reality of the business there was no doubt among the Fathers about the truth or falsity of the main matter being fully satisfied concerning that by Tradition even from their childhood but the question was about the answer to their enemies proofs and to consult what arguments and reasons should be alledged against them for the satisfaction of the Church and the world without the Church and for the expression of the Catholik doctrin in such words as the Arians could not equivocally interpret to their own perverse meaning especially finding they had fo puzled the world with the dust they had rais'd in mens eyes that even some good Catholiks could scarce see their way but were in danger of stumbling against the blocks those Hereticks maliciously cast before their feet Eusebius Caesariensis testifies of himself that He thought Alexander's party had held the Son of God to be divided from the Father as one part is cut from another in Bodies which would have made God a body and truly two Gods For these reasons was their magna conquisitio their turning of Scriptures and their meeting in Council as St. Athanasius witnesses speaking in the name of the very Council it self in his Epistle de Synodis We met here says he not because we wanted a Faith that is because we were uncertain what to hold but to confound those who contradict the truth and goe about novelties Neither can any argument be made out of Eusebius's Epistle to some Arians in which he says The Bishops of the Council approved the word homoousion because they found it in some illustrious Fathers for though the inward sense of that term was perfectly traditional yet was it not til then precisely fixt to that particular expression But the same Bishpos consented to the Excommunication of the Contradictors to hinder men from using unwritten words and was not that a proper and prudent remedy to prevent the inconveniences that easily arise from confusion and incertainty of language when every one phrases the mystery according to his private fancy and governs not his terms by some constant and steady rule as the writings of the Apostles or ancient Fathers which interpretation exactly agrees with the Greek of Eusebius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that literally and truly signifie Words written neither in Scripture nor any where else as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was in the Fathers And so I need not alledge He was a secret Arian though if he were his testimony as far as it reaches would be so much the more efficacious against them as Theodoret imploys it Now by all this may be seen why in Councils there are engag'd so many disputations for no calumny can be so impudent as to deny the Fathers know their Faith before they meet there which is plainly imply'd by the Hereticks ordinary protesting against them as unfit Judges because they are parties and therfore refusing to come to the Council besides the possession of the old Religion being as publik and notorious at such times as the Sun it self at noon wherfore to say they come to seek out or dispute their Religion by those long conferences is a pure folly They then hold their Religion upon Tradition or possession but dispute things either for regulating the Churches language that all Catholiks may keep a set form of explication of their Faith or else to convince their Adversaries out of such grounds as themselvs admit To dispute whether a Council not confirm'd by the Pope makes an Article de fide or no concerns not the difficulty now before us and engages Catholick against Catholick which is not our present work In the mean while out of all which has been said we may gather that there is no apparence the Catholick Doctrin concerning the Trinity was diversly taught before the Council of Nice and then first establish'd out of the Scriptures but that it was the known and confessed faith of all the Ages before as St. Athanasius expresly teaches avowing confidently he had demonstrated it supplicating the Emperour to permit the Catholicks to live in the belief of their Forefathers and upbraiding his adversaries that they could not shew their progenitors And to say the truth unless a man be so perverse as to affirm Christians did not use the form of Baptism prescrib'd by Christ there can be no doubt of the Tradition of the blessed Trinity the very words of Baptism carrying the Tradition in themselvs Lastly 't is objected there was no reason for the Council of Nice in this quarrel to look into Tradition since they had such abundance of Scripture But we must put out our eys if we do not see that even at this day the Arians are so cunning as to avoid the strongest Texts of Scripture and explicate them by other places and that 't is impossible to convince in this manner any Heretick as long as one place can explicate a hundred opposed The Council therfore at last though favour'd with as much advantage as Scripture could give over its adversaries was forc'd to conclude out of Tradition as Theodoretus St. John Damascen and chiefly St. Athanasius himself confesses a necessity which the Rules of St. Irenaeus Tertullian St. Basil and Vincentius Lyrinensis who teach it is to no purpose to dispute with Hereticks out of Scripture and our own experience of above a hundred years plainly convince and fully justify to any rational man whose humour or interest is not to have all Religion obscure and doubtful THE TWELFTH ENCOUNTER That the necessity of Communicating Infants is no Tradition But Prayer to Saints is THere are yet two instances urged against Tradition One that for six hundred years 't was believ'd necessary to give the holy Eucharist to children which custom has