three Popes and their Legates should leave their Party in an Ignorance so gross and so prejudicial to their own Interest it being in their power to have relieved them in two words We may safely then conclude That these Popes Zozimus and Boniface had no other Copies of the Council of Nice than what we have and also that they did not believe that the Canons of the Council of Sardica were a part of the Council of Nice but that they rather purposely alledged some of the Canons of Sardica under the name of the Canons of the Council of Nice And this they did according to that Maxim which was in force with those of former times and is not utterly laid aside even in our own namely That for the advancing of a Good and Godly Cause it is lawful sometimes to use a little Deceit and to have recourse to your Piae Fraudes They therefore firmly believing as they did That the Supremacy of their See over all other Churches was a Business of great importance and would be very profitable to all Christendom we are not to wonder if for the establishing this right on themselvs they made use of a little Legerdemain alledging Sardica for Nice reckoning with themselves that if they brought their Design about this small Failing of theirs would in process of time be abundantly satisfied for by the benefit and excellency of the thing it self Yet notwithstanding this Opposition made by the African Fathers against the Church of Rome Pope Leo not many years after writing to the Emperour Theodosius did not forbear to make use of the old Forgery citing one of the Canons of the Council of Sardica for a Legitimate Canon of the Council of Nice which was the cause that the Emperour Valentinian also and his Empress Galla Placidia writing in the behalf of the said Pope Leo to the Emperour Theodosius affirmed to him for a certain Truth That both all Antiquity and the Canons of the Council of Nice also had assigned to the Pope of Rome the Power of judging of Points of Faith and of the Prelates of the Church Leo having before possessed them That this Canons of the Council of Sardica was one of the Canons of Nice And thus by a strong perseverance in this Pious Fraud they have at length so fully perswaded a great part of Christendom that the Council of Nice had established this Supremacy upon the Pope of Rome that it is now generally urged by all of them whenever this Point is controverted I must crave pardon of the Reader for having so long insisted on this Particular and perhaps longer somewhat than my Design required yet in my judgment it may be of no small importance to the Business in hand For will the Protestants here say seeing that two Popes Bishops and Princes which all Christians have approved have notwithstanding thus foisted in false Wares what ought we to expect from the rest of the Bishops and Doctors Since these Men have done this in the beginning of the Fifth Century an Age of so high repute for its Faith and Doctrine what have they not dared to do in the succeeding Ages If they have not forborn so foully to abuse the sacred Name of the Council of Nice the most Illustrious and Venerable Monument of Christianity next to the Holy Scriptures what other Authors can we imagine they would spare And if in the face of so Renowned an Assembly and in the presence of whatever Africk could shew of Eminency both for Sanctity and Learning and even under the eye of the great S. Augustine
Observation of the Lords Day by Pius both Bishops of Rome which is a thing Eusebius never so much as dreamt of as may appear out of some Manuscripts of him where you shall find him wholly muâ—e as to these Points wherewith the Moderns so much please themselves But to return and to take the Times all along as they lie we may observe that this Licence grew stronger daily as the Times grew worse because that the greater the distance of time was from the Author 's own Age the more difficult the discovery of these Forgeries must necessarily be the Example also of some of the most eminent Persons among the Ancients who had sometimes made use of these sleights adding on the other side boldness to every one and courage to venture upon what they had done before them For I pray you is it not a strange thing that the Legats of Pope Leo in the year 451. in the midst of the Council of Chalcedon where were assembled 600 Bishops the very Flower and Choice of the whole Clergy should have the confidence to alledge the VI Canon of the Council of Nice in these very Words That the Church of Rome hath always had the Primacy Words which are no more found in any Greek Copies of the Councils than are those other pretended Canons of Pope Zozimus neither do they yet appear in any Greek or Latin Copies nor so much as in the Edition of Dionysius Exiguus who lived about fifty years after this Council When I consider that the Legats of so holy a Pope would at that time have fastned such a Wen upon the Body of so Venerable a Canon I am almost ready to think that we scarcely have any thing of Antiquity left us that is entire and uncorrupt except it be in Matters of Indifferency or which could not have been corrupted without much noise and to take this Proceeding of theirs which is come to our knowledge as an advertisement purposely given us by Divine Providence to let us see with how much consideration and advisedness we ought to receive for the Council of Nice and of Constantinople and for Cyprian and Hieroâ—o's Writings that which goes at this day for such About seventy four years after the Council of Chalcedon Dionysius Exiguus whom we before mentioned made his Collection at Rome which is 〈◊〉 printed at Paris Cum Privilegio Regiâ— out of very ancient Manuscripts Whosoever shall but look diligently Into this Collection shall find divers alterations in it one whereof I shall instance in only to shew how ancient this Artifice hath been among Christians The last Canon of the Council of Laâ—dicea which is the 163. of the Greek Code of the Church Universal forbidding to read in Churches any other Books than those which are Canonical gives us withal a long Catalogue of them Dionysius Exiguus although he hath indeed inserted in his Collection Num. 162. the beginning of the said Canon which forbiddeth to read any other Books in the Churches besides the sacred Volumes of the Old and New Testament yet hath he wholly omitted the Catalogue or List of the said Books fearing as I conceive lest the Tail of this Catalogue might scandalize the Church of Rome where many years before Pope Innocent had by an express Decree to that purpose put into the Canon of the Old Testament the Maccabees the Wisdom of Solomon Ecclesiasticus Tobit Judith c. of which Books the Fathers of the Council of Laodicea make no mention at all naming but XXII Books of the Old Testament and in the Catalogue of the New utterly omitting the Apocalypse If any Man can shew me any better reason of this suppression let him speak as for my part I conceive this the most probable that can be given however we are not at all bound to divine what the motive should be that made Dionysius out off that part of the Canon For whatsoever the reason were it serves the turn well enough to make it appear that at that time they made no great conscience to curtal if need were the very Text of the Canons themselves So that if we had not had the good luck to have had this Canon entire and perfect in divers other Monuments of Antiquity as namely in the Collections of the Greeks and also in the Councils of the French Church we should at this Day have been wholly ignorant what the judgment of the Fathers of Lâ—â—odices was touching the Canon of the holy Scripturâ—s which is one of the principal Controversies of these times It is true I confess that the Latins have their revenge upon the Greeks reproaching them in like manner because that in their Translation of the Code of the Canons of the African Church they have left the Books of the Maccabees quite out of the Roll of the Books of the Scripture which is set down in the 24. Canon of their Collection expresly against the Faith of all the Latin copies of this Collection both Printed and Manuscript as Cardinal Perron affirmeth and yet there are some others who assure us that no Book of Maccabees appears at all in this Canon in the Collection of Cresâ—bnius a Bishop of Africk not yet printed The Greek Cudâ— represents unto us VII Canons of the I Council of Constantinople which are in like manner found both in Balsamon and in Zonaras and also in the Greek and Latin Edition of the General Councils printed at Rome The three last of these do not appear at all in the Latine Code of 〈◊〉 though they are very considerable ones as to the business they relate to which is That Order in Proceeding in passing Judgment upon Bishops accused and in receiving such persons who forsaking their Communion with Hereticks desire to be admitted into the Church 〈…〉 very hard to say what should move the 〈…〉 this Council thus But this I am 〈…〉 in the VI. Canon which is one of those 〈…〉 hath omitted and which treateth of judging of Bishops accused there is not the least mention made of Appealing to Rome nor of any Reserved Cases wherein it is not permitted to any save only to the Pope himself to judge a Bishop the power of hearing and determining all such matters being here wholly and absolutely referred to the Provincial and Dioceâ—an Synods Now whether the Greeks added this tail to the Council of Constantinople which yet is not very probable or whether Dionysius or the Church of Rome curtalled this Council it will still that way also appear clearly that this boldness in gâ—lding or making Additions to Ecclesiastical Writings is not at all in use in these dayes After the Canons of Constantinople there follow in the Greek Code VIII Canons of the General Council of Ephâ—sus set down also both by Balsamon and Zonaras and printed with the Acts of the said Council of Ephesus in the First Tome of the Roman Edition But Dionysius Exiguus hath discarded them all not giving us any one of
them and you will hardly be able to give a handsome guess what his reason should be unless perhaps it were because that the business of the eighth Canon displeased him which is that the Bishops of Cyprus had their Ordinations within themselves without admitting the Patriarch of Antioch to have any thing to do with it and that the same course ought to be observed in all other Provinces and Diocesses so that no Bishop should have power to intrude into a Province which had not from the beginning been under His and His Predecessors jurisdiction For fear that under the pretence of the Administration of Sacred Offices the pride of a Secular Power should thrust it self into the Church and so by this means we should lose said these good Fathers by little and little before we were aware the Liberty that our Lord Jesus Christ the Redeemer of all mankind hath purchased for us with his own Blood I know not whether this Constitution and these words have put the Latines into any fright or not or whether any other reason hath moved them not to receive the Canons of the Council of Ephesus into their Code But this is certain that they do not appear any where among them and it is now at the least seven hundred and fifty years and upward that Aâ—astasius Bibliothecarius the Popes Library Keeper testified that these Canons were not any where to be found in the most Ancient Latine Copies withal accusing the Greeks of having forged them But let them try out this dispute among themselves yet whether these Canons were forged by the Greeks or whether they have been blotted out of this Council and smothered by the Latins it is still a clear case that the Cheat is very near of eight hundred years standing But in the next example that follows the business is evidently clear without any more ado For whereas the Greek Code Numb â—06 sets before us in the XXVIII Canon of the General Council of Chalcedon a Decree of those Fathers by which conformably to the First Council of Constantinople they ordained that Seeing that the City of Constantinople was the seat of the Senate and of the Empire and enjoyed the same Priviledges with the City of Rome that therefore it should in like manner be advanced to the same Height and Greatness in Ecclesiastical Affairs being the second Church in order after Rome and that the Bishop of it should have the Ordaining of Metropolitans in the Three Diocesses of Pontus Asia and Thrace which Canon is found both in Balsamon and Zonaras and also hath the Testimony of the greatest part of the Ecclesiastical Historians both Greek and Latine that it is a Legitimate Canon of the Council of Chalcedon in the Acts of which Council at this day also Extant it is set down at large yet notwithstanding in the Collection of Dionysius Exiguus this Canon appears not at all no more than as if there had never been any such thing thought of at Chalcedon We know very well that Pope Leo and some others of his Successors rejected it but he that promised us that he would make an orderly Digestion of the Canons of the Councils and translate them out of the Greek why or how did he or ought he to omit this so remarkable a Canon If all other Evidences had been lost how should we have been able so much as to have ghessed that any such thing was ever treated of at Chalcedon Where or by what means could we have learnt what the opinion was of the DCXXX Fathers which met here together touching this Point which is the most important one of all those that are at this day controverted betwixt us And it is now eleven hundred years and upward since this Omission was first on foot And who will pass his word to us that among so many other Writings whether of Councils or particular Mens Works whether Greek or Latine the like liberty hath not been at any time used Rather by these Forgeries which have come to our knowledge who can doubt but that there have been many other the like which we are ignorant of Thou hast gone along innocently perhaps reading these Books of the Ancients and believing thou there findest the pure sense of Antiquity and yet thou seest here that from the beginning of the Sixth Century they have made no scruple of cutting off from the most Sacred Books they had whatsoever was not agreeable to the gust of the Times And therefore though we had no more against them than this it were in my judgment a sufficient reason to move us to go on here very warily and as they say With a stiff Rein through this whole business In the next place there is a very observable Corruption in the Epistle of Adrian I. to the Emperour Constantine in the time of the Second Council of Nice For in the Latine Collection of Anastasius made about seven hundred and fifty years since Adrian is there made to speak very highly and magnificently of the supremacy of his See and he rebukes the Greeks very shrewdly for having conferred upon Tarasius the Patriarch of Constantinople the Title of Vniversal Bishop And all this while there is not so much as one word of this to be found neither in the Greek Edition of the said VII Council nor yet in the common Latine ones The Romanists accuse the Greeks of having suppressed these two Clauses and the Greeks again accuse the Romanists of having foisted them in neither is it easie to determine on which side the guilt lies However it is sufficient for me that wheresoever the fault lies it evidently appeareth hence that this curtalling and adding to Authors according to the interest of the present Times hath now a very long time been in practice amongst Christians Which appears also very evidently in the next piece following in the same Council namely the Epistle of Adrian to Tarasius which is quite another thing in the Greek from what it is in Anastasius his Latin Translation and that in Points too of as high importance as those other before mentioned And so in the V. Act likewise where both in the Greek Text and also in the Old Latin Translation Tarasius is called Vniversal Bishop this Title appears not at all in Anastasius his Translation In the same Act the Fathers accuse the Iconoclasts of having cut out many Leaves out of a certain Book in the Library at Constantinople and that at a certain City called Photia they had burned to the number of Thirty Volumes and that besides all this they had rased the Annotations out of a certain Book and all this out of the malice they bore against Images which these Books spake well and favourably of But yet I do not see how we can excuse the Romanists from being guilty of corrupting Anastasius in those passages above noted nor yet of the injury they do Eusebius in the Exposition which they give of 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
which amount in all in the Old Testament to the number of twenty two only without making any mention at all of those other Books which Cardinal Perron calls Posthumous namely Ecclesiasticus the Book of Wisdom the Maccabâ—es Judith and Tobit All the Canons of this Council were afterwards inserted into the Code of the Church Universal where you have this very Canon also Num. 163. that is as much as to say they were received as Rules of the Catholick Church Who would believe now but that this Declaration of the Canon of the Scriptures was at that time received by all Christian Churches And yet notwithstanding you have the Churches of Africk meeting together in the Synod at Carthage about the year of our Lord 397. and ordaining quite contrary to the former Resolution of Laodicea that among those Books which were allowed to be read in Churches the Maccabees Judith Tobit Ecclesiasticus and the Book of Wisdom which two last they also reckon among the Books written by Solomon should be taken into the number Who knoweth not the difference that there was in the first Ages of Christianity betwixt the Eastern and the Western Churches touching the Fasting upon Saturdays the Church of Rome maintaining it is lawful and all the rest of the World accounting it unlawful Whence it was that we had that so bold Canon passed in the Council at Constantinople in Trullo in these words Vnderstanding that in the City of Rome in the time of the Holy Fast of Lent they fast on Saturdays contrary to the Custom and Tradition of the Church it seemeth good to this Holy Council that in the Roman Church they inviolably also observe that Canon which saith that whosoever shall be found to fast either upon the Lords day or upon the Saturday excepting only that one Saturday if he be a Clergie-man he shall be deposed but if be be of the Laity he shall be excommunicated Who knoweth not after how many several ways the Fast of Lent was Anciently observed in divers Churches an account whereof is given you by Irenaeus in that Pious Epistle of his which he wrote to Victor part whereof Eusebius setteth down in his Ecclesiastical History Who doth not also know that the opinions and expressions of the Greek Church touching Free-will and Predestination are extremely different from what the Church believed and taught in S. Augustines time and so downward And as concerning the Discipline of the Church do but hear Anastasius Bibliothecarius upon the VI Canon of the VII General Council which enjoyneth all Metropolitans to hold Provincial Synods once a year Neither let it at all trouble thee saith he that we have not this Decree seeing that there are some others found among the Canons whose Authority nevertheless we not admit of For some of them are in force and are observed in the Greek Church and others again in certain other Provinces only As for example the XVI and XVII Canons of the Council of Laodicea are observed only among the Greeks and the VI and the VIII Canons of the Council of Africk are received by none but the Africans only I could here produce divers other Examples but these may suffice to shew that the Opinions and Customs which have been received in one Part of the Church have not always been entertained in all the rest Whence it evidently follows that all that is acknowledged as the opinion or observation of the Church ought not therefore presently to pass for an Universal Law The Protestant alledgeth for the justifying his Canon of the Scriptures the Council of Laodicea before mentioned Thou answerest him perhaps that this indeed was the opinion of the Churches but it was only of some particular Churches I shall not here enter into an Examination whether this Answer be well grounded or not it is sufficient for me that I can safely then conclude from hence that according to this account before you can make use of any Opinion or Testimony out of any of the Fathers it is necessary that you first make it appear not only that it was the Opinion of the Church at that time but you must further also clearly demonstrate unto us what Churches opinion it was whether of the Church Universal or else of some Particular Church only It is objected against the Protestants that Epiphanius testifieth that the Church admitted not into the higher Orders of the Ministry any save those that were Virgins or professed Continency Now to make good this Allegation it is necessary that it be first proved that the Church he there speaks of was the Church Universal For will the Protestant reply upon you as Laodicea hath had as it seems a particular Opinion touching the Canon of the Scriptures possibly also Cyprus may in like manner have had its particular Resolutions touching the Ordination of the Clergy The like may be said of the greatest part of those other Observations and Opinions of the Ancient Church Now how difficult a business it will be to clear these Matters which are so full of perplexity and to distinguish of Antiquity at this so great a distance of time severing that which was Publick from what was Particular and that which was Provincial from what was National and what was National from that which was Vniversal any Man may be able to give some kind of guess but none can throughly understand save he that hath made trial of it Do but fancy to your selves a City that hath lain ruinated a thousand years no part whereof remains save onely the Ruines of Houses lying all along here and there confusedly all the rest being covered all over with Thorns and Bushes Imagine then that you have met with one that will undertake to shew you precisely where the Publick Buildings of the City stood and where the Private which were the Stones that belonged to the one and which belonged to the other and in a word who in these confused Heaps where the Whole lies all together will notwithstanding separate ye the one from the other The very same Task in a manner doth he undertake who ever shall go about truly and precisely to distinguish the Opinions of the Ancient Church This Antiquity is now of Eleven or Twelve hundred years standing and the Ruines of it are now onely left us in the Books of the Writers of that Time which also have met with none of the best entertainment in their Passage through the several Ages down to our time as we have shewed before How then dare we entertain the least hope that amidst this so great Confusion we should be able yet to distinguish the Pieces and to tell which of them honoured the Publick Temple and which went to the furnishing of Private Chappels onely especially considering that the Private ones have each of them ambitiously endeavoured to make their own pass for Publick For where is the Province or the City or the Doctor that hath not boastingly cried up
all this it hath not only be called in Question but hath been even utterly condemned also who seeth not that the Consent of many Fathers together although any such thing were to be had upon all the Points now in Debate would yet be no sufficient Argument of the Truth of the same But I shall pass on to the rest We have before heard how that Tertullian St. Cyprian who was both a Bishop and a Martyr Firmilianus Metropolitan of Cappadocia Dionysius Patriarch of Alexandria together with the Synods of Bishops both of Africk Cappadocia Cilicia and Bithynia held all that the Baptism of Hereticks was invalid and null St. Basil who was one of the most Eminent Bishops of the whole Eastern Church held also in a manner the very same Opinion and that a long time too after the Determination of the Council of Nice as appeareth by the Epistle which he wrote to Amphilochius which is also put in among the Publick Decrees of the Church by the Greek Canonists And yet this Opinion is now confessed by all to be Erroneous Many in like manner of the Fathers as namely Tertullian Clemens Alexandrinus Lactantius and Africanus believed that our Saviour Christ kept the Feast of the Passeover but once only after his Baptism And yet notwithstanding this Consent of theirs the Opinion is known to be very false as Petavius also testifieth and besides is expresly contrary to the Text of the Gospel I shall not here say any thing of the Opinion of St. Chrysostom St. Hierome St. Basil and the Fathers of the Council held at Constantinople under the Patriarch Flavianus who seem all to have held that an Oath was utterly unlawful for Christians under the New Testament Neither shall I take any notice in this place of that Conceit of Athanasius St. Basil and Methodius as he is cited by John Bishop of Thessalonica who all believed that the Angels had Bodies to whom we may also add as we have shewed before St. Hilary Justin Martyr Tertullian and very many more of the Fathers who would all of them have the Nature of Angels to be such as was capable of the Passions of Carnal love of which number is even St. Augustine also Whosoever should now conclude from hence that this Fancy of theirs which yet is of no small importance is a Truth would he not be as sharply reproved for it by the Romanists as by those of Geneva But I must not forget that besides St. Cyprian St. Augustine and Pope Innocent I. whose Testimonies we have given in before all the rest of the Doctors in a manner of the first Ages maintained that the Eucharist was necessary for young Infants if at least you dare take Maldonat's word who affirms that this Opinion was in great Request in the Church during the first Six Hundred years after our Saviour Christ Cassander also testifieth that he hath often observed this Practice in the Ancients as indeed is also witnessed by Carolus Magnus and by Ludovicus Pius who lived a long time after the Sixth Century both of which assure us that this Custom continued in the West even in their time as they are cited by Cardinal Perron and the Traces of this Custom do yet remain to this day amongst those Christians who are not of the Communion of the Latine Church For Nicolaus Lyranus who lived somewhat above three hundred years since observed That the Greeks accounted the Holy Eucharist so necessary as that they administred it to little Children also as well as Baptism And even in our Fathers time the Patriarch Jeremias speaking in the name of the whole Creek Church said We do not only Baptize little Children but we also make them partakers of the Lords Supper And a little after we account saith he both Sacraments to be necessary to Salvation for all persons namely Baptism and the Holy Communion The Abyssines also make their Children in like manner Communicate of the Holy Eucharist as soon as ever they are Baptized Which are most evident Arguments that this false Opinion touching the Necessity of the Eucharist hath been of old maintained not by three or four of the Fathers only but by the Major part and in a manner by all of them For we do not hear of so much as one among all the Ancient Fathers who rejected it in express Terms as the Council of Trent hath done in these later Times To conclude the Jesuit Pererius hath informed us and indeed the observation is obvious enough to any man that is never so little conversant in the Writings of those Authors who lived before St. Augustines time that all the Greek Fathers and a considerable part also of the Latines were of Opinion that the Cause of Predestination was the Fore sight which God had either of Mens Good Works or else of their Faith either of which Opinions he assures us is manifestly contrary both to the Authority of the Scriptures and also to the Doctrine of St. Paul So that I conceive we may without troubling our selves any further in making this envious Inquiry into the Errours of the Fathers conclude from what hath been already produced that seeing the Fathers have Erred in so many Particulars not on singly but also many of them together Neither the private Opinion of each particular Father nor yet the unanimous Consent of the Major part of them is a sufficient Argument certainly to prove the Truth of those Points which are at this day controverted amongst Us. CHAP. V. Reason V. That the Fathers have strongly contradicted one another and have maintained Different Opinions in Matters of very Great Importance BEssarion a Greek born who was honoured with the Dignity of Cardinal by Pope Eugenius IV. as a Reward of his earnest desires to and the great pains he took in endeavouring a Reconciliation betwixt the Eastern and the Western Church in a Book which he wrote upon this Subject to the Council of Florence will have the whole Difference betwixt the Greek and Latine Churches to be brought before the Judgment Seat of the Fathers And for as much as he knew that unless the Judges did all agree and were of one Opinion the Cause especially in Matters of Religion necessarily remains undecided he strongly labours to prove that he hath all the Fathers consenting not only with him but which is yet much harder to prove that they are all of the same Opinion also among themselves insomuch that he commands us when ever there appeareth any contrariety in their Writings that we should accuse our own ignorance rather than blame them for contradicting each other We may conclude therefore from what is here laid down by this Author who was both as acute and as Learned a man as any was at this Council that to render the Fathers capable of being the Judges of our Controversies it is necessary that they should be
