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 BR 1610 .T3 1836 
 Taylor, Jeremy 
 A discourse of the liberty 
 of prophesying 
 
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 A DISCOURSE 
 
 LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 THE UNREASONABLENESS OF PRESCRIBING 
 TO OTHER MENS FAITH ; 
 
 AND 
 
 THE INIQUITY OF PERSECUTING DIFFERING OPINIONS. 
 BY 
 
 JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 
 
 CHAPLAIN IN ORDINARY TO KING CHARLES THE FIRST, AND SOME TIME 
 LORD niSHOP OF DOWN AND CONNOR. 
 
 WITH 
 
 AN INTRODUCTORY ESSAY, 
 
 DY THE 
 
 REV. R. CATTERMOLE, B.D. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED AND PUBLISHBD BY 
 
 JOSEPH RICKERBY, SHERBOURN LANE, 
 
 (KING WILLIAM STREET.) 
 
 1836. 
 
INTROD 
 
 THBOLOGlCii 
 
 :0R¥^SSA5^^.r . 
 
 The measure of freedom enjoyed in a country will 
 always be in proportion to the diffusion of know- 
 ledge and virtue among the people. In the latter 
 ages, therefore, of the degenerate Roman empire, 
 over which the mists of ignorance were settling 
 with increasing density, and from which public 
 virtue had fled, all remains of liberty became ex- 
 tinct. It was only by the disruption and removal 
 of that gigantic despotism, and by the intro- 
 duction of governments, in its place, with institu- 
 tions which, though yet in all the rudeness of 
 infancy, were in their nature more favourable to 
 the development of the intellectual, and, in a still 
 higher degree, of the moral powers of man, that a 
 way could be prepared for the future admission of 
 every free agent to the full exercise of his natural 
 rights. To the gradual establishment of a national 
 choi'ch, and to the existence of a feudal nobility, in 
 each of the kingdoms formed by the Gothic and Cel- 
 tic races, we owe our present enjoyment of what we 
 Justly deem the birth-right of moral and civilized 
 human beings. Those ennobling sentiments which 
 
 .*;;^i,v.^-* 
 
 .^03 
 
 
X INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 
 
 were cultivated by that order of the community, 
 with whom alone the light of learning and science 
 remained, found their way by little and little into 
 the bosoms of a bolder and more active and power- 
 ful class. The improvement of the vassal popula- 
 tion, resulting from the humanizing influence of 
 the clergy and the nobles, was assisted by many 
 concurrent circumstances, such as the increase of 
 commerce, the rise of independent republics, and 
 the foundation of the great schools and universities. 
 As the number of those increased who rose to the 
 mental and moral dignity of free men, so did the 
 number of those who sought and acquired a share 
 of the rights of free men. These might be but ill 
 understood, and find as yet no clear expounders, 
 but they began at least to be practically vindicated. 
 The strong holds of arbitrary power were by de- 
 grees undermined, and limits to irresponsible au- 
 thority rose up in all directions; until, at length, 
 the grand and animating spectacle presented itself, 
 of a free and enlightened people, enjoying the 
 bounties of Providence, and cultivating the best 
 faculties of their being. Finally, law placed its 
 sanction upon what intelligence and virtue had 
 achieved ; and that freedom in which the existing 
 generation rejoiced, was secured by solemn enact- 
 ments to posterity. 
 
 Such was the progress of civil freedom, nor was 
 the growth of religious liberty the result of other 
 
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. XI 
 
 causes. In a country, where religion is purely a 
 political engine, as was the case in pagan Rome, tole- 
 ration is impossible, because under such circum- 
 stances treason and nonconformity are identical. 
 Notwithstanding the boasted indulgence of the em- 
 pire, in this respect, towards conquered nations, and 
 the ease with which the popular superstition sat upon 
 the powerful and intelligent classes, how far the 
 Romans were from allowing liberty of conscience, 
 sufficiently appears in the numerous and terrible 
 persecutions by which they strove to exterminate 
 the professors of that religion which even their 
 great men have branded as " a new and mischiev- 
 ous superstition." 
 
 As long as the Christian church continued un- 
 corrupted, the utmost forbearance and mildness 
 towards the professors of heretical opinions, con- 
 sistent with public order, appear to have prevailed. 
 With corruption came in persecution. The first 
 example of intolerance, on the part of Christians 
 towards each other, appeared in the distractions 
 occasioned by the followers of Arius, and by the 
 other powerful sects which rose about the same 
 time, or not long afterwards. But whatever seve- 
 rities were recommended and put in practice by 
 these schismatics, by the Iconoclasts, at a later 
 period, or by the church, in its angry endeavours 
 to crush the swarms of heresies by which its peace 
 was assailed, the rage of persecution among Chris- 
 
Xll INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 
 
 tians, in those early times, always stopped short of 
 the punishment of death. 
 
 That during the long interval from the seventh to 
 the thirteenth century, while, in the eastern empire, 
 religious disputes were carried on with the utmost 
 fierceness and cruelty, we find comparatively few 
 instances of extreme intolerance diplayed by the 
 church of Rome, may be accounted for without 
 supposing the prevalence of a spirit of Christian 
 forbearance, which is not to be met with even in 
 the history of far more enlightened periods. Such 
 were the power of the popedom and the feebleness 
 and infrequency of resistance to its dictates, that 
 we need not wonder if the successors of St. Peter 
 were not often to be roused from the slumbers of 
 sensual enjoyment, or withdrawn from the pursuits 
 of ambition, and the contest with kings and em- 
 perors for temporal dominion, by controversies 
 about doctrines, with obscure and unheeded specu- 
 latists. It was not till more decided indications of 
 returning intellectual light presaged danger to the 
 existence of that usurped ecclesiastical tyranny, that 
 it thought proper to put forth its energies for the 
 destruction of those whom it regarded as heretics. 
 Scotus Erigena in the ninth century, and Berenga- 
 rius in the eleventh, if not suffered to escape un- 
 injured, were at least permitted to live, though 
 chargeable with as bold invasions of the domains 
 of established corruption, as those which, at a later 
 day, were the excuse for deluging the valleys of the 
 
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. Xlll 
 
 Alps with the blood of the Vaudois, and crowding 
 the statute-books of England with cruel and san- 
 guinary laws, — which filled our dungeons with the 
 persecuted followers of WiclifFe, and strewed Smith- 
 field with the ashes of the martyrs. 
 
 It is a favourite but iniquitous proceeding of 
 party writers, when it is their object to blacken the 
 memory of those who maintained opinions adverse 
 to their own, to charge upon individuals the 
 faults and failings which they partook, and could 
 not but partake, in common with their age. True 
 it is, that it never occurred to the first reformers to 
 generalize upon the subject of a free choice in reli- 
 gion ; most surprising would the fact have been if 
 it had. This was left for a subsequent generation ; 
 it could not have been expected of them, nor was 
 it consistent with the part assigned them. While 
 we duly reverence those venerable men, we deem 
 it no disparagement to them, as partakers of the 
 imperfections of humanity, to say, that had they 
 had leisure to do so — had they contended ex- 
 pressly for a general principle, rather than for a 
 direct personal claim, their efforts would in all 
 probability have proved far less vigorous and 
 effectual. But, in truth, the general principle was 
 implied in the fact of the deliverance of themselves 
 and their country, on the ground of right, from the 
 oppressive tyranny of Rome. The stride that was 
 made towards universal freedom of conscience by 
 
XIV TMRODUCTORY ESSAY. 
 
 Cranmer, and the great and good men who were 
 associated with him, was actually larger than the 
 state of knowledge and morality among the people 
 could bear. If they are not to be compared for 
 a wise liberality, on this point, with the authors 
 and legislators of the eighteenth century, yet in 
 how brilliant relief do their sentiments as well as 
 their conduct stand out, in the light of humanity 
 and tolerance, when we compare them with their op- 
 ponents, even of the same period — when we place 
 Kidley, Cranmer, and Hooper by the side, not of 
 the bitter persecutors Gardiner and Bonner, but of 
 the learned Warham, the accomplished Tonstal, and 
 the gifted Sir Thomas More. Public opinion after- 
 wards followed, longo sed intervaUo. Little would 
 the people have prized or understood an enlarged 
 sytem of toleration, who, still stumbling in all the 
 blindness of inveterate popery, flung back with 
 brutal contempt in the faces of the reformers, the 
 inestimable boon they had secured for them, and 
 more than once rushed into rebellion in favour of 
 an unmitigated return to the oppressions and the 
 mummeries that had beguiled their forefathers — to 
 masses, pilgrimages, prayers in an unknown tongue, 
 and the use of images. Hence the majority hailed 
 with delight the national relapse into all the mise- 
 ries of the worst times of popery, in Mary's reign. 
 
 The lapse of a century of strife between the church 
 of England and the parties who now — whether in 
 
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. XV 
 
 consequence of men's natural unreasonableness and 
 discontent with the good they possess, or of the im- 
 perfect state in which the work of reformation had 
 been left, — rose into opposition to her doctrines, dis- 
 cipline, and immunities, was necessary to prepare 
 the national mind for the effectual agitation of this 
 great question. If the church, in the prosperous days 
 of Elizabeth and James, maintained her prerogatives 
 against the Puritans with the severity of a parent 
 assailed by the unreasonable clamours of rebellious 
 children, these latter, however bitterly they com- 
 plained of the hardship of their own position, never 
 denied, upon general principles, the right of the 
 former to persecute ; ' their ardour for toleration 
 was nothing more than impatience of individual 
 suffering.' In the multiplication of sects that took 
 place during the latter part of that period, and in 
 the reign of the unhappy Charles, the animosity of 
 each towards every other, equalled that which all 
 in common bore towards the establishment. Each 
 strove for the supremacy of its own opinions — 
 none for an equal charitable tolerance of all specu- 
 lative tenets alike ; and when the most numerous 
 and powerful of the religious factions opposed to 
 the Church of England, at last obtained the ascen- 
 dancy, its members proved too clearly by their 
 arrogance and persecuting spirit how little effect 
 calamity, which softens and corrects the passions of 
 indiyiduals, has in diminishing the hatreds and 
 
XVI INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 
 
 smoothing the asperities of sects and parties. Still 
 the anarchy of the latter years of King Charles, 
 was the chaos in which the light of religious liberty 
 was engendered. Here and there a calmer and 
 wiser spirit began to perceive, that the only pros- 
 pect of peace lay in the possibility of persuading 
 each to relincjuish some portion of its individual 
 claims, in favour of the \^hole. Several smaller 
 publications, setting forth the justice and advan- 
 tages of this scheme, had already emanated from 
 different quarters, (and especially from among the 
 followers of Robert Brown,) when the church, now 
 the victim of those severities which in her hour 
 of prosperity she, it must be confessed, had not 
 scrupled to exercise, and more susceptible, as it 
 seems, of the lessons of adversity, than some of 
 those communities who had felt it longer, raised a 
 decisive and majestic voice in the great cause of 
 religious toleration. 
 
 The celebrated treatise on the Liberty of 
 Prophesying, is scarcely more valuable for the 
 consummate ability w^th which it handles this im- 
 portant subject, than it is interesting for the imme- 
 diate circumstances under which it w^as produced, 
 and striking as the production of the friend of Laud, 
 and the favourite chaplain of the unfortunate 
 Charles. The learning and genius of Taylor ob- 
 tained for him, about the year 1633, soon after he 
 had taken his degree of M. A. at Cambridge, the 
 
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. XVU 
 
 favourable notice of that primate, to whom the 
 bitterest enemies of his person and his memory 
 could never refuse the praise of an accurate dis- 
 cerner of merit, and a munificent patron of learn- 
 ing. Discovering- in the youthful divine talents 
 capable of raising him above the sphere of a mere 
 preacher, however popular or useful Laud > re- 
 moved him to Oxford, and placed him in Univer- 
 sity College, in order that he might carry on and 
 complete his studies without interruption. Of this 
 society he became a fellow, in the year 1636. In 
 the great national struggle which followed, Taylor 
 attached himself devotedly, from taste and princi- 
 ple as well as gratitude and regard, to the cause of 
 the monarchy and the hierarchy. He was among 
 the first to join the king at Oxford; he aftervrards 
 attended the royal army in his capacity as chap- 
 lain ; and on the final ruin of the king's cause, he 
 shared in the calamities which now fell upon the 
 loyal part of the nation. 
 
 Deprived of his preferment, he retired into 
 Wales, and having no other resource, engaged, for 
 the support of his family, in the irksome labours 
 of a school, at a place called Newton Hall, in 
 Carmarthenshire. The remoteness of his retreat, 
 however, did not screen him from molestation : he 
 was several times imprisoned, and only released 
 through the generous exertions of his friends, and 
 by the connivance of some persons of influence 
 
XVlll INTRODUCTORY ESSAY, 
 
 among' the ruling party. "But that he" (writes 
 the eloquent divine, in the Epistle Dedicatory, 
 originally prefixed to the present Treatise*) '' who 
 stilleth the raging of the sea, and the noise of his 
 waves, and the madness of his people, had pro- 
 vided a plank for me, I had been lost to all the 
 opportunities of content or study. But I know not 
 whether I have been more preserved by the courte- 
 sies of my friends, or the gentleness and mercies of 
 a noble enemy." Who the noble enemy alluded 
 to was, is not known ; but the friends who chiefly 
 consoled the period of his adversity — and he had 
 domestic sorrows to distress him, besides the loss 
 of property and preferment — were the Earl of 
 Carbery and his lady, whose residence was at 
 Golden Grove, in Taylor's neighbourhood. In the 
 bosom of this family he continued for many years 
 to enjoy the delights of friendship, and the com- 
 fort of administering the rites of religion, according 
 to the proscribed forms of the national church ; it 
 was here also that many of his most admirable 
 works were composed, particularly the Life of 
 Christ, the most popular, and, in many respects, 
 
 * As this Dedication is very long, and consists chiefly of a 
 recapitulation of the arguments brought forward in the Treatise 
 itself, it has been deemed consistent with the design of the pre- 
 sent publication to omit it. Some of the facts adduced in it, 
 however, have been transferred to the present essay, and several 
 of the most interesting passages preserved to the reader in the 
 quotations. 
 