now been a long time disused The proof as far as I know of the necessity is drawn only out of St. Austin and St. Innocentius and some words of St. Cyprian The former of which Fathers are cited to make this argument against the Pelagians The Eucharist cannot be given unless to those who are baptized But the Eucharist is necessary for Children Therfore Baptism is necessary for them To which I answer with a formal denyal that any such argument is made by those holy Fathers For their discours runs thus It is necessary for Children to be incorporated into Christs mystical body but this cannot be done without Baptism therfore Baptism is necessary for Children Whether of us take the right sense of these Fathers let the Books judg I will only add 't is a great shallowness to think the Pelagians who deny'd the necessity of Baptism should admit the necessity of the Eucharist or that it was easier for those Fathers to prove the necessity of the Eucharist then of Baptism So that their argument must be suppos'd by the objector to be drawn ex magis obscuro ad minus obscurum Yet because especially St. Austins words seem equivocal I will briefly set down the state of the
Christs doctrine we mean that which was generally preach'd by the Apostles and contains all such points as are necessary to the salvation of the World not only in particular to single persons but for government of the Church and bringing multitudes with convenience to perfection in this life and felicity in the next Which being establisht they immediately proceed to this general Position that All Christ taught or the Holy Ghost suggested to the Apostles of this nature is by a direct uninterrupted liue entirely and fully descended to the present Church which communicates with and acknowledges subjection to the Roman Adding also the convers of that proposition viz. Nothing is so descended but such Truths nor any thing held by this tenure but what is so descended which being cast up amounts to this great Conclusion No errour was ever or can be embraced by the Church in quality of a matter of faith The proof consists in this Since 't is confessed the Catholik Church goes upon this Maxim that Her Doctrine is received from Christ and still handed along to the present generation they who cavil at this assertion should assign some Age when they conceive an errour crept in and the maintainer should prove it enter'd not in that Age Because that Age held nothing was to be admitted as of Faith except what was deliver'd to it by the former but the Objectors themselves say this supposed errour was not deliver'd by the former since they put it to be now first believ'd therfore the Age in which they imagin this errour crept in could not be the first that believ'd it And lest some might reply though the present Roman Church stands now upon the proposed maxim yet anciently it did not the same argument may be thus reiterated If this principle which now governs the Church had not always done so it must have been introduced in some Age since the Apostles name therfore the Age and immediatly 't is urged either the Church had assurance in that Age all she held was descended lineally as we spake from the Apostles or not If so then questionless she held her doctrin upon that maxim For it is the only undoubted and self-evident principle If not then she wilfully belyed her self and conspired to damn all her posterity voluntarily taking up this new Rule of faith and commanding it to be accepted by all the world as the necessary doctrin of Christ and his Apostles descended upon the present age by universal Tradition from their Ancestors and for such to be deliver'd to their children and all this against the express evidence of her own conscience Thus far reaches the argument He that shall compare this perpetuation of the Church with the constancy of propagating mankind and proportion the love of happiness and natural inclination to truth which is in the superiour part of mankind and commands powerfully in it to the material appetite of procuring corporal succession and weigh what accidents are able and necessary to interrupt the progress of one and the other will find the propagation of Religion far stronger and less defectible then that of mankind supposing them once rooted alike in universality and setledness Since therfore the means of conducting nature to its true and chief end Felicity are more principally intended then those by which it is simply preserv'd in being this Contemplator will clearly discern that if humane nature continue to the last and dreadful day this succession also of a true Church must be carried on through the same extent of time there appearing indeed no purpose why the world should endure a minute longer if this once come to fail that part of mankind which arrives to bliss being the end why the rest was made as mankind is the end for which all the other material Creatures are set on work Again if a rational discourser should plot in his head how with condescendence to the weakness of our nature he might bring mankind to bliss and to this end plant in it a perpetual and constant knowledg of the true and straight way thither did observe that Man in his immature age is naturally subject to believe and after his ful growth tenacious of what he had suck'd in with his milk could he chuse but see that to make the Mothers flatter into their Children the first elements of the acquisition of Beatitude and continually go on nursing them up in the maxims of piety till their stronger years gave a steddy setledness to their minds must needs be the most sweet and connatural way that can be imagin'd to beget a firm and undoubted assent to those happy