this That Theodoret had been deposed from his Bishoprick for having maintained an Erroneous Opinion touching the Procession of the Holy Ghost But enough of this I would in the next place fain know how this Reconciler of Differences could compose that Debate betwixt the DCXXX Fathers of the Council at Chalcedon and Leo Bishop of Rome and how he can reconcile the XXVIII Canon of the one with those many Epistles written by the other touching this Point to Anatolius Patriarch of Constantinople to the Emperour Marcianus and his Empress to the Prelates who were there met together in that Council and to the Patriarch of Antioch the Fathers of this Council advancing the Throne of the Patriarch of Constantinople above those of Alexandria and of Antioch and making it equal even with that of Rome it self Pope Leo in the mean time sending out his Thunderbolts against this Decree of theirs and charging them as guilty of a most insufferable Injury offered him And when this our Conciliator shall have done his business at Chalcedon if he please he may pass over into Africk and there also Reconcile the Fathers of that Country to the Bishops of Rome the former of these forbidding their Clergy to make any Appeals to Rome and the other in the mean time to their utmost endeavouring to prove That it is their Proper Right to have such Appeals brought before them And when he hath finished this Work our Greek may then in the next place try to remove all misunderstanding betwixt the Fathers of the Council of Francfort and those of the II. Council of Nice touching the Point of the use of Images the later of these Ordaining That we ought to pay unto them Salutations and Adoration of Honour and that we ought to honour them with Incense and Lights and the other as every man knows having not only rejected this Greek Council but having written 〈◊〉 expresly against it by the Command of the Emperour Carolus Magnus Certainly he that shall but read the Fathers themselves will easily and quickly perceive that they clash and contradict each other in most plain and irreconcileable Terms and that there is no other way of bringing them honestly together but by receiving every one of them with his own private Opinions imitating herein the marvellous Wisdom of the Council of Constantinople in Trullo which receiveth and alloweth of all in gross without distinction both the Canons of the Apostles and the whole Code of the Church Vniversal together with those of Sardica Carthage and Laodicea amongst which notwithstanding there are found strong Contradictions As for Example the Council of Sardica will have the Right of receiving the Appeals of all Bishops to belong to the See of Rome whereas Chalcedon gives this Priviledge to that of Constantinople The Council of Laodicea leaveth out of the Canon of the Scriptures the Maccabees Ecclesiasticus the Book of Wisdom Tobit and Judith that of Carthage puts them in expresly But now these honest Fathers of Constantinople to the end they may give content to all the World take no notice at all of these their Differences but receive each of them with their own particular Canons and Opinions without obliging them to any one Common Rule doing this I believe upon condition that themselves may not be required by those whom they thus admit to receive any more from them than they shall think convenient I know no man that would not at this rate readily admit of as Canon all the Writings of the Fathers provided that he might but have liberty to take or leave therein what he thought good So that we may very well from henceforth rest satisfied that notwithstanding Bessarion's resolution to the contrary the Fathers have not always been of the same Judgment in matters of Religion and that consequently they ought not to be received by us as our Judges touching the same For seeing that I find them contradicting each other in so many several Points of very great importance how shall I be assured that they are all unanimously agreed touching those Points which are now debated amongst us Why may they not have had the same diversity of Opinion touching the Point of the Eucharist the Authority of the Church the Power of the Pope Free-will or Purgatory that they had in those other Points which we have before presented to the Readers view which were of as great importance as these and no less easie to be determined as we have proved in the Chapter preceding Epiphanius and St. Hierome are as opposite in their Judgments touching the Ancient Condition of Priests and Bishops as Theodoret and St. Cyril are touching the Procession of the Holy Ghost Neither are some Opinions of Tertullian and of Damascene Theodoret and of Eusebius Emisenus of Eusebius Caesareensis and of the VII Council touching the Point of the Eucharist less opposite to each other than are those of Cyprian and of Stephen◠touching the Baptism of Hereticks and so likewise in many other particulars Why then should we take so much pains and trouble our selves so to no purpose in reconciling these men and making them speak all the same thing Why should we so cruelly and so uncivilly rack them as we do to make them all of one Opinion and to say the same things whether they will or no and sometimes too against our own Conscience but certainly for the most part without any satisfaction to the Reader Why should we not rather honestly confess that their Opinions were also different as well as their words We make no scruple at all to confess that they have been of contrary Opinions touching those other Points of Religion which are not at all now controverted amongst us How much greater harm for Gods sake would it be if we should confess that they have not any better agreed among themselves touching these Points now in debate But we shall not need to press this matter any further it is sufficient for us that we have proved that they were of different Opinions in Point of Religion so that it clearly follows from hence that we ought not to admit of their Writings as the proper Judges of our Controversies I have formerly touched though very lightly only upon their Diversity of Opinion and Contrariety in their Expositions upon the Scriptures which yet is a business of no very small consideration For if we take them for our Judges we shall necessarily then have occasion every minute of having recourse to them touching the sense of those Passages of Scripture about which we disagree among our selves If now there be as great Contrarieties and Difference in Judgment touching these things among them as there is amongst our selves what have we then left us to trust to This Passage for Example in the Gospel according to St. John I and my Father are one is of very great importance in the Disputes against both Sabellius and Arius Would you now know the true
of in Christendom namely That the Old Vulgar Translation of the Bible is to be allowed of as Canonical and Authentick in the Church of God The CL Fathers of the Second General Council and the DCXXX of the Fourth were all of them of Opinion That the Ancients had advanced the See of Rome above that of other Bishops by reason of the Preeminence and Temporal Greatness of the City of Rome over other Cities and for the same reason they also thought good to advance in like manner the Throne of the Patriarch of Constantinople to the same Height with the former by reason of the City where he resided being now arrived to the self-same Height of Dignity with Rome it self I assure you that for all this he should now be Anathema Maranatha whosoever should go about to derive the Supremacy of the Pope from any other Original than from TV ES PETRVS PASCE OVES MEAS The Council of Trent Anathematizeth all those whosoever shall deny that Bishops are a Higher Order than Priests and yet S. Hierome and divers others of the Fathers have openly done the same We have already told you here before That the Church of Rome long since Excommunicated the Greeks because they hold That the Holy Ghost proceedeth not from the Son but from the Father onely And yet for all this Theodoret who expresly also demed in Terms that the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Son as we have shewed in the preceding Chapter was received by the Ancient Church and in particular by Pope Leo too as a True Catholick Bishop without requiring him to declare himself any otherwise or to give them any Satisfaction touching this Point And indeed we might reckon up very many the like Differences betwixt the Roman and the Ancient Church but these Examples we have here produced will suffice to let the World see how the Church of Rome holdeth That the Authority of the Opinions of the Ancients ought to be accounted Supreme We shall proceed in the next place to say something of the Ceremonies in the Christian Religion The first of all is Baptism which takes us out of Natures Stock and engraffs us into Jesus Christ Now it was a Custom heretofore in the Ancient Church to plunge those they Baptized over head and ears in the Water as both Tertullian S. Cyprian Epiphanius and others testifie And indeed they plunged them thus three several times as the same Tertullian and S. Hierome both inform us And this is still the Practice both of the Greek and of the Russian Church even at this very day And yet notwithstanding this Custom which is both so Ancient and so Universal is now abolished by the Church of Rome And this is the reason that the Muscovites say That the Latins are not Rightly and Duly Baptized because they are not wont to use this Ancient Ceremony in their Baptism which they say is expresly enjoyned them in the Canons of Joannes Metropolitanus whom they hold to have been a Prophet And indeed Gregory the Greek Monk who was notwithstanding a great Stickler for the Vnion in the Council of Florence doth yet confess in his Answer to the Epistle of Mark Bishop of Ephesus that it is Necessary in Baptism that the Persons to be Baptized should be thrice dipped over Head and Ears in the Water At their coming out of the Water in the Ancient Church they gave them to eat Milk and Honey as the same Authors witness and immediately after this they made them all Partakers also of the Blessed Communion both great and small whence the Custom still remains in Aethiopia of Administring the Eucharist to Little Children and making them take down a small quantity of it as soon as ever they are Biptised What have these our so great Adorers of Antiquity now done with these Ceremonies Where is the Milk or the Honey or the Eucharist which the Ancient Fathers were wont to administer to all immediately after Baptism Certainly these things notwithstanding the Practice of the Ancients have been now long since buried and forgotten at Rome In Ancient Times they often deferred the Baptising both of Infants and of other People as appears by the History of the Emperours Constantine the Great of Constantius of Theodosius of Valentinian and of Gratian in S Ambrose and also by the Orations and Homilies of Gregory Nazianzen and of S. Basil upon this Subject And some of the Fathers too have been of Opinion that it is fit it should be deferred as namely Tertullian as we have formerly noted of him How comes it to pass now that there is not so much as any the least Trace or Footing of this Custom to be found at this day in the Church of Rome Nay whence is it besides that they will not so much as endure the very mention of it and would abhor the Man that should but go about to put it in practice I shall here forbear to speak of the Times of Administring Baptism which was performed ordinarily in the Ancient Church but onely upon the Eves of Easter-day and of Whitsunday Neither shall I say any thing of the Ceremony of the Paschal Taper and the Albes or White Vestments that the new baptised Persons were used to wear all Easter-Week because that it may be thought perhaps that these are too light Circumstances although to say the plain truth if we are to regard the Authority of Men and not the Reason of the Things themselves I do not at all see why all the whole Rites should not still be retained as well as those Exorcisms and Renouncings of the Devil and the World with all its Pomp and Vanities which in Imitation of Antiquity are at this day though very improperly acted by them over little Infants though but of a day old As for the Eucharist Cassander sheweth clearly That it was Celebrated in the Ancient Church with Bread and Wine offered by the People and that the Bread was first broken into several Pieces and then Consecrated afterwards and distributed among the Faithful Notwithstanding the contrary Use hath now prevailed neither do they Consecrate any Bread which is offered by the People which was the Ancient Custom but onely little Wafer Cakes made round in the Form of a Deneere which yet is very sharply reproved in the Old Exposition of the Ordo Romanus c. The same Cassaâ—der also gives us an Account at large how that in Ancient Times the Canonical Prayer and the Consecration of the Eucharist was read out with a loud Voice and in such sort as that the People might all of them be able to hear it that so they might say Amen to it whereas the Priest now pronounceth it with a very low Voice so that none of the Congregation can tell what he says and hence it is that this part of the Liturgy is called Secret We
the Clergy but every Company of the Faithful either chose their own Pastors or else had leave to consider and to approve of those that were proposed unto them for that purpose Pontius a Deacon of the Church of Carthage saith that St. Cyprian being yet a Neophyte was elected to the Charge of Pastor and the Degree of Bishop by the Judgment of God and the Favour of the People St. Cyprian also telleth us the same in several places In his LII Epistle speaking of Cornelius he saith That he was made Bishop of Rome by the Judgment of God and of his Christ by the Testimony of the greatest part of the Clergiâ— by the Suffrage of the People who were there present and by the Colledge of Pastors or Ancient Bishops all Good and Bious men And in another place he saith that It is the â—eople in whom the power chiefly is of chusing Worthy Prelates or refusing the Vnworthy Which very thing saith he we see is derived from Divine Authority that a Bishop is to be thosen in the presence of all the People and is declared either Worthy or Vnworthy by the Judgment and Testimony of all Therefore saith he a little after ought men diligently to retain and observe according to Divine Tradition and Apostolical Custom that which is also observed by us and in a manner by all other Provinces namely that for the due and orderly Proceeding in all Ordinations the Neighbouring Bishops of the same Province are to meet together at that place where a Bishop is to be chosen and the Election of the said Bishop is to be performed in the presence of the People of that place who fully know every mans life and by their long conversation together understand what their behaviour hath been And hence it was that Eusebius Bishop of Nicomedia finding fault with many things in the Ordination of Athanasius reckoned this also among the rest c that it had been performed without the Consent of the People To which answer was made again by the d Council of Alexandria that the whole People of Alexandria had all with one voice deâ—ired him for their Bishop giving him the largest Testimonies that could be both for his Piety and his Fitness for the undertaking that Charge In like manner Julius Bishop of Rome among other faults which he found in the Ordination of Gregory who had been made Bishop of Alexandria adds That he had not been desired by the People And it appeareth clear enough both out of St. Hierome and by the Acts of the Councils of Constantinople and of Chalcedon and also by the Pontificale Romanum and several other pieces that this Custom continued a long time in the Church But it is now above seven Hundred and Eighty years since the Church of Rome ordained in the VIII Council which notwithstanding hath been always unanimously and constantly rejected by the Eastern Church to this very day that the Promotions and Consecrations of Bishops should be performed by the Election and Order of the Colledge of Bishops only forbidding upon pain of Excommunication all Lay persons whatsoever even Princes themselves to meddle in the Election or Promotion of any Patriarch Metropolitan or any other Bishop whatsoever declaring withal that it is not fit that Lay persons should have any thing at all to do in these matters it becoming them rather to be quiet and patiently to attend till such time as the Election of the Bishop that is to be chosen be Regularly finished by the Colledge of Clergy-men And thus have they by this one Canon-shot beaten down the Authority of the Fathers and of the Primitive Church who always allowed to the faithful People some share in the Elections of their Pastors neither hath this Custom been able ever since to lift up its head again the People being as every man knows now more than ever defrauded of this their Right and having not the least share in the Elections not of Popes Primates or Archbishops only but not so much as of the meanest Bishop that is And as the People Anciently had their voice in the Election of their Pastors so probably also they had the like in all other Affairs of Importance that hapned in the Church There happening in St. Cyprians time a very great Persecution many who had been forced to yield by the cruelty of the Pagans being afterwards touched with a sense of their fault desired to return to the Church again but yet to avoid the shame and the length and rigour of those Penances which were usually imposed upon all such Offenders the greatest part of them begged of their Confessors to be favourably dealt withal and corrupted their Priests that so they might be received again into the Communion of the Church without undergoing Canonical Penance St. Cyprian who was a strict Observer of Discipline wrote many things against this Abuse by which it evidently appeareth that the People had their Right also in the hearing and judging of these Causes For in his X. Epistle he saith that those Priests that had received any such Offenders rashly and contrary to the Discipline of the Church Should give an account of what they had done to himself to the Confessors and to the whole People And in another place writing to the People of Carthage When the Lord saith he shall have restored peace unto us all and that we shall be all returned to the Church again we shall then examine all these things praesentibus vobis judicantibus You also being present and judging of them And it is in this same Epistle and touching this very Point where he addeth that Passage which we have before produced in the Chapter touching the Corruption of the Writings of the Ancients I desire them saith he that they would patiently hear our Council c. to the end that when many of us Bishops shall have met together we may examine the Letters and desires of the Blessed Martyrs according to the Discipline of the Lord and in the presence of the Confessors and also according as you shall think fit And hence it is that in one of his former Epistles he protested to his Clergy That from his first coming to his Bishoprick he had ever resolved to do nothing of his own head without their Advice and the Approbation of his People He that would yet be more fully satisfied in this particular may read the XIV Epistle of the same Father and the XXVIII touching the business of Philumenus and Fortunatus two Subdeacons as also the XL. touching the business of Felicissimus and the LXVII which he wrote to the Clergie and People of Spain joyntly commending them for having deposed their Bishops who were guilty of hainous crimes But now that no man may think that this was the Practice of the Church of Carthage only I shall here take occasion to inform the Reader that the Clergie of
Rome also approved of this Resolution of his of bringing to tryal so soon as they should be at rest this whole business touching those who had fallen during the Persecution in a full Assembly of the Bishops Priests Deacons and Confessors together with those of the Laity who had continued constant and had not yielded to Idolatry And that which in my judgment is very well worth our Observation is that St. Cyprian himself writing to Cornelius Bishop of Rome saith that He doth not doubt but that according to that Mutual Love which they ought and paid to each other he did always read those Letters which he received from him to the most Flourishing Clergie of Rome that were his Assistants and to the most Holy and most numerous People Whence it appears that at Rome also the People had their Vote in the managing of Ecclesiastical Affairs I shall not need here to add any more to shew how much the Authority and Example of the Ancients in this Particular are now slighted and despised it being evident enough to every man that the People are not only excluded from the Councils and Consistories of the Bishops but that besides that man would now be taken forâ—an Heretick that should now but propose or go about to restore any such thing But I beseech you now do but a little fancy to your selves an Archbishop who writing to the Pope should say unto him thus Most dear Brother I exhort you and desire of you that what you are wont honourably to do of your own accord you would now do it at my request namely that this Epistle may be read to the Flourishing Clergie that are your Assistants there and also to the most holy and most numerous People Should not the writer think you of such a Letter as this be laught at as a sensless foolish Fellow if at least he escaped so and met with no worse usage And yet notwithstanding this is the very Request that St. Cyprian made to Pope Cornelius But as the Bishops and the rest of the Clergie have deprived the People of all those Priviledges which had been conferred upon them by Antiquity as well in the Election of Prelates as in other Ecclesiastical Affairs in like manner is it most evident that the Pope hath ingrossed into his own hands not only this Booty which they had rob'd the People of but also in a manner all the rest of their Authority and Power as well that which they heretofore enjoyed according to the Ancient Canons and Constitutions of the Church as that which they have since by many several admirable means by little and little acquired in the space of some whole Centuries of years All this is now quite vanished I know not how and swallowed up by Rome in a very little time The CCC XVIII Fathers of the Council of Nice ordained That every Bishop should be created by all the Bishops of that Province if it were possible or at least by three of them if so be the whole number could not so conveniently be brought together yet with this Proviso that the absent Bishops were conseâ—ting also to the said Ordination and that the Power and Authority in all such Actions should belong to the Metropolitan of each several Province Which Ordinance of theirs is both very agreeable to the Practice of the preceding Ages as appears by that LXVIII Epistle of St. Cyprian which we cited a little before and was also observed for a long time afterward by the Ages following as you may perceive by the Epistle of the Fathers of the I. Council of Constantinople to Pope Damasus and also by the Discourse of those that sate Presidents at the Council of Chalcedon touching the Rights of the Patriarch of Constantinople in his own Diocess And yet notwithstanding all this the whole World knows and sees what the Practice of the Church of Rome at this day is and how that there is not at all left to the Metropolitans and to their Councils any true Power or Authority in the Ordinations of the Bishops within their own Diocesses but the whole Power in this Case dependeth upon the Church of Rome and upon those whom it hath intrusted herein either with their own liking or otherwise And indeed all Bishops are to make their Acknowledgments of Tenure to the Pope neither may they exercise their Functions without his Commission which they shall not obtain neither without first paying down their Money and compounding for their First-fruits calling themselves also in their Titles thus We N. Bishop of N. by the grace of God and of the Apostolical See of which strange Custom and Title you shall not meet with the least Trace or Footstep throughout all the Records of Antiquity not so much as any one of all that vast number of Bishops whose subscriptions we have yet remaining partly in the Councils and partly in their own Books and Histories having ever thus styled himself And as for Provincial and Diocesan Synods where Anciently all sorts of Ecclesiastical Causes were heard and determined as appeareth both by the Canons of the Councils and also by those Examples that we have left us as in the History of Arius and of Eutyches who were both Anathematized the one in the Synod of Alexandria and the other in that of Constantinople they dare not now meddle with any thing except some small petty Matters being of no use in the Greater Causes save only to inquire into them and give in their Informations at Rome Neither may any the meanest Bishop that is be iudged in any Case of Importance and which may be sufficient to Depose him by any but the Pope of Rome his Metropolitan and his Primate and the Synod of his Province and that of his Diocess in the sense that the Ancients took this word having not all of them any Power at all in these Matters unless it be by an Extraordinary Delegation and having then only power to draw up the Business and make it ready for Hearing and so to send it to Rome None but the Pope alone having power to give sentence in such Cases as it is expresly ordained by the Council of Trent I shall here pass by their taking away from the Bishops contrary to the Canons and Practice of Antiquity all Jurisdiction and power over a good part of the Monasteries and other companies of Religious persons both Seculars and Regulars within their Diocesses Their assuming wholly to themselves the Power of Absolving and of Dispensing in several Cases which they call Reserved Cases whereas in Ancient times this Authority belonged equally to all Bishops as also their giving of Indulgences and their proclaiming of Jubilees a thing which was never heard of in any of the first Ages of Christianity And as for the Discipline which was Anciently observed in the Church towards Penitentiaries whether in the punishing them for their offences or else in the receiving them again into the Communion