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. XIX 
 
 the noblest of his writings, the Holy Living and 
 Dying, and the greater part of his Sermons. It 
 was, however, in all the freshness of recent afflic- 
 tion, while poverty and apprehension reigned 
 within his household, and the crash of the falling 
 throne and broken altar was loud without, deprived 
 of books and leisure, that the work was written, 
 of the design of which it now remains to give 
 some account — a work truly wonderful, as having 
 received its birth under such untoward circum- 
 stances, and which demonstrates how little was 
 required by its accomplished author for the pro- 
 duction of the noblest results of literary exertion, 
 besides his own powerful intellect, and the un- 
 rivalled stores of secular and ecclesiastical learn- 
 ing with which his memory was furnished. 
 
 The general principle advanced in the Liberty 
 OF Prophesying, is this : that as truth on all 
 minor dogmas of religion is uncertain, and of 
 small moment in its bearings upon the conduct of 
 men, while peace and charity are things of un- 
 doubted certainty and importance, our desire to 
 obtain the former ought to yield to the necessity of 
 securing the latter; and every one, for the good of 
 the community at large, ought to tolerate the dif- 
 ferences of all others, while in turn he receives 
 toleration for his own. But as it is indispensable 
 somewhere to draw the line — as some standard of 
 truth must be acknowledged, unless men were to 
 
XX INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 
 
 rush into boundless anarchy, or sink into mere 
 indifference, of opinion, he proposes the confession 
 of the apostles' creed, as the test of orthodoxy, 
 and condition of union and communion among 
 Christians. 
 
 A test so liberal and comjorehensive, though we 
 might not jDerhaps have expected to meet with its 
 advocate in one conversant in that sphere of arbi- 
 trary prerogative, to which the author had so long 
 been attached, was worthy of the pure and bene- 
 volent nature of Jeremy Taylor, and naturally 
 enough suggested by the peculiar circumstances 
 under which this splendid treatise was composed : 
 that Taylor's mind was utterly averse from all 
 harshness in the exercise of authority — that his 
 temper was not only tolerant but tender towards 
 all men, is sufficiently apparent to all who are in 
 any degree acquainted with his moral and prac- 
 tical writings ; yet, had he still continued the ad- 
 mired orator of an arbitrary court, and the caressed 
 favourite of a prelate, whom the coarse irritations 
 of factious religionists, as much as his own disposi- 
 tion and principles, hurried into harsh and cruel 
 measures, it is little likely the world had ever 
 beheld the Liberty of Prophesying. From the 
 melancholy experience of the past, the present 
 miserable wreck of all which he regarded as most 
 dear and venerable, and the gloomy uncertainty 
 which overhung the future, he sought refuge in the 
 
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. XXI 
 
 depths of his own generous pity for the weaknesses, 
 and errors, and in his respect for the rights, of his 
 fellow-citizens. "I was determined," he says, '^by 
 the consideration of the present distemperatures 
 and necessities, by my own thoughts, by the c[ues- 
 tions and scruples, the sects and names, the inter- 
 ests and animosities which at this day, and for 
 some years past, have exercised and disquieted 
 Christendom ; — being very much displeased that so 
 many opinions and new doctrines are commenced 
 among us, but more troubled that every man that 
 hath an opinion, thinks his own and other men's sal- 
 vation is concerned in its maintenance, but most of 
 all that men should be persecuted and afflicted for 
 disagreeing in such opinions which they cannot 
 with sufficient grounds obtrude upon others neces- 
 sarily, because they cannot propound them infal- 
 libly, and have no warrant of Scripture to do so.'' 
 
 The person of the king had now been transferred 
 from the custody of the parliamentary commis- 
 sioners to that of Cromwell and the army — from 
 the hands, that is to say, of the most, to those of 
 the least intolerant, of the great sectarian jjarties ; 
 and he was accordingly treated with more indul- 
 gence and respect. The author of the Liberty 
 OF Prophesying, therefore, may have cherished a 
 hope of promoting an accommodation between 
 the captive sovereign and his victorious subjects, 
 which, however slender, sufficed to rouse the zeal 
 of a mind equally imbued with loyalty to his king 
 
 c 
 
XXll INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 
 
 and regard for the happiness of his fellow-subjects. 
 Taylor's experience of the temper of the parties 
 must indeed have forbidden the indulgence of any 
 very sanguine expectation, as to the effect of his 
 arguments in softening their mutual animosities 
 and dislikes. On the part of the king, scarcely 
 any thing remained to be conceded ; while, had 
 further concession been in his power, such a rooted 
 opinion prevailed of Charles's insincerity in his 
 engagements, as must have rendered a cordial 
 reconciliation impossible. On the other hand, the 
 arrogance of the Presbyterians, and the extent of 
 their demands, had increased in proportion to their 
 success ; nor did the indignation with which they 
 reo^arded the host of wild sects, which, encourao^ed 
 by their example, had now grown to be thorns in 
 their sides, divert any portion of their settled hatred 
 from the royalists and episcopalians. The fluc- 
 tuations of Taylor's own mind, between his earnest 
 desire to do something towards promoting the 
 peace of the king and the safety of the country, 
 and the fears he could not conceal, lest the mild 
 arguments of enlightened moderation should be 
 utterly thrown away amid the raging factions of 
 the time, are thus powerfully expressed in the 
 Dedication already quoted : " However," says he, 
 " there are some exterminating spirits who think 
 God to delight in human sacrifices, — yet if they 
 were capable of cool and tame homilies, or would 
 hear men of other opinions give a quiet account 
 
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. XXUl 
 
 without invincible resolutions never to alter their 
 persuasions, I am very much persuaded it would 
 not be very hard to dispute such men into mercies, 
 and compliances, and tolerations mutual ; such, I 
 say, who are zealous for Jesus Christ ; than whose 
 doctrine never was any thing more merciful and 
 humane, whose lessons were softer than nard, or 
 the juice of theCandian olive. Upon the first appre- 
 hension, I designed a discourse to this purpose, 
 with as much greediness as if I had thought it pos- 
 sible with my arguments to have persuaded the 
 rough and hard-handed soldiers to have disbanded 
 presently ; for I had often thought of the prophecy, 
 that, in the Gospel, Our swords shall he turned into 
 ploughshares, and our spears into pruning-hooks ; I 
 knew that no tittle spoken by God's Spirit could re- 
 turn unperformed and ineffectual, and I was cer- 
 tain, that such was the excellency of Christ's doc- 
 trine, that if men would obey it Christians should 
 never war one against another. In the mean time, 
 I considered not, that it was predictio concilii, non 
 eventus, till T saw what men were now doing, and 
 ever had done, since the heats and primitive fer- 
 vours did cool, and the love of interests swelled 
 higher than the love of Christianity ; but then on 
 the other side, I began to fear that whatever I could 
 say would be as ineffectual as it would be unrea- 
 sonable ; for if those excellent words which our 
 blessed Master spake, could not charm the tumult 
 of our spirits, I had little reason to hope that one 
 
 c 2 
 
XXIV INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 
 
 of the meanest and most ignorant of bis servants 
 could advance the end of that which he calls his 
 great, and his old, and his new commandment, 
 so well as the excellency of his own Spirit and dis- 
 courses could. And yet since He who knew every 
 event of things, and the success and efficacy of 
 every doctrine, and that very much of it to most 
 men and all of it to some men w ould be ineffec- 
 tual, yet was pleased to consign our duty that it 
 might be a direction to them that would, and a con- 
 viction and testimony against them that w^ould not 
 obey, I thought it might not misbecome my duty 
 and endeavours, to plead for peace, and charity, 
 and forgiveness, and permissions mutual, although 
 I had reason to believe that such is the iniquity of 
 men, and they so indisposed to receive such im- 
 presses, that T had as good plough the sands or till 
 the air, as persuade such doctrines, which destroy 
 men's interests, and serve no end but the great end 
 of a happy eternity and w hat is in order to it. But 
 because the events of things are in God's disposi- 
 tion, and I knew them not; and because, if I had 
 known my good purposes would be totally ineffec- 
 tual as to others, yet my own designation and pur- 
 poses would be of advantage to myself, w^ho might 
 from God's mercy expect the retribution which he is 
 pleased to promise to all pious intendments ; I re- 
 solved to encounter with all objections." 
 
 To us it appears from the general tone of this 
 great work, that although its gifted author was will- 
 
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. XXV 
 
 ing to take advantage of the least chance that re- 
 mained of bringing back the minds of the leading 
 persons, on all sides, to a friendly and charitable 
 temper, yet his real hope of a termination to the suf- 
 ferings and distractions which the nation laboured 
 under, rather reposed upon the good sense and right 
 feeling of the people, generally; and that to them 
 it is therefore to be regarded as mainly addressed. 
 Those religious disputes, which had nearly brought 
 the country to the brink of ruin, had no reference to 
 matters essential to salvation, but were confined to 
 points indifferent or of secondary moment. " For 
 my own particular," he exclaims, " I cannot but 
 expect, that God in his justice should enlarge the 
 bounds of the Turkish empire, or some other way 
 punish Christians, by reason of their pertinacious 
 disputing about things unnecessary, undetermin- 
 able, and unprofitable, and for their hating and 
 persecuting their brethren, which should be as dear 
 to them as their own lives, for not consenting to one 
 another's follies and senseless vanities. And in these 
 trifles and impertinences men are curiously busy, 
 while they neglect those glorious precepts of Chris- 
 tianity and holy life, which are the glories of our 
 religion, and would enable us to a happy eternity." 
 The impropriety of such disputes therefore, and 
 the necessity of mutual forbearance in regard to 
 the points in question, it is his object to make appa- 
 rent, not only by proving their general uncertainty, 
 as compared with those essential articles of the faith 
 
XXVi INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 
 
 in which all Christians are agreed, but further by 
 showing at length the utter fallibility and incom- 
 petence of the means by which men arrive at their 
 so confident conclusions, and the authorities to 
 which they ajDpeal with so much boldness. He 
 alleges the difficulty of expounding Scripture in 
 regard to speculative points, — the uncertainty of 
 traditions, — the fallibility of popes, councils, fathers, 
 and even of the church in its diffusive capacity, as 
 being all liable to those innumerable causes of error 
 and mistake, to which the human mind is ever 
 exposed, — the innocency of theoretical error and 
 invincible ignorance, — the force of inveterate pre- 
 judice, and the almost equal liability of all men 
 alike, not excepting the wisest and the best, to be 
 mistaken, — as grounds and incentives to general 
 charity towards others, and motives to humility in 
 each man's estimate of his own opinions; while 
 yet the work cannot in general be fairly charged 
 with any tendency to extenuate the criminality or 
 danger of such dogmas, justly branded with the 
 mark of heresy, as are subversive of morality in in- 
 dividuals, and of the good order of society. 
 
 Though accomplished, even beyond his contem- 
 poraries, in an age abounding in learned theolo- 
 gians, in the use of every weapon of polemical 
 warfare, the mind of Jeremy Taylor w as not formed 
 for controversy ; and when he engaged in it, it was 
 never for the triumph of an opinion, but for the 
 extension of truth and the promotion of godliness. 
 
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. XXVll 
 
 Nevertheless, ennobled as every subject was to his 
 conception by the grand general views which his 
 heavenward eye, even in the midst of discussions 
 on inferior questions, ceased not to rest upon, he 
 is seen to most advantage in those works where the 
 wealth of his most affectionate heart, and the im- 
 passioned sublimity of his imagination, could be 
 fully displayed. The reader who would become 
 acquainted with what this celebrated writer truly 
 was, as well as he who would seek from his works 
 the highest profit which can he derived from the 
 study of the uninspired labours of the human 
 mind, must pass unread the Ductor Dubitantium, — 
 though the favourite of its author himself, — and 
 hasten through the pages even of the Liberty 
 OF Prophesying, in order to luxuriate amid the 
 holy thoughts and glowing imagery, which abound 
 in his devotional and moral writings — in the Great 
 Exemplar, or Life of Christ — the Holy Living 
 and Dying, and his truly wonderful Sermons. 
 As far, however, as the nature of the following work 
 admitted the peculiar endowments of the author 
 to appear, they will in every page be recognised. 
 Its various and minute learning, its logical pre- 
 cision, the majestic march of its eloquent lan- 
 guage, but especially its unequalled tone of mode- 
 ration and candour, present a combination, which, 
 together with the ever fresh interest of the subject, 
 enables it to maintain its place, notwithstanding 
 the celebrity of some others, and especially of that 
 
XXVIU INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 
 
 of Locke, as the most distinguished treatise on Re- 
 ligious Liberty in our language. 
 
 While, however, we glory in the perfect can- 
 dour and Christian mildness which appear in 
 the following pages, as being truly in the spirit 
 of the best times of that church of which its author 
 is so remarkable an ornament, we feel that it would 
 scarcely become us, on presenting our countrymen 
 with an edition intended for the widest and most 
 general circulation, to forbear pointing out one or 
 two instances in which the singular goodness of 
 his heart and his extreme desire of peace are 
 thought to have carried him somewhat too far. In 
 his observations, here and elsewhere, on the peculiar 
 tenets of the church of Rome, there is nothing to dis- 
 approve : they exhibit the principles of our reform- 
 ers, softened and mellowed by time and those reviv- 
 ing charities which would naturally reappear, when 
 all occasions for irritating collision between the two 
 churches were removed. That he was less judi- 
 cious in his laboured apology for the principles 
 then professed by the Anabaptists, we have his own 
 acknowledgement, in the fact that he afterwards 
 wrote a tract to explain himself more at large 
 on this head, in consequence of the offence taken 
 at the laxity of his language. This was added 
 to the subsequent editions of the work;^- it was 
 
 * This addition is not reprinted in the present volume, from 
 a wish to avoid exhausting the attention of the general reader, 
 by unnecessarily confining it, through so many pages, to the 
 minute details of a question of no great interest m our times. 
 
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. XXIX 
 
 followed likewise by a treatise in favour of in- 
 fant baptism, a further qualification of the cele- 
 brated nineteenth section, afterwards incorporated 
 into the Great Exemplar, of which beautiful work 
 it forms the sixth discourse. Perhaps we may also 
 venture to add, that less indulgence would have been 
 shown towards those opinions, the origin of which 
 may be traced to the heresy of Arius, had the ex- 
 cellent writer lived to see the period when the doc- 
 trines to which we allude, at that time scarcely 
 acknowledged by a small and obscure party, came 
 to be received with favour in the high places of the 
 church. 
 