principles If he think on and chance to light on this truth that the greatest part of mankind some through dulness of understanding some by the distractions of seeking necessaries for their subsistence or at least conveniences for their accommodation and others for the diffluence of nature to Pleasures and Vanities are to their very departing hour wholly incapable of searching out their Religion either by their own contemplation or the learned books of others I cannot doubt but such a considerer would without the least difficulty or hesitation conclude that were it his design to set up a Religion which he would have constantly and universally propagated he must of necessity pitch upon this way And so with a resolute and pious confidence pronounce if God has not already taken this course certainly he should have done it To these considerations give my pen leave to add the confession of our Adversaries who boldly acknowledge the Roman Church has had universal Tradition for the whole body of its faith ever since St. Gregories days which is now a thousand years and very near two parts of the three that Christian Religion has endured They confess those Doctrins which are common to us and them remain in our Church uncorrupted and have still descended from Father to Son by vertue of Tradition since the very times of the Apostles They will not deny the Ages betwixt Constantine and St. Gregory flourisht with an infinity of Persons famous both for piety and learning and the Church never more vigilant never more jealous being continually alarm'd by such Troops of powerful and subtle Hereticks so that there is no likelihood gross errours such as Idolatry and Superstition import could creep in undiscern'd in those days And perhaps much less betwixt Constantine and the Apostles the time being so short that it scarce exceeds the retrospection of those who liv'd with Constantine At least that age could evidently know what was the faith of Christendom in the age of the Apostles great Grand-children and they again be certainly assured of the Doctrin of the Apostles disciples their Grandfathers Which is an evidence beyond all testimony of writers that since Constantines time it was known by a kind of self-sight what the Grandchildren of the Apostles held and it could not be doubted of them but they knew and held the doctrin of the
more known and consequently not all deriv'd by Tradition But if we should answer that disputing betwixt Catholicks and Hereticks is on the Catholick part no other then proving and defending those points which were deriv'd by Tradition and found in Christian action and behaviour this argument were cut up by the roots and all pretence and colour of it taken away Which is the very truth of the business this being inseparably the difference betwixt Heresy and Catholicism that when those perverse novelties first peep out of their dark grots the Catholick Religion securely possesses the World and upon such opposition is at first surpriz'd and the Divines perhaps put to cast about for plausible defences and grounds to satisfy unstable heads who easily conceit themselvs wiser then their forefathers and scorn authority unless reason proportion'd to their capacity or humour marshal it in Nevertheless because disputing cannot chuse but bring to light some deductions consequent to the first principally-defended Position I shall not deny the Church may come to know somwhat which haply before she never reflected on But then those new truths belong to the science we call Theology not to Faith and even for those the Church rely's on Tradition as far as they themselvs emerge from doctrins deliver'd by Tradition so that the truth attested by the learned Cardinal out of St. Austin is that by much canvasing more cleer proofs and answers are discovered or more ample Theological science concerning such mysteries acquir'd Bellarmin is brought in excusing Pope Iohn 22. from being an Heretick though he held no souls were admitted to the vision of God before the day of Judgment because the Church had not as yet defin'd any thing concerning it I confess many more might be produc'd deprehended in the like actions and before all St. Austin excusing St. Cyprian on the same score Now to draw a conclusion from hence this is to be added that surely if there had been a Tradition neither the Pope nor St. Cyprian could be ignorant of it and therfore not excusable upon that account But in truth I wonder this point is no harder press'd for if any would take pains and look into our Schoolmen they might find very many of them maintain that Tradition is necessary only for some points not clearly express'd in Scripture whence it seems to follow they build not the whole body of their Faith upon Tradition For satisfaction of this difficulty I must note there is a vast difference betwixt relying on Tradition and saying or thinking we do so The Platonists and Peripateticks are divided about the manner of vision Aristotle teaching that the object works upon the eye Plato that the eye sends out a line of Spirits or rays to the object Yet nothing were more ridiculous then to affirm the Platonists saw in one fashion the Peripateticks in another Some as I fear may be experienc'd in too many of our modern Scepticks are of this desperate and unreasonable opinion that we have no maxims evident by Nature but contradictories may be true at once the rest of Philosophers think otherwise yet we see in all natural and civil actions both sides proceed as if those maxims were evident and irresistable So likwise there is a wide distance betwixt these two questions what a man relys on for his assent of Faith what he says or thinks he relys on