from the Controversies now in hand p. 8. III. The Writings which go under the names of the Fathers are not all truly such but are a great part of them Supposititious and Forged either long since or of later times p. 11. IV. Those of the Writings of the Fathers which are Legitimate have been in many places corrupted by Time Ignorance and Fraud both Pious and Malitious both in the Former and Later Ages p. 34. V. The Writings of the Fathers are hard to be understood by reason of the Languages and Idioms they wrote in the Manner of their Writing which is for the most part incumbred with Figures and Rhetorical Flourishes and nice Logical Subtilties and the like and also by reason of the Termes which they for the most part used-in a far different sense from what they now bear p. 69. VI. When we meet with an Opinion clearly delivered in the Writings of any of the Fathers we must not from hence conclude that the said Father held that Opinion seeing that we often find them speaking those things which themselves have not believed whether it be when they report the opinion of some other without naming the persons as they frequently do in their Commentaries or in disputing against an Adversary in which kind of Writing they take liberty to say one thing and believe another or whether it be that they concealed their own private Opinion purposely as they have done in their Homilies meerly in compliance to such a part of their Auditory p. 100. VII Supposing that we are well assured that a Father hath clearly delivered his Opinion in any Point we ought notwithstanding to enquire into the time wherein he wrote that Opinion of his whether it were before or after he arrived to Ripeness of Judgment For we see that they have sometimes retracted in their old age what they had written when they were young p. 117. VIII But suppose that a Father hath constantly held one Opinion it will nevertheless concern us to inquire How he held it and in what degree of Belief whether as Necessary or Probable only and then again in what degree of Necessity or of Probability he placed it Beliefs being not all equally either Necessary or Probable p. 123. IX After all this we are to examine whether or no he deliver this as his own particular Opinion only for this cannot necessarily bind our faith or whether he deliver it as the Opinion of the Church in his time p. 136. X. In the next place it will concern us to enquire whether he deliver it for the Judgment of the Church Vniversal or of some particular Church only those things which have been received by the Major Part having not always notwithstanding been received by some particular parts of the Church p. â—4â— XI And after all this whether you take the Church for the Collective Body of Christians or only for the body of the Clergy or Pastors it is notwithstanding impossible to know what the Belief of the whole Church in any Age hath been for as much as it frequently so falls out that the Opinions of these Men who have appeared to the World have not only not been received but on the contrary have also been Opposed and Contradicted by thâ—se Members of the same Church who have not at all appeared to the World who notwithstanding both for their Learning and Piety deserved perhaps to have had as much or more Esteem and Authority than the other p. 151. The Second Book THE second Reason namely that neither the Testimony nor the Preaching of the Fathers is altogether Infallible is proved by these following Considerations p. 1. II. The Fathers themselves witness against themselves that they are not to be believed Absolutely and upon their own bare word p. 11. III. It appeareth plainly by their Manner of Writing that they never intended that their Writings should be our Judges p. 40. IV. They have erred in divers Points not only Singly but also many of them together p. 60. V. They have very much contradicted one the other and have maintained different Opinions in Matters of great Importance p. 112. VI. Lastly to say the truth neither Party alloweth them for Judges but reject them boldly and without any scruple both the one and the other maintaining divers things which the Fathers were ignorant of and rejecting others which were maintained by them the Protestants in those things where the Fathers have gone either against or besides the Scripture the Church of Rome where they oppose against them the Resolutions of their Popes or of Councils Seeing therefore that both Parties attribute the Supream Authority to some other Judges the Fathers though perhaps their Resolutions should be grounded on Divine Authority could never be able notwithstanding to clear their Differences and to reconcile the two Parties p. 126. So that it followeth from hence that our Controversies are to be decided by some other means than that of their Writings and that we are to observe the same Method in Religion that we do in all other Sciences making use of those things wherein we all agree for the clearing of those wherein we differ comparing exactly the Conclusions of both Parties with their Principles which are to be acknowledged and granted by both sides whether it be in Reason or Divine Revelation And as for the Fathers we ought to read them carefully and heedfully and especially without any prejudication on either side searching their Writings for their Opinions and not for our own arguing Negatively concerning those things which we find not in them rather then Affirmatively that is to say holding all those Articles for suspected which are not found in them it being a thing altogether Improbable that those Worthies of the Church were Ignorant of any of the Necessary and Principal Points of Faith but yet not presently receiving for an Infallible Truth whatsoever is found in them for as much as being but Men though Saints they may sometimes have erred either out of pure Ignorance or else perhaps out of Passion which they have not been always wholly free from as appeareth clearly by those Books of theirs which are left Vs The Testimonies of the Lord Faulkland Lord Digby Doctor Taylor Doctor Rivet concerning this learned Book Reader THE Translation of this Tract hath been oft attempted and oftner deâ—â—â—ed by many Noble Personages of this and other Nations among others by Sir Lucius Cary late Lord Viscount Faulkland who with his dear Friend Mr. Chillingworth made very much use of it in all their Writings against the Romanists But the Papers of that learned Nobleman wherein this Translation was half finisht were long since involved in the common loss Those few which have escaped it and the press make a very honourable mention of this Monsieur whose acquaintance the said Lord was wont to say was worth a Voyage to Paris Pag. 202. of his Reply he hath these words This observation of mine hath been confirmed by consideration of
what hath been so temperately learnedly and judiciously written by Monsieur Daille our Protestan-Perron And what the same Lord in a Treatise which will shortly be publisht saith concerning the Popish Perron viz. Him I can scarce ever laudare in one sense that is quote but I must laudare in the other that is praise who hath helpt the Church to all the advantages which wit learning industry judgment and eloquence could add unto her is as true of this our Protestant I shall add but one Lords Testimony more viz. the Lord George Digbies in his late Letters concerning Religion in these words p. 27 28. The reasons prevalent with me whereon an inquiring and judicious person should be obliged to rely and acquiesce are so amply and so learnedly set down by Monsieur Daillé in his Employ des Peâ—â—s that I think little which is material or weighty can be said on this subject that his rare and piercing observation hath not anticipated Were it needful to wander to Foreigners for Testimonies I could tell you how highly this Author is esteemed by the Learned and Famous Doctor Andr. Rivet upon whole importunity his Book des Images and other Tracts have been translated but writing to Englishmen I will only name the judicious Doctor Jer. Taylor Libert of Proph. Sect. 8. n. 4. in these words I shall chuse such a topick as makes no invasion upon the great reputation of the Fathers which I desire should be preserved sacred as it ought For other things let who please read Mr. Daillé du vrai usage des Peres Et siquis eueulo locus inter Oscines I must ingenuously profess that it was the reading of this rational Book which first convinced me that my study in the French Language was not ill employed which hath also enabled me to commend this to the World as faithfully translated by a judicious hand And that if there were no other use of the Fathers there is very much while Testem quem quis adducit pro se tenetur accipere contra se is a rule in reason as well as Civil Law and that the works of Cord. Perron for whose monstrous understanding they are the words of Viscount Faulkland p. 59. Bellarmine and Bironius might with most advantage to their party and no disgrace to them have been employed in seeking citations being built upon the principle That whatever the Fathers witness to be tradition and the doctrine of the Church must be received of all for such and so relied on And this principle being here throughly examined You have here as sufficient a constitation of Perrons Book against K. J. and by consequence of the Marquess of Worcesters against K. C. and Dr. Vanes and other Epitonizers of the Cardinal as you have of Mr. Cressys in the Preface to the Lord Faulkland by the learned I. P. Chr. Coll. Aug. 1. 1651. T. S. THE PREFACE ALl the Difference in Religion which is at this day betwixt the Church of Rome and the Protestants lies in some certain Points which the Church of Rome maintaineth as important and necessary Articles of the Christian Faith Whereas the Protestants on the contrary neither believe nor will receive them for such For as for those things which the Protestants believe for their part and which they conceive to be the Fundamentals of Religion they are so evidently and undeniably such as that even their Adversaries themselves do also allow of and receive them as well as they for as much as they are both clearly delivered in the Scriptures and expresly set down by the Ancient Councils and Fathers and are indeed unanimously received by the greatest part of Christians in all Ages and Parts of the World Such for example are these Maxims following Namely That there is a God who is Supreme over all and who created the Heavens and the Earth That having created Man after his own Image this Man revolting from his Obedience is faln together with his whole Posterity into most extreme and eternal misery and become infected with Sin as with a mortal Leprosie and is therefore obnoxious to the Wrath of God and liable to his Curse That the Merciful Creator pitying Mans Estate graciously sent his Son Jesus Christ into the World That his Son is God Eternal with him and that having taken Flesh upon himself in the Womb of the Virgin Mary and become Man He hath done and suffered in this Flesh all things necessary for our Salvation having by this means sufficiently expiated for our Sins by his Blood and that having finished all this he is ascended again into Heaven and sitteth at the right hand of the Father from whence He shall one day come to judge all Mankind rendering to every one according to their Works That to enable us to communicate of his Salvation by His Merits He sendeth us down His Holy Spirit proceeding both from the Father and the Son and who is also one and the same God with Them in such sort as that these Three Persons are notwithstanding but One GOD who is Blessed for ever That this Spirit enlightens our Vnderstanding and begets Faith in us whereby we are justified That after all this the LORD sent his Apostles to Preach this Doctrine of Salvation throughout the whole World That These have planted Churches and placed in each of them Pastors and Teachers whom we are to hear with all reverence and to receive from them Baptism the Sacrament of our Regeneration and the Holy Eucharist or Lords Supper which is the Sacrament of our Communion with Jesus Christ That we are likewise all of us bound to love GOD and our Neighbour very fervently observing diligently that Holy Doctrine which is laid down unto us in the Books of the New Testament which have been inspired by His Spirit of Truth as also those other of the Old there being nothing either in the one or in the other but what is most true These Articles and some other few the like which there perhaps may be are the substance of the Protestants whole Belief and if all other Christians would but content themselves with these there would never be any Schism in the Church But now their Adversaries add to these many other Points which they press and command Men to believe as necessary ones and such as without believing of which there is no possible hope of Salvation As for example That the Pope of Rome is the Head and Supreme Monarch of the whole Christian Church throughout the World That He or at least the Church which he acknowledgeth a true one cannot possibly erre in matter of Faith That the Sacrament of the Eucharist is to be adored as being really Jesus Christ and not a piece of Bread That the Mass is a Sacrifice that really expiates the Sins of the Faithful That Christians may and ought to have in their Churches the Images of God and of Saints to which they are to use Religious Worship bowing down before them That it is
lawful and also very useful to pray to Saints departed and to Angels That our Souls after death before they enter into Heaven are to pass through a certain Fire and there to endure grievous Torments thus satisfying for their Sins That one neither may nor ought to receive the holy Eucharist without having first confessed himself in private to a Priest That none but the Priest himself that consecrated the Eucharist is bound by right to receive it in both kinds And a great number of other Opinions which their Adversaries protest plainly That they cannot with a safe conscience believe And these Points are the ground of the whole Difference betwixt them the one Party pretending That they have been believed and received by the Church of Christ in all Ages as revealed by him and the other maintaining the contrary Now seeing that none of these Tenets having any ground from any Passage in the New Testament which is the most Ancient and Authentick Rule of Christianity the Maintainers are fain to fly to the Writings of the Doctors of the Church which lived within the four or five first Centuries after the Apostles who are commonly called the Fathers my purpose is in this Treatise to examine whether or no this be a good and sufficient means for the decision of these Differences And for this purpose I must first presuppose two things which any reasonable Person will easily grant me The first is That the Question being here about laying a Foundation for certain Articles of Faith upon the Testimonies or Opinions of the Fathers it is very necessary that the Passages which are produced out of them be clear and not to be doubted of that is to say such as we cannot reasonably scruple at either touching the Author out of whom they are alledged or the Sense of the Place whether it signifie what is pretended to For a Deposition of a Witness and the Sentence of a Judge being of no value at all save onely for the reputation of the Witness or Judge it is most evident that if either proceed from Persons unknown or suspected they are invalid and prove nothing at all In like manner if the Deposition of a Witness or Sentence of a Judge be obscure and in doubtful Terms it is clear that in this case the Business must rest undecided there being another Doubt first to be cleared namely What the meaning of either of them was The second Point that I shall here lay down for a Foundation to the ensuing Discourse is no less evident than the former namely That to allow a sufficiency to the Writings of the Fathers for the deciding of these Controversies we must necessarily attribute to their Persons very great Authority and such as may oblige us to follow their Judgment in Matters of Religion For if this Authority be wanting how clear and express soever their Opinions be in the Articles now controverted it will do nothing at all toward their Decision We have therefore here two things to examine in this Business The first is Whether or not we may be able now certainly and clearly to know what the Opinion of the Fathers hath been touching the Differences now in hand The second Whether their Authority be such as that whatever faithful Person shall clearly and certainly know what their Opinion hath been in any one Article of Christian Religion he is thereby bound to receive that Article for True For if the Church of Rome be but able to prove both these Points it is then without all dispute that their Proceeding is good and agreeable to the End proposed there being so many of the Ancient Fathers Writings alledged at this day by them But if on the contrary side either of these Two things or both of them be indeed found to be doubtful I should think that any Man of a very mean Judgment should be able to conclude of himself That this way of Proof which they have hitherto made use of is very insufficient and that therefore they of necessity ought to have recourse to some other more proper and solid way in the Proof of the Truth of the said Opinions which the Protestants will not by any means receive THE FIRST BOOK CHAP. I. REASON I. Touching the Difficulty of knowing the Sense of the Fathers in reference to the present Controversies in Religion drawn from hence Namely Because there is very little extant of Their Writings for the Three First Centuries IF we should in this particular take the same course which some Writers of the Church of Rome make use of against the Holy Scriptures it would be a very easie matter to bring in question and render very doubtful and suspected all the Writings of the Fathers For when any one alledgeth the Old or New Testament these Gentlemen presently demand How or by what means they know that any such Books were truly written by those Prophets and Apostles under whose Names they go If therefore in like manner when these Men urge Justin Irenaeus Ambrose Augustine and the like one should take them short and demand of them How and by what means they are assured that these Fathers were the Authors of those Writings which at this day go under their Names it is very much to be doubted but that they would find a harder Task of it than their Adversaries in justifying the Inscriptions of the Books of Holy Writ the Truth whereof is much more easie to be demonstrated than of any Humane Writings whatsoever But I pass by this too-artificial way of Proceeding and onely say That it is no very easie matter to find out by the Writings of the Fathers what hath really beeen their Opinion in any of those Controversies which are now in debate betwixt the Protestant and the Church of Rome The Considerations which render the knowledge of this so difficult are many I shall therefore in this First Part handle some of them onely referring the rest to the Later examining them one after another The first Reason therefore which I shall lay down for the proving of this Difficulty is The little we have extant of the Writings of the Ancient Fathers especially of the First Second and Third Centuries which are those we are most especially to regard For seeing that one of the principal Reasons that moveth the Church of Rome to alledge the Writings of the Fathers is to shew the Truth of their Tenets by the Antiquity which they reckon as a Mark of it it is most evident that the most Ancient ought to be the most taken notice of And indeed there is no question to be made but that the Christian Religion was more pure and without mixture in its beginnings and Infancy than it was afterwards in its Growth and Progress it being the ordinary course of Things to contract Corruptions more or less according as they are more or less removed from their first Institution As we see by experience in States Laws Arts and Languages the Natural Propriety of
but certainly not on their side who maintain them affirmatively But however this is a most certain truth That throughout the whole Body of the genuine Writings of these Fathers you shall not meet with any thing expresly urged either for or against the greatest part of these Opinions I shall most willingly confess That the belief of every Wise man makes up but One entire Body the Parts whereof have a certain correspondence and relation to each other in such sort as that a Man may be able by those things which he delivers expresly to give a guess what his Opinion is touching other things which he declares himself not at all in it being a thing utterly improbable that he maintains any one Position which shall manifestly clash with his other Tenets or that he rejects any thing that necessarily followeth upon them But besides that this manner of Disputation presupposeth that the Belief of the Ancient Fathers hangs all close together no one Position contradicting another but having all its Parts united and depending one upon another which notwithstanding is not altogether unquestionable as we shall shew elsewhere Besides all this I say it requireth also a sharp piercing Wit which readily and clearly apprehends the Connexions of each several Point an excellent Memory to retain faithfully whatever Positions the Ancients have maintained and a solid Judgment free from all pre-occupation to compare them with the Tenets maintained at this day And what Man soever is endued with all these Qualities I shall account him the fittest Man to make profitable Use of the Writings of the Fathers and the likeliest of any to search into the bottom of them But the mischief of it is that Men so qualified are very rare and hard to be found I shall add here That if you will believe some certain Writers of the Church of Rome this whole Method is vain and useless as is also that which makes use of Argumentation and Reason means which are insufficient and unable in the judgment of these Doctors to bring us to any certainty especially in Matters of Religion wherein their Opinion is we are to rely upon clear and express Texts onely So that according to this account we will not if we be wife believe that the Fathers held any of the aforenamed Points unless we can find them in express terms delivered in their Writings that is to say in the very same terms that we read them in the Decrees and Canons of the Council of Trent Seeing then that according to the Opinion of these Men those Testimonies onely are to be received which are express and likewise that of these Points now controverted there is searcely any thing found expresly delivered by the Fathers we may in my Opinion very Logically and reasonably conclude that it is if not an impossible yet at least a very difficult thing according to these Men to come to the certain knowledge of the Opinion of the Ancients touching the greatest part of the Tenets of the Church of Rome which are at this day rejected by the Protestants CHAP. III. Reason III. That those Writings which go under the Names of the Ancient Fathers are not all truly such but a great part of them suppositions and forged either long since or of later Times I Come now to more important Considerations these two former though they are not in themselves to be despised or neglected being yet but trivial ones in respect of those which follow For there is so great a confusion in the most part of these Books whereof we speak that it is a very hard thing truly to find out who were their Authors and what the Meaning and Sense of them is The first Difficulty proceeds from the infinite number of Forged Books which are falsly attributed to the Ancient Fathers The like having hapned also in all sorts of Learning and Sciences insomuch that the Criticks at this day are sufficiently troubled in discovering both in Philosophy and Humanity which are forged and supposititious Pieces and which are true and legitimate But this Abuse hath not reigned any where more grosly and taken to it self more liberty than toward the Ecclesiastical Writers All Men complain on this both on the one side and on the other and labour all they can to deliver us from these Confusions though oftentimes with little success by reason of the eagerness of their Passion by which they are carried away ordinarily judging of Books according to their own Interest rather than the Truth and rejecting all those that any whit contradict them but defending those which speak of their side how good or bad soever they otherwise chance to be So that to say the truth they judge not of their own Opinions by the Writings of the Fathers but of the Writings of the Fathers by their own Opinions If they speak with Us it is then Cyprian and Chrysostome if not it is some Ignorant Modern Fellow or else some Malicious Person who would fain cover his own filthiness under the rich Garment of these excellent Persons Now if it were Passion onely that rendered the Business obscure we should be able easily to quit our hands of it by stripping it and laying it open to the World and all moderate Men would find enough to rest satisfied with But the worst of it is that this Obscurity oftentimes falls out to be in the things themselves so that it is a very hard and sometimes an impossible thing to clear them whether it be by reason of the Antiquity of the Errour or else by reason of the near resemblance of the â—alse to the True For these Forgeries are not new and of yesteryesterday but the Abuse hath been on foot above fourteen hundred years It is the complaint of the greatest part of the Fathers That the Hereticks to gain their own Dreams the greater Authority vented them under the Names of some of the most eminent Writers in the Church and even of the Apostles themselves Amphilochius Bishop of Iconium who was so much esteemed by the great S. Basil Archbishop of Caesarea wrote a particular Tract on this Subject alledged by the Fathers of the Seventh Council against a certain Passage produced by the Iconoclasts out of I know not what idle Treatise entituled The Travels of the Apostles And I would to God that Tract of this Learned Prelate were now extant if it were it would perhaps do us good service in discovering the Vanity of very many ridiculous Pieces which now pass up and down the World under the Names of the Primitive and most Ancient Christians S. Hierome rejecteth divers Apocryphal Books which are published under the Names of the Apostles and of their first Disciples as namely of S. Peter of Barnabas and others The Gospel of S. Thomas and the Epistle to the Laodiceans are put in the same rank by the Seventh Council Now if these wretched Knaves have been thus sawcy with the Apostles as to make use of
too they made no conscience at all to make use of so gross a piece of Forgery what have they not since in these later Times while the whole World for so many Ages lay covered with so thick darkness dared to do But as for my part I shall neither accuse nor excuse at present these Mens Proceedings but shall onely conclude That seeing that the Writings of the Fathers before they came to us have passed through the hands of those who have sometimes been found to use these jugling Tricks it is not so easie a matter as People may imagine to discover out of those Writings which now pass under the Names of the Fathers what their Opinions were The like Inclinations produced the very same Effects in the Fifth Council where a Letter forged under the Name of Theodoret touching the Death of S. Cyril was both read and by a general silence approved by the whole Assembly which yet notwithstanding was so evidently false that those very Men who caused the Body of the General Councils to be Printed at Rome have convinced it of falshood and branded it as spurious Such another precious Piece is that foolish Story of a Miracle wrought by an Image of our Saviour Christ in the City Berytus which is related in very ample manner in the VII Council and goes forsooth under the Name of S. Athanasius but is indeed so tasteless a Piece and so unworthy the Gallantry and clearness of that great Wit that he must not be thought to have common sense that can find in his heart to attribute it to him And therefore we see that notwithstanding the Authority of this Council both Nannius Bellarmine and Possevine have plainly confessed that it was not written by Athanasius I shall place in this Rank the so much cried up Deed of the Donation of Constantine which hath for so long a time been accounted as a most Valid and most Authentick Evidence and hath also been inserted into the Decrees and so stifly maintained by the Bishops of Agobio against the Oppositions of Laurentius Valla. Certainly those very Men who at this day maintain the Donation do notwithstanding disclaim this Evidence as a piece of Forgery Of the same nature are the Epistles attributed to the first Popes as Clemens Anacletus Euaristus Alexander Sixtus Telesphorus Hyginus Pius Anicetus and others down to the times of Siricius that is to say to the year of our Saviour Christ CCCLXXXV which the World read under these Venerable Titles at the least for eight hundred years together and by which have been decided to the advantage of the Church of Rome very many Controversies and especially the most important of all the rest namely that of the Pope's Monarchy which sheweth plain enough the Inclination shall I call itâ— or rather the purposed Design of the Merchant that first vented them abroad The greatest part of these notwithstanding are accounted forged even by many of the Learned of their own Party as namely Henricus Kâ—ltheisen Nicolas Cusanus Jo. de Turrecremata both Cardinals Erasmus Jo. Driedo Claudius Espensaeus Cassander Simon Vigor Baronius and others as indeed their Forgery appears plain enough by the barbarousness of their Stile the Errors that you meet with every foot in computing the Times and in History the Pieces that they are patched up of stollen here and there out of several Authors whose Books we have at this day to shew and also by the general silence of all the Writers of the Eight first Centuries among whom there is not one word mentioned of them Now I shall not here meddle at all with the Six or Seven last Centuries where in regard of diverse Articles of Faith most eagerly by them pressed and established there hath been more need than ever of the Assistance of the Ancients and where in respect of the dark Ignorance of those Times and the scarcity of Opposers they had much better opportunity than before to forge what Books they pleased This Abuse the World was never free from till the Times of the Light breaking forth in the Last Century at what time Erasmus by name gives us an account how he himself had discovered one of these wretched Knaves whose ordinary practice it was to lay his own Eggs in another Man's Nest putting his own Fooleries on S. Hierome particularly and on S. Augustine and S. Ambrose And who knows what those many Books be that are daily issued out of the self-same Shops that of old were wont to furnish the World with these kind of Knacks Is it not very probable that both the Will and the Dexterity in forging and venting these false Wares will rather in these days increase than abate in the Professors of this Trade So that if besides what the Malice of the Hereticks the Avarice and Ignorance of Transcribers of Manuscripts and the ambition and affection of Men hath brought forth of this kind there have yet so many others bent their endeavours this way and that in a manner all along for the space of the last Fourteen hundred years although they had their several ends we are not to wonder at all if now in this last Age we see such a monstrous number of Writings falsly Fathered upon the Ancients which if they were all put together would make little less than a Fourth or a Fifth part of the Works of the Fathers I am not ignorant that the Learned have noted a great number of them and do ordinarily cast them into the later Tomes of Editions and that some have written whole Books upon this very Subject as namely Ant. Possevine's Apparatus Bellarmine's Catalogue Scultetus his Medulla Patrum Rivet's Critick and the like both of the one and the other Religion But who can assure us that they have not forgotten any thing they should have noted Besides that it is a new Labour and almost equal to the former to read so many Books of the Moderns as there are And when all is done we are not presently to sit down upon their Judgments neither without a due examination had of them For each of them having been prepossest with the Prejudices of the Party in which they were brought up before they took this Work in hand who shall warrant us that they have not delivered any thing in this case in favour of their own particular Interest as hath been touched before The justness of this suspicion is so clear that I presume that no Man that is but any whit versed in these matters will desire me to prove my Assertion Neither shall I need to give any other reason of it than the Conflict and Disagreements in Judgments which we may observe in these Men the one of them oftentimes letting pass for pure Metal what the other perhaps will throw by for Dross Which Differences are found not onely betwixt those that are of quite opposite Religions but which is more even betwixt those that are of the self same Perswasion