 It has been brought as a charge against Taylor, 
 in relation to the argument of this work, that he 
 bases his scheme of toleration on the weaknesses of 
 mankind, which present a moral claim to tender- 
 ness and indulgence, rather than on the indefea- 
 sible right of every human being to the free exercise 
 of his own thoughts and opinions. The diflference 
 results more from different views of men's capa- 
 cities to enjoy freedom, the consequence perhaps of 
 more or less experience of human life, than from 
 any want of sympathy with their just claims, on 
 the part of those who adopt the former method. 
 That the soul of Taylor took a generous interest in 
 every noble struggle of humanity, and responded 
 to every sentiment inspired by the love of justice, 
 will scarcely be called in question by any one fami- 
 liar with his various writings of an ethical and 
 
XXX INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 
 
 practical character. But there was, in his days, 
 no need of the voice of such an advocate to swell 
 the clamorous cry for immunities, which every man 
 eagerly demanded for himself, and as eagerly de- 
 nied to his neighbour. He had had a long and 
 painful experience, how little individual impa- 
 tience of restraint tended to secure equal tolera- 
 tion for all ; and it was natural that in seeking that 
 object he should follow an opposite course. Be- 
 sides, the extent of natural right must ever be 
 matter of debate and uncertainty, and its asser- 
 tion liable to dangerous abuse, whereas it is evident 
 to all that the limits of charity towards our bre- 
 thren cannot be pushed too far, and that the freest 
 use of it is consistent with the safety of all parties. 
 Again, the claim of right can be a ground, at 
 best, only for negative toleration ; it vindicates the 
 liberty of the individual, but provides him with no 
 sphere for its exercise ; the toleration, on the con- 
 trary, contemplated in the subjoined treatise, is 
 positive and active. Its author recommends some- 
 thing more than a strenuous assertion of our own 
 freedom, with merely a cold acquiescence in that 
 of others : he proposes the practice of the greater, 
 as best securing the less — that opposing parties 
 should not only refrain from interfering with each 
 other, but should mutually hold forth the right 
 hand of fellowship, and, though differing invin- 
 cibly on speculative articles, should communicate 
 in the profession of the same essentials, and in 
 
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. XXXI 
 
 the reciprocation of all the brotherly and becoming 
 charities of life. 
 
 In his seclusion at Golden Grove, or in its neigh- 
 bourhood, Taylor continued to reside until the 
 year 1658, when, at the earnest instance of his 
 friends, he removed to Lisburn, near Portmore, 
 the seat of the Earl of Conway, in the north of 
 Ireland, where he accepted a lectureship under the 
 patronage of that nobleman. At the period of the 
 Restoration, he chanced to be in London ; and 
 thus, as one of the tried and valuable friends of 
 monarchical and episcopal government, he imme- 
 diately fell under the favourable notice of the King, 
 and was shortly after nominated to the bishopric of 
 Down and Connor, to which the small adjacent 
 see of Dromore was subsequently added. It was 
 fortunate for Bishop Taylor's peace, though not for 
 the church's advantage, that the remoteness of his 
 dioceses placed him far from the sphere of the 
 profligate court of the second Charles, and se- 
 cured him from any share in the public measures 
 of his reign. This was one of the few periods — 
 and the last — over which the filial admirers of the 
 Church of England may desire to draw a veil. The 
 age of the cruel persecutions in Scotland, and 
 of the perfidious severities practised towards the 
 nonconformists at home, — when the Church of 
 England stooped to copy, against the Presbyterians, 
 the worst parts of their own intolerant conduct, 
 when the door of reconciliation was closed in the 
 
XXXll IxNTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 
 
 wantonness of power, and the foundations of mo- 
 dern dissent laid upon an ever-widening basis, — 
 presents a spectacle, to which we still revert with 
 sorrow not unmixed with shame. What, then, 
 must have been the pain with which it was con- 
 templated, at the time, by the zealous advocate 
 of fraternal and enlightened toleration ? He found 
 his consolation, we may hope, in the careful 
 discbarge of his episcopal functions, in occasion- 
 ally adding to the list of his invaluable writings, 
 in the employments of a devotion as impassioned 
 and seraphic, as is consistent with the salutary 
 equilibrium of the faculties of the human mind, 
 and, doubtless, in the reflection, which must ever 
 attend the authors of those distinguished works of 
 genius, whose object is the promotion of God's 
 glory and the honour and welfare of his creatures, 
 that though the work through which, in the prime 
 of his mature faculties, he had endeavoured to 
 instil into his divided country the wisdom of for- 
 bearance and Christian love, had as yet produced 
 no visible fruits, it had not been " cast upon the 
 waters" in vain; but would in due time be found, 
 though *' after many days," to have been concur- 
 ring with other causes to secure for posterity the 
 permanent blessings of religious peace. 
 
 We have alluded with all plainness to the errors 
 of the governors of our church, in periods when 
 exemption from such errors was not the rule, even 
 among Protestants, but the singular exception ; 
 
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. XXXlll 
 
 and thus, as her fearless and affectionate children, 
 we feel we maybe allowed to speak. For, (to adopt 
 the language of a contemporary writer,) ''why 
 should a clergyman of the present day feel inte- 
 rested in their defence ? Surely it is sufficient for 
 the warmest partisan of our establishment, that he 
 can assert with truth, — when our church persecuted, 
 it was on mistaken principles held in common by 
 all Christendom. We can say, that our church, 
 apostolical in its faith, primitive in its ceremonies, 
 unequalled in its liturgical forms ; that our church, 
 which has kindled and displayed more bright and 
 burning lights of genius and learning, than all other 
 Protestant churches since the Reformation, w^as 
 least intolerant, when all Christians unhappily 
 deemed a species of intolerance their religious 
 duty; that bishops of our church were among the 
 first that contended against this error; and finally, 
 that since the Revolution, when tolerance became 
 general, the Church of England in a tolerating age, 
 has shown herself eminently tolerant." 
 
 It is not long since we witnessed the erasure from 
 our statute-books of the only remaining acts of the 
 legislature which could be regarded as restraints 
 upon the most perfect liberty of conscience; and cor- 
 dially shall we, for our part, rejoice in their removal, 
 should the event prove, that sufficient care has been 
 taken for the preservation of that venerable estab- 
 lishment, in which the deeply reflective writer just 
 cited, " sees," he tells us, " the greatest, if not the 
 
XXXIV INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 
 
 sole safe bulwark of toleration," We cannot, how- 
 ever, shut our eyes to the fact of danger to be 
 apprehended from the existence, in our times, — 
 not indeed of a sect or party, but — of a multitude 
 of persons, whose declared opinions place them 
 beyond the pale of all parties and sects alike, who 
 wilfully mistake for toleration, a licence to overleap 
 and lay waste all the defences of the public faith. Yet 
 even here we are willing rather to hail a motive to 
 exertion, than to acknowledge a ground of dis- 
 couragement ; inasmuch as out of even this perni- 
 cious error we look to find the beneficent hand of the 
 Supreme Ruler of events extracting good : for his 
 Providence has supplied the means of cure in the 
 very excess of the evil, which in hurting some, 
 oflfending and rousing many, and endangering the 
 comfort of all, will be the means of bringing men 
 back to reflection, and thence to a peaceable sub- 
 mission to such sober and reasonable regulations 
 for securing the full efl'ect of Christianity upon this 
 great nation, as will be found equally conducive to 
 the welfare of the individual, and to the progres- 
 sive improvement of the human race. 
 
 R. C. 
 
 London, December, 1833. 
 
A DISCOURSE 
 
 LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
INTRODUCTION.— Page 1. 
 
 SECTION I.— Page?. 
 
 Nature of Faith. 
 
 SECTION II.- Page 25. 
 
 Of Heresy and the nature of it, and that it is to be accounted 
 according to the strict capacity of Christian faith, and not in 
 opinions speculative ; nor ever to pious persons. 
 
 SECTION III.— Page 81. 
 
 Of the difficulty and uncertainty of arguments from Scrip- 
 ture, in questions not simply necessary, not literally determined. 
 
 SECTION IV.— Page 101. 
 
 Of the difficulty of expounding Scripture. 
 
 SECTION v.— Page 115. 
 
 Of the insufficiency and uncertainty of Tradition to expound 
 Scripture, or detennine Questions. 
 
 SECTION VI.— Page 141. 
 
 Of the uncertainty and insufficiency of Councils Ecclesiastical 
 to the same purpose. 
 
XXXVIU CONTENTS. 
 
 SECTION VII.— Page 175. 
 
 Of the fallibility of the Pope, and the uncertainty of his ex- 
 pounding Scripture, and resolving Questions. 
 
 SECTION VIII.— Page 213. 
 
 Of the disability of Fathers or "Writers Ecclesiastical, to 
 determine our Questions with certainty and truth. 
 
 SECTION IX.~Page229. 
 
 Of the incompetency of the Church in its diffusive capacity 
 to be judge of Controversies, and the impertinency of that pre- 
 tence of the Spirit. 
 
 SECTION X.— Page 234. 
 
 Of the authority of Reason, and that it proceeding upon best 
 grounds is the best judge. 
 
 SECTION XL— Page 243. 
 
 Of some causes of error in the exercise of Reason which are 
 exculpate in themselves. 
 
 SECTION XIL— Page 262. 
 Of the irmocency of error in opinion, in a pious Person. 
 
 SECTION XIII.— Page 270. 
 
 Of the deportment to be used towards Persons disagreeing, 
 and the reasons why they are not to be punished with 
 death, &c. 
 
 SECTION XIV.— Page 289. 
 
 Of the practice of Christian Churches towards persons dis- 
 agreeing, and when Persecution first came in. 
 
CONTENTS. XXXix 
 
 SECTION XV.— Page 300. 
 
 How far the Church or Governors may act to the restraimng 
 false or differing opinions. 
 
 SECTION XVI.— Page 304. 
 
 Whether it be lawful for a Prince to give Toleration to several 
 Religions. 
 
 SECTION XVII.— Page 310. 
 
 Of Compliance with disagreeing Persons, or weak consciences 
 in general. 
 
 SECTION XVIII.— Page 316. 
 
 A particular consideration of the opinions of the Anabaptists. 
 
 SECTION XIX.— Page 349. 
 
 That there may be no Toleration of Doctrines inconsistent 
 with Piety or the public good. 
 
 SECTION XX.— Page 353. 
 
 How far the Religion of the Church of Rome is tolerable. 
 
 SECTION XXL— Page 370. 
 Of the Duty of particular Churches in allowing Communion. 
 
 SECTION XXII.— Page 373. 
 
 That particular men may communicate with Churches of 
 different persuasions, and how far they may do it. 
 
 d2 
 
THE 
 
 LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The infinite variety of opinions in matters of reli- 
 gion, as they have troubled Christendom with inte- 
 rests, factions, and partialities, so have they caused 
 great divisions of the heart, and variety of thoughts 
 and designs amongst pious and prudent men. For 
 they all, seeing the inconveniences which the dis- 
 union of persuasions and opinions have produced 
 directly or accidentally, have thought themselves 
 obliged to stop this inundation of mischiefs, and 
 have made attempts accordingly. But it hath hap- 
 pened to most of them as to a mistaken physician, 
 who gives excellent physic but misapplies it, and 
 so misses of his cure. So have these men : their at- 
 tempts have there fore, been ineffectual; for they 
 put their help to a wrong part, or they have endea- 
 voured to cure the symptoms, and have let the dis- 
 ease alone till it seemed incurable. Some have 
 endeavoured to reunite these fractions, by pro- 
 pounding such a guide which they were all bound 
 
 B 
 
2 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 to follow ; hoping that the unity of a guide would 
 have persuaded unity of minds ; but who this guide 
 should be, at last became such a question, that it 
 was made part of the fire that was to be quenched, 
 so far was it from extinquishing any part of the 
 flame. Others thought of a rule, and this must be 
 the means of union, or nothing could do it. But 
 supposing all the world had been agreed of this 
 rule, yet the interpretation of it was so full of va- 
 riety that this also became part of the disease for 
 which the cure was pretended. All men resolved 
 upon this, that though they yet had not hit upon 
 the right, yet some way must be thought upon to 
 reconcile differences in opinion ; thinking, so long 
 as this variety should last, Christ's kingdom was not 
 advanced, and the work of the gospel went on but 
 slowly. Few men in the mean time considered, that 
 so long as men had such variety of principles, such 
 several constitutions, educations, tempers, and dis- 
 tempers, hopes, interests, and weaknesses, degrees 
 of light, and degrees of understanding, it was im- 
 possible all should be of one mind. And what is 
 impossible to be done is not necessary it should 
 be done ; and therefore, although variety of opi- 
 nions was impossible to be cured, (and they who 
 attempted it did like him who claps his shoulder 
 to the ground to stop an earthcjuake,) yet the in- 
 conveniences arising from it might possibly be 
 cured, not by uniting their beliefs, — that was to be 
 desjDaired of, — but by curing that which caused 
 these mischiefs, and accidental inconveniences of 
 their disagreeings. For although these inconve- 
 niences, which every man sees and feels, were con- 
 sequent to this diversity of persuasions, yet it was 
 but accidentally and by chance; inasmuch as we 
 
INTRODUCTION. 3 
 
 see that in many things, and they of great concern- 
 ment, men allow to themselves and to each other a 
 liberty of disagreeing", and no hurt neither. And 
 certainly if diversity of opinions were of itself 
 the cause of mischiefs, it would be so ever, that is, 
 regularly and universally, (but that we see it is 
 not:) for there are disputes in Christendom con- 
 cerning matters of greater concernment than most 
 of those opinions that distinguish sects and make 
 factions; and yet because men are permitted to 
 differ in those great matters, such evils are not 
 consequent to such differences as are to the un- 
 charitable managing of smaller and more inconsi- 
 derable questions. It is of greater consequence to 
 believe right in the question of the validity or in- 
 validity of a death-bed repentance, than to believe 
 aright in the question of purgatory ; and the con- 
 sequences of the doctrine of predetermination, are 
 of deeper and more material consideration thun the 
 products of the belief of the lawfulness or unlaw- 
 fulness of private masses ; and yet thc^e great con- 
 cernments, where a liberty of prophesying in these 
 questions hath been permitted, hath made 120 dis- 
 tinct communion, no sects of Christians, and the 
 others have, and so have these too in those places 
 where they have peremptorily been determined on 
 either side. Since then if men are quiet and cha- 
 ritable in some disagreeings, that then and there 
 the inconvenience ceases, if they were so in all 
 others where lawfully they might, (and they may 
 in most,) Christendom should be no longer rent in 
 pieces, but would be redintegrated in a new Pente- 
 cost ; and although the Spirit of God did rest upon 
 us in divided tongues, yet so long as those tongues 
 were of fire not to kindle strife, but to warm our 
 
 B 2 
 
4 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 affections and inflame our chanties, we should 
 find that this variety of opinions in several persons 
 would be looked upon as an argument only of di- 
 versity of operations, while the Spirit is the same; 
 and that another man believes not so well as I, is 
 only an argument that I have a better and a clearer 
 illumination than he, that I have a better gift than 
 he, received a special grace and favour, and excel 
 him in this, and am perhaps excelled by him in 
 many more. And if we all impartially endeavour 
 to find a truth, since this endeavour and search 
 only is in our power, (that we shall find it, being ab 
 extra, a gift and an assistance extrinsical,) I can 
 see no reason why this pious endeavour to find out 
 truth shall not be of more force to unite us in the 
 bonds of charity, than his misery in missing it 
 shall be to disunite us. So that since a union of 
 persuasion is impossible to be attained, if we would 
 attempt the cure by such remedies as are apt to 
 enkindle and increase charity, T am confident we 
 might see a blessed peace would be the reward and 
 crown of such endeavours. 
 