Look but among the Protestants or other Sectaries they are al taught to answer they rest wholly on the Bible the Bible for their Faith but nine parts of ten seek no farther then the Commands of their own Church that is all those who either cannot read or make it not their study to be cunning in the Scriptures or have so much modesty as to know themselvs unable to resolve those many intricate controverted points by the bare letter of the Text who perhaps are not the less numerous but certainly the more excusable part of Protestants Whence farther it is clear that to ask on what a private person grounds his belief and on what the Church is yet a more different question especially if you enquire into what he thinks the Church resolvs her faith For supposing the Church as to some verity should rely on Scripture or Councils a Divine may know the Church holds such a position and yet though of a just size of learning not know or at least not remember on what ground she maintains it and in that case no doubt but his faith stands on the same foundation with that of the Church yet he cannot perhaps suddenly tel whether it be resolved into Scripture or Councils To conclude therfore this demand whether Bellarmin himself rely'd on Tradition for all points has not the least resemblance with this other whether he thought the Church did so And to come yet closer to the question 't is evident every believer under that notion as a believer is unlearned and ignorant For as such he rests upon his teacher who in our present case is undoubtedly the Church as Catholick and Apostolick so far therfore the Collier and Bellarmin depend on the same Authority As for the other part of the interrogatory on what he thinks the Church rely's for her doctrin it may be enquir'd either in common or particular In common relating generally to the body and substance of Catholick doctrin there is no doubt among Catholicks but their reliance is upon Tradition this being the main profession of great and smal learned and unlearned that Christian Religion is and has been continued in our Church since the days of our Saviour the very same faith the Apostles taught all Nations and upon that score they receive it Speaking thus therfore no Catholick makes any scruple but Religion comes to him by Tradition There remains now only what learned men think concerning the ground wheron the Church rely's in some particular cases which we have already shewn concerns not their private belief as 't is the foundation of their spiritual life for so they rely on the Church and what the Church rely's on and by consequence it will prove but a matter of opinion in an unnecessary question belonging purely to Theology not Faith whatever is said in it Whence Divines in this may vary without any prejudice to the Church or salvation either in private or in order to Government seeing the main foundation is surely establisht that every believer as such rely's on the Church immediatly This difficulty therfore is so far resolv'd that it little imports what opinion Bellarmin or any other private Doctor holds in the point since it follows not that the Church or any particular member therof rely's on such a ground no not Bellarmin himself though he conceive in some points the Church rely's on Scripture or Councils But since St. Austin marches in the head of this Troop for defence of St. Cyprian let us proceed with more diligence and respect in reconciling the difficulty We are to remember 't is
charity grant among Jews it might have been done as not a few think the very Law was lost in the times of their wicked Kings or other oppressions what inference can they make against Christian Tradition Of Books of Scripture peradventure there was a time when some one or rather any one might have been lost because it was in few hands shall we therfore conclude the same possibility of suppression when we treat of Doctrins universally profest by so many Millions when we dispute of Practices every day frequented by the whole Church Stil ther 's one jarring string that grates my ears with its loud discord though the stroak come not from the hand of these objectors yet I wil endeavour to put it in tune Some sick heads roving up and down in their extravagant phansies wil needs entertain a wild conjecture that at first our Saviour was indeed stil'd God and though the learned who had the knack of distinguishing knew wel enough the inward meaning then signify'd only a most eminent aud god-like person yet the common People understanding their Preacher simply as the letter sounded came by degrees universally to believe his true and real divinity But with what ingenuity can such rambling wits think the chief Principle of Christianity should be so negligently taught or accuse so many holy Saints of those purest times to be such deceitful Teachers Besides did not their rashness blind them they would easily see the raising the Person of Christ from humane to divine would necessarily infer a notorious change in the solemn Prayers of the Church and daily devotion of the People which certainly would give so great a stroak to both it could not possibly be attempted either undiscern'd or unresisted Lastly the Christian Faith being delivered not in a set form of words but in sense a thousand ways explicated enforc'd according to the variety of occasions and capacity of the learners how can any ambiguity of phrase endanger them into a mistake who attend not so much to the dead letter as the quickning sense so variously exprest so often incultated to them by their masters THE FIFTEENTH ENCOUNTER Declaring the state of this Question Whether the Scripture can decide controversies THere remains yet