Those whom we named not long before who were all of the Roman Church cry down as we have said the greatest part of the Decretals of the first Popes Franciscus Turrianus a Jesuite receives them and defends them all in a Tract written by him to that purpose Baronius calls the Recognitions which are attributed to Clemens Romanus A Gulf of Filth and Vncleanness full of prodigious Lies and frantick Fooleries Bellarmine says That this Book was written either by Clemens or else by some other Author as Learned and as Ancient as he Some of them hold those Fragments published by Nicol. Faber under the Name of S. Hilary for good and legitimate Pieces and some others again reject them Erasmus Sixtus Senensis Melchior Canus and Baronius are of opinion That the Book Of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary is falsly attributed to S. Hierome Christophorus à Castro a Spanish Jesuite maintains the contrary Cardinal Cajetan Laurentius Valla Erasmus and some others hold the Books of Dionysius the Areopagite for suspected and spurious Baronius and almost all the rest of their Writers maintain that they are true and legitimate Turrianus Bovin and some others commend unto us the Constitutions of the Apostles for a legitimate Piece But Baronius Possevine Petavius and a great many others speak doubtfully of them And a Man shall find in the Writings of those of the Church of Rome infinite variety of divided Judgments in such Cases as these He that hath a mind to furnish himself with Examples of this Nature may have recourse to their Books and particularly to the Writings of the late Cardinal Perron who differs as much from the rest in this Point of Criticism as he doth for the most part in the Method he observes in his Disputations Now I would willingly be informed what a Man should do amidst these diversities of Judgment and what Path he should take where he meeteth with so disagreeing Guides But yet suppose that these Authors have done their utmost endeavour in this Design without any particular affection or partiality how notwithstanding shall we be satisfied concerning their sufficiency for the performance of their Undertaking Is it a light Business think you to bring the whole stock of Antiquity to the Cruzet and there to purifie and refine it and to separate all the Dross from it which hath so deeply and for the space of so many Ages been not only as it were tied and fastned on to it but even throughly mixed united and incorporated with it This Work requireth the most clear and refined Judgment that can be imagined an exquisite Wit a quick piercing Eye a perfect Ear a most exact knowledge in all History both Ancient and Modern both Ecclesiastical and Secular a perfect knowledge of the Ancient Tongues and a long and continued Conversation with all sorts of Writers both Ancient of the middle Ages and Modern to be able to judge of their Inclinations and which way their Pulse beat to understand rightly the manner of their Expression Invention and Method in Writing each Age each Nation and each Author having their own peculiar ways in all these Now such a Man as this is hardly produced in a whole age As for those Men who in our Times have taken upon them this part of Criticism who knows not who sees not that but reads them how many of these forenamed Qualities are wanting in them But yet suppose that such a Man were to be found and that he should take in hand this Discovery I do verily believe that he would be able very easily to find out the Imposture of a bungling Fool that had ill counterfeited the Stamp Colour and Weight in the Piece which he would father upon some other Man or that should for example endeavour to represent either S. Hierome or S. Chrysostome with a stammering Tongue and should make them speak barbarous Language bad Latin and bad Greek or else perhaps should make use of such Terms Things or Authors as were not known to the World till a long time after these Men or should make them treat of Matters far removed from the Age they lived in and maintain Opinions which they never thought of or reject those which they are notoriously known to have held And of this sort for the most part are those Pieces which our Criticks have decried and noted unto us as spurious But if a Man should chance to bring him a Piece of some able Master that should have fully and exactly learnt both the Languages History Manners Alliances and Quarrels of the Family he hath boldly thrust himself into and should be able to make happy use of all these assure your self that our Aristarchus would be here as much puzled to discover this Jugler as they were once in France to convince the Impostures of Martin Guerre Now how can we imagine but that among so many several Persons that have for their several Purposes employed their utmost Endeavours in these kinds of Forgeries there must needs have been in so many Centuries of years very many able Men who have had the skill so artificially to imitate the Fancy and Stile of the Persons whom they act as that it is impossible to discover them Especially if they made choice of such a Name as was the onely thing remaining in the World of that Author so that there is no mark left us either of his Stile Discourse or Opinions to guide us in our Examination And therefore in my judgment he was a very cunning Fellow and made a right choice that undertook to write under the Name of Dionysius the Areopagite for we having not left us any true Legitimate Piece of this Author by which we may examine this Cheat the Discovery must needs be difficult and it would have proved so much the more hard if he had but used a more modest and less swelling manner of Expression Whereas for those others who in the Ages following made bold with the Names of S. Hierome S. Cyprian S. Augustine and the like of whose legitimate Writings we have very many Pieces left us a Man may know them at the first sight meerly by the Stile those Gothick and rude Spirits being no more able to counterfeit the Graces and Elegancies of these great Authors than an Ass is to imitate the Warblings of the Nightingale I confess there is another Help which in my judgment may stand us in more stead in this Particular than all the rest namely the Light and Direction of the Ancients themselves who oftentimes make mention of other Writers of the Church which lived either before or in their own Times S. Hierome among the Latins having taken the pains to make a Catalogue of all those whose Names and Writings he knew of down from the Apostles time to his own which was afterward continued by Gennadius To this we may also add that incomparable Work of the Patriarch Photius which he calls his Bibliotheca and is now published in this
and that there can be no great danger either in putting in or at least in leaving any thing in that may yield assistance to it whatsoever the issue of either of these may in the end prove to be And hence hath it come to pass that we have so many ancient Forgeries and also so many strange stories of Miracles and of Visions many taking a delight in feigning as S. Hierome says great Combats which they have had with Devils in Desarts all which things are meerly fabulous in themselves and acknowledged too to be so by the most intelligent of them yet notwithstanding are tolerated and sometimes also recommended to them forasmuch as they account them useful for the setling or encreasing either of the Faith or Devotion of the People What will you say if at this day there are some even of those Men who make profession of being the greatest haters in the world of these subtilties who cannot nevertheless put forth any Book but they must needs be lopping off or falsifying whatsoever doth not wholly agree with the Doctrine they hold for true fearing as themselves say lest such things coming to the eye of the simple Common People might infect them and possess their Heads with new Fancies So firmly hath this Opinion been of old rooted in the Nature of Man Now I will not here dispute whether this proceeding of theirs be lawful or not I shall only say by the way That in my judgment it is a very great shame for the Truth to be established or defended by such falsifications and shifts as if it had not sufficient Weapons both defensive and offensive of its own but that it must be fain to borrow of its Adversary and it is besides a very dangerous course too because that the discovery of any one Cheat oftentimes renders their Cause who practised it wholly suspected insomuch that by making use of such slights as these in Christian Religion either for the gaining to you or confirming the faith of some of the simpler People it is to be feared that you may give distaste to the more understanding sort and so by this means at length may chance to lose the Affections of the simpler sort too But whatsoever this course of Cheating be either in it self or in its Consequences it is sufficient for my purpose that it hath been a long time practised in the Church in matters of Religion for proof whereof I shall here produce some Instances The Hereticks have always been accused of using this Artifice but I shall not here set down what Alterations have been made by the Ancientest of them even in the Scriptures themselves If you would have a Taste of this Practice of theirs go but to Tertullian and Epiphanius and you shall there see how Marcion had clipped and altered the Gospel of S. Luke and those Epistles of S. Paul which he allowed to be such Neither have those other of the Ages following been any whit more conscientious in this Particular as may appear by those Complaints made by Ruffinus in his Exposition upon the Apostle's Creed and in another Treatise written by him purposely on this Subject which is indeed contradicted by S. Hierome but onely in his Hypothesis as to what concerned Origen but not absolutely in his Thesis and by the like Complaints of S. Cyril and divers others of the Ancients and among the Moderns by those very Persons also who have put forth the General Councils at Rome who inform us in the Preface to the First Volume That Time and the Fraud of the Hereticks have been the cause that the Acts of the said Councils have not come to our hands neither entire nor pure and sincere that which hath remained of them and before they grievously bewail that we should be thus deprived of so great and so precious a Treasure Now this Testimony of theirs to me is worth a thousand others seeing it comes from such who in my opinion are evidently interested to speak quite otherwise For if the Church of Rome who is the pretended Mistress and Trustee of the Faith hath suffered any part of the Councils to perish and be lost which is esteemed by them as the Code of the Church what then may the rest have suffered also And what may not the Hereticks and Schismaticks have been able to do And if all these Evidences have been altered by their Fraud how shall we be able by them to come to the knowledge of the Sense and Judgment of the Ancients I confess I am very much amaâ—ed to see these Men make so much reckoning of the Acts of the Councils and to make such grievous Complaints against the Hereticks for having suppressed some of them For if these things are of such use why then do they themselves keep from us the Acts of the Council of Trent which is the most considerable Council both for them and their Party that hath been held in the Christian Church these eight hundred years If it be a Crime in the Hereticks to have kept from us these precious Jewels why are not they afraid lest the blame which they lay on others may chance to return upon themselves But doubtless there is something in the Business that renders these Cases different and I confess I wonder they publish it not the simpler sort for want of being otherwise informed thinking perhaps though it may be without cause that the reason why the Acts of this last Council are kept so close from them is because they know that the publishing of them would be either prejudicial or at least unprofitable to the Greatness of the Church of Rome And they also again on the other side conceive that in those other Acts which they say have been suppressed by the Hereticks there were wonderful Matters to be found for the greater advancing and supporting of the Church of Rome Whatsoever the Reason be I cannot but commend the Ingenuity of these Men who notwithstanding their Interest which seemeth to engage them to the contrary have yet nevertheless confessed That the Councils which we have at this day are neither entire nor uncorrupted But let us now examine whether or no even the Orthodox Party themselves have not also contributed something to this Alteration of the Writings of the Primitive Church Epiphanius reports That in the true and most correct Copies of S. Luke it was written that Jesus Christ wept and that this passage had been alledged by S. Irenaeus but that the Catholicks had blotted out this Word fearing that the Hereticks might abuse it Whether this Relation be true or false I must relie upon the Credit of the Author But this I shall say That it seems to me a clear Argument That these Ancient Catholicks would have made no great scruple of blotting out of the Writings of the Fathers any Word that they found to contradict their own Opinions and Judgment and that with the same Liberty that they inform us
formerly determined by the Orthodox Doct. as appears plainly not only by the Manuscripts but also by the most ancient Editions of this Author and even by Card. Baronius his alledging of this Passage also in the Tenth Tome of his Annals An. Dom. 869. These are they who have quite rased out this following Passage out of Oecumenius For they who defended and favoured the Law introduced also the worshipping of Angels and that because the Law had been given by them And this Custom continued long in Phrygia insomuch that the Council of Laodicea made a Decree forbidding to make any Addresses to Angels or to pray to them whence also it is that we find many Temples among them erected to Michael the Archangel Which Passage David Hâ—eschelius in his Notes upon the Books of Origen against Celsus p. 483. witnesseth That himself had seen and read in the Manuscripts of Oecumenius and yet there is no such thing to be found in any of the Printed Copies Who would believe but that the Breviaries and Missals should have escaped their Razour Yet as it hath been observed by Persons of eminent both Learning and Honesty where it was read in the Collect on S. Peter's day heretofore thus Deus qui B. Petro Apostolo tuo collatis clavibus regni coelestis animas ligandi solvendi Pontificium tradidisti that is O God who hast committed to thy Apostle S. Peter by giving him the Keys of the Heavenly Kingdom the Episcopal Power of Binding and Loosing Souls in the later Editions of these Breviaries and Missals they have wholly left out the word Animas Souls to the end that People should not think that the Popes Autority extended only to Spiritual Affairs and not to Temporal also And so likewise in the Gospel upon the Tuesday following the Third Sunday in Lent they have Printed Dixit Jesus Discipulis suis that is Jesus said to his Disciples whereas it was in the old Books Respiciens Jesus in Discipulos dixit Simoni Petro si peccaverit in te frater tuus Jesus looking back upon his Disciples said unto Simon Peter If thy Brother have offended against thee c. cunningly omitting those words relating to Simon Peter for fear it might be thought that our Saviour Christ had made S. Peter that is to say the Pope subject to the Tribunal of the Church to which he there sends him And if the Council of Trent would but have hearkned to Thomas Passio a Canon of Valencia they should have blotted out of the Pontifical all such Passages as make any mention of the Peoples giving their Suffrage and Consent in the Ordination of the Ministers of the Church and among the rest that where the Bishop at the Ordination of a Priest saith That it was not without good reason that the Fathers had ordained That the Advice of the People should be taken touching the Election of those Persons who were to serve at the Altar to the end that having given their Assent to their Ordination they might the more readily yield Obedience to those who were so Ordained The meaning of this honest Canon was that to take away all such Authorities from the Hereticks the best way would be to blot them all out of the Pontifical to the end that there might be no trace or footstep of them left remaining for the future But they have not contented themselves with corrupting onely in this manner some certain Books out of which perhaps we might have been able to discover what the Opinion and Sense of the Ancients have been but they have also wholly abolished a very great number of others And for the better understanding hereof we are to take notice that the Emperours of the first Ages took all possible care for the stifling and abolishing all such Writings as were declared prejudicial to the True Faith as namely the Books of the Arrians and Nestorians and others which were under a great penalty forbidden to be read but were to be wholly supprest and abolished by the Appointment of these ancient Princes The Church it self also did sometimes call in the Books of such Persons as had been dead long before by a common consent of the Catholick Party as soon as they perceived any thing in them that was not consonant to the present Opinion of the Church as it did at the Fifth General Council in the Business of Theodorus Theodoreius and Ibas all three Bishops the one of Mopsuestia the other of Cyprus and the third of Edissa anathematizing each of their several Writings notwithstanding there Persons had been all dead long before dealing also even in the quiet times of the Church with Origen in the same manner after he had been now dead about three hundred years The Pope then hath not failed to imitate now for the space of many Ages both the one and the other of these rigorous Courses withal encreasing the harshness of them from time to time in so much that in case any of the Opinions of the Ancients hath been by chance found at any time to contradict his we are not to make any doubt but that he hath very carefully and diligently suppressed such Pieces without sparing any though they were written perhaps two three four or five hundred years before more than the others As for example It is at this day disputed whether or no the Primitive Church had in their Temples and worshipped the Images of Christ and of Saints This Controversie hath been sometime very eagerly and with much heaâ— and for a long time together debated in the Greek Church That Party which maintained the Affirmative bringing the business before the VII Council held at Nicaea it was there ordained That it should be unlawful for any Man to have the Books of the other Party withal charging every Man to bring what Books they had of that Party to the Patriarch of Constantinople to do with them as we must conceive according as had been required by the Legats of Pope Adrian that is tâ—at they should burn all those Books which had been written against the Venerable Images including no doubt within the same Condemnation all such Writings of the Ancients also as seemed not to favour Images as namely the Epistle of Eusebius to Constantia and that of Epiphanius to John of Hierusalem and others which are not now extant but were in all probability at that time abolished For as for the Epistle of Epiphanius that which we now have is only S. Hieromes Translation of it which happened to be preserved in the Western parts where the passion in the behalf of Images was much less violent than it was in the Eastern but the Original Greek of it is no where to be found Adrian II. in his Council ordained in like manner that the Council held by Photius against the Church of Rome should be burnt together with his other Books and all the Books of those of his Party which
had been written against the See of Rome and he commanded the very same thing also in the VIII Council which is accounted by the Latines for a General Council It is impossible but that in these Fires very many Pieces must needs have perished which might have been of good use to us for the discovering what the opinion of the Ancients was whether touching Images which was the business of the VII Council or that other Controversie touching the Power of the Pope which was the principal Point debated in the Synod held by Photius some of whose Pieces they for the self same reason do at this day keep at Rome under Lock and Key which doubtless they would long ere this have published had they but made as much for the Pope as in all probability they make against him This rigorous proceeding against Books came at length to that height as that Leo X. at the Council of Lateran which brake up An. 1518. decreed That no Book should be printed but what had first been diligently examined at Rome by the Master of the Palace in other places by the Bishop or some other person deputed by him to the same purpose and by the Inquisitor under this penalty That all Book sellers offending herein should forfeit their Books which should be presently burnt in publick and should pay a hundred Ducats when it should be demanded towards the Fabrick of S. Peter a kind of punishment this which we find no examples of in all the Canons of the Ancient Church and should also be suspended from exercising his Function for the space of a whole year This is a General Sentence and which comprehendeth as well the Works of the Fathers as of any others as appeareth plainly by this that the Bishop of Malfi having given in his opinion saying that he concurred with them in relation to New Authors but not to the Old all the rest of the Fathers voted simply for all neither was there any Limitation at all added to this Decree of the Council This very Decree hath been since strongly confirmed by the Council of Trent which appointed also certain persons to take a Review of the Books and Censures and to make a Report of them to the Company To the end that there might be a separation made betwixt the good Grain of Christian Verity and the Darnel of strange Doctrines That is in plain terms that they might blot out of all manner of Books whatsoever relished not well with the gust of the Church of Rome But these Fathers having not the leisure themselves to look to this Pious Work appointed certain Commissaries who should give an account of this matter to the Pope whence afterward it came to pass that Pope Pius IV. first and afterward Sixtus V. and Clement VIII published certain Rules and Indexes of such Authors and Books as they thought fit should be either quite abolished or purged only and have given such strict order for the printing of Books as that in those Countries where this order is observed there is little danger that ever any thing should be published that is either contrary to the Doctrine of the Church of Rome or which maketh any thing for their Adversaries All these Instructions which are too long to be inserted here may be seen at the end of the Council of Trent where they are usually set down at large And in order to these Rules they have since put forth their Indices Expurgatorii as they call them namely that of the Low Countries and of Spain and other places where these Gallants come with their Razor in their hand and sit in judgment upon all manner of Books rasing out and altering as they please Periods Chapters and whole Treatises also often times and that too in the Works of those Men who for the most part were born and bred up and dyed also in the Communion of their own Church If the Church for eight or nine hundred years since had so sharp Razors as these men now have it is then a vain thing for us to search any higher what the judgment of the Primitive Christians was touching any particular Point for whatsoever it was it could not have escaped the hands of such Masters And if the Ancient Church had not heretofore any such Institution as this why then do we who pretend to be such Observers of Antiquity practise these Novelties I know very well that these men make profession of reforming only the Writings of the Moderns but who sees not that this is but a Cloak which they throw over themselves lest they should be accused as guilty of the same cruelty that Jupiter is among the Poets for having behaved himself so insolently against his own Father Those Pieces which they raze so exactly in the Books of the Moderns are the cause of the greater mischief to themselves when they are found in the Writings of the Ancients as sometimes they are For what a senseless thing is it to leave them in where they hurt most and to raze them out where they do little hurt The Inquisition at Madrid puts out these words in the Index of Athanasius Adorari solius Dei est that is God alone is to be worshipped and yet notwithstanding these words are still expresly found in the Text of Athanasius The same Father saith That there were some other Books besides those which he had before set down which in truth were not of the Canon and which the Fathers had ordained should be read to those who were newly come into the Christian Communion and desired to be instructed in the word of Piety reckoning in this number the Wisdom of Solomon Ecclesiâ—sticus Judith Esther Tobit and some other Nevertheless these very Censâ—rs put out in the †Index of Athanasius his Works those words which affirm that the said Books are not at all Canonical In the Index of St. Augustine they put out these wâ—rds Christ hâ—th given the sign of his Body which yet are evidently to be seen in the Text of this Father in his Book against Adimantus Chap. 12. They put out in like manner these words Augustine accounted the Eucharist necessary to be administred to Infants which opinion of S. Augustine is very frequently found expressed either in these very words or the like throughout his Works as we shall see hereafter They likewise put out these words We ought not to build Temples to Angels and yet the very Text of S. Augustine saith If we should erect a Temple of Wood or of Stone to any of the holy Angels should we not be Anathematized And this is the practice of the Censors both in the Low Countries and in Spain in many other particulars which we shall not here set down Now if thou cuttest off such Sentences as these out of the Indexes of these Holy Fathers why dost thou not as well raze them out of the Text also Or if thou leavest