 But men are now-a-days, and indeed always have 
 been, since the expiration of the first blessed ages of 
 Christianity, so in love with their own fancies and 
 opinions, as to think faith and all Christendom is 
 concerned in their support and maintenance ; and 
 whoever is not so fond and does not dandle them 
 like themselv^es, it grows up to a quarrel, which be- 
 cause it is in materia theologi^ is made a quarrel in 
 religion, and God is entitled to it ; and then if you 
 are once thought an enemy to God, it is our duty 
 to persecute you even to death, we do God good 
 service in it; when, if we should examine the matter 
 rightly, the question is either in materia non reve- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 5 
 
 lata, or minus eviclenti, or non necessarid, either it is 
 not revealed, or not so clearly, but that wise and 
 honest men may be of different minds, or else it is 
 not of the foundation of faith, but a remote super- 
 structure, or else of mere speculation, or perhaps, 
 when all comes to all, it is a false opinion, or a mat- 
 ter of human interest, that we have so zealously 
 contended for ; for to one of these heads most of the 
 disputes of Christendom may be reduced; so that 
 I believe the present fractions (or the most) are 
 from the same cause which St. Paul observed in 
 the Corinthian schism, ' When there are divisions 
 among you, are ye not carnal ?' It is not the dif- 
 fering opinions that is the cause of the present rup- 
 tures, but want of charity; it is not the variety of 
 understandings, but the disunion of wills and af- 
 fections; it is not the several principles, but the 
 several ends that cause our miseries : our opinions 
 commence and are upheld according as our turns 
 are served and our interests are preserved, and 
 there is no cure for us but piety and charity. A 
 holy life will make our belief holy, if we consult 
 not humanity and its imperfections in the choice of 
 our religion, but search for truth without designs, 
 save only of acquiring heaven, and then be as care- 
 ful to preserve charity, as we were to get a point of 
 faith : I am much persuaded we should find out 
 more truths by this means; or however (which is 
 the main of all) we shall be secured though we miss 
 them ; and then we are well enough. 
 
 For if it be evinced that one heaven shall hold 
 men of several opinions, if the unity of faith be not 
 destroyed by that which men call differing religions, 
 and if an unity of charity be the duty of us all even 
 towards persons that are not persuaded of every 
 
6 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 proposition we believe, then I would fain know to 
 what purpose are all those stirs, and great noises 
 in Christendom ; those names of faction, the several 
 names of churches not distinguished by the division 
 of kingdoms, the church obeying the government,* 
 which was the primitive rule and canon, but dis- 
 tinguished by names of sects and men. These are 
 all become instruments of hatred; thence come 
 schisms and parting of communions, and then per- 
 secutions, and then wars and rebellion, and then the 
 dissolutions of all friendships and societies. All 
 these mischiefs proceed not from this, that all men 
 are not of one mind, for that is neither necessary 
 nor possible, but that every opinion is made an ar- 
 ticle of faith, every article is a ground of a quarrel, 
 every quarrel makes a faction, every faction is zeal- 
 ous, and all zeal pretends for God, and whatsoever 
 is for God cannot be too much. We by this time 
 are come to that pass, we think we love not God 
 except we hate our brother ; and we have not the 
 virtue of religion, unless we persecute all religions 
 but our own : for lukewarmness is so odious to 
 God and man, that we, proceeding furiously upon 
 these mistakes, by supposing we preserve the body, 
 we destroy the soul of religion ; or by being zealous 
 for faith, or which is all one, for that which we mis- 
 take for faith, we are cold in charity, and so lose the 
 reward of both. 
 
 All these errors and mischiefs must be disco- 
 vered and cured, and that is the purpose of this 
 discourse. 
 
 * Ut ecclesia sequatur imperium. — Optat. B. iii. 
 
SECTION I. 
 
 Nature of Faith. 
 
 First, then, it is of great concernment to know the 
 nature and integrity of Faith : for there begins our 
 first and great mistake. For faith, although it be of 
 great excellency, yet when it is taken for a habit 
 intellectual, it hath so little room and so narrow a 
 capacity, that it cannot lodge thousands of those 
 opinions which pretend to be of her family. 
 
 For although it be necessary for us to believe 
 whatsoever we know to be revealed of God, — and so 
 every man does, that believes there is a God, — yet 
 it is not necessary, concerning many things, to 
 know that God hath revealed them; that is, we 
 may be ignorant of, or doubt concerning the pro- 
 positions, and indifferently maintain either part, 
 when the question is not concerning God's veracity, 
 but whether God hath said so, or no : that which 
 is of the foundation of faith, that only is necessary ; 
 and the knowing or not knowing of that, the be- 
 lieving or disbelieving it, is that only which, as to 
 the nature of the thing to be believed, is in imme 
 diate and necessary order to salvation or damna- 
 tion. 
 
 Now, all the reason and demonstration of the 
 world convinces us, that this foundation of faith, or 
 the great adequate object of the faith that saves us, 
 is that great mysteriousness of Christianity which 
 Christ taught with so much diligence ; for the cre- 
 dibility of which he wrought so many miracles ; for 
 
8 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 the testimony of which the apostles endured per- 
 secutions ; that which was a folly to the Gentiles, 
 and a scandal to the Jews, this is that which is the 
 object of a Christian's faith : all other things are 
 implicitly in the belief of the articles of God's ve- 
 racity, and are not necessary in respect of the con- 
 stitution of faith to be drawn out, but may there 
 lie in the bowels of the great articles, without dan- 
 ger to any thing or any person, unless some other 
 accident or circumstance makes them necessary. 
 Now the great object which I speak of, is Jesus 
 Christ crucified. ' I have determined to know no- 
 thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him cru- 
 cified ;' so said St. Paul to the church of Corinth. 
 This is the article upon tlie confession of which 
 Christ built his church, viz. only upon St. Peters 
 creed, which was no more but this simple enun- 
 ciation, * We believe and are sure that thou art 
 Christ, the Son of the living God :'* and to this 
 salvation particularly is promised, as in the case of 
 ]\Iartha's creed, Jolm, xi. 27. To this the Scripture 
 gives the greatest testimony, and to all them that 
 confess it; 'For every spirit that confesseth that 
 Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is of God :' and, 
 ' Whosoever confesseth that Jesus Christ is the Son 
 of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God I'f the 
 believing this article is the end of writing the four 
 Gospels : ' These things are written, that ye might 
 believe, that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God :' % 
 and then that this is sufficient follows : ' and that be- 
 lieving,' Viz. this article (for this was only instanced 
 in) 'ye might have life through his name! This is that 
 great article which, as to the nature of the things 
 
 * IMatt. xvi. 19. + ] John, iv. 2, 15. % John, xx. 31. 
 
NATURE OF FAITH. 9 
 
 to be believed, is sufficient disposition to prepare a 
 catechumen to baptism, as appears in the case of 
 the Ethiopian eunuch, whose creed was only this, 
 * I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God,' and 
 upon this confession (saith the story) they both 
 went into the water, and the Ethiop was washed, 
 and became as white as snow. 
 
 In these particular instances, there is no variety 
 of articles, save only that in the annexes of the se- 
 veral expressions, such things are expressed, as 
 besides that Christ is come, they tell from whence, 
 and to what purpose : and whatsoever is expressed, 
 or is to these purposes implied, is made articulate 
 and explicate, in the short and admirable myste- 
 rious creed of St. Paul, Rom. x. 8. 'This is the 
 word of faith which we preach, that if thou shalt 
 confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt 
 believe in thine heart that God hath raised him 
 from the dead, thou shalt be saved.' This is the 
 great and entire complexion of a Christian's faith ; 
 and since salvation is promised to the belief of this 
 creed, either a snare is laid for us, with a purpose 
 to deceive us, or else nothing is of prime and ori- 
 ginal necessity to be believed, but this, Jesus Christ 
 our Redeemer; and all that which is the necessary 
 parts, means, or main actions of working this re- 
 demption for us, and the honour for him is in the 
 bowels and fold of the great article, and claims an 
 explicit belief by the same reason that binds us to 
 the belief of its first complexion, without which nei- 
 ther the thing could be acted, nor the proposition 
 understood. 
 
 For the act of believing propositions is not for 
 itself, but in order to certain ends ; as sermons are 
 to good life and obedience ; for (excepting that it 
 
10 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 acknowledges God's veracity, and so is a direct act 
 of religion) believing a revealed proposition hath 
 no excellency in itself, but in order to that end for 
 which we are instructed in such revelations. Now 
 God's great purpose being to bring us to him by 
 Jesus Christ, Christ is our medium to God, obedi- 
 ence is the medium to Christ, and faith the medium 
 to obedience, and therefore is to have its estimate 
 in proportion to its proper end, and those things 
 are necessary which necessarily promote the end, 
 without which obedience cannot be encouraged or 
 prudently enjoined : so that those articles are ne- 
 cessary, that is, those are fundamental points, upon 
 which we build our obedience ; and as the influence 
 of the article is to the persuasion or engagement of 
 obedience, so they have their degrees of necessity. 
 Now all that Christ, when he preached, taught us 
 to believe, and all that the apostles in their sermons 
 propound, all aim at this, that we should acknow- 
 ledge Christ for our Lawgiver and our Saviour; so 
 that nothing can be necessary by a prime necessity 
 to be believed explicitly, but such things which are 
 therefore parts of the great article, because they 
 either encourage our services or oblige them, such 
 as declare Christ's greatness in himself, or his good- 
 ness to us. So that although we must neither deny 
 nor doubt of any thing, which we know our great 
 Master hath taught us ; yet salvation is in special, 
 and by name, annexed to the belief of those articles 
 only, which have in them the endearments of our 
 services, or the support of our confidence, or the 
 satisfaction of our hopes, such as are — Jesus Christ 
 the Son of the living God, the crucifixion and re- 
 surrection of Jesus, forgiveness of sins by his blood, 
 resurrection of the dead, and life eternal ; because 
 
NATURE OF FAITH. 11 
 
 these propositions qualify Christ for our Saviour 
 and our Lawgiver, the one to engage our services, 
 the other to endear them ; for so much is necessary 
 as will make us to be his servants, and his disciples ; 
 and what can be required more ? This only : sal- 
 vation is promised to the explicit belief of those 
 articles, and therefore those only are necessary, and 
 those are sufficient; but thus, to us in the formality 
 of Christians, which is a formality superadded to 
 a former capacity, we, before we are Christians, are 
 reasonable creatures, and capable of a blessed eter- 
 nity ; and there is a creed which is the Gentiles' 
 creed, which is so supposed in the Christian creed, 
 as it is supposed in a Christian to be a man, and 
 that is, " he that cometh to God must believe that he 
 is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently 
 seek him.'' 
 
 If any man will urge farther, that whatsoever is 
 deducible from these articles by necessary conse- 
 quence, is necessary to be believed explicitly, I 
 answer : It is true, if he sees the deduction and 
 coherence of the parts ; but it is not certain that 
 every man shall be able to deduce whatsoever is 
 either immediately, or certainly deducible from 
 these premises ; and then, since salvation is pro- 
 mised to the explicit belief of these, I see not how 
 any man can justify the making the way to heaven 
 narrower than Jesus Christ hath made it, it being 
 already so narrow, that there are few that find it. 
 
 In the pursuance of this great truth, the apostles, 
 or the holy men their contemporaries and dis- 
 ciples, composed a creed to be a rule of faith to 
 all Christians, as appears in Irenaeus, Tertullian,* 
 
 * Apol. Contr. Gent. c. 47. De Veland. Virg. c. 1. 
 
12 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 St. Cyprian,* St. Austin,f Ruffinus^ and clivers 
 others ;§ which creed, unless it had contained all 
 the entire object of faith, and the foundation of 
 religion, it cannot be imagined to what purpose it 
 should serve ; and that it was so esteemed by the 
 whole church of God in all ages, appears in this, that 
 since faith is a necessary predisposition to baptism 
 in all persons capable of the use of reason, all cate- 
 chumens in the Latin church, coming to baptism, 
 were interrogated concerning their faith, and gave 
 satisfaction in the recitation of this creed. And 
 in the east they professed exactly the same faith, 
 somethinsr differing- in words, but of the same mat- 
 ter, reason, design, and consequence ; and so they 
 did at Jerusalem, so at Aquileia. This was that 
 "correct and blameless faith, proclaimed by the holy 
 catholic and apostolic church, without any mixture 
 of novelty or innovation. "j| These articles were *' the 
 instructions delivered by the holy apostles and 
 tJieir fellow-labourers, to the holy churches of God. "^ 
 Now, since the apostles and apostolical men and 
 churches in these their symbols, did recite parti- 
 cular articles to a considerable number, and were 
 so minute in their recitation, as to descend to cir- 
 cumstances, it is more than probable that they 
 omitted nothing of necessity ; and that these arti- 
 
 * In Exposit. Symbol. + Serm. v. de Tempore, c. 2. 
 
 i In Symbol apud Cyprian. 
 
 § All the orthodox fathers maintain that the creed is of 
 apostolic origin — Sext. Senensis. lib. ii. Bibl. vide Genebr. lib. 
 iii. de Trin. 
 
 II "OpeSrii K, aixMjxrjTOQ ttitic, yvirep KrjpvTTei v ayia tov 
 9fov KCL^^oXiKr) K) aTTOToXt/c?) tKKXrjcria kut' ovdeva rpoTTov 
 Kaivi(T[xbv ce^afikvt]. 
 