a second part of our Apology for as this is the Catholicks principle to adhere to the authority of the Church that is to the living word written in their Breasts which governs all their actions relating to religion so on the other side whoever have at any time under the pretence of reformation oppos'd her Authority such have constantly rais'd up their Altar against Tradition upon the dead letter of the Scriptures Which as the Catholick Church highly reverences when they are animated by the interpretation of Tradition so by too much experience she knows they become a killing letter when abus'd against the Catholick sense in the mouths of the Devil and his Ministers But before we set our feet within the lists I am bound to take notice of an opposition no less common then slight and absurd and this it is When we retire to Tradition after both parties have lost their breath in beating the aerial outside of Scripture they presently cry out Cannot Aristotle cannot Plato make themselves be understood why then should not the Bible as wel determine Controversies If this were not after sixteen hundred years of experience after so much pains of our own since Luthers time idly cast away in tossing the windy balls of empty words without coming to resolution of any one point peradventure it were pardonable but now alas what can it be but an obstinate desire of darkness and a contempt of Gods Law and truth by a bold and irrational assertion and loud clamours to beat down the Catholick Church like Dametas in the Poem striking with both hands and his whole strength but winking all the while Let us therfore open our Eys and look thorow this objection Cannot Plato and Aristotle make themselvs be understood Yes but what then Ergo the Scripture can determine controversies The supposition wherin all venom ly's is conceal'd which thus I display As Aristotle wrote of Physicks and Metaphysicks so the Scripture was written of those controversies which since are risen among Christians But Plato and Aristotle can make themselvs be understood concerning those Sciences therfore the Scripture can do as much concerning these Controversies This ought to be the discourse But had it been cloth'd in so thin and transparent a dress the Authors would have blusht to thrust it into light For t is a most shameless Proposition to say the Scriptures were written of the Controversies long after their date sprung up in the Christian world Beginning from Genesis to the Apocalyps let them name one Book whose theme is any now-controverted Point betwixt Protestants and Catholiks T is true the intent and extrinfical end of writing St. Johns Gospel was to shew the Godhead of Christ which the Arians afterward deny'd but that is not so directly his theme as the miraculous life of our Saviour from whence the Divinity of his Person was to be deduc'd and yet the design so unsuccessful that never any Heresy was more powerful then that which oppos'd the truth intended by His Book But I suppose their reply wil be they purpose not to say the Scripture was written of our present controversies but of the precepts of good life and Articles of Faith necessary to them about which our controversies arise If this be their meaning their Assumption is as ridiculous as in the other their Major or chief Proposition For their argument must be framed thus As Scripture was written of the necessaries to good life so Aristotle and Plato of Physicks and Metaphysicks But Aristotle and Plato writ so plainly that all questions rising about their doctrin can be declared out of their words therfore all questions relating to good life may also be clear'd out of Scriptures Wherin the Minor is so ridiculous to any that have but open'd a Book of Philosophy that 't is enough not only to disanul the proof but discredit the Author And yet were it true the consequence would not hold For whoever considers what belongs to the explication of Authors knows there is a great advantage to discern the sense of those who proceed scientifically above the means to understand one that writes loose Sentences An Archimedes an Euclid a Vitruvius wil be of far easier interpretation where the Subject is of equal facility then a Theognis Phocyllides or Antoninus because the antecedents and consequents do for the most part force a sense on the middle propositions of themselvs ambiguous Now the works of Plato and Aristotle are generally penn'd though not always so rigorously yet stil with an approach to the Mathematical way The Scripture uses a quite different method delivering its precepts without connexion betwixt one another And though I deny not but peradventure the Articles of our belief have in themselvs as much
they do not somtimes explicate Scripture in a way equally obnoxious to the same exceptions I deny not but St. Hierom once surpriz'd by St. Austin in a weak explication upon a passage to the Galathians excuses himself by a confession that his memory being confused he had in that place mingled his own opinion with other mens without distinction But is it not an excellent piece of honesty out of one only particular defect of one Father to draw an imputation not upon him alone but on the whole Senate of Antiquity And yet this thread runs quite thorow this captious Objectors Book whose labour is out of a mole in her face to prove Venus was not fair Then he procesds to tax St. Ambrose and St. Hillary for borrowing doctrin of Origen without citing the original as if Virgil should have still named Homer in all the places wherin he imitated him or Torquato Tasso told his reader which Stanza's were his own invention which translated out of others His second discontent is that when a passage