Passage of S. Basil alledged by themselves triumphed as if they had got the day baffling and affronting the Greeks in a very disdainful manner and giving them very harsh Language also used notwithstanding such an odd kind of Logick to perswade the receiving of the Exposition which they gave as that even at this day in the last Edition of S. Basil's Works Printed at Paris and Revised by Fronto Ducaeus the Latin Translation follows in this Particular not their Exposition but that of the Greek Schismaticks And some of the Protestants having also had the same success in some particular Points controverted betwixt themselves it lies open to every Mans observation how much obscurity there is found in the Passages cited by both Sides If Tertullian was of the Opinion of the Church of Rome in the Point concerning the Eucharist what could he have uttered more dark and obscure than this Passage is of his in his Fourth Book against Marcion Christ having taken Bread and distributed it to his Disciples made it his Body in saying This is my Body that is to say The Figure of my Body If S. Augustine held Transubstantiation what can the meaning be of these words of his The Lord stuck not to say This is my Body when he delivered onely the Sign of his Body If these Passages and an infinite number of the like do really and truly mean that which Cardinal Perron pretends they do then was there never any thing of obscurity either in the Riddles of the Theban Sphinx or in the Oracles of the Sibyls If you look on the other side you shall meet with some other Passages in the Fathers which seem to speak point-blank against the Protestants as for example where they say expresly That the Bread changeth its nature and That by the Almighty Power of God it becomes the Flesh of the Word and the like And so in all the Controversies betwixt them they produce such Passages as these both on the one side and on the other some whereof seem to be irreconcileable to the Sense of the Church of Rome and some other to the Sense of their Adversaries If Cardinal Perron and those other subsime Wits of both Parties can have the confidence to affirm that they find no difficulty at all in these Particulars we must needs think that either they speak this but out of a Bravado setting a good face upon a bad matter or else that both the Wits and Eye-sight of all the rest of the World are marvelous dull and feeble in finding nothing but Darkness there where these Men see nothing but Light But yet for all this if there be not obscurity in these Writings of the Fathers and that very much too how comes it to pass that even these very Men find themselves ever and anon so tormented to find out the meaning of them How comes it to pass that they are fain to use so many words and make tryal of so many tricks and devices for the clearing of them Whence proceeds it that so often for fear of not being able to satisfie their Readers they are forced to cry down either the Authors or the Pieces out of which their Adversaries produce their Testimonies What strange Sentences and Passages of Authors are those that require more time and trouble in the clearing Them than in deciding the Controversie it self and which multiply Differences rather than determine them oftentimes serving as a Covert and retreating-place to both Parties The sense and meaning of these words is debated This is my Body For the explaining of them there is brought this Passage out of Tertullian and that other out of S. Augustine Now I would have any Man speak in his conscience what he thinks whether or not these words are not as clear or clearer than those Passages which they alledge out of these Fathers as they are explained by the different Parties I desire Reader no other judge than thy self whosoever thou art only provided that thou wilt but vouchsafe to read and examine that which is now said upon these places and withal consider the strange Turnings and Windings-about that they make us take to bring us to the right sense and meaning of them In a word if the most able Men that are did not find themselves extreamly puzled and perplexed in distinguishing the Legitimate Writings of the Fathers from the Spurious it is not likely that the Censors of the Low-Countries who are all choice pickt Men should be forced to shew us so ill an Example of finding a way to help our selves when the Authority of the Ancients is strongly pressed against us by our Adversaries as they do in excusing the expressions of the Fathers sometimes by some handsomlâ— contrived invention and imputting some convenient probable sense upon them That which hath been said I am confident is sufficient to convince any reasonable Man of the Truth of this Assertion of ours namely that it is a very hard matter to understand the sense and opinions of the Fathers by their Books But that we may leave no doubt behind us let us briefly consider some few of the principal Causes of this Difficulty Certainly the Fathers having been Wise Men all of them both spoke and wrote to be understood insomuch that having both the will and the ability to do it it seemeth very strange that they should not be able to attain to the end they aimed at But we must here call to mind what we have said before namely that these Controversies of ours being not in their time yet sprung up they had no occasion neither was it any of their design either to speak or write any thing of them For these Sages stirred up as few doubts in matters of Religion as they could Besides that their times furnished them with sufficient matter of Disputes in Points which were then in agitation without so much as thinking of Ours now on foot And they have very clearly delivered their sense in all those Controversiâ—s which they have handled Even Tertullian himself who is the most obscure amongst them all hath notwithstanding delivered himself so clearly in the debates betwixt him and Marcion and others that there is no place left for a Man to doubt what his opinions were in the points debated of I am therefore fully perswaded that if they had lived in these times or that the present Controversies had been agitated in their times they would have delivered their judgment upon them very plainly and expresly But seeing they have not touched upon them but only by the By and as they câ—me accidentally into their way rather than upon any set purpose we are not to think it strange if we find them not to have spoken out and given their sense clearly as to these Debates of ours For as any Man may easily observe in the ordinary course of things those things that happen without design are never clear and full but ambiguous and doubtful and oftentimes
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
true than doth the Faith of the Former depend upon a Cause which is not Infallible and consequently is Null Now these Different opinions are reconciled by saying that the Church accounting neither of these Beliefs as necessary to Faith a Man is not presently an Heretick for holding the False opinion of the two nor yet is he to be counted Orthodox meerly for holding the True one Seeing therefore that this Particular concerns the Communion of the Church and our Salvation also which dependeth thereon it will behove us to know certainly in what Degree the Ancients placed those Articles which are at this day so eagerly pressed upon the Protestants and whether they held them in the same or in a Higher or else in a Lower Degree of Necessity than they are now maintained by the Church of Rome For unless this be made very clear the Protestants though they should confess which yet they do not that the Fathers did indeed really believe the same might yet alledge for themselves that notwithstanding all this they are not bound to believe the same for as much as all opinions in Religion are not presently Obligatory and such as all Men are bound to believe seeing that there are some that are indeed necessary but some others that are not so They will answer likewise that these opinions are like to those at this day controverted betwixt the Dominicans and the Franciscans or to those other Points debated betwixt the Sorbonists and the Regulars wherein every one is permitted to hold what he pleaseth They will urge for themselves the Determination of the Council of Trent which in express terms distinguisheth betwixt the opinions of the Fathers where having thundred out an Anathema against all those that should maintain that the Administring of the Eucharist was necessary for little Infants they further declare that this Thunderbolt extended not to those Antient Fathers who gave the Communion to little Infants for as much as they maintained and practised this being moved thereunto upon Probable Reasons only and not accounting it necessary to Salvation Seeing therefore that some Errors which have been condemned by Councils may be maintained in such a certain Degree without incurring thereby the danger of their Thunderbolts by the same reason a Man may be ignorant of and even deny some Truths also without running the hazard of being Anathematized Who can assure us may the Protestants further add that the Articles which we reject are not of this kind and such as that though perhaps they may be true it is nevertheless lawful for us not to believe My opinion therefore is that there is no Man now that seeth not that it concerns the Doctors of the Roman Church if they mean to convince their Adversaries out of the Fathers first to make it appear unto them that the Antients held the said Points not only as True but as Necessary also and in the very same Degree of Necessity that they now hold them Now this must needs prove a business of most extream Difficulty and much greater here than in any of the other particulars before proposed And I shall alledge no other Argument for the proof of this than that very Decree we cited before where the Council of Trent hath declared that the Fathers did not Administer the Communion to Infants out of any opinion that it was necessary to Salvation but did it upon some other probable Reasons only For we have not only very good reason to doubt whether the Fathers held this opinion and followed this practice as probable only but it seemeth besides with all Reverence to that Council be it spoken to appear evidently enough out of their Writings that they did hold it as Necessary For do but hear the Fathers themselves and St. Augustine in the first place who saith That the Churches of Christ hold by an Antient and as I conceive saith he an Apostolical Tradition that without Baptism and the Communicating of the Lords Table no Man can come either into the Kingdom of God or unto Salvation or Eternal Life And afterwards having as he conceives proved this out of the Scriptures he addeth further Seeing therefore that no Man can hope either for Eternal Life or Salvation without Baptism and the Body and Blood of Christ thus doth he call the Sacrament of the Eucharist according to the language of his Time as hath been proved by so many Divine Testimonies in vain is it promised to Infants without the participating of these And some three Chapters before treating of those words of our Saviour in S. John Except you eat my Flesh and drink my Blood you can have no Life in you which words he understandeth both there an◠〈◊〉 where of the Communicating of the Eâ—charist he makes a long Discourse to prove that they extend as well to little Infants as to people of riper Ag◠〈◊〉 there any man saith he that dares affirm that thiâ— spâ—ech belongeth not to little 〈…〉 oâ— that they may have life in them without participating of this Body and of this Bloâ—d And this is this constant manner of speaking in eight or ten other Passages in his Works which are too long to be here inserted Pope Innocent I his Contemporany speaketh also after the same manner proving against the Pelagians that Baptism is Necessary for Infants to render them capable of Eternal Life for as much as without Baptism they cannot Communicate of the Eâ—charist which is necessary to Salvation S. Cyprian also long before them spake to the very same sense and this Maldonate affirmeth to have been the opinion of the six first Centuries These things considered we must needs think one of these two things following namely that either the Council of Trent by its Declaration hath made that which hath been to be as if it never had been which is a Power that the Poet Agathâ— in Aristotle would not allow to God himself or else that the Fathers of this Council either out of forgetfulness or otherwise mistook themselves in this account of theirs touching the opinion of the Ancient Church in this particular which in my judgment is the more favourable and the more probable Conceit of the two and if so I shall then desire no more For if these great Personages who were chosen with so much Care and Circumspection out of all parts of Christendom and sent to Trent to deliberate upon and determine a Business of the greatest Importance in the World and were directed by the Legats of so exquisite a Wisdom and digested their Decrees with a judgment so Ripe and slow-paced as that there is scarcely any one word in them but hath its Design if after all this I say these Men should be â—ound to have erred in this their Inquiry in affirming that the Fathers held only as Probable that which they evidently appear to have held as Necessary If Pope Pius VI. with his whole Consistory consisting of
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
Tobit the Book of Wisdom Ecclesiasticus and the Maccabees out of the Canon contrary to the Judgment of the Church of Rome which receiveth them in rids his hands of this Objection after the same manner I confess saith he that S. Hierome held this Opinion because that no General Council had as yet ordained any thing touching these Books Seeing therefore it is most clear both from the Confession of our Adversaries and also by the consideration of the thing it self that the Fathers have venâ—ed in their Writings very many of their own particular Opinions digested out of their own private Meditations and which they had not learnt in the School of the Church who sees not that before we give any certain credit unto their Sayings we ought first to be assured of what Nature they are Whether they were their own particular Opinions onely or the publick Sense of their Age Since it is confessed by all That those of the former sort are not always obligatory necessarily but are such as oftentimes may and sometimes ought to be rejected without any scruple at all You will object perhaps to a Protestant That S. Hierome worshipped the Reliques of Departed Saints How shall I know will he reply upon you again whether this was his private Opinion onely or not If the Authority of this Father for want of being grounded upon some Publick Declaration of the Church could not bind Bellarmine to receive his Opinion touching the Canon of the Old Testament why should this Opinion of his which is not any whit better grounded than the other perswade me to the Worship of Reliques The same will he reply upon you and many times with much more appearance of Reason concerning divers other Testimonies produced out of the Fathers So that whether you would confirm your own Faith or whether you would wrest out of your Adversaries hand this manner of Reply and make good all such Allegations it will concern you to make it clear concerning any Passage whatsoever that you shall urge out of a Father that it is not his own private Opinion but was the Opinion of the Church it self wherein he lived which in my Judgment is a thing that is as hard or harder to be demonstrated than any one of all those things we have yet discoursed of For those means by which we might easily attain to this Knowledge are wanting unto us and those which we have left us are very weak and very little concluding If the Fathers themselves had but taken so much pains as to have distinguished betwixt these two sorts of Opinions informing us in every particular Case which were their own private Opinions only and which were taught by the whole Church or at least had but proposed some of them as Doubtful and others again as Assured Truths in like manner as Origen hath sometimes done they would indeed have eased us very much though to say the truth they would not have wholly cured us of our Grief forasmuch as sometimes as we shall hereafter make it appear they attribute to the Church those things which it is most evident that it never held But they very seldom use to make any such Distinction but commonly â—ent their own private Opinions in the very same manner as they do the publick and sometimes also by reason of the Passion which these Authors may chance naturally to have been subject unto be the thing what it will we shall have them recommending unto us with more eagerness that which they have conceived and brought forth themselves than that which they have received from any other hand so that we shall meet with very little in them that may give us any light in this Particular There would be left us yet another help in this business by comparing that which they say here and there throughout their Writings with the Publick Opinions of the Church which would be a pretty safe and certain Rule to go by had we any where else besides their Books any clear and certain evidence what the Belief of the Church hath been in each several Age touching all Points of Religion and if this were so we should not then need to trouble our selves with the studying the Writings of the Fathers seeing that we read them for no other purpose but only to discover out of them what the opinion of Christendom hath been touching those Points which are at this day controverted betwixt us But now there is no man but knows but this help is wanting to us For setting aside the Creeds and the Determinations of the six first General Councils and of some few of the Provincial you will not meet with any Piece of this nature throughout the whole stock of Antiquity Now as we have already made it appear in the preceding Chapter the Ancient Church hath not any where declared neither in its Creeds nor in the aforesaid Councils what the opinion and sense of it hath been touching the greatest part of those Points which are now in dispute amongst us It followeth therefore that by this means we shall never be able to distinguish in the Writings of the Fathers which were their own private opinions and which they held in common with the rest of the Church If we could indeed learn from any creditable Author that the present Controversies had ever been decided by the Ancient Church we should then readily believe that the Fathers would have followed this their Decision and then although the Coâ—stitutions themselves should not perhaps have come down to our hands yet notwithstanding should we be in some sort obliged to believe that the Fathers who had both seen and assented to the same would also have delivered over the sense of them unto us in their Writings But we meet with no such thing in any Author but it rather appears evidently to the contrary through the whole course of Ecclesiastical Story that these Matters were never so much as started in the first Ages of Christianity so far have they been from being then decided So that it manifestly appeareth from hence that if the Fathers of those Primitive times have by chance said any thing of them they fetched not what they said from the Determinations of the Church which had not as yet declared it self touching the same but vented rather their own private thoughts and opinions Neither will it be to any purpose to object here that the Testimonies of many Fathers together do represent unto us the sence of the Church although the voice of one or two single persons only is not sufficient to do the same For not to answer that that which hath hapned to one may have hapned to many others and that if some particular persons chance to have fallen upon some particular Opinions possibly others may either have accompanied or else have followed them in the same I say further that this Objection is of no force at all in this Particular For seeing that the Church had not as yet declared
at this very day that we may not trouble our selves to look so high we see by experience that there is scarcely that Parish to be found how small soever it be where there are not particular Persons that maintain in many Points of Religion different Opinions from those of their Minister But if we take a whole Diocess together and pass by all those who trouble themselves not at all with the difference of Opinions in Religion whether it be by reason of their want of years or their weakness of Judgment or their malice and take notice only of the rest dividing them according to the difference of their Opinions I am verily perswaded that that part which shall agree in all Points with the Bishop of that Diocess will many times be found to be the least Let a Bishop preach or write what he will touching the Points which are now in Controversie he will very hardly represent unto you the Judgment of half the People of his Diocess Now we must conceive that the temper of the World of old was no other than what it is at this present day and therefore also for this very reason the liberty of embracing what Opinions a man pleased was much greater then than it is now forasmuch as the Church of Rome did not exercise its Power then throughout Christendom so Absolutely as it doth now adays neither did the Pastors or the Princes use that severity and rigour which is now every where practised in our days for the repressing this diversity of Opinions We must therefore necessarily believe that the Opinions of the Faithful were in those days altogether as different if not much more than they are now Whence it will also follow That even the Doctors themselves who lived in those Times could not know all the different Opinions of Men much less could they represent them unto us in their Writings But we shall not stand any longet upon a thing that no Man can deny us but shall rather proceed to the consideration of that which every one no doubt will be ready here to reply upon us touching this Particular namely That it is not necessary that we should know the Opinions in Points of Religion of all particular Persons which are almost infinite in number and for the most part very â—ill grounded and uncertain but that it is sufficient if we know what the Belief hath been of the Pastors and those that have been set over the Church that is to say of the Church taken in the latter sense But yet I confess I do not see that this Rule is so absolutely right as that we ought to walk by it For if we are to take the Church for the Rule and Foundation of our Faith as the Authors of this Reply pretend we ought to do the People in my Judgment ought not then to be here excluded and passed by as a thing of no consideration I confess the Opinions of particular Persons are very different one from the other and the knowledge of some of them is very mean and sometimes also is none at all But yet possibly this Reason may chance to exclude even a good part of the Clergy also from the Authority which they lay claim to in this Particular being it cannot be denied but that both Ignorance and Malice have oftentimes as great a share here proportionably as they have among the very People it self Who sees not that if we must have regard to the Capacity of Men there are sometimes found even among the plain ordinary sort of Christians in a Church those that are more considerable both for their Learning and Piety than the Pastors themselves One of those Fathers of whom we now discourse hath informed us That many times the Clergy have erred the Bishop hath wavered in his Opinion the Rich Men have adhered in their Judgment to the Earthly Princes of this World mean-while the People alone preserved the Faith entire Seeing therefore that it may sometimes happen and that it hath also many times hapned that the Clergy have held Erroneous Opinions while the People onely held the True it is very evident in my judgment that the Opinion of the People in these cases ought not wholly to be neglected And truly S. Cyprian telleth us in divers places That the Church in his time had the People in very great esteem no Business of any importance being then transacted without communicating the same to the People as may be seen by any one in the Epistles of this Father insomuch that The greatest part of the People also were present at the Council of Carthage where the Question touching the Baptism of Hereticks was debated whereof we have already spoken somewhat a little before But because this Point is still controverted I shall let it alone for this time Let us therefore grant since our Adversaries will needs have it so that it is sufficient in this case to know what the Belief was of the Church taken in the later and stricter sense that is to say of the Clergy for even this way it is evident enough that it is a very hard if not an impossible thing truly to discover what it hath been in each several Age. For there is no less diversity of Opinion among the Clergy than there is among the People and many times too there is much more the being conversant in Books ordinarily reducing things into nicer subtilties and giving occasion of raising divers Opinions upon the same Who is he that will undertake to give us an Account what the Opinion is of all the Clergy of one City onely I do not say of a Kingdom or of all Christendom touching all the Articles of Religion Who would be able to perform this if he should undertake it Never was there more exact care taken for the Conservation of Uniformity in Judgment among Christians than is now at this day when there is use made not only of the Censures and Thunderbolts of the Church but even of the Fire and the Sword of the Secular Powers also And yet notwithstanding all this how many Ecclesiastical Persons are there to be found even in those very places where these rigorous Courses are observed with the greatest strictness even at Rome it self and as it were in the Popes own Bosom who differ very much in Judgment touching Points of Religion both from their Equals and from their Superiours In France where by the Blessing of God the Liberty of Conscience is much greater than in other places it would be a wonder if where Four Clergy Men of the more Learned and Politer sort were met together Two of them should not upon some Point or other of the Faith differ in judgment from the Main Body of their Church And here I am to intreat all those who follow Cassander in great numbers adoring the Monuments of the Fathers and who take whatsoever they find in him for the General Sense of the Ancient Christians but to
turn their eyes back a little upon themselves and to consider how many opinions they themselves hold which are not only different but even quite contrary too to the Church in the Communion whereof they live and of which they profess themselves to be Members and by which indeed they subsist The Difference is here so great as that it seems to be as it were one State within another State and one Church within another Church And yet notwithstanding when any of the Doctors of that Party to which they adhere deliver unto us either in their Definitions or in their Sermons or in their Books the common Sense and Judgment of their Church this Intermixture of Opinions is quite laid aside and appears not at all They speak only of the opinions of others passing by those of Cassander which are contrary to them in silence as if they did not at all concern the Church of Rome neither more nor less and yet it is very well known unto us even to us who live at this very day that they are favoured and maintained by very many of the most Eminent Persons of the Roman Clergy it self And if this senseless Sect who forsooth think themselves much more refined in their opinions than the rest of the Body whereof they are a part should chance in time either to fail of it self or to be supprest by force their Memory would so utterly come to nought as that Posterity would not know any thing of their Belief but only by conjecture Every one will then believe that the Church of Rome at this time precisely held to the Doctrine and Opinions that he reads in the Decrees of Trent and in other the like Books and yet notwithstanding we both know and see that among those very Persons which have been Anointed Consecrated and Preferred also by the said Church there is a Party that dissenteth from it in judgment touching divers Important Articles of Faith Let us therefore reckon that the Ancient Church had also its Cassanders and very many even among the Clergy it self who held many opinions which were different from that which was the common Belief of the Church and which it hath at length by little and little sunk as it were under water and wholly swallowed up so that now there is not any Tract of them left us Christianity was either different in the Ancient times from what it is now or else it was the same If it was Different it is then a Piece of meer Sophistry to endeavour to make it seem to be the same and a very great Abuse to produce unto us for this purpose so many several Testimonies out of Antiquity If it were the same it must then without all doubt have produced the same Accidents and have sown the same seeds of diversity of opinions in the spirits of its Clergy Those opinions and observations which now give offence to the Cassandrists would then also have offended some persons or other that were endued with the like Moderation For we are not to conceive but that those First Ages of Christianity brought forth Spirits that were as much and more refined and delicate than ours have done But that we may insist upon this particular no longer it is sufficient for me that I have thus clearly made it appear that in the Ancient Church the whole Clergy of a City or of a Nation much less of the whole World had not necessarily one and the same sense and opinion touching Points of Religion So that it will follow from hence that we cannot know certainly whether those opinions which we meet withal in the Fathers were received by all and every of the Pastors of the Church at that time or not All that you can gather thence is but this at the most that they themselves and some others perhaps of the most eminent amongst them if you please maintained such or such opinions in like manner as that which Bellarmine and others have written touching the Sacrament of the Eucharist will inform Posterity that these Men and many others of our time held these opinions in the Church of Rome But as those who shall conclude from the Books of these Authors that there is at this day no other opinion maintained among the Clergy themselves of the Church of Rome touching this Particular would very much abuse themselves so is it much to be feared that we in like manner deceive our selves when from what we find in Two or Three of the Fathers we conclude that there was at that time no other opinion held in the Christian Church touching those Points whereof they treat save that which they have delivered It is a very hazardous business to take Eight or Ten Men how Holy and Learned soever they may have been as Sureties for all the Doctors of the Church Universal that lived in their Age. This is too little Security for so great a Sum. Now there are Two things which may be objected against that which we have before delivered The First is that if there had been in Antiquity any other opinions touching the Points now in Debate which had been different from those which we now meet with in the Books either of all the Fathers or at least of some few of them they would then both have mentioned and also refuted them But we have already heretofore answered this Objection by saying that the Fathers forbare to speak any thing of this Diversity of opinion partly out of Prudence lest otherwise they might have provoked the Authors of the said opinions which were contrary to their own and so might increase the Difference instead of appeasing it and partly also out of Charity mildly bearing with that which they accounted not any whit dangerous I only speak here of those Differences in opinion which they knew of for there might be a great number of others which they knew not of Who can oblige you to believe that a Monk for example that had retired into a Corner and as it were forsaken the World professing only to instruct a small number of Men and Women in the Rules of Devotion must needs have known what the opinions in Points of Religion of all the Prelates of his Age were Who will pass his word unto us in his behalf that he doth not sometimes reprove that in some Men which yet the Church allowed in an infinite number of others Who will warrant us that all Christendom in his time embraced all his opinions and had no other of their own Possevine answering an Objection made by some touching the Works of Dionysius the Areopagite which S. Hierome hath made no mention of at all saith that it is no great marvel that a Man that lay hid in a Corner of the World should not have seen this Book which the Arrians endeavoured to suppress May not a Man with as much reason say that it is no great wonder if S. Hierome or Epiphanius or any other the like Authors who were