 % Ta TU)v ayiojv o.tto'^oXojv icf rcjv fitT fKtiviov Siarpvipdv- 
 T(t)v Iv rcug ayiaig Qtoii i.icK\7](riaig diSdyiiara. — Lib. v. Cod. 
 de St. Trin. et. Fid. Cath. cum. recta. 
 
NATURE OF FAITH. 13 
 
 cles are not general principles, in the bosom of 
 which many more articles equally necessary to be 
 believed explicitly and more particular, are infold- 
 ed ; but that it is as minute an explication of those 
 fundamental principles of belief I before reckoned, 
 as is necessary to salvation. 
 
 And therefore Tertullian calls the creed, "the 
 rule of faith, by vi^hose guidance, whatever appears 
 ambiguous or obscure in Scripture may be inves- 
 tigated and explained."* "The seal of the heart, and 
 the oath of our warfare,"f St. Ambrose calls it: " the 
 comprehension and jDerfection of our faith," j as it is 
 called by St. Austin, Serm. 115: "the confession, 
 declaration, and rule of faith," § generally, by the an- 
 cients. The profession of this creed v/as the exposi- 
 tion of that saying of St. Peter, 'the answer of a good 
 conscience towards God :' for of the recitation and 
 profession of this creed, in baptism, it is that Ter- 
 tullian says, *' the soul is not consecrated by the 
 water, but by the truth professed."|| And of this 
 was the prayer of Hilary, " Regard this expression 
 of my conscience, that I may always hold fast 
 the profession which I made by baptism, in the 
 name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, 
 in token of my regeneration." 5[ And according to 
 
 * " Regulam fidei, qua salva et forma ejus manente in suo 
 ordine, possit in Scrip tura tractari et inquiri si quid videtur vel 
 ambiguitate pendere vel obscuritate obumbrari." 
 
 f " Cordis signaculum et nostras militige sacramentum." — Lib. 
 iii. De Velandis Virgin. 
 
 X " Comprehensio fidei nostras atque perfectio." 
 
 § " Confessio, expositio, regula fidei." 
 
 11 " Anima non lotione, sed responsione sancitur." — De Resur. 
 Carnis. 
 
 ^ '' Conserva hanc conscientise nieae vocem, ut quod in regene- 
 rationis meas symbolo baptizatus in Patre, Filio, Spir. S. pro- 
 fessus sum semper obtineam." — Lib. xii. de Trinit. 
 
14 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 the rule and reason of this discourse, (that it may 
 appear that the creed hath in it all articles primo et 
 per se, primely and universally necessary,) the 
 creed is just such an explication of that faith which 
 the apostles preached, viz. the creed which St. Paul 
 recites, as contains in it all those things which en- 
 title Christ to us in the capacities of our Lawgiver 
 and our Saviour, such as enable him to the great 
 work of redemption, according to the predictions 
 concerning him, and such as engage and encourage 
 our services. For, taking out the article of Christ's 
 descent into hell, (which was not in the old creed, 
 as appears in some of the copies I before referred 
 to, in Tertullian, Ruffinus, and Irenseus; and 
 indeed, was omitted in all the confessions of the 
 eastern churches, in the church of Rome, and in 
 the Nicene creed, which by adoption came to be 
 the creed of the catholic church,) all other articles 
 are such as directly constitute the parts and work 
 of our redemption, such as clearly derive the 
 honour to Christ, and enable him with the capa- 
 cities of our Saviour and Lord. The rest engage 
 our services by proposition of such articles, which 
 are rather promises than propositions ; and the 
 whole creed, take it in any of the old forms, is but 
 an analysis of that which St. Paul calls the word 
 of salvation, whereby we shall be saved ; viz. that 
 w^e confess Jesus to be Lord, and that God raised 
 him from the dead ; by the first whereof he became 
 our Lawgiver and our Guardian ; by the second he 
 was our Saviour : the other things are but parts 
 and main actions of those two. Now, what reason 
 there is in the world that can enwrap any thing 
 else within the foundation ; that is, in the whole 
 body of articles simply and inseparably necessary. 
 
NATURE OF FAITH. 15 
 
 or in the prime original necessity of faith, I can- 
 not possibly imagine. These do the work, and 
 therefore nothing can, upon the true grounds of 
 reason, enlarge the necessity to the inclosure of 
 other articles. 
 
 Now, if more were necessary than the articles of 
 the creed, I demand, why was it made the charac- 
 teristic note of a Christian from a heretic, or a 
 Jew, or an infidel ? Or to what purpose was it com- 
 posed ?* Or if this was intended as sufficient, did 
 the apostles, or those churches which they founded, 
 know any thing else to be necessary ? If they did 
 not, then either nothing more is necessary, (I speak 
 of matters of mere belief,) or they did not know 
 all the will of the Lord, and so were unfit dispensers 
 of the mysteries of the kingdom; or if they did 
 know more was necessary, and yet would not insert 
 it, they did an act of public notice, and consigned 
 it to all ages of the church, to no purpose, unless to 
 beguile credulous people by making them believe 
 their faith was sufficient, having tried it by that touch- 
 stone apostolical, when there was no such matter. 
 
 But if this was sufficient to bring men to heaven 
 then, why not now ? If the apostles admitted all 
 to their communion that believed this creed, why 
 shall we exclude any that preserve the same entire ? 
 Why is not our faith of these articles of as much 
 efficacy for bringing us to heaven, as it was in the 
 churches apostolical ? — who had guides more in- 
 fallible, that might without error have taught them 
 superstructures enough, if they had been necessary. 
 And so they did : but that they did not insert 
 
 rv * Vide Isidor de Eccles. Offic. lib. i. cap. 20. Suidam, 
 Tumcbum, lib. ii. c. 30. advers. Venant. For. in Exeg. Symb. 
 Feuardent. in Iren. lib. i. c. 2. 
 
16 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 them into the creed, when they might have done 
 it with as much certainty as these articles, makes 
 it clear to my understanding-, that other things 
 were not necessary, but these were ; that whatever 
 profit and advantages might come from other ar- 
 ticles, yet these were sufficient; and however cer- 
 tain jDersons might accidentally be obliged to be- 
 lieve much more, yet this was the one and only 
 foundation of faith upon which all persons were 
 to build their hopes of heaven ; this was therefore 
 necessary to be taught to all, because of necessity 
 to be believed by all. So that although other per- 
 sons might commit a delinquency in a moral prin- 
 ciple, if they did not know, or did not believe, 
 much more because they were obliged to further 
 disquisitions in order to other ends, yet none of 
 these who held the creed entire could perish for 
 want of necessary faith, though possibly he might 
 for supine negligence or affected ignorance, or some 
 other fault which had influence upon his opinions 
 and his understanding, he having a new super- 
 vening obligation from accidental circumstances, 
 to know and believe more. 
 
 Neither are we obliged to make these articles 
 more particular and minute than the creed. For 
 since the apostles, and indeed our blessed Lord 
 himself, promised heaven to them who believed him 
 to be the Christ that was to come into the world, 
 and that he who believes in him should be partaker 
 of the resurrection and life eternal, he will be as 
 good as his word ; yet because this article was very 
 general, and a complexion rather than a single pro- 
 position, the apostles and others our fathers in 
 Christ did make it more explicit ; and though they 
 have said no more than what lay entire and ready 
 
NATURE OF FAITH. 17 
 
 formed in the bosom of the great article, yet they 
 made their extracts to great purpose and absolute 
 sufficiency, and therefore there needs no more de- 
 ductions or remoter consequences from the first 
 great article, than the creed of the apostles. For 
 although whatsoever is certainly deduced from any 
 of these articles made already so explicit, is as cer- 
 tainly true, and as much to be believed as the arti- 
 cle itself, because nothing but what is true can 
 flow from truth,* yet because it is not certain that 
 our deductions from them are certain, and what 
 one calls evident, is so obscure to another, that he 
 believes it false ; it is the best and only safe course 
 to rest in that explication the apostles have made ; 
 because, if any of these apostolical deductions were 
 not demonstrable evidently to follow from that 
 great article to which salvation is promised, yet the 
 authority of them who compiled the symbol, the 
 plain description of the articles from the words of 
 Scripture, the evidence of reason demonstrating 
 these to be the whole foundation, are sufficient 
 upon great grounds of reason to ascertain us; but 
 if we go farther, besides the easiness of being de- 
 ceived, we relying upon our own discourses, (which 
 though they may be true, and then bind us to fol- 
 low them, but yet no more than when they only 
 seem truest,) yet they cannot make the thing certain 
 to another, much less necessary in itself. And 
 since God would not bind us upon pain of sin and 
 punishment, to make deductions ourselves, much 
 less would he bind us to follow another man's 
 logic as an article of our faith ; I say much less 
 another man's, for our own integrity (for we will 
 
 * " Ex veris possunt nil nisi vera sequi." 
 
 c 
 
18 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 certainly be true to ourselves, and do our own busi- 
 ness heartily) is as fit and proper to be employed 
 as another man's ability. He cannot secure me 
 that his ability is absolute and the greatest, but I 
 can be more certain that my own purposes and 
 fidelity to myself is such. And since it is neces- 
 sary to rest somewhere, lest we should run to an 
 infinity, it is best to rest there where the apostles 
 and the churches apostolical rested ; when not 
 only they who are able to judge, but others who 
 are not, are equally ascertained of the certainty and 
 of the sufficiency of that explication. 
 
 This I say, not that I believe it unlawful or un- 
 safe for the church or any of the ecclesiastical 
 rulers, or any wise man to extend his own creed to 
 any thing which may certainly follow from any 
 one of the articles ; but I say, that no such deduc- 
 tion is fit to be pressed on others as an article of 
 faith; and that every deduction which is so made, 
 unless it be such a thing as is at first evident to 
 all, is but sufficient to make a human faith, nor 
 can it amount to a divine, much less can be obliga- 
 tory to bind a person of a differing persuasion to 
 subscribe under pain of losing his faith, or being a 
 heretic. For it is a demonstration, that nothing 
 can be necessary to be believed under pain of 
 damnation, but such propositions of which it is 
 certain that God hath spoken and taught them to 
 us, and of which it is certain that this is their sense 
 and purpose : for if the sense be uncertain, we can 
 no more be obliged to believe it in a certain sense, 
 than we are to believe it at all, if it were not cer- 
 tain that God delivered it. But if it be only certain 
 that God spake it, and not certain to what sense, 
 our faith of it is to be as indeterminate as its sense ; 
 
NATURE OF FAITH. 19 
 
 and it can be no other in the nature of the thing, 
 nor is it consonant to God's justice to believe of 
 him that he can or will require more. And this 
 is of the nature of those propositions, which Aris- 
 totle calls Oeaeig, to which, without any further pro- 
 bation, all wise men will give assent at its first 
 publication. And therefore deductions inevident, 
 from the evident and plain letter of faith, are as 
 great recessions from the obligation, as they are 
 from the simplicity and certainty of the article. 
 And this I also affirm, although the church of any 
 one denomination, or represented in a council, shall 
 make the deduction or declaration. For unless 
 Christ had promised his Spirit to protect every par- 
 ticular church from all errors less material ; unless 
 he had promised an absolute, universal infallibility 
 even in the most trifling matters ; unless superstruc- 
 tures be of the same necessity with the foundation, 
 and that God's Spirit doth not only preserve his 
 church in the being of a church, but in a certainty 
 of not saying any thing that is less certain ; (and 
 that whether they will or no too ;) we may be bound 
 to peace and obedience, to silence and to charity, 
 but have not a new article of faith made : and a 
 new proposition, though consequent (as it is said) 
 from an article of faith, becomes not therefore a 
 part of the faith, nor of absolute necessity. " What 
 did the church ever aim at doing by the decrees of 
 her councils, but to make what was believed before, 
 believed afterwards more firmly ?"* said Vicentius 
 Lirinensis : whatsoever was of necessary belief before 
 is so still, and hath a new degree added, by reason 
 
 * " Quid unquam aliud ecclesia conciliorum decretis enisa 
 est, nisi ut quod antea simpliciter credebatur, hoc idem postea 
 diligentius crederetur ?" — Contra HEeres. cap. 32. 
 
 c 2 
 
20 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 of a new light or a clear explication ; but no pro- 
 positions can be adopted into the foundation. The 
 church hath power to intend our faith, but not to 
 extend it; to make our belief more evident, but 
 not more large and comprehensive. For Christ 
 and his apostles concealed nothing" that was neces- 
 sary to the integrity of Christian faith, or salvation 
 of our souls : Christ declared all the will of his 
 Father, and the apostles were stewards and dispen- 
 sers of the same mysteries, and were faithful in all 
 the house, and therefore concealed nothing, but 
 taught the whole doctrine of Christ ; so they said 
 themselves. And, indeed, if they did not teach all 
 the doctrine of faith, an angel or a man might 
 have taught us other things than what they taught, 
 without deserving an anathema, but not without 
 deserving a blessing for making up that faith entire, 
 which the apostles left imperfect. Now, if they 
 taught all the whole body of faith, either the church 
 in the following ages lost part of the faith, (and 
 then where was their infallibility, and the effect of 
 those glorious promises, to which she pretends, and 
 hath certain title ? — for she may as well introduce 
 a falsehood as lose a truth, it being as much pro- 
 mised to her, that the Holy Ghost shall lead her 
 into all truth, as that she shall be preserved from 
 all errors, as appears, John, xvi. 13,) or if she re- 
 tained all the faith which Christ and his apostles 
 consigned and taught, then no age can, by declaring 
 any point, make that to be an article of faith, which 
 was not so in all ages of Christianity before such 
 declaration. And, indeed, if the church,* by de- 
 
 * Vide Jacob Almain. in 3. Sent. d. 25. Q. Unic. Dub. 3. 
 " Patet ergo, quod nulla Veritas est catbolica ex approbatione 
 ecclesiae vel Papa;.'" — Gabr. Biei. in 3. Sent. Dist. 25. q. Unic. 
 art. 3. Dub. 3. ad finem. 
 