of Holy Scripture is acknowledg'd by the Fathers to be capable of divers interpretations yet they will presume to use that sense only which is convenient to their Auditory omitting the others which in those circumstances make nothing to their purpose The like distaste he takes against them when speaking of a Mystery that has two parts they do not still make mention of both as since Christ is God and Man he will by this rule be offended that a Father should stile him God without expressing in the same breath though altogether unnecessary to his Theam that he was Man as if we could not somtimes upon occasion omit what we never intend to deny but were still bound to clog our discours with all the jealous cautions of a Lawyers Indentures though indeed he seems only troubled when this happens concerning the blessed Sacrament for then it utterly disappoints the force of those Arguments he so highly esteems Nor does his peevishness stay at these smaller Peccadillo's but to fill up the measure of his anger and farther enforce the accusation he sees himself engag'd in his bold hand trembles not plainly to insinuate that the Fathers are in plain terms downright cheaters contriving these omissions and ambiguity's not by wisdom and pastoral prudence but by cunning and hypocritical policy with a malicious intention to delude their auditory But these are little familiar stroaks and kind expressions of his devotion and respect to the Fathers and the Church in whose communion they liv'd and Him in whose precious death both They and It are founded His last crimination confists meerly in a repetition of what we discuss'd in the former Chapter about the Fathers speeches ad hominem yet because he has a little changed his temper we must observe what he says First being in a kind humour he now imputes it only to excess of passion in the good old men as if the former had been out of malice which made them speak they knew not what wheras the Ages after them explicating such passages of their Predecessors attribute it to deep wisdom and solid learning Secondly he shews us out of St. Hierom how all Authors use two ways of disputing one direct and demonstrative or demonstration like another Topical and tentative but to what purpose more then to form an aery apprehension in the readers head of some strange fallacy's and abuses ordinarily practised by those ancient Maintainers of Christianity I understand not Yet there remains about two lines of Latin which his jugling art has obscur'd into a necessity of a short explication and they are that interdum coguntur loqui non quod sentiunt sed quod necesse est dicant contra ea quae dicunt gentiles which is as much as to say they are forc'd somtimes not to contradict the Gentils propositions that they may impugn them with better advantage As when they seem to admit the truth of some Oracles and apply their discourse only to shew how such extraordinary actions might be perform'd by the Devil wheras perhaps in their inward thoughts they believ'd there were really none true or if any that they were by Gods interposing his own power to the Gentils confusion as he did in the apparition of Samuel to Saul the Witch not being able to raise up souls by the single force of her charms One new demand he urges which seems and indeed is strangly impertinent Whether it be a part of our Faith to visit the Holy Land as if those words of St. Hierom adorâsse ubi steterunt pedes Domini pars fidei est signify'd truly that to exercise adoration were an Article of Faith then which what can be spoken more sencelesly wheras the true meaning is plain and obvious that t is a duty of Faith or an action proceeding from Faith or conformable to Faith in which sense 't is impossible to make any rational opposition against it I must not end without taking notice of a goodly piece of wit in mis-translating a passage of St. Hierom wh entreats his reader to judg his meaning out of his whole discours and non in uno atque eodem libro criminari me diversas sententias protulisse not to accuse me that I am of divers minds in the self-same Book which this good natur'd Interpreter explicates and not presently to accuse any Author of blockishness for having deliver'd in one and the same Book two contrary opinions Nevertheless himself has been I will not say so blockish for of that ther 's too little cause to suspect him but so slight and precipitate as to put the very Latin words in the Margin which is as neer as can be to contradict himself in the same breath In four ensuing Chapters he delivers us certain notes which are in substance true but bring not much obscurity or other disablement to the way of proving Religion by the writings of Fathers and if they did he and his new party remembring they wholly refuse the judgment of their Ancestors need not trouble themselvs but stand upon their exceptions and leave the Catholiks to make their arguments sound and free from all legitimate repuls For this is the law of Logick and reasoning that the Actor should have liberty to frame his opposition so it be according to the rules of discourse as himself thinks best With this caveat I might justly omit these four Chapters were it not that in his eighth he has a note of remark out of Tertullian as requiring only that the Rule of Faith continue in its proper form and order Caeterùm manente formâ ejus in suo ordine quantum libet quaeras tractes omnem libidinem curiositatis effundas to which he adds Ruffinus his Apology for Origen as of the same opinion and seems to take it for the practice of the present Church And truly I think with great reason For as far as I understand Religion Nothing makes an Heretick but to recede from