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
from the Father to the Son this doubt I say of his manifestly proveth that the Church had not as yet at that time embraced or concluded upon the former of these Opinions it being a thing utterly improbable that so modest a Man as S. Augustine was would have cast off the general Opinion of the Church and have taken up a particular Fancy of his own But the Passion wherewith S. Hierome was at that time carried away against Ruffinus a great part of the Learned Men of his time being also of the said Opinion easily wrought in him a belief that it was the Common Judgment and Opinion of the whole Christian Church From the same Root also sprung that Errour of John Bishop of Thessalonica if at least it be an Errour who affirmed That the Opinion of the Church was That Angels are not wholly Incorporeal and Invisible but that they have Bodies though of a very Rare and thin Substance not much unlike those of the Fire or the Air. For those who published the General Councils at Rome conceive this to have been his own private Opinion onely And if so neither shall we need at present to examine the Truth of this their Conceit you then plainly see that the Affection this Author bare to his own Opinion carried him so far away as to make him father upon the whole Church what was indeed but his own particular Opinion though otherwise he were a Man who was highly esteemed by the VII Council which not onely citeth him among the Fathers but honours him also with the Title of a Father Epiphanius must also be excused in the same manner where he assures us That the Church held by Apostolical Tradition the Custom which it had of meeting together thrice a Week for the Celebration of the Holy Eucharist which yet Petavius maketh evidently appear not to have been of Apostolical Institution The Mistakes of Venerable Bede noted and censured elsewhere by Petavius are of the fame nature also The Belief of the Church if I mistake not saith he is That our Saviour Christ lived in the Flesh Thirty three Years or there about till the time of his Passion And he saith moreover That the Church of Rome testifieth that this is Its Belief by the Marks which they yearly set upon their Tapers upon Good Friday whereon they always inscribe a Number of Tears which is less by Thirty three than the common Aera of the Christians He likewise saith in the same place That it is not lawful for any Catholick to doubt whether Jesus Christ suffered on the Cross the XV day of the Moon or not Now Petavius hath proved at large that both these Opinions which Beda delivers unto us as the Churches Belief are nothing less than what he would have them The curious Reader may observe many the like Carriages in the Writings of the Fathers but these here already set down in my judgment do sufficiently justifie the doubt which I have made namely that we ought not to receive as Certain Truths the Testimony which the Fathers give touching the Belief of the Church in their Time Nevertheless that we may not seem to make a breach upon the Honour and Reputation of the Fathers I say that though we should grant that all their Depositions and Testimonies in this Particular were certainly and undoubtedly True yet notwithstanding would they be of little use to us as to our present purpose For first of all there are but very few Passages wherein they testifie plainly and in direct Terms what the Belief of the Church in their Time hath been touching the Points now controverted amongst us This is the Business of an Historian rather than of a Doctor of the Church whose Office is to teach to prove and to exhort the People committed to his Charge and to correct their Vices and Errours telling them what they ought to do or believe rather than troubling them with Discourses of what is done or believed by others But yet when they do give their Testimony what the Belief and Discipline of the Church in their time was this Testimony of theirs ought not to extend save onely to what was apparently such and which besides was apparent to themselves too Now as we have formerly proved they could not possibly know the Sense and Opinions of every particular Christian that lived in their time nor yet of all the Pastors and Ministers who were set over them but of some certain Particular Christians onely Forasmuch therefore as it is confessed even by those very Men who have the Church in greatest esteem that the Belief of Particular Churches is not infallible we may very easily perceive that such Testimonies of the Fathers as these can standus in very little or no stead seeing they represent unto us such Opinions as are not always certainly and undoubtedly True and which consequently are so far from confirming and proving ours as that they rather stand in need of being examined aud proved themselves But yet suppose that the Church of Rome did hold that the Beliefs of Particular Churches were Infallible which yet it doth not yet would not this make any thing at all against the Protestants forasmuch as they are of the clean contrary Opinion Now it is taken for granted on all hands that Proofs ought to be fetched from such things as are confessed and acknowledged by your Adversary whom you endeavour to convince otherwise you will never be able to move him or make him quit his former Opinion Seeing therefore that the Testimonies of the Farthers touching the State of the Faith and Ecclesiastical Discipline of their Times are of this Nature it remaineth that we now consider their other Discourses wherein they have delivered themselves not as Witnesses deposing what they had seen but as Doctors instructing us in what they believed And certainly how Holy and Able soever they were it cannot be denied but that they were still Men and consequently were subject to Error especially in matters of Faith which is a Business so much transcending Humane Apprehension The Spirit of God onely was able to direct their Understandings and their Pens in the Truth and to withhold them from falling into any Error in like manner as it directed the Holy Prophets and Apostles while they wrote the Books of the Old and New Testament Now we cannot be any way assured that the Spirit of God was present always with them to enlighten their Understandings and to make them see the Truth of all those things whereof they wrote They neither pretend to this themselves nor yet doth any one that I know of attribute unto them this Assistance unless it be perhaps the Author of the Gloss upon the Decrees who is of Opinion that we ought to stand to all that the Fathers have written even to the least tittle who yet is very justly called to a round account for this by Alphonsus Ã
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
to the Time Judgment Age and Disposition they were of when they wrote them Now although this want of diligence and of deliberation appears of it self evidently enough to any man that readeth the Fathers but with the least attention that may be yet notwithstanding that I may not leave this Assertion of mine only said and not proved at all I shall here give you some few Instances for a taste only First of all there are very many Pieces among the Works of the Fathers which were written in haste and some too which were meer Extemporary Discourses and such as in all probability the Authors of them themselves would have found many things therein which would have required correction had they had but leisure to have reviewed the same St. Hierome in a Prologue of his to some certain Homilies of Origen translated by him into Latine saith that Origen made them and delivered them in the Church Ex tempore Touching these therefore we are pretty well satisfied by St. Hierome but how many in the mean time may there be of the like nature among those so many Homilies of St. Chrysostome St. Augustine and others all which we perhaps imagine to have been leisurely and deliberately studied digested and composed which yet some sudden occasion might perhaps have put forth into the World upon an instant and which were as soon born as conceived and as soon published as made St. Hierome often telleth us that he dictated what he wrote in haste Thus at the end of that long Epistle which he wrote to Fabiola he confesseth that he had dispatched it in one Evening only when he was now setting sail for a journey And which is a matter of much more importance he saith in another place That he had allotted himself but three days for the translating of the three Books of Solomon namely the Proverbs Ecclesiastes and the Canticles which yet a man will hardly be able to read over well and exactly in a month by reason of the great difficulties he will there meet withal as well in the Words and Phrases as in the sense And yet for all this if what the Church of Rome pretends to be true this little Three-days Work of St. Hierome hath proved so fortunate as to deserve not only to be approved and highly esteemed but even Canonized also by the Council of Trent Now whether the will of God be that we should receive this Translation of his as his pure Word or not I shall leave to those who have a desire and ability to examine However I dare confidently affirm that St. Hierome himself never had any the least thought or hope that ever this Piece of his should one day come to this honour it being a thing not to be imagined but that he would have taken both more time and more pains in the thing if ever he had either desired or foreseen this And thus it sometimes falls out that Men have better Fortune than ever they wished for The same Author saith at the end of another Piece of his That it was an Extemporary and Running business as he there speaks and hudled out so fast as that his Tongue over-run the Hands of his Amanuenses and by its Volubility and swiftness in a manner confounded them and their Cifres and Abbreviations He elsewhere excuseth in like manner another Work of his of no small importance neither which is his Commentary upon the Gospel of St. Matthew telling us that by reason he had been straitned in time he was constrained to dictate it in very great haste And so likewise in the Preface to his Second Commentary upon the Epistle of St. Paul to the Ephesians he confesseth that he wrote it in so great haste as that he many times made as much of it as came to a thousand lines in a day In a word that I may not cloy the Reader with producing all the Instances of the same kind that I could here bring in it is his ordinary way of excusing himself either in his Prefaces or else at the closing up of all his Discourses to say that either the Messenger was in haste or some other design called him away or else some other the like cause whatsoever it were was pretended So that he never did any thing almost but in haste and at full speed Sometimes again either some sickness had taken him off his metal or else the study of the Hebrew had let his Tongue grow rusty or his Pen is not now able to reach its wonted pitch Now I would fain know if so be he would have us receive all his sayings as Oracles and did not indeed desire us to excuse rather some things in him and to forgive him some others why should he use these speeches unto us Who ever heard a Judge excuse himself by reason of the shortness of the Time Would not this be rather to accuse than to excuse himself by making such an Apology as this for himself for as much as the giving of over-hasty Judgment in any Cause is a very great fault And in my Opinion the Fathers could not more clearly have deprived themselves of this Dignity of being our Judges wherewith we will invest them whether they will or no than by writing and speaking after this manner But yet although St. Hierome had not given us these Advertisements which yet ought to make us look well also to the rest of the Fathers it appeareth evidently enough out of their very Writings themselves how little both time and diligence they bestowed in composing the greatest part of them For otherwise how could so many small trifling Faults both in History Grammar Philosophy and the like have escaped so great and Eminent Persons who were so well furnished with all sorts of Literature How happened it that they so either forgot or else mistook themselves as they have sometimes done I shall here give the Reader some few examples of this kind not to take off any thing from the Praises due to these Learned Persons as if we thought them really to have committed these Errours out of ignorance but rather to let the World see that they did not alwayâ— make use of their whole stock of Worth and Learning and that sometimes they either could not or else would not make use but of some part only of their Knowledge and of their Time which is a most certain Argument that they had never any intention of being received by us as Judges in Points of Faith I shall not say much of their Errours in matter of Time which are both very notable ones and also very frequent with them as for example where Justin Martyr saith that David lived Fifteen Hundred years before the Manifestation of the Son of God it being very apparent by observing the Course of Times derived along through Histories both Sacred and Profane that from the death of David to the Birth of our Saviour Christ there passed no more
Judges These Considerations joyned to what hath been said in this particular by some of the chiefest and most eminent among themselves as we have formerly shewed do make it in my Judgment evidently enough appear that their own will and desire is that we should not embrace their Opinions as Oracles or receive them as Definitive Sentences but that we should rather examine them by the Scriptures and by Reason as being the Opinions of Doctors who were indeed very able and excellent Men but yet notwithstanding they were still Men subject to Errour and who had not always the good Fortune to light upon what was true and sound and who peradventure even in this very Case in hand have not always done what they might by reason of their employing either less time or less and diligence than they should have done if at least they had had any serious purpose of doing their utmost endeavour in this Particular CHAP. IV. Reason IV. That the Fathers have erred in divers Points of Religion not only singly but also many of them together I Conceive that that which hath been delivered in the two preceding Chapters is sufficient to make it appear to any moderate man that the Authority of the Fathers is not so Authentick as People commonly imagine it to be Thou therefore whosoever thou art if thou beest but an indifferent and impartial Reader mayest omit the reading of this and the following Chapter both which I am fain to add though much against my will to answer all Objections that may yet be made by perverse and obstinate persons For the prejudice wherewith they are before-hand possessed may hinder them perhaps from seeing the clearness of Reason and from hearing the voice of the Fathers themselves whose words they perhaps will be ready to impute to their modesty rather than they will consent to yield unto them no more honour than they themselves require The stubbornness therefore of these men and not any need that thou hast of my doing so hath constrained me to lay aside some of that Respect that I bear towards Antiquity and hath obliged me to give them a sight of some Errours of the Fathers which are of much more importance than the former if by this means at least I may be able to overcome this their obstinacy For when they shall but see that the Fathers have erred in divers very considerable Points I hope they will at length confess that they had very good Reason gravely to advise us not to believe or take upon Trust any of their Opinions unless we find that they are grounded either upon the Scriptures or else upon some other Truth I confess I enter upon this Inquiry very unwillingly as taking very little pleasure in discovering the Infirmities and Failings of any Men especially of such as are otherwise thought worthy of so great Estimation and Honour but yet there is nothing in the World â—how precious or dear unto us soever it be that we ought not to account as Dung if it be compared with Truth and the Edification of men And I am verily perswaded that even these blessed Saints themselves were they now alive again would give us thanks for the pains we have taken in endeavouring to make men see that they were but men and would account themselves beholding to us for having taken the boldness upon us for the same reason to discover those Imperfections and Failings of theirs which Divine Providence hath suffered them to leave behind them in their Writings to the end only that they might serve as so many Arguments to us of their Humanity If there be any notwithstanding that shall take offence hereat I must intreat them once again to consider that the perversness only of those men with whom I have to deal hath forced me to this Irreverence if at least we are to call it so together with the desire I have to manifest to the World so important a Truth as this is If I would go about to defend my self by Examples I could here make use of that of Cardinal Perron who to justifie the Church of Romes interdicting the reading of the Bible to any of the Laity save only such as should be allowed so to do makes no more ado but falls to laying open to the view of the World not all the Faults for there are no such there but all the False Appearances of Faults that are found in the Bible making a whole Chapter expresly of the same How much more lawfully then may we adventure here to expose to publick view some few of the Failings of the Fathers unto whom we owe infinitely less Respect than unto God only to moderate a little and to allay the heat of that excessive Devotion that most men bear towards their Writings that so the one Party may be perswaded to seek out for some other Weapons than the Authority of these men for the defence of their Opinions and that the other Party may not so easily be induced to give ear to the bare Testimony of Antiquity It was the Saying of a Great Prince long since that the vilest and most shameful Necessities of his Nature were the things that most clearly evinced him that he was a Man and no God as his flattering Courtiers would needs have made him believe he was Seeing therefore it stands us so much upon to know that the Fathers were but Men let us not be afraid to produce here this so clear and so evident Argument of their Humanity Let us boldly enter into their most hidden Secrets and let us see what ever Marks of their Humanity they have left us in their Writings that we may no longer adore and reverence their Authority as if it were wholly Divine Yet I protest here before I begin that I will not make any advantage at all of those many Arguments of their Passion which we meet withal partly in their own Writings and partly in the Histories of their Life I heartily wish rather that all of this kind might be buried in an Eternal Oblivion and that we would account of them as of Persons that were most accomplished for Purity and Innocency of Life as far forth at least as the frail Condition of Humane Nature can bear I shall only touch upon the Errours of their Belief and those things wherein they have failed not in Living but in Writing The most Ancient of them all is Justin Martyr a man so renowned in all Ancient Histories for his great Knowledge both in Religion and Philosophy and also for the Fervency of his Zeal which is so evidently manifesied by his suffering a Glorious Martyrdom for our Saviour Jesus Christ And yet for all this how many odd Opinions do we meet withal in his Books which are either very trivial or else are manifestly false Do but hear how he speaks of the Last Times immediately preceding the Day of Judgment and the end of the World As for me saith he and the rest of
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
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
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
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
perhaps that his Hyperbolical way of Expression of a thousand Augustines Hieromes and Gregories all which joyned together he in too disdainful a manner casts down beneath the feet of one single Pope But this height of Expression may be somewhat excused in him considering that such Excesses as these are very ordinary with all high and free-spirited Persons But the Practice of the Church of Rome it self will be able to inform us more truly and clearly what esteem they have of Antiquity For if we ought to stand to the Fathers and not to depart from any thing that they have Authorized nor to Ordain any thing that they were ignorant of how comes it to pass that we at this day see so many several Observations and Customs which were observed by the Ancients now quite laid aside And whence is it that we find in Antiquity no mention at all of many things which are now in great request amongst us There are as it were three principal Parts in Religion namely Points of Belief of Ceremony and of Discipline We shall run them over lightly all three and so far as is necessary only for our present purpose that so we may let the world see that in every one of these three parts they have both abolished and established very many things expresly against the Authority of the Ancients As for the first of these we have formerly given the Reader some Tasts only in the preceding Chapters For we have seen that the Opinion of the greatest part of the Ancient Church touching the State of the Soul till the time of the Resurrection which besides is at this day also maintained by the Greek Church was condemned not much above two hundred years since by the Church of Rome at the Council of Florence and a quite contrary Belief there established as an Article of the Christian Faith We have seen besides that the Opinion of the Fathers of the Primitive Church and even down as far as to the end of the sixth Century after our Saviour Christ and afterwards was that the Eucharist was as necessary to Salvation as Baptism and that consequently it was therefore to be administred to little Children And yet for all this the Council of Trent hath condemned this Opinion as an Error in Faith withal Anathematizing by a Canon made expresly for that purpose all those who ever should maintain the same Let him be Accursed say they whoever shall say that the Eucharist is necessary for little Children before they are come to years of discretion Only that the Fathers might not take offence hereat as having so fearful an Affront put upon them these men have endeavoured to perswade both them and others that they never did believe that which themselves have most clearly and in express Terms protested that they did believe as we have before made it appear which is to double the injury upon them rather than to make them any reparations for it seeing that they deal with them now not as Hereticks only but as Fools also whom a man may at pleasure perswade that they do not believe that which they really do believe We have abundantly heard out of St. Hierome's mouth how that the Opinion of the Chilasts was of old maintained by several of the Ancient Fathers which yet is now condemned as an Error in Faith And indeed the number of these kind of differences in Opinions is almost infinite It was accounted no Error in those days to believe that the Soul was derived from the Father down to the Son according to the ordinary course of Generation but this Opinion would now be accounted an Heresie The Ancients held That it would be an opposing of the Authority of the Scriptures if we should bang up the Picture of any Man in the Church and that we ought not to have any Pictures in our Churches that That which we worship and adore be not painted upon a Wall But now the Council of Trent hath Ordained the quite contrary and says That we ought to have and to keep especially in our Churches the Images of Christ of the Virgin the Mother of God and of the other Saints and that we are to yield unto them all due Honour and Veneration All the Ancient Fathers as far as we can learn out of their Writings believed That the Blessed Virgin Mary was conceived in Original Sin If now the Fathers of the Council of Trent accounted them to be the Judges of Faith what moved them then to imagine that we ought not to believe that they maintained any such Opinion For having delivered their Definitive Sentence in a Decree there passed to this purpose and declared That this Sin which hath spread it self over the whole Mass of Mankind by Propagation and not by Imitation hath seised on every Person in particular They at length conclude That their Intention is not to comprehend within this number the Blessed and Vnspotted Virgin Mary the Mother of God Which Words of theirs it is impossible so to expound as that they shall not in plain Terms give the Lie to All the Fathers For if they mean by these Words that the Virgin Mary was conceived without Sin they flatly establish an Opinion which is contradictory to that of the Fathers which is the grossest manner of giving them the Lie that can be If they mean here no more than this which Sense yet their Words will hardly be ever made to bear that it is not known as a certain Truth that the Virgin Mary was conceived in Sin they however honestly say in plain Terms That these Good Men affirmed as True that which is yet Doubtful and maintained as Certain that which was but Problematical onely and Questionable The Council of Laodicea which is inserted into the Code of the Church Universal putteth not into the Canon of the Old Testament any more than Twenty two Books onely excluding by this means out of this number the Book of Tobit of Judith the Book of Wisdom Ecclesiasticus and the two Books of the Maccabees Melito Bishop of Sardis Origen Cyril of Hierusalem Gregory Nazianzene S. Hilary and Epiphanius do all of them the same Athanasius Ruffinus and S. Hierome expresly reject these very Books and cast them out of the Canon And yet notwithstanding the aforesaid Council of Trent Anathematizeth all those who will not receive as Holy and Canonical all these Books with every part of the same as they are wont to be read in the Church and as they are found in the Old Latin Edition commonly called the Vulgar Translation Where besides the Affront which they have offered to so many of the Ancient and most Eminent among the Fathers and indeed to the Whole Primitive Church it self which received this Conon of Laodicea in amongst its Vniversal Rules they have also established a Position here which was not till then so much as ever heard