NATURE OF FAITH. 21 
 
 daring an article, can make that to be necessary 
 which before was not necessary, I do not see how 
 it can stand with the charity of the church so to 
 do, (especially after so long experience she hath 
 had, that all men will not believe every such deci- 
 sion or explication,) for by so doing, she makes the 
 narrow way to heaven narrower, and chalks out 
 one path more to the devil than he had before, and 
 yet the way was broad enough when it was at the 
 narrowest. For before, differing persons might be 
 saved in diversity of persuasions ; and now, after 
 this declaration, if they cannot, there is no other 
 alteration made, but that some shall be damned, 
 who before, even in the same dispositions and 
 belief, should have been beatified persons. For, 
 therefore, it is well for the fathers of the primitive 
 church, that their errors were not discovered ; for if 
 they had been contested, (for that would have been 
 called discovery enough,) either they must have 
 relinquished their errors, or been expelled from the 
 church.* But it is better as it was; they went to 
 heaven by that good fortune, whereas, otherwise 
 they might have gone to the devil. And yet there 
 were some errors, particularly that of St. Cyprian, 
 that was discovered, and he went to heaven, it is 
 thought; possibly they might so too for all this 
 pretence. But suppose it true, yet whether that 
 declaration of an article of which with safety we 
 either might have doubted or been ignorant, do 
 more good than the damning of those many souls 
 occasionally, but yet certainly and foreknowingly, 
 does hurt, I leave it to all wise and good men to 
 determine. And yet, besides this, it cannot enter 
 
 • " Vel errores emendassent, vel ab ecclesia ejecti fuissent." — 
 Bellar. de Laicis, lib. ill. c. 20. § Ad primam Confirmationem. 
 
22 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 into my thoughts, that it can possibly consist with 
 God's goodness, to put it into the power of man so 
 palpably and openly to alter the paths and inlets 
 to heaven, and to straiten his mercies, unless he 
 had furnished these men with an infallible judg- 
 ment, and an infallible prudence, and a never-failing 
 charity ; that they should never do it but with great 
 necessity, and with great truth, and without ends 
 and human designs, of which I think no arguments 
 can make us certain what the primitive church hath 
 done in this case : I shall afterwards consider and 
 give an account of it, but for the present, there is 
 no insecurity in ending there where the apostles 
 ended, in building where they built, in resting 
 where they left us, unless the same infallibility 
 which they had, had still continued, which I think 
 I shall hereafter make evident it did not. And 
 therefore those extensions of creed which were 
 made in the first ages of the church, although for 
 the matter they were most true, yet, because it was 
 not certain that they should be so, and they might 
 have been otherwise, therefore they could not be 
 in the same order of faith, nor in the same degrees 
 of necessity to be believed with the articles apos- 
 tolical ; and therefore whether they did well or no 
 in laying the same weight upon them, or whether 
 they did lay the same weight or no, we will after- 
 wards consider. 
 
 But to return. I consider that a foundation of 
 faith cannot alter ; unless a new building be to be 
 made, the foundation is the same still : and this 
 foundation is no other but that which Christ and 
 his apostles laid — which doctrine is like himself, 
 yesterday, and to-day, and the same for ever : so 
 that the articles of necessary belief to all, (which 
 
NATURE OF FAITH. 23 
 
 are the only foundation,) they cannot be several in 
 several ages, and to several persons. Nay, the sen- 
 tence and declaration of the church cannot lay this 
 foundation, or make any thing of the foundation, 
 because the church cannot lay her own foundation : 
 we must suppose her to be a building, and that sho 
 relies upon the foundation, which is therefore sup- 
 posed to be laid before, because she is built upon 
 it; or (to make it more explicate) because a cloud 
 may arise from the allegory of building and foun- 
 dation, it is plainly thus : the church being a com- 
 pany of men obliged to the duties of faith and 
 obedience, the duty and obligation being of the 
 faculties of will and understanding, to adhere to 
 such an object, must presuppose the object made 
 ready for them ; for as the object is before the act 
 in order of nature, and therefore not to be pro- 
 duced or increased by the faculty, (which is recep- 
 tive, and cannot be active upon its proper object,) 
 so the object of the church's faith is in order of 
 nature before the church, or before the act and 
 habit of faith, and therefore cannot be enlarged by 
 the church, any more than the act of the visive 
 faculty can add visibility to the object. So that if 
 we have found out what foundation Christ and his 
 apostles did lay — that is, what body and system of 
 articles, simply necessary, they taught and required 
 of us to believe — we need not, we cannot go any 
 further for foundation, we cannot enlarge that 
 system or collection. Now, then, although all that 
 they said is true, and nothing of it to be doubted 
 or disbelieved, yet as all that they said is neither 
 written nor delivered, (because all was not neces- 
 sary,) so we know that of those things which are 
 written some things are as far off from the founda- 
 tion as those things which were omitted, and there 
 
24 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 fore, although now accidentally they must be be- 
 lieved by all that know them, yet it is not neces- 
 sary all should know them ; and that all should 
 know them in the same sense and interpretation, 
 is neither probable nor obligatory : but, therefore, 
 since these things are to be distinguished by some 
 differences of necessary and not necessary, whether 
 or no is not the declaration of Christ and his apos- 
 tles, affixing salvation to the belief of some great 
 comprehensive articles, and the act of the apostles, 
 rendering them as explicit as they thought conveni- 
 ent, and consigning that creed made so explicit, as a 
 tessera of a Christian, as a comprehension of the arti- 
 cles of his belief, as a sufficient disposition, and an 
 express of the faith of a catechumen, in order to bap- 
 tism, — whether or no, I say, all this be not sufficient 
 probation that these only are of absolute necessity, 
 that this is sufficient for mere belief in order to 
 heaven, and that therefore whosoever believes these 
 articles heartily and explicitly, as St. John's expres- 
 sion is, ' God dwelleth in him,' I leave it to be 
 considered and judged of from the premises : only 
 this, if the old doctors had been made judges in 
 these questions, they would have passed their affir- 
 mative ; for to instance in one for all, of this it 
 was said by Tertullian : " This symbol is the one 
 sufficient, immovable, unalterable, and unchange- 
 able rule of faith, that admits no increment or de- 
 crement; but if the integrity and unity of this be pre- 
 served, in all other things men may take a liberty of 
 enlarging their knowledges and prophesy in gs, ac- 
 cording as they are assisted by the grace of God."* 
 
 * *' Regula quidem fidei una omnino est sola immobilis et irre- 
 formabilis, &c. Hac lege fidei manente caetera jam discipline 
 et conversationis admittunt novitatem correctionis, operante scil. 
 et proficiente usque in finem gratia Dei." — Lib. de Veland. Virg. 
 
25 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 Of Heresy and the nature of it, and that it is to 
 be accounted according to the strict capacity of 
 Christiayi faith, and not in opinions speculative ; 
 nor ever to pious persons. 
 
 And thus I have represented a short draught of the 
 object of faith, and its foundation ; the next consi- 
 deration, in order to our main design, is to consider 
 what was and what ought to be the judgment of 
 the apostles concerning heresy ; for although there 
 are more kinds of vices than there are of virtues, 
 yet the number of them is to be taken by account- 
 ing the transgressions of their virtues, and by the 
 limits of faith ; we may also reckon the analogy and 
 proportions of heresy, that as we have seen who 
 was called faithful by the apostolical men, we may 
 also perceive who were listed by them in the cata- 
 logue of heretics, that we in our judgments may 
 proceed accordingly. 
 
 And first, the word Heresy is used in Scripture 
 indifferently — in a good sense for a sect or division 
 of opinion, and men following it ; or sometimes in a 
 bad sense, for a false opinion signally condemned. 
 But these kind of people were then called anti- 
 christs and false prophets more frequently than 
 heretics, and then there were many of them in the 
 world. But it is observable that no heresies are 
 noted with distinct particularity in Scripture, but 
 such as are great errors practical — such whose doc- 
 trines taught impiety, or such who denied the com- 
 
26 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 ing of Christ directly or by consequence, not remote 
 or wiredrawn, but prime and immediate : and there- 
 fore, in the code De S. Trinitate et Fide Catholica, 
 heresy is called " a wicked opinion and an ungodly 
 doctrine."* 
 
 The first false doctrine we find condemned by 
 the apostles, was the opinion of Simon Magus, who 
 thought the Holy Ghost was to be bought with mo- 
 ney. He thought very dishonourably to the blessed 
 Spirit; but yet his followers are rather noted of a 
 vice, neither resting in the understanding, nor de- 
 rived from it, but wholly practical. It is simony, 
 not heresy, though in Simon it was a false opinion, 
 proceeding from a low account of God, and pro- 
 moted by his own ends of pride and covetousness : 
 tlie great heresy that troubled them was the doc- 
 trine of the necessity of keeping the law of Moses, 
 the necessity of circumcision ; against which doc- 
 trine they were therefore zealous, because it was a 
 direct overthrow to the very end and excellency of 
 Christ's coming. And this was an opinion most 
 pertinaciously and obstinately maintained by the 
 Jews, and had made a sect among the Galatians, 
 and this was indeed wholly in opinion; and against 
 it the apostles opposed two articles of the creed, 
 which served at several times, according as the Jews 
 changed their opinion, and left some degrees of 
 their error : ' I believe in Jesus Christ, and I be- 
 lieve the holy catholic church;' for they therefore 
 pressed the necessity of Moses's law, because they 
 were unw illing to forego the glorious appellative of 
 being God's own peculiar people; and that salva- 
 tion was of the Jews, and that the rest of the world 
 
 * 'Aai^TjQ So^a, 19 dOkfiirog didafficaXia. 
 
OF HERESY. 27 
 
 were capable of that grace no otherwise but by- 
 adoption into their religion, and becoming prose- 
 lytes. But this was so ill a doctrine, as that it 
 overthrew the great benefits of Christ's coming; for 
 'if they were circumcised, Christ profited them 
 nothing ;' meaning this, that Christ will not be a 
 Saviour to them who do not acknowledge him for 
 their Lawgiver ; and they neither confess him their 
 Lawgiver nor their Saviour, that look to be justified 
 by the law of Moses, and observation of legal rites ; 
 so that this doctrine was a direct enemy to the foun- 
 dation, and therefore the- apostles were so zealous 
 against it. Now, then, that other opinion, which 
 the apostles met at Jerusalem to resolve, was but a 
 piece of that opinion ; for the Jews and proselytes 
 were drawn off from their lees and sediment by- 
 degrees, step by step. At first, they would not en- 
 dure any should be saved but themselves and their 
 proselytes. Being wrought off from this height by 
 miracles, and preaching of the apostles, they ad- 
 mitted the Gentiles to a possibility of salvation, but 
 yet so as to hope for it by Moses's law. From which 
 foolery when they were with much ado dissuaded, 
 and told that salvation was by faith in Christ, not 
 by works of the law, yet they resolved to plough 
 with an ox and an ass still, and join Moses with 
 Christ; not as shadow and substance, but in an 
 equal confederation; Christ should save the Gen- 
 tiles if he was helped by Moses, but alone Christi- 
 anity could not do it. Against this the apostles 
 assembled at Jerusalem, and made a decision of the 
 question, tying some of the Gentiles (such only 
 who were blended by the Jews as fellow-country- 
 men) to observation of such rites which the Jews 
 had derived bv tradition from Noah, intending by 
 
28 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 this to satisfy the Jews, as far as might be, with a 
 reasonable compliance and condescension ; the 
 other Gentiles, who were unmixed, in the mean- 
 while remaining free, as appears in the liberty St. 
 Paul gave the church of Corinth, of eating idol sa- 
 crifices, (expressly against the decree at Jerusalem,) 
 so it were without scandal. And yet for all this 
 care and curious discretion, a little of the leaven 
 still remained : all this they thought did so concern 
 the Gentiles, that it was totally impertinent to the 
 Jews; still they had a distinction to satisfy the 
 letter of the apostle's decree, and yet to persist in 
 their old opinion; and this so continued, that fif- 
 teen Christian bishops, in succession, w ere circum- 
 cised, even until the destruction of Jerusalem, un- 
 der Adrian, as Eusebius reports.-^ 
 
 First, by the way, let me observe, that never any 
 matter of question in the Christian church was de- 
 termined with greater solemnity, or more full au- 
 thority of the church, than this question concerning 
 circumcision : no less than the whole college of the 
 apostles and elders at Jerusalem, and that with a 
 decree of the highest sanction : * It seemed good to 
 the Holy Ghost and to us.' Secondly, either the 
 case of the Hebrews in particular was omitted, and 
 no determination concerning them, whether it were 
 necessary or lawful for them to be circumcised, or 
 else it was involved in the decree, and intended to 
 oblige the Jews. If it w^as omitted, since the ques- 
 tion was concerning what was essential, (for 'I 
 Paul say unto you, if ye be circumcised, Christ 
 shall profit you nothing,') it is very remarkable 
 how the apostles, to gain the Jews, and to comply 
 
 • Euseb. lib. iv. Eccles. Hist. c. 5. 
 
OF HERESY. 29 
 
 with their violent prejudice in behalf of Moses's 
 law, did for a time tolerate their dissent even in 
 what was otherwise essential, which I doubt not 
 but was intended as a precedent for the church to 
 imitate for ever after: but if it was not omitted, 
 either all the multitude of the Jews, (which St. 
 James, then their bishop, expressed by " many my- 
 riads:"* *Thou seest how many myriads of Jews 
 that believe, and yet are zealots for the law;' and 
 Eusebius, speaking of Justus, says, he was one " of 
 the infinite multitude of the circumcision, who be- 
 lieved in Jesus, )"f I say all these did perish, and 
 their believing in Christ served them to no other 
 ends, but in the infinity of their torments to up- 
 braid them with hypocrisy and heresy ; or, if they 
 were saved, it is apparent how merciful God was, 
 and pitiful to human infirmities, that in a point of 
 so great concernment did pity their weakness, and 
 pardon their errors, and love their good mind, since 
 their prejudice was little less than insuperable, and 
 had fair probabilities, at least it was such as might 
 abuse a wise and good man (and so it did many) 
 they did err with a good intention. And, if I mis- 
 take not, this consideration St. Fault urged as a 
 reason why God forgave him who was a persecutor 
 of the saints, because he did it ignorantly in unbe- 
 lief; that is, he was not convinced in his understand- 
 ing, of the truth of the way which he persecuted ; 
 he in the meanwhile remaining in that incredulity, 
 not out of malice or ill ends, but the mistakes of 
 humanity and a pious zeal, therefore ' God had 
 
 * Acts xxi. 20. 
 
 ■f- " Ex infinita multitudine eonim qui ex circumcisione in 
 Jesum credebant." — Lib. iii. 32. Eccles. Hist, 
 i 1 Tim. i. 
 