have formerly shewed how that the Ancient Fathers concealed heretofore as carefully as they could the Matter and the Rites used in the Celebration of this Holy Sacrament which they never performed in presence either of the Catechumeni or of Unbelievers But now there is not any such care taken at all herein but they Celebrate the Eucharist Openly and Publickly even before Jews Pagans or Mahometans without any more regard had to these Ancient Rules than as if there had never been any such thing And as if the Design of these Men were to run cross to Antiquity in all things whereas they concealed the Sacrament as much as they could these shew it now openly and carry it publickly abroad every day through the Streets and sometimes also go in Solemn Procession with it which Custom of theirs is of very late standing among Christians and which heretofore would have looked not onely very strangely but would have been accounted rather Profane and Unlawful And thus have the Customs and Observations of the Ancient Fathers been quite laid aside and other new ones which they never heard of instituted in their place The fame Cassander also proveth That in Ancient Times they never celebrated the Eucharist save onely in the presence of those that were to Communicate and that all the rest withdrew It is most clear that S. Chrysostom very bitterly reproves those who would assist at the Celebration of the Eucharist though not Communicate And indeed we at this day see in the Ethiopick Liturgy that the Gospel being read the Deacon cries aloud All you that will not receive the Sacrament depart Withdraw you Catechumeni And again after the Creed is sung he saith to the People Let them that will not Communicate depart But now a days for the most part none of those who assist at the Celebration Communicate of it they content themselves with Adoring the Sacrament onely without partaking of it at all whence you have this manner of speaking To hear Mass and To see Mass S. Chrysostome saith Whosoever shall stay here and not participate of the Mysteries behaves himself like an impudent shameless Person I beseech you saith he if any one that were invited to a Feast should come and sit down after he hath washed his Hands and fitted himself to come to the Table and at length should forbear to touch any of those Dishes which are served in upon it would not this be a very great Affront to him who invited him Had he not better to have forborn coming at all It is the very same Case here Thou hast come and hast Sung the Hymn and seeing thou hast not retired with those that were not worthy hast thereby also professed thy self to be of the number of those who are Worthy How comes it to pass that seeing thou hast staid behind thou dost not Communicate of this Table and so on as followeth in S. Chryâ—ostome If any Man should now preach this Doctrine to the Romanists would they not laugh at him as a Ridiculous Fellow forasmuch as their Custom in this Particular is far different as every one sees from what it was heretofore in the Ancient Church It is as clear as the day that all along in the Ancient Church it was Lawful for any of the Faithful to take home with them the Holy Eucharist which they might keep in any Private place to take it afterwards by themselves alone whenever they pleased Whence it is that Tertullian adviseth those who durst not Communicate upon the days appointed for that purpose for fear of breaking their Fast to keep the Body of Christ by them Receiving the Body of Christ saith he and keeping it by thee both are preserved entire both the Participation of the Sucrifice and the Discharge of thy Duey And this appears also by a Story related by S. Cyprian of a certain Woman Who going about to open with unworthy hands a Coffer of hers where the Eucharist was laid up she presently saw Fire breaking forth thence which so amazed her as that she durst not touch it And S. Ambrose also a long while after S. Cyprian testifieth sufficiently That this Custom in his time continued in the Church where he tells the story of his Brother Satyrus who being upon the Sea and in danger of shipwrack And fearing withal lest he should go out of the world without the Holy Mysteries for he was yet but of the number of the Catechumeni he made his addresses to those whom he knew to have been initiated and desired of them to give him the Divine Sacrament of the Faitbful not that he might therewith satisfie the Curiosity of his Eyes but that it might strengthen his Faith And so having put it into a handkerchief and then tying the handkerchief about his neck he threw himself into the Sea and was saved If Rome doth indeed bear so great respect to the Fathers as they would make us believe why hath it not then retained this Custom Why then should that which was then so ordinarily practised be now in our days so much disliked as that they will not by any means permit the Fryers to keep the Eucharist in their Covent nor yet in their Quire nor in any other place save only the Publick Church St. Ambrose informs us moreover that in those times they made no scruple at all of carrying the Eucharist upon the Sea which Custom of the Ancients is so much disliked by the Church of Rome in our days as that they hold it an unlawful thing either to Consecrate or to carry the Sacrament ready consecrated upon any water whatever whether it be that of the Sea or of Rivers This very Custom of the Ancients keeping the Sacrament by them proves unto us very clearly that the Faithful in those days received the Sacrament with their Hands which is also plainly enough intimated unto us by Tertullian where inveighing against those among the Christians who were Gravers or Painters by their Profession he reproveth them for touching the Body of our Saviour with those very hands which bestowed bodies on Devils that is to say with those hands wherewith they made Idols St. Cyprian is clear in this point in divers several places Gregory Naziâ—nzene also testifieth the same in his LXIII Poem And in the Canons of the Council of Constantinople in Trullo holden in the year of our Lord DC LXXX there is one which appointeth That he who is to Communicate place his hands in the form of a Cross and so receive the Communication of Grace which had been the Practice down from the time of St. Cyril of Jerusalem And yet notwithstanding there is no man but knows that this Custom hath no place now in the Church of Rome where the Communicants receive the Eucharist not with their hand but with their mouth into which it is put by the Priest I would also very gladly be informed by
what Canon of the Ancient Church those single Masses which are now celebrated and said every day where none Communicates but the Priest alone who Consecrates the Host were instituted or permitted and withal how that Respect which they pretend they bear to Antiquity can stand with that Canon of the Council of Trent which saith Whosoever shall say that those Masses wherein the Priest alone Communicateth Sacramentally are unlawful and fit to be abolished let him be Accursed seeing that these kind of Masses were utterly unknown to the Ancient Church as Cassander proveth at large in his Consultatio de Articulis Religionis written to the Emperour Ferdinand But that which most of all gives offence to those that are devoted to Aâ—â—tiqâ—ity is the Custom which the Church of Rome hath introduced and established by the express Decrees and Canons of two of their General Councils the one holden at Constance and the other at Trent of not allowing the Communion of the Cup to any save only to the Priest who Consecrates the same excluding by this means first of all all the Laity and secondly all the Priests also and other of the Clergie who had not the Consecrating of it whereas the whole Ancient Church for the space of fourteen hundred years admitted both the one and the other to the Communion of the Holy and Blessed Cup as well as to the participation of the Consecrated Bread as those of these two Councils themselves confess in the Preface to this New Constitution And this is still the practice also at this day among all Christians throughout the World both Russians Greeks Armenians Ethiopians Protestants and all others in general except the Latines only who are of the Communion of the Church of Rome But besides that the Ancients permitted this Communion under both Kinds as they use to speak it seemeth which is yet much more that unless it were in some extraordinary Cases they did not at all permit the Communicating under one Kind only For otherwise why should Pope Leo give this very thing as a mark to distinguish the Manichees from the Catholicks When they sometimes are present at our Mysteries saith he that so they may hide their infidelity they so order the matter in their participating of these Mysteries as that they receive the body of Christ into their unworthy mouth but will noâ— take into it one drop of the Blood of our Redemption and he further adds That he gives his Auditory this advertiseâ—â—â—â— that thâ—y may know these men by this Mark. Should this Pope now arise from his grave and come into the World again he would certainly believe that all those who adhere to his See were turned Manichees except the Consecrating Priests only How bâ—sides will you be able without this Hypothesis to explain that Dâ—cree of Pope Gelasius which saith We are informed that there are some who having taken a small portion of the Sacred Body only forbear to partake of the Cup of the Consecrated Blood doing this as we hear out of I know not what superstitious conceit wherewith they are possessed We therefore will that they either partake of the whole Sacrament or else that they be wholly put back from communicating of either for asmuch as there cannot without very great Sacriledge any division be made in one and the same Mystery And in the last place what can you otherwise say to that story which is related by the Accusers of Ibas Bishop of Edessa how that having one time made but a very scanty provision of Wine for the service of the Altar which after it had been begun to be distributed about to the Communicants began quickly to fail He perceiving this beckned to those who delivered about the Holy Body that they should come back again because there was no more left of the blood of our Saviour For what need was there of making them to give over their business because there was no more Wine if so be it was at that time lawful to distribute the Bread alone without the other Kind of Wine If the Councils of Trent and of Constance had accounted the Authority of the Fathers to have been Supreme how came it to pass that they abolished that which had for so long time and so constantly been observed by them And how again doth this other Canon of the Council of Trent suit with that Respect which they pretend to bear toward Antiquity where it is said that Whosoever shall say that the Holy Catholick Church hath not been induced by just Causes and Reasons to communicate to the Laity and even to the Priests too who do not Consâ—â—rate under the Kind of Bread only or that it hath â—rred in this Point let him be Accursed For it seemeth to be no very easie matter to be able to acquit the Modern Church without condemning the Ancient seeing their Practices have been manifestly contradictory to each other the Modern Church forbidding that which the Ancient permitted and the Ancient Church seeming to have expresly forbid that which the Modern commandeth How can you say that the one had just Reasons for what it did unless you withal grant that the other in doing the contrary had either no Reason at all or else but very unjust ones seeing it is most clear that neither the World nor the Times are any whit changed within this two hundred years from what they were before For it is impossible for any man to alledge any Reason for the Practice of the Moderns which should not in like manner have obliged the Ancients nor again to produce any Reason for the contrary Practice of the Ancients which doth not in like manner oblige the Moderns So that of necessity either the one or the other of them must needs have been guilty either of Errour or at least of Negligence and of Ignorance We may very well therefore conclude that the Church of Rome seeing it believes it self to be Infallible manifestly in this particular condemned the Ancient Church as guilty of Ignorance or of Negligence at the least which in my Judgment seems not so well to become those persons who do nothing else but continually preach unto us the Honour of Antiquity But here now will all the true Honourers of Antiquity have as good sport as can be For as for those Reasons by which the Fathers of the Council of Trent were induced to make the aforementioned Decree how will they say may we be able to come to the knowledge whether they were just or not seeing that they themselves produce none at all Whereas the Reasons which moved the Ancients to do as they did and which you have set down at large in a certain Discourse printed at Paris at the end of Cassanders Works are very solid and clear and in my judgment very full both of Wisdom and of Charity But we shall not need to enter any further into this Contestation it
is sufficient for my purpose that the Church of Rome in doing thus hath manifestly abolished a very ancient Custom in the Church Besides these Ceremonies which were practised by the Fathers in Baptism and in the Eucharist they have said by many other also which have been heretofore in use in the Church I shall not here speak of the Fasting upon Saturdays which is observed by the Church of Rome contrary to the ancient practice of the whole Christian Church besides who all accounted it unlawful because this difference in Practice is as ancient as St. Augustine's time and therefore ought not to be imputed to the Modern Church of Rome I shall for the same reason also pass by that which Firmilianâ—s saith namely how that in his time that is to say about two hundred and fifty years after the Nativity of our Saviour Christ Those of Rome did not in all things observe whatsoever had been delivered from the beginning and that they did in vain alledge the Authority of the Apostles But this I shall desire the Reader to take notice of that anciently it was a general Custom throughout all Christendom not to Kneel neither upon the Lords days nor upon any day bâ—twixt Easter day and Whitsunday which Custom hath been generally abolished by the whole Church of Rome and yet notwithstanding whether you consider the Antiquity or whether you look upon the Authority of those who both practised this themselves and also recommended it to our observation you will hardly find any more venerable Custom than this For the Author of the Questions and Answers attributed to Justin Martyr makes mention of this Custom and withal gives the Reason and Ground of it and besides proveth by a certain passage which he produceth out of Irenaeus that it had its beginning in the Apostolical Times Tertullian also speaks of it and both Epiphanius and St. Hierome reckon it among the Institutions of the Church and which is yet more than all this the Sacred General Council of Nice authorized the same by an express Canon made to that purpose For as much as there are some say these CCC XVIII Venerable Fathers who Kneel upon the Lords Day and upon the days of Pentecost to the end that in all Parishes or as we now speak Dioceses there may be the same Order observed in all things this Holy Synod ordaineth that on these days they all pray Standing And this ancient Constitution was revived again and explained in the Council of Constantinople in Trullo toward the end of the seventh Century where it was expresly forbidden to Kneel during the space of those twenty four hours that pass betwixt Saturday Evening and Sunday Evening Every body knows also how that they have abrogated the Fast that was wont to be observed upon the Fourth day of the week that is to say on Wednesday which yet was the Practice of the Ancients as appears by what we find in Ignatius in Peter Bishop of Alexandria and a Martyr in Epiphanius Clemens Alexandrinus and others By the same Liberty have those Vigils been abolished which were ordinarily kept by the Ancient Church and both approved and defended also by St. Hierome against Vigilantius who found fault with them though his Opinion hath now at length found more favour in the World than St. Hierome's The same Father in another place delivers unto us for an Apostolical Tradition that Custom which they had in his time of not suffering the people to depart out of the Church upon Easter Eve till midnight was past What is now become of this Custom which was not only an ancient one but was derived also from the Apostles themselves if you dare believe St. Hierome We are informed from several Hands that that Command of Abstaining from Blood and from Things strangled was for a long time observed in the Church And it appears evident enough that iâ— was most Religiously kept in the Primitive times both by the Testimony of Tertullian and of Eusebius And the Council of Constantinople in Trullo excommunicates all those of the Laity and deposeth all those of the Clergie that shall offend therein And Pamelius in his Notes upon Tertullians Apologeticks informs us that it is not long since the observation of this Custom was first laid a side among Christians it being not much above four hundred 〈◊〉 since there was some certain Penalties appointed for those that should violate the same And yet notwithstanding for all its Antiquity and Vniversality it is at length quite vanished the Church of Rome having in very gentle wise and by little and little laid it asleep â—no man that I know of having taken the least notice either of the Time when or the Manner how this was done Only this we all see plainly enough that it is now quite out of Use The like may be said of that Custom of Praying for the Saints Departed which was clearly the Practice of the Ancients We pray saith Epiphanius for the Just the Fathers the Patriarchs the Prophets Apostles Evangelists Martyrs c. that we may distinguish the Lord Jesus Christ from the order of Men by that Honour which we pay unto Him We have also some of their Prayers to this purpose yet remaining as namely in the Liturgy of St. James And in the Syriack Liturgie of St. Basil after they had mentioned the Patriarchs the Prophets John Baptist St. Stephen the Virgin Mary and all the rest of the Saint they at last added We daily send up our Prayers and Supplications unto thee for them And a little after Lord remember also saith the Priest all those who are departed this life and the Orthodox Bishops who have made a clear and open Profession of the true Faith from the Apostles Peter and James to this day of Ignatius Dionysius c. And then he saith with a loud voice Remember also Lord those who have persevered even to Blood for the Word of a Good Fear So likewise in the Liturgy of St. Chrysostom We offer unto thee this Reasonable Service for all those who havâ— departed in thy Faith c. And yet notwithstanding the Church of Rome hath utterly abolished this Custom and without all question believes that you could not do the Saints a greater injury than if you should now make any such Supplications for them Those that are curious may obserue many other the like differences betwixt the Antients and the Church of Rome in their Customs and Ceremonies Neither is there any whit less in their Discipline One of the chiefest of these Differences and which is indeed the Original of a great part of the rest is in the Elections and Ordinations of Ecclesiastical Ministers which is the true Basis and Ground-work of the Discipline and Ministry of the Church It is clear that in the Primitive times they depended partly on the People and not wholly on
of the Church it is now wholly lost and vanished We have now nothing left us save only a bare Idea and shadow of it which we meet with in the Writings of the Ancients as namely in the Canonical Epistles of Grâ—gorius Neoâ—aesareâ—nsâ—s of St. Basilâ— and others and in the Councils both General and Provincial Where are now all those several Degrees of Penance which were observed in the Ancient Church where some Offenders were to bewail their sins without the Church some might stand and hear the word among the Câ—techâ—meâ—i others were to cast themselves down at the feet of the Faithful Some of them might partake of the Prayers only of the Church and others were at length received again into the Communion of their Sacraments also Where are those Eight those Ten those Twenty years of Penance which they sometimes imposed upon Offenders All this whole Course of Penance some kind of account whereof we meet with in the Writings of the Ancients is now wholly swallowed up by Auricular Confession wherein no part of the Penance appears at all to the World And as these kinds of Punishments which were most wholesom for the Penitentiaries have been quite abolished by them so have they on the other side introduced other kinds of Penalties which are indeed very beneficial and advantageous to the temporal Estate of the Church of Rome but are most pernicious for the Souls of Offenders such as are their Interdictions when for the offence and that oftentimes too rather a pretended than a true one of one or two single persons or perhaps of a Corporation They will Excommunicate a whole State wherein there are perhaps many millions of people depriving them of the benefit of partaking of the Holy Sacraments which are the means by which the Grace and the Life of Jesus Christ is communicated unto poor Mortals an Example of which kind of proceeding I remember to have been practised by them since my time against the State of Venice In what Code of the Ancient Church can you find where any such strange kind of punishment was ever instituted as that for the offence of a few many millions of Souls should be damned How can you call that Power Apostolical that punisheth in this manner seeing that the Apostolical Power was given for Edification and not for Destruction I would also very fain learn of any man that could tell me upon what Canons of the Ancient Church that Bloody Discipline of the Inquisition is grounded where after they have got out of a poor soul by crafty subtile dealing and many times also by such barbarous inhumane usage as would make a man tremble to read a Confession of his being guilty of Heresie instead of Instruction they give him the sentence of death and so he is forthwith delivered over to the Secular Magistrates to whom notwithstanding in a plain Mockery both of God and Men they give an express Charge that they do not put him to death Yet in case they fail of so doing and if within six or seven days after at the most they do not burn him alive and all this without ever hearing his Cause or what his Offence is They themselves shall be prosecuted by Ecclesiastical Censures and shall be Excommunicated Deposed and deprived of all Dignities both Ecclesiastical and Temporal And that which yet surpasseth all belief is that although the person questioned should confess his fault and should express his hearty sorrow for the same and should by way of satisfaction submit himself to the sharpest penance that could be yet notwithstanding should not the poor wretch escape death if so be he be of the number of those whom they call The Relapsed O most inhumane cruelty and worthy of the Scythians and of the Margaias only but very ill becoming the Disciples of him who commanded his Apostle to pardon his brother not seven times only but seventy times seven as ill beseeming those who so highly boast of being the successors Inheritors of those mild and tender-hearted Ancients who taught That it is the part of Piety not to constrain but to perswade according to our Saviours Example who constrained no man but left every man to his own liberty to follow him or not And that the Devil as he hath no Truth in him comes with Axes and with Hammers to break open the doors of those that must receive him But our Saviour is so meek as that his manner of teaching is If any one will follow me and He that will be my Disciple Neither doth he constrainany one that he cometh unto but rather standeth at the door of every one and knocketh saying Open to me my Sister my Spouse and so entreth when any open unto him but if they delay and will not open unto him he then departeth Because the Truth is not to be pressed with swords and Arrows nor with Souldiers and Armed men but by Perswasion and Counsel who also so sharply reprehended the Arrians for going about to establish and maintain their Religion by Force saying Of whom have they learnt to persecute their Brethren Certainly they cannot say that they have learnt it of the Saints no they have rather had the Devil for their Tutor herein And again Jesus Christ hath commanded us to fly and the Saints have indeed fled sometimes But Persecution is the Invention of the Devil And in another place they protest that By that very course which the Arrians took in banishing which yet is much less than burning all those who would not subscribe to their Decrees they clearly shewed themselves to be contrary to all Christians and to be the friends of the Devil and his Fiends In like manner hath another of the Ancient Fathers exclaimed against the Proceeding of these Arrians who made use not only of the Terrour of Persecution but of the Enticements also of worldly â—iches that so they might the more easily draw men over to their Belief But now alas saith this Father these are the suffrages that recommend the Faith in God Christ is now become weak and void of Power and Ambition gains Credit to his Name The Church terrisieth by Banishment and Imprisonment c. She that was consecrâ—ted by the Terrour of her Persecutors dependeâ—â— now upon the Dignity of thâ—se who are of her Communion She who hath been propagated by banished Priests now her self banisheth Priests She boasteth now that she is beloved of the World who could not be Christs unless the world bated her Agreeable to what another of them saith namely That the Church of Christ was founded by shedding of Blood and by suffering Reproaches rather than by Reproaching others and that it hath grown up by persecutions and hath been crowned by Martyrdoms Another also of the chiefest among the Ancient Fathers reproached an Arrian for having made use of the Sword and Axe in Ecclesiastical matters Those whom he could not deceive by
his Discourse saith he he thought good to make use of his sword upon uttering with his mouth and writing with his hand Bloody Laws and thinking that a Law can command mens Faith And that you may not imagine that he himself thought that lawful which he found fault with in the Arrians he says in another place that in a certain journey which he made into Gallia he refused to communicate with those Bishops who would have some certain Hereticks to be put to death The Emperour Marcianus in like manner who called together the Council of Chalcedon and was a Prince that was highly commended for his Piety solemnly protesteth that He had forced no man to subscribe or to assent to the Council of Chalcedon against his will For saith he we will not draw any man into the way of life by violence or by threats And indeed Hosius Bishop of Corduba long before testified that the most Catholick Emperour Constans never compelled any man to be Orthodox And this is the course which is approved of by all the Ancients God saith St. Hillary hath rather taught us the knowledge of himself than exacted it of us and authorizing his Commandments by the wonderfulness of his heavenly works he hath refused to force us to confess his Name c. He is the God of the whole world He hath no need of a compelled obedience He requireth not any forced confession Which are the Reasons this Author brought with some other the like to disswade the Emperour Constantius from using violence and forcing the Consciences of Men. St. Ambrose saith Christ sent his Apostles to plant the Faith not that they should compel but that they should instruct men not that they should exercise the force of Power but that they should promote the Doctrine of Humility And hence is that which St. Cyprian hath comparing the manner of proceeding in the Old Testament with that of the New Then saith he the proud and the disâ—bedient were out off by the flâ—shly Sword Nâ—w they suffer by the spiritual being thrown out of the Church Certainly then they still live at this very day under the Old Testament in Spain and Italy and all those other places where the Inquisition is in force and I bâ—lieve he would find a very hard Task of it that should take in hand to reconcile this Passage of St. Cyprian to that Opinion of Pope Pius V. who said that Bishops might have their Officers and Executioners of Justice for the Causes that appertained to their Jurisdiction and might put their Sentences in Execution against Offenders and that the reason of their having recourse upon all occasions to the Secular Powers was not because the Church could not make use of its own proper Officers of Justice in such Cases but rather because it had no such or if it had they were so weak and so few in number as that for the suppressing and punishing of Dâ—linquents it would however stand in need of the assistance of the Temporal Power I shall shut up this Point with Tertullian the most ancient Author of the Latine Church whom Pamelius as we have touched before will needs have us believe to have been a Persecutor of Hereticks who yet was a man that would not allow a Christian so much as to draw a sword neither in war against a Publick Enemy nor yet in discharging the Office of a Magistrate upon Offenders whom all Civil Laws whatsoever punish with death Let us now therefore see what he says touching Religion Consider saith he to the Pagans whether this be not to add to the Crime of Irreligion to take away the Liberty of Religion and to interdict a man the choice of his God by not suffering him to worship whom he would but to compel him to worship whom he would not There is none no not among men that takes pleasure in being served by any against their will And some few Chapters afterward This is a thing saith he that seemeth very unjust that Free-men should be constrained to do sacrifice against their will For in the performing of service to God a willing heart is required And in another Book but speaking of the same thing he saith It is a Point of Humane Right and a Natural Power that every man hath to worship that which he thinks fit The Religion of another man neither hurteth nor profiteth any one Neither is it indeed the part of Religion to compel Religion which ought to be entertained willingly and not by force forasmuch as Sacrifices themselves are required only from willing minds Upon which passage of his Pamelius gives us a marvellous rare gloss saying That we ought not indeed directly to compel men to our Religion but yet we may punish them if they will not change their opinion Certainly he thinks it is no Compelling of a man to force him to do a thing under pain of Death Let any man that can reconcile the Practice of the Inquisition and the Popes Thunderbolts against King Henry VIII and his Daughter Queen Elizabeth and against some of the Kings of France also to this constant opinion of all Antiquity Now after they have thus boldly slighted the Beliefes the Ceremonies and the Discipline of the Ancients by changing and abolishing whatsoever they have thought good with what face can they still cry up the Fathers and alledge their Testimonies and besides place them upon the Seat of Judicature and make them the Judges of our Differences Or although they still do thus who would noâ— be ready here to bring against them those words of Tertullian which he made use of iâ— another the like Case I would be very glad saith he that these greatâ—â— and most religious Defenders and 〈◊〉 of the Iâ—wâ— and Customs of their Fathers would 〈…〉 a little touching their own saith 〈◊〉 and obedience towards the constitutions of their Ancestors whether they have not departed from and forsaken some of them 〈…〉 they have not razed out those things 〈◊〉 which were most necessary and most useful in their Science What is become of those Ancient Laws c. Where is the Religion Where is the Reverence which is due from you to your Ancestors You have renounced your Fore-Fathers both in your Habit Apparel Manner of Life Opinion and in your very Speech also You are always crying up Antiquity yet every day your selves take up a New manner of Life Whether therefore they of the Church of Rome have upon Just Grounds dealt thus with the Ancients or not it serves my turn however to conclude That by this their Proceeding they have given us a sufficient Testimony that they do not acount their Authority Supreme in Matters of Religion And if so what Reason have they to urge it for such against the Protestants Seeing they have weakned the Authority of so many of those Judgments touching Points of Religion which have been given
by the Fathers how can they expect that their Authority should pass for Authentick in any one Let us suppose for instance that they held that there was such a Place as Purgatory But by your Favour will the Protestant say if you have found their Belief to be so erroneous touching the State of the Souls of Departed Saints till the Day of the Resurrection why would you impose upon me a Necessity of subscribing to what they held touching Purgatory The Laws of Disputation ought to be equal and therefore if you by examining this Opinion of the Fathers by Reason and by the Scriptures have found it to be Erroneous why will you not give us leave to try that other touching Purgatory by the same Touch-stone Certainly should we but speak the Truth it is the plainest mocking of the World that can be to cry out as these Men do continually The Fathers The Fathers and to write so many whole Volumes upon this Subject as they have done after they have so dealt with them as you have seen And if it be here objected That the Protestants themselves do also reject many of those Articles which we have before set down we answer That this is nothing at all to the purpose forasmuch as they take the Scriptures and not the Fathers for the Rule of their Faith neither do they press any Man to receive any thing from the hands of the Ancients unless it be grounded upon the Word of God And if lastly you say That the Authority of the Fathers hath no place nor is at all considerable in the Points before set down because that the Churcb hath otherwise determined touching the same this is clearly to grant us that which we would have namely That the Authority of the Fathers is not Supreme And as for the Church that is to say how far the Authority of it extends in these things this is a New Question to be disputed of which I shall not meddle withal at this time Only thus much I shall say That what Authority soever you allow it whether Little or Much you will still find that it will very hardly be able to do any thing touching the Decision of our present Controversies forasmuch as you can never be able to make any use or benefit of this Position till such time as you are assured both What and Where the Church is seeing that the Protestants stiffly deny That it is That which appears at this day at Rome and the greatest Difficulty of all consisting in the Demonstrating this unto them For if they did but once believe that the Church of Rome was the True Church they would immediately joyn themselves with it so that there would not henceforth be need of any further Dispute We shall here conclude therefore That the Alledging the Testimonies of the Fathers upon the Differences that are at this day in Religion is no proper Course for the Decision of them seeing it is no easie matter to discover what their Judgment hath been touching the same by reason of the many Difficulties that we meet with in the Writings of the Ancients neither is it of so sufficient Authority in it self as that we may safely build our Belief upon it since the Fathers themselves have been also subject to Errour neither lastly is it of any force either aâ—â—â—nst the one or the other Party seeing that they both regulate and examine the Opinions Ceremonies and Discipline of the Ancients the One by the Rule of the Scriptures and the Other by that of the Church But here I find that upon this Conclusion Two Questions may arise For seeing that the alledging the Fathers is not sufficient for the deciding of those Points that are now in debate amongst us it may be demanded in the first place What other Course we ought to take for the attaining to the Truth in these Controversies And then secondly How and in what Cases the Writings of the Fathers may be useful unto us Now although both these Questions are without the compass of our present Design yet notwithstanding in regard they so nearly border upon it we shall in the last place say a word or two in answer of them As for the First it would be a hard matter in my Judgment to find out a better way for Satisfaction herein than that which one Scholarius a Greek who is very highly accounted of by those who printed the General Councils at Rome hath proposed This Learned Man in a certain Oration of his which he made at the Council of Florence for the facilitating of the Vnion which was then treated of betwixt the Latins and the Greeks and was afterwards concluded on lays down for a Ground first That we ought not to reject all those things which are not clearly and in express Terms delivered in the Scriptures which is a Pretext and Shift that many of the Hereticks make use of but that we ought to receive with equal Honour whatsoever directly followeth from that which is said in the Scriptures and to reject utterly whatsoever shall be found to be coâ—â—trary to those things which are undoubtedly True He says further That In those things wherein the Scripture hath not clearly expressed it self we must have recourse to the Scripture it self as our Guide to give us light therein by some other Passage where It hath spoken more plainly And after all this he requireth That we should use our utmost Endeavour fully to reconcile those seeming Contradictions which we sometimes there meet withal in several Passages to that purpose taking notice of the Diversity of Times Customs Senses and the like And going on he saith That the Fathers of the Council at Nice after this manner concluded by the Scriptures upon the True Belief touching the Son of God and then applying all this to his present purpose he adds That the Scripture saith clearly and expresly that the Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Father and that this is agreed upon by both Sides both by the Greeks and the Latins But that It hath not so expresly declared it self whether the Holy Ghost proceed also from the Son or not and that this is the thing now in Question the Latins affirming it and the Greeks on the other side denying it We ought therefore saith he to prove this from some other things which are there more clearly delivered Which he afterwards performeth and indeed in my Judgment very Learnedly and Happily proving this Doubtful Point out of other Passages that are more Clear And this was the Judgment of this Great Person which will not give any offence to those of the Church of Rome because it came from one that was of their Side Neither do I see what could have been spoken more rationally And indeed this is the Course that is observed in all Sciences whatsoever If thy Adversary doubt of the truth of what thou proposest thou art to prove it by such Maxims as are acknowledged and allowed of
by him making good that which is Doubtful by that which is Certain and clearing that which is Obscure by that which is Evident And this is the Rule that I conceive we ought to walk by in the Disputes that are betwixt us at this day The Word of God is our Common Book let us therefore search into It for that upon which we may ground our own Belief and by which we may overthrow the Opinion of our Adversary As for example it is there said clearly and expresly That that which our Saviour Christ took at his Last Supper was Bread and herein we All agree But it is not at all there expressed whether this Bread were afterward changed or annihilated or not And this is now the Question in Dispute amongst us We ought therefore according to the Counsel of Scholarius to prove this by some other things which are there delivered clearly And if thou dost this thou hast got the Victory If not I do not at all see why or how thou canst oblige any one to believe it In like manner the Scripture telleth us in as express Terms as may be That our Saviour Christ commanded His Apostles to Take and Eat and to Drink that which He gave them in Celebrating the Eucharist But It doth not at all say that he commanded them to Offer the same in Sacrifice either Then or Afterwards And this is now the Question which it concerns those of the Church of Rome if they will have us believe it to prove by some other things which are clearly and expresly delivered in the Word of God The Scripture in like manner saith expresly That Jesus Christ is the Mediator betwixt God and Man and That He is the Head of the Church and That He purgeth us by His Blood from our Sins Now in all this both Sides are fully agreed But it is not at all there expressed That the Departed Saints are Mediators and That the Pope is the Head of the Church and That our Souls are in part cleansed from their Sins by the Fire of Purgatory And herein lies the Controversie betwixt us The Learned Scholarius his Opinion herein would now be that certainly those who propose these Points as Articles of Faith deduce and collect them from some things which are clearly delivered in the Scriptures for otherwise they are not to be pressed as Truths And although that in matters of Religion or indeed in any other things of Importance a Man may very well be excused for not believing a thing when there appears not any such Reason as may oblige him to believe it yet notwithstanding if those who reject the Articles now debated betwixt us have a mind to go further yet and to prove positively the Falseness of them you see this Author hath laid them down the way by which they are to proceed He accounteth those very absurd that require at your hands that you should shew them all things expresly delivered in the Scripture and this ought principally to be understood of Negative Propositions of which no Science giveth you any certain account forasmuch as to go about to number them all up would be both an infinite and also an unprofitable useless piece of Work It is sufficient to deliver the Positive Truth For as whatsoever rightly followeth thereupon is True in like manner whatsoever clasheth with or contradicteth the same is False wouldst thou therefore demonstrate those Propositions that are pressed upon thee to be False Do but compare them with those things that are clearly and expresly delivered in the Scripture And if thou findest them contrary to any thing there set down receive them not by any means As for example If a Protestant not contenting himself with having answered all those Reasons which are brought to prove that there is such a Place as Purgatory shall yet desire to go further and to make it appear that the Opinion is False he is in this case to have recourse to the Scriptures and to examine it by those things which are there clearly and expresly delivered touching the State of the Soul after it is departed this Life and touching the Cause and Means of the Expiation of our Sins and the like And if the Opinion of Purgatory be found to contradict any thing there delivered then according to Scholarius it ought not to be received by any means But the brevity which we proposed to our selves in this Discourse permitteth us not to prosecute this Point any further As for the Second Question it is no very hard matter to resolve it For although we do not indeed allow any Supreme and Infallible Authority to the Writings of the Fathers yet do we not therefore presently account them Vseless If there were nothing of Vse in Religion saving what was also Infallible we should have but little good of any Humane Writings Those who have written in our own Age or a little before are of no Authority at all either against the one or the other Party Yet notwithstanding do we both read them and also reap much benefit from them How much more advantage then may we make by studying the Writings of the Fathers whose Piety and Learning was for the most part much greater than that of the Moderns S. Augustine believed them not in any thing otherwise than as he found what they delivered to be grounded upon Reason and yet notwithstanding he had them in a very great esteem The like may be said of S. Hierome who had read almost all of them over notwithstanding that he takes liberty sometimes to reprove them something sharply where he finds them not speaking to his mind Though you should deprive them not onely of this Supremacy which yet they never sought after but should rob them also of their Proper Nomes yet notwithstanding would they still be of very great Vse unto us For Books do not therefore profit us because they were of such or such a Man 's Writing but rather because they instruct us in those things that are Good and Honest and keep us out of Errour and make us abhor those things that are Vicious Blot out if you please the Name of S. Augustine out of the Title of those excellent Books of his De Civitate Dei or those other which he wrote De Doctrinâ Christianâ His Writings will instruct you never a whit the less neither will you find any whit the less benefit by them The like may be said of all the rest First of all therefore you shall find in the Fathers very many earnest and zealous Exhortations to Holiness of Life and to the Observation of the Discipline of Jesus Christ Secondly you shall there meet with very strong and solid Proofs of those Fundamental Principles of our Religion touching which we are all agreed and also many excellent things laid open tending to the right understanding of these Mysteries and also of the Scriptures wherein they are contained In this very particular their Authority may be of
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
they maintain only such things as are eithe Expresly delivered in the Scriptures or else are Evidently deduced from thence and such as have also been expounded the greatest part of them and interpreted by the Ancients not in their own private Writings only but even in their Creeds and Synodical Determinations also They pretend not either to any Particular Revelation oâ— Secret Tradition or any other New Principle of Doctrine Their Faith is grounded only upon the Old and which is the Most Authentick Instrument of Christianity the New Testament Only in their Expositions either of the Doctrines therein Contained or other Passages They produce some few things that are not at all found in the Fathers But these things being not Necessary to Salvation the Argument which is brought from the Silence of the Fathers herein is not sufficient to prove the Falseness of them Time Experience Assistance of others and the very Errours also of the Fathers having as They say now laid that Open to Them which was Heretofore more Difficult and hard to be discovered and taken notice of in Divine Revelation Who knoweth not that a Dwarf mounted upon a Giants shoulders looketh higher and seeth further than the Giant himself It would be ridiculous in any man that should conclude that That which the Dwarf pretends to discover is not at all in Nature because then the Giant must also have seen it Neither would He be much wiser that should accuse the Dwarf of Presumption because forsooth He hath told Us that whereof the Giant said not a word seeing that it is the Giant to whom the Dwarf is beholding for the greatest part of His Knowledge And this is Our Case say the Protestants We are mounted upon the Shoulders of that Great and High Giant Antiquity That advantage which we have above it by its means enables us to see many things in Divine Revelation which it did not see But yet however this cannot be any occasion of Presumption to us because we see more than it did for as much as it is this very Antiquity to which we owe a great part of this our Knowledge It is Certainly therefore very Clear that as for the Protestants and what concerns the Positive Points of Their Faith they are wholly without the Compass of this Dispute And as for those of the Church of Rome They cannot for the Reasons before given make any Advantage of the Testimony of the Ancients for the proving of any of those Points of Doctrine which They maintain save only of those wherein their Adversaries agree with them and therefore if they would have us to come over to Their Belief They must Necessarily have recourse to some other kind of Proofs But yet I do not see but that we may very well make Inquiry into Antiquity touching many Articles which are now maintained by those of the Church of Rome and if we find that the Ancients have not said any thing at all of the same we may then positively conclude That they are not to be accounted as any part of the Christian Religion I confess that there are some of them against which this Argument is of no force at all as namely those which they do not account Necessary to Salvation and which both the Ancients heretofore might have been and we also at this day may be ignorant of But certainly this Argument in my Judgment would be utterly unanswerable against such Points as they press as Necessary and whereon indeed they would have our Salvation wholly to depend As for Example The Supreme Authority of the Pope and of the Church which owneth him as Its Head The Adoration of the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist the Sacrifice of the Mass the Necessity of Auricular Confession and the like For if so be they are of so great Importance as they would make us believe it would be a Point of high Impiety to say That the Fathers knew not any thing at all of them in like manner as it would be a most absurd thing to maintain That though they did know them they would not yet speak any one word of them in all those Books which we have of theirs at this day And if they had said any thing at all of them in their Writings we have no reason in the World to suspect that possibly those Passages where mention was made of them may have been rased out or corrupted and altered by false hands seeing that this Piece of Knavery would have been done to the disadvantage of those who had these Books in their Custody We have rather very good reason to suspect that whatsoever Alterations there are they have been made in favour of the Church of Rome as we have proved before in the First Book If therefore after so long a time and after so many Indexes as they of the Church of Rome have put forth and so great a desire as they have had to find these Doctrines of theirs in the Writings of the Fathers and the little Conscience that they have sometimes made of foisting into the Writings of the Fathers what they could not find there We can still notwithstanding make it appear that they are not to be found there at all After all this I say who can possibly doubt but that the Fathers were ignorant of them Who will ever be perswaded to believe that they held them as Necessary to Salvation And if they were not known to be such then how can any body imagine that they should at length come to be such now My Opinion therefore is That although the Authority of the Fathers be not sufficient to prove the Truth of those Articles which are now maintained by the Church of Rome against the Protestants although the Ancients should perhaps have believed the same it may notwithstanding serve to prove the Falseness of them in case that we should find by the Fathers that the Ancients were either wholly ignorant of them or at least acknowledged them not for such as they would now have us believe them to be which is a Business that so nearly concerns the Protestants as that to be able to bring about their Design I conceive they ought to employ a good part of their time in reading over the Books of the Ancients Onely it is requisite that either Party when they undertake so tedious and so important a Business as this is should come very well provided of all Necessary Parts as namely of the Knowledge of the Language and of History and should also be very well read in the Scriptures and that they use herein their utmost Diligence and Attention and withal read over exactly whatsoever we have left us of the Fathers not omitting any thing that Possibly they can get because a little short Passage many times gives a Man very much Light in the finding out their Meaning and not think as some who much deceive themselves do that they perfectly know what the Sense and Belief of the Ancients was because
perhaps they have spent four or five Months in the reading of them over But above all it is Necessary that they come to this Business void of all Passion and Prejudication which is indeed the greatest and the most general Cause of that Obscurity which is found in these Writings of the Fathers whilst every one endeavours to make them speak to his sense whereas in the greatest part of these Points of Religion which are now controverted amongst us these Ancient Authors really believed much Less than the one Party doth and some little matter More than the other doth and there are but a very few Points of all this number wherein they are fully and absolutely of the same Judgment that either of the Two Parties is Neither is it sufficient in this Business to take notice of such Testimonies as either positively affirm or deny those things which we look after because that how clear soever they perhaps may be it will go very hard but a quick Wit will find something to darken the sense of them as you may observe in all Books of Controversies where you shall have them so baffle and make nothing of such Testimonies as are brought against them out of the Ancients as that you would hardly know what to hold to But you must also observe what the Necessary Consequences are of each particular Article it being impossible to conclude upon any One Point that is of any Importance but that there will presently follow upon it divers Consequences as well within as without the Church As for example you are to consider what the Consequences are of the Transubstantiation of the Eucharist as it is now held by the Church of Rome of Purgatory and of the Monarchical Authority of the Pope and when you have observed them well you are then to mark in reading the Books of the Ancients whether they appear there in Whole or in Part. For if you find them not there at all it is a most Certain Argument that the Doctrine from whence they proceed and upon which they follow is New and Vnsound But I shall not proceed any further in this Discourse since divers have already treated hereof at large it being in my Judgment no hard matter to collect from what we have here delivered how we ought to read the Fathers FINIS Euseb Hist Eccles lib. 3. cap. 29. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cassand Consult Ferdinan p 894. Perron Epist to Casaub Cypr. ep 74. p. 195. Orig Praef Operis contra Cels p. 1 2. Euseb Hist Eccles l. 1. c. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hieron l. de Scriptor c. Euseb in hist passim Tertul. aliquorum meminit Gontery Veron and others Hegesippus apud Euseb l. 4. c. 22. Concil 7. Act. 5. Tom. 3 p. 552. Hier. l de scrip Eccles Tom. 1. p. 346 B. 350. C. Concil 7. Act 6. Concil 5. Collat 6. Marian. ep ad Mon. Alex. ad calcem Concil â—halc T. 2. p. 450. E. Leont lib. extat Bibl. SS PP T 4 part 2. Greg. Thaumat op Par. ann 1622. pag. 97. ubi vide Voss Bibl. SS PP T. 1. Gr. Lat. Concil 6. Act. 3. Act. 14. T. 3. Concil Concil 6. Act. 3. Act. 14. T. 3. Concil Concil 7. Act. 6. Refut Iconoclast Tom. 5. Concil Florent Sess 20. T. 4. Hier. Ep. 28. ad Lucin. Tom. 1. Hier. Apol. 2. contr Ruff. Auctor operis De Operibus Card. Christi inter Cyprian oper p. 444. a Erasmus in edit Cypr. suâ Sixtus Senens Biblioth lib. 4. Bellar. de Euchar l 2. cap. 9. De amiss grat l. 6. c. 2. Pâ—ssevin in Apparat. Scult Medulla Patr. Andr. Rivet l. 2. c. 15. Crit. Sacr. Aubert de Euchar l. 2. c. 8. Hier. de script Eccl. Tom. 1. p. 350. Ex Tertul. li. de Baptismo cap. 17. Hier. l. 2. Apol. contr Ruffin Tom. 2. p. 334. Ep. 69. T. 2. Apol. contr Ruff. ad Pammach et Marc. Tom. 2. Hier. in Jerem. com 4. tom 4. Hier. l. 2. Apol. contra Ruffin Tom. 2. Orig contra Cels lib. 7. Concil Flor. Sess 2. p 457. Concil Afric 6. cap. 3. Concil Flor. Sess 20. Codex Can. Ec. Vn Dionys Exig p. 99. Leo in ep ad Theodos Imp. Tom. 2. Concil Valentin in ep ad Theod. Tom. 2. Concil Galla Placid in ep ad Theodos Tom. 2. Concil 5 Act. 5. Tom. 2. Concil Concil 7. Act. 4. Tom. 3. Concil Nannius in edit op Athan. Bellar de imag l. 2 c. 10. lib. de script Eccles in Athan Possevin in appar in Athan. D. 96. C. Constantino nostro 14. Augusti Steuchius de Dona. Constant. Baron in annal Melchior Canus locor Theolog l. 11. p. 511. Hen. Kaltheis ap Magdeb. cent 2. Nic. Cusan Conc. Cath. l. 2. c. 34. Jo. de Turrecr de Eccl. lib. 2. c. 101. Jo. Driedo de dogm scrip Eccl. l. 1. c. 2. Cl. Espens de Contin l. 1. c 2. G. Cassand defens lib. de officio pii viri p. 843. Sim. Vig. ex respons Syn. Basil c. en la lettre contr Durand Baron Annal. T. 2. an 102. an 865. Erasm praefat in Hieron Baron Annal. Tom. 1. an 51. Bellar. de lib. arbit T. 5. c. 25. NOs fatemur librum esse corruptum c. Sed tamen vel esse Clementis Romani vel alterius aequè docti ac antiqui Hier. ep 84. ad Magn. Tom. 2. a Clem. Alex. Strom. l. 2. b Id. Strom. l. 1. l. 2. alibi passim Hier. ep 84. ad Magn. Tom. 2. Id. in Catal. Tom. 1. Baron Annal. Tom. 1. an 66. Hier. ep 28. ad Lucin. Tom. 1. Hier. ep 4. ad Rustic Tom. 1. Daemonum contra se pugnantium pâ—rtenta coâ—fingunt a Ruffin in Expos Symbol lit de adult script Origen b Hier. ep 65. Tom. 2. Apol. 2. contr Ruff. a Cyril ep ad Ich. Antioch in Act. Conc. Eph. b In Praefat. in Tom. 1. Concil Gen. Epiphanius in Anchor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Hier. ep 5. ad Flor. ep 41. ad Ruffin b Aug. ep ad Hier. quae est inter ep Hier. 93. iterum ep 97. c Gennald in Catal. inter op Hier. a Hier. ep 62. ad Theoph. Alex lib. 2. Apol. contra Ruffin Hier. ep 75. Id. praefat in lib. Euseb de loc Hebr. Tom. 4. op Amb. p. 211. lib. 2. de Abra. in marg annot a Lud. Vives in lib. 21. de Civ Dei c. 24. In antiquis libris Brug Colon. non le guntur isti decem aut duodecim qui sequuntur versus b Holstein op lim praef tom op Athan. Neque solius Athanasti ea fortuna ut ineptissimorum interpolatorum manus subiret cùm Chrysostomi Procli aliorumque homilias similibus sequiorum saeculorum ineptiis faedatas in iisdem regiis codicibus invenerim Andr. Masius Praef. in Litur Syr. Cassand in Liturg cap. 2. Euseb in Chro. editâ—num 2148. 2158. Vide Scalig. in loc p. 198