30 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 mercy on him/ And so it was in this great question 
 of circumcision ; here only was the difference, the 
 invincibility of St. Paul's error, and the honesty of 
 his heart caused God so to pardon him as to bring 
 him to the knowledge of Christ, which God there- 
 fore did because it was necessary, as an interme- 
 diate step. No salvation was consistent with the 
 actual remanency of that error ; but in the question 
 of circumcision, although they, by consequence, did 
 overthrow the end of Christ^s coming, yet because 
 it was such a consequence, which they, being hin- 
 dered by a prejudice not impious, did not perceive, 
 God tolerated them in their error, till time and 
 a continual dropping of the lessons and dictates 
 apostolical did wear it out. And then the doctrine 
 put on its apparel, and became clothed with ne- 
 cessity ; they in the mean time so kept to the foun- 
 dation, that is, Jesus Christ ciucified and risen 
 again, that although this did make a violent con- 
 cussion of it, yet they held fast with their heart what 
 they ignorantly destroyed with their tongue, (which 
 Saul before his conversion did not,) that God, upon 
 other titles than an actual dereliction of their error, 
 did bring them to salvation. 
 
 And in the descent of so many years, I find not 
 any one anathema passed by the apostles or their 
 successors, upon any of the bishops of Jerusalem, 
 or the believers of the circumcision ; and yet it was a 
 point as clearly determined, and of as great neces- 
 sity, as any of those questions that at this day vex 
 and crucify Christendom. 
 
 Besides this question, and that of the resurrec- 
 tion, commenced in the church of Corinth, and pro- 
 moted, with some variety of sense, by Hymenaeus 
 and Philetus in Asia, who said that the resurrection 
 
OF HERESY. 31 
 
 was past already, I do not remember any other 
 heresy named in Scripture, but such as were errors 
 of impiety in moral practice ; such as was, particu- 
 larly, forbidding to marry, and the heresy of the 
 Nicolaitans, a doctrine that taught the necessity of 
 lust and frequent fornication. 
 
 But in all the animadversions against errors made 
 by the apostles in the New Testament, no pious 
 person was condemned, no man that did invincibly 
 err, or with a good intention; but something that 
 was amiss in the principle of action, was that which 
 the apostles did redargue. And it is very consi- 
 derable, that even they of the circumcision, who in 
 so great numbers did heartily believe in Christ, and 
 yet most violently retain circumcision, and without 
 question went to heaven in great numbers, yet of 
 the number of these very men, they came deeply 
 under censure, when to their error they added im- 
 piety : so long as it stood with charity and without 
 human ends and secular interests, so long it was 
 either innocent or connived at ; but when they 
 grew covetous, and for filthy lucre's sake taught the 
 same doctrine which others did in the simplicity of 
 their hearts, then they turned heretics, then they 
 were termed seducers ; and Titus was commanded 
 to look to them, and to silence them : * For there 
 are many that are intractable and vain babblers, 
 seducers of minds, especially they of the circum- 
 cision, who seduce whole houses, teaching things 
 that they ought not, for filthy lucre's sake.' These 
 indeed were not to be endured, but to be silenced, 
 by the conviction of sound doctrine, and to be re- 
 buked sharply, and avoided. 
 
 For heresy is not an error of the understanding, 
 but an error of the will. And this is clearly in- 
 
32 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 sinuated in Scripture, in the style whereof faith 
 and a good life are made one duty, and vice is called 
 opposite to faith, and heresy opposed to holiness 
 and sanctity. So in St. Paul : * For (saith he) the 
 end of the commandment is charity out of a pure 
 heart and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned;'* 
 a quibus quod aherrarunt quidam, from which 
 charity, and purity, and goodness, and sincerity, 
 because some have wandered, they have turned 
 aside unto vain jangling. And immediately after, 
 he reckons the oppositions to faith and sound doc- 
 trine, and instances only in vices that stain the lives 
 of Christians, ' the unjust, the unclean, the uncha- 
 ritable, the liar, the perjured person ;' these are the 
 enemies of the true doctrine. And therefore St. 
 Peter, having given in charge, to add to our virtue 
 patience, temperance, charity, and the like, gives 
 this for a reason : * for if these things be in you and 
 abound, ye shall be fruitful in the knowledge of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ' So that knowledge and faith is 
 part of a good life.f And St. Paul calls faith, or 
 the form of sound words, * the doctrine that is ac- 
 cording to godliness,' 1 Tim. vi. 3. And to be- 
 lieve in the truth, and to have pleasure in unright- 
 eousness,J are by the same apostle opposed, and 
 intimate, that piety and faith is all one thing : faith 
 
 * 1 Tim. i. 
 
 t " Quid igitur credulitas vel fides ? Opinor fideliter homi- 
 nem Christo credere ; id est, fidelem Deo esse : hoc est, fideJiter 
 Dei man data servare." 
 
 " "What then is belief or faith ? It is, in my opinion, faith- 
 fully to believe in Christ ; that is, to be faithful to God : in other 
 words, faithfully to keep his commandments." — So Salvian. 
 
 X Ev(jti3))c tS)v ^^'ptTiai/wi/ S-pz/crKt/a; that is, "our re- 
 ligion, or faith; the whole manner of serving God. — C de sum- 
 via Trinlt. et Fide Cathol. 
 
OF HERESY. 33 
 
 must be entire and holy too, or it is not right. It 
 was the heresy of the Gnosticks, that it was no mat- 
 ter how men lived, so they did but believe aright : 
 which wicked doctrine Tatianus, a learned Chris- 
 tian, did so detest, that he fell into a cjuite contrary: 
 " It is of no consequence what a man believes, but 
 only what he does."* And thence came the sect of 
 the Encratites. Both these heresies sprang from the 
 too nice distinguishing the faith from the piety and 
 good life of a Christian : they are both but one 
 duty. However they may be distinguished, if we 
 speak like philosophers; they cannot be distin- 
 guished, when we speak like Christians. For to 
 believe what God hath commanded, is in order to 
 a good life ; and to live well is the product of that 
 believing, and as proper emanations from it, as 
 from its proper principle, and as heat is from the 
 fire. And therefore, in Scripture, tiiey are used 
 promiscuously in sense, and in expression, as not 
 only being subjected in the same person, but also 
 in the same faculty; faith is as truly seated in the 
 will as in the understanding, and a good life as 
 merely derives from the understanding as the will. 
 Both of them are matters of choice and of election, 
 neither of them an effect natural and invincible or 
 necessary antecedently. f And, indeed, if we re- 
 member that St. Paul reckons heresy amongst the 
 works of the flesh, and ranks it with all manner of 
 practical impieties, we shall easily perceive, that if 
 a man mingles not a vice with his opinion, if he be 
 innocent in his life, though deceived in his doctrine, 
 his error is his misery, not his crime ; it makes him 
 
 * '' Non est curandum quid quisque credat, id tantum curan- 
 dum est quod quisque faciat." 
 
 -|- " I^^ecessaria ut fiant, non necessaria facta." 
 
 D 
 
34 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 an argument of weakness and an object of pity, but 
 not a person sealed up to ruin and reprobation. > 
 
 For as the nature of faith is, so is the nature of 
 heresy, contraries having the same proportion and 
 commensuration. Now faith, if it be taken for an 
 act of the understanding merely, is so far from be- 
 ing that excellent grace that justifies us, that it is 
 not good at all, in any kind but naturally, and 
 makes the understanding better in itself^ or pleas- 
 ing to God, just as strength doth the arm, or beauty 
 the face, or health the body; these are natural per- 
 fections indeed, and so knowledge and a true belief 
 is to the understanding. But this makes us not at 
 all more acceptable to God ; for then the unlearned 
 were certainly in a damnable condition, and all 
 good scholars should be saved, (whereas I am afraid 
 too much of the contrary is true.) But unless faith 
 be made moral by the mixtures of choice and cha- 
 rity, it is nothing but a natural perfection, not a 
 grace or a virtue; and this is demonstrably proved 
 in this, that by the confession of all men, of all inte- 
 rests and persuasions in matters of mere belief, in- 
 vincible ignorance is our excuse if we be deceived, 
 which could not be, but that neither to believe 
 aright is commendable, nor to believe amiss is re- 
 provable ; but where both one and the other is vo- 
 luntary and chosen antecedently or consequently, 
 by prime election or ex post facto, and so comes to 
 be considered in morality, and is part of a good life 
 or a bad life respectively. Just so it is in heresy ; if 
 it be a design of ambition and making of a sect, (so 
 Erasmus expounds St. Paul, aiperiKov dj/^pw7rov;)* 
 if it be for filthy lucre's sake, as it was in some that 
 
 * " Alieni sunt a veritate qui se obarmant multitudine." — Chryst. 
 
OF HERESY. 35 
 
 were of the circumcision; if it be of pride and love 
 of pre-eminence, as it was in Dioirephes ; or out of 
 peevishness and indocibleness of disposition, or of 
 a contentious spirit ; that is, that their feet are not 
 shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace ; 
 in all these cases the error is just so damnable as 
 is its principle, but therefore damnable not of itself, 
 but by reason of its adherency. And if any shall 
 say any otherwise, it is to say that some men shall 
 be damned when they cannot help it, perish without 
 their own fault, and be miserable for ever, because 
 of their unhappiness to be deceived through their 
 own simplicity and natural or accidental, but in- 
 culpable infirmity. 
 
 For it cannot stand with the goodness of God, who 
 does so know our infirmities, that he pardons many 
 things in which our wills indeed have the least share, 
 (but some they have,) but are overborne with the 
 violence of an impetuous temptation ; I say, it is in- 
 consistent with his goodness to condemn those who 
 err where the error hath nothing of the will in it, who 
 therefore cannot repent of their error, because they 
 believe it true, who therefore cannot make compen- 
 sation, because they know not that they are tied to 
 dereliction of it. And although all heretics are in 
 this condition, that is, they believe their errors to be 
 true; yet there is a vast diflference between them 
 who believe so out of simplicity, and them who are 
 given over to believe a lie, as a punishment or an 
 effect of some other wickedness or impiety. For 
 all have a concomitant assent to the truth of what 
 they believe; and no man can at the same time 
 believe what he does not believe, but this assent of 
 the understanding in heretics is caused not by force 
 of argument, but the argument is made forcible by 
 
 d2 
 
36 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING, 
 
 something that is amiss in his will ; and although a 
 heretic may peradventure have a stronger argu- 
 ment for his error than some true believer for his 
 right persuasion, yet it is not considerable how- 
 strong his argument is; (because in a weak under- 
 standing, a small motive will produce a great per- 
 suasion, like gentle physic in a weak body;) but that 
 which here is considerable, is, what it is that made 
 his argument forcible. If his invincible and harm- 
 less prejudice, if his weakness, if his education, if 
 his mistaking piety, if any thing that hath no 
 venom, nor a sting in it, there the heartiness of his 
 persuasion is no sin, but his misery and his excuse ; 
 but if any thing that is evil in the principle of his 
 conduct did incline his understanding, if his opi- 
 nion did commence upon pride, or is nourished by 
 covetousness, or continues through stupid care- 
 lessness, or increases by pertinacity, or is con- 
 firmed by obstinacy, then the innocency of the 
 error is disbanded, his misery is changed into a 
 crime and begins its own punishment. But, by the 
 way, I must observe, that when I reckoned obsd- 
 nacy amongst those things which make a false opi- 
 nion criminal, it is to be understood with some dis- 
 cretion and distinction. For there is an obstinacy 
 of will which is indeed highly guilty of misde- 
 meanor ; and when the school makes pertinacity or 
 obstinacy to be the formality of heresy, they say 
 not true at all, unless it be meant the obstinacy of 
 the will and choice ; and if they do, they speak 
 imperfectly and inartificially, this being but one of 
 the causes that make error become heresy. The 
 adequate and perfect formality of heresy is what- 
 soever makes the error voluntary and vicious, as is 
 clear in Scripture, reckoning covetousness, and 
 
OF HERESY. 37 
 
 pride, and lust, and whatsoever is vicious, to be its 
 causes; (and in habits or moral changes and pro- 
 ductions, whatever alters the essence of a habit, or 
 gives it a new formality, is not to be reckoned the 
 efficient but the form ;) but there is also an obstinacy, 
 (you may call it,) but, indeed, is nothing but a reso- 
 lution and confirmation of understanding, which is 
 not in a man's power honestly to alter ; and it is not 
 all the commands of humanity that can be argument 
 sufficient to make a man leave believing that for 
 which he thinks he hath reason, and for which he 
 hath such arguments as heartily convince him. Now, 
 the persisting in an opinion finally, and against all 
 the confidence and imperiousness of human com- 
 mands, that makes not this criminal obstinacy, if 
 the erring person have so much humility of will as 
 to submit to whatever God says, and that no vice 
 in his will hinders him from believing it. So that 
 we must carefully distinguish continuance in opi- 
 nion from obstinacy, confidence of understanding 
 from peevishness of aflfection, a not being convinced 
 from a resolution never to be convinced upon hu- 
 man ends and vicious principles. "We are ac- 
 quainted with some jDersons who are unwilling to 
 relincjuish what they have once believed ; nor can 
 they be easily convinced, but still persist in retain- 
 ing the notions they have once adopted, though in 
 the spirit of peace and charity ; in which case we 
 neither use compulsion nor authority," saith St. Cy- 
 prian.* And he himself was such a one ; for he 
 
 * '' Scimus quosdam quod semel imbiberint nolle deponere, nee 
 propositum suum facile mutare, sed salvo inter collegas pacis et 
 concordice vinculo quasdam propria quae apud se semel sint usur- 
 pata retinere ; qua in re nee nos vim cuiquam facimiis, aut legem 
 damus." — Lib. ii. Ep. I. 
 
38 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 persisted in his opinion of rebaptisation until death, 
 and yet his obstinacy was not called criminal, or 
 his error turned to heresy. But to return. 
 
 In this sense it is that a heretic is avTOKardicpiToc, 
 self-condemned, not by an immediate express sen- 
 tence of understanding, but by his own act or fault 
 brought into condemnation. As it is in the canon 
 law, Js^otoi'iiis fercussor clerici is ipso jure excoin- 
 inunicaie, not per se7itentiam latam ab homine, but d 
 jure. " A man who strikes a clergyman, is excom- 
 municated by his own conscience, not so much by a 
 public verdict as by right." No man hath passed 
 sentence from a judgment-seat, but law hath de- 
 creed it by express enactment : so it is in the case 
 of a heretic. The understanding, which is judge, 
 condemns him not by an express sentence ; for he 
 errs with as much simplicity in the result, as he 
 had malice in the principle : but there is sententia 
 lata a jure, his will which is his law, that hath con- 
 demned him. And this is gathered from that saying 
 of St. Paul, 2 Tim. iii. 13. ' But evil men and se- 
 ducers sliall wax worse and worse, deceiving and 
 being deceived.' First they are evil men ; malice 
 and peevishness is in their wills : then they turn 
 heretics and seduce others, and while they grow 
 worse and worse, the error is master of their under- 
 standing; they are deceived themselves, 'given over 
 to believe a lie,' saith the apostle. They first play 
 the knave, and then play the fool ; they first sell 
 themselves to the purchase of vain glory or ill ends, 
 and then they become possessed with a lying spirit, 
 and believe those things heartily, which if they 
 were honest they should, with God's grace, discover 
 and disclaim. So that now we see that a hearty 
 persuasion in a false article does not always make 
 
OF HERESY. 39 
 
 the error to be esteemed involuntary ; but then 
 only when it is as innocent in the principle as it is 
 confident in the present persuasion. And such per- 
 sons who by their ill lives and vicious actions, or 
 manifest designs (for by their fruits ye shall know 
 them) give testimony of such criminal indisposi- 
 tions, so as competent judges by human and pru- 
 dent estimate may so judge them, then they are to 
 be declared heretics, and avoided. And if this 
 were not true, it were vain that the apostle com- 
 mands us to avoid an heretic : for no external act 
 can pass upon a man for a crime that is not cog- 
 nizable. 
 
 Now every man that errs, though in a matter of 
 consequence, so long as the foundation is entire, 
 cannot be suspected justly guilty of a crime to give 
 his error a formality of heresy ; for we see many a 
 good man miserably deceived ; (as we shall make it 
 appear afterwards;) and he that is the best amongst 
 men, certainly hath so much humility to think he 
 may be easily deceived ; and twenty to one but he 
 is, in something or other ; yet, if his error be not 
 voluntary, and part of an ill life, then because he 
 lives a good life, he is a good man, and therefore 
 no heretic : no man is an heretic against his will. 
 And if it be pretended that every man that is de- 
 ceived, is therefore proud, because he does not sub- 
 mit his understanding to the authority of God or 
 man respectively, and so his error becomes a he- 
 resy; to this I answer, that there is no Christian 
 man but will submit his understanding to God, and 
 believe whatsoever he hath said ; but always pro- 
 vided he knows that God hath said so, else he must 
 do his duty by a readiness to obey when he shall 
 know it. But for obedience or humility of the un- 
 
40 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 derstanding towards men, that is a thing of another 
 consideration, and it must first be made evident 
 that his understanding must be submitted to men ; 
 and who those men are, must also be certain, before 
 it will be adjudged a sin not to submit. But if I 
 mistake not, Christ's saying, ' Call no man master 
 upon earth/ is so great a prejudice against this 
 pretence, as I doubt it will go near wholly to make 
 it invalid. So that as the worshipping of angels is 
 a humility indeed, but it is voluntary and a will- 
 worship to an ill sense, not to be excused by the 
 excellency of humility, nor the virtue of religion ; 
 so is the relying upon the judgment of man an hu- 
 mility too, but such as comes not under that obe- 
 dience of faith which is the duty of every Christian, 
 but intrenches upon that duty which we owe to 
 Christ as an acknowledgment that he is our great 
 Master, and the Prince of the catholic church. But 
 whether it be or be not, if that be the question, 
 whether the disagreeing person be to be determined 
 by the dictates of men, I am sure the dictates of 
 men must not determine him in that cjuestion, but 
 it must be settled by some higher principle : so 
 that if of that question the disagreeing person does 
 opine, or believe, or err bond fide, he is not there- 
 fore to be judged a heretic, because he submits not 
 his understanding ; because, till it be sufficiently 
 made certain to him that he is bound to submit, he 
 may innocently and piously disagree ; and this not 
 submitting is therefore not a crime, (and so cannot 
 make a heresy,) because without a crime he may 
 lawfully doubt whether he be bound to submit or 
 no, for that is the question. And if in such cjues- 
 tions which have influence upon a whole system of 
 theology, a man may doubt lawfully if he doubts 
 
OF HERESY. 41 
 
 heartily, because the authority of men being the 
 thing- in question, cannot be the judge of this c^ues- 
 tion, and therefore being rejected, or (which is all 
 one) being questioned, that is, not believed, cannot 
 render the doubting person guilty of pride, and by 
 consequence not of heresy, much more may parti- 
 cular cj[uestions be doubted of, and the authority of 
 men examined, and yet the doubting person be 
 humble enough, and therefore no heretic for all this 
 pretence. And it would be considered that hu- 
 mility is a duty in great ones as well as in idiots.* 
 And as inferiors must not disagree without reason, 
 so neither must superiors prescribe to others with- 
 out sufficient authority, evidence, and necessity 
 too ; and if rebellion be pride, so is tyranny ; both 
 may be guilty of pride of understanding, sometimes 
 the one in imposing, sometimes the other in a cause- 
 less disagreeing ; but in the inferiors it is then only 
 the want of humility, when the guides impose or 
 prescribe what God hath also taught, and then it 
 is the disobeying God's dictates, not man's, that 
 makes the sin. But then this consideration will 
 also intervene, that as no dictate of God obliges 
 me to believe it, unless I know it to be such ; so 
 neither will any of the dictates of my superiors 
 engage my faith, unless I also know, or have no 
 reason to disbelieve, but that they are warranted to 
 teach them to me, therefore, because God hath 
 taught the same to them ; which if I once know, or 
 have no reason to think the contrary, if I disagree, 
 my sin is not in resisting human authority, but 
 divine. And, therefore, the whole business of sub- 
 mitting our understanding to human authority 
 
 * Mean, or illiterate persons. 
 
42 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 comes to nothing; for either it resolves into the 
 direct duty of submitting to God, or, if it be spoken 
 of abstractedly, it is no duty at all. 
 
 But this pretence of a necessity of humbling the 
 understanding, is none of the meanest arts whereby 
 some persons have invaded and usurped a power 
 over men's faith and consciences; and therefore we 
 shall examine the pretence afterwards, and try if 
 God hath invested any man, or company of men, 
 with such a power. In the mean time, he that 
 submits his understanding to all that he knows God 
 hath said, and is ready to submit to all that he 
 hath said if he but know it, denying his own affec- 
 tions, and ends, and interests, and human persua- 
 sions, laying them all down at the foot of his great 
 master, Jesus Christ, that man hath brought his 
 understanding into subjection, and every proud 
 thought unto the obedience of Christ ; and this is 
 the obedience of faith, which is the duty of a Chris- 
 tian. 
 
 But to proceed. Besides these heresies noted in 
 Scripture, the age of the apostles, and that which 
 followed, was infested with other heresies; but such 
 as had the same formality and malignity with the 
 precedent, all of them either such as taught prac- 
 tical impieties, or denied an article of the creed. 
 Egesippus, in Eusebius, reckons seven only prime 
 heresies, that sought to deflower the purity of the 
 church : that of Simon, that of Thebutes, of Cleo- 
 bius, of Dositheus, of Gortheus, of jNIasbotheus. 
 I suppose Cerinthus to have been the seventh man, 
 though he express him not : but of these, except 
 the last, we know no particulars, but that Ege- 
 sippus says, they were false Christs, and that their 
 doctrine was directly against God and his blessed 
 
OF HERESY. 43 
 
 Son. Menander, also, was the first of a sect; but he 
 bewitched the people with his sorceries. Cerin- 
 thus's doctrine pretended enthusiasm, or a new reve- 
 lation, and ended in lust and impious theorems in 
 matter of uncleanness. The Ebionites* denied 
 Christ to be the Son of God, and affirmed him 
 mere man, begot by natural generation, (by occa- 
 sion of which and the importunity of the Asian 
 bishops, St. John wrote his Gospel,) and taught the 
 observation of Moses's law. Basilides taught it 
 lawful to renounce the faith, and take false oaths in 
 time of persecution. Carpocrates was a very bed- 
 lam, half-witch, and quite mad-man, and practised 
 lust, which he called the secret operations to over- 
 come the potentates of the world. Some more 
 there were, but of the same nature and pest ; not 
 of a nicety in dispute, not a question of secret phi- 
 losophy, not of atoms, and undiscernible proposi- 
 tions, but open defiances of all faith, of all so- 
 briety, and of all sanctity ; excepting only the doc- 
 trine of the Millennaries, which in the best ages was 
 esteemed no heresy, but true catholic doctrine, 
 though since it hath justice done to it, and hath 
 suffered a just condemnation. 
 
 Hitherto, and in these instances, the church did 
 esteem and judge of heresies, in proportion to the 
 rules and characters of faith. For faith being a 
 doctrine of piety as well as truth, that which was 
 either destructive of fundamental verity, or of 
 Christian sanctity was against faith, and if it be 
 made a sect, was heresy ; if not, it ended in per- 
 sonal impiety and went no farther. But those who, 
 as St. Paul says, not only did such things, but had 
 
 • Vide Hilar, lib. i. De Trin. 
 
44 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 pleasure in them that do them, and therefore 
 taught others to do what they impiously did dog- 
 matize, they were heretics both in matter and form, 
 in doctrine and deportment, towards God, and to- 
 wards man, and judicable in both tribunals. 
 
 But the Scripture and apostolical sermons, hav- 
 ing expressed most high indignation against these 
 masters of impious sects, leaving them under pro- 
 digious characters, and horrid rep resentments, as 
 calling them men of corrupt minds, reprobates 
 concerning the faith, given over to strong delusions, 
 to the belief of a lie, false apostles, false prophets, 
 men already condemned, and that by themselves, 
 anti-Christs, enemies of God ; and heresy itself, a 
 work of the flesh, excluding from the kingdom of 
 heaven; left such impressions in the minds of all 
 their successors, and so much zeal against such 
 sects, that if any ojDinion commenced in the church 
 not heard of before, it oftentimes had this ill luck 
 to run the same fortune with an old heresy. For 
 because the heretics did bring in new opinions in 
 matters of great concernment, every opinion de 
 novo brought in was liable to the same exception ; 
 and because the degree of malignity in every error 
 was oftentimes undiscernible, and most commonly 
 indemonstrable, their zeal was alike against all; 
 and those ages bemg full of piety, were fitted to be 
 abused with an over-active zeal, as wise persons and 
 learned are with a too much indifferency. 
 
 But it came to pass, that the further the succes- 
 sion went from the apostles, the more forward men 
 were in numbering heresies, and that upon slighter 
 and more uncertain grounds. Some footsteps of 
 this we shall find, if we consider the sects that are 
 said to have sprung in the first three hundred years, 
 
OF HERESY. 45 
 
 and they were quick in their springs and falls; 
 fourscore and seven of them are reckoned. They 
 were indeed reckoned afterward, and though when 
 they were alive, they were not condemned with as 
 much forwardness, as after they were dead; yet 
 even then, confidence began to mingle with opinions 
 less necessary, and mistakes in judgment were 
 oftener and more public than they should have 
 been. But if they were forward in their censures, 
 (as sometimes some of them were,) it is no great 
 wonder they were deceived. For what principle or 
 criterion had they then to judge of heresies, or con- 
 demn them, besides the single dictates or decretals of 
 private bishops ? for Scripture was indifferently 
 pretended by all ; and concerning the meaning of it, 
 was the question. Now there was no general coun- 
 cil all that while, no opportunity for the church to 
 convene; and if we search the communicatory 
 letters of the bishops and martyrs in those days, 
 we shall find but few sentences decretory concern- 
 ing any question of faith, or new-sprung opinion. 
 And in those that did, for aught appears, the per- 
 sons were misreported, or their opinions mistaken, 
 or at most, the sentence of condemnation was no 
 more but this : such a bishop who hath had the 
 good fortune by posterity to be reputed a catholic, 
 did condemn such a man of such an opinion, and 
 yet himself erred in as considerable matters, but 
 meeting with better neighbours in his life-time, and 
 a more charitable posterity, hath his memory pre- 
 served in honour. It appears plain enough in the 
 case of Nicholas, the deacon of Antioch, upon a mis- 
 take of his words whereby he taught to abuse the 
 flesh, viz. by acts of austerity and self-denial, and 
 mortification; some wicked people, that were glad 
 
46 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 to be mistaken and abused into a pleasing crime, 
 pretended that he taught them to abuse the flesh 
 by filthy commixtures and pollutions : this mis- 
 take was transmitted to posterity with a full cry, 
 and acts afterwards found out to justify an ill opi- 
 nion of him. For by St. Jerome's time it grew 
 out of Cjuestion, but that he was the vilest of men, 
 and the worst of heretics :* accusations that, while 
 the good man lived, were never thought of, for his 
 daughters were virgins, and his sons lived in holy 
 celibacy all their lives, and himself lived in chaste 
 wedlock ; and yet his memory had rotted in perpetual 
 infamy, had not God (in whose sight the memory 
 of the saints is precious) preserved it by the testi- 
 mony of Clemens Alexandrinus, f and from him of 
 Eusebius and Nicephorus.t But in the catalogue 
 of heretics made by Philastrius, he stands marked 
 with a black character, as guilty of many heresies ; 
 by which one testimony we may guess what trust is 
 to be given to those catalogues. Well, this good 
 man had ill luck to fall into unskilful hands at 
 first; but Irenasus, Justin Martyr, Lactantius, (to 
 name no more,) had better fortune; for it being still 
 extant in their writings that they were of the mil- 
 lennary opinion, Papias before, and Nepos after, 
 were censured hardly, and the opinion put into the 
 catalogue of heresies ; and yet these men never 
 suspected as guilty, but, like the children of the 
 captivity, walked in the midst of the flame, and 
 not so much as the smell of fire passed on them. 
 
 • "Nicolaus Antiochenus, omnium immunditiarum condi- 
 tor, chores duxit fcemineos." — Ad Ctesiph. And again : " Iste 
 Nicolaus Diaconus ita immundus extitit ut etiam in prassepi 
 Domini nefas perpetrilrit." — Epist. de Fabiano lapso. 
 
 f Lib. iii. Stromal. :;: Lib. iii. c. 26, Hist. 
 
OF HERESY. 47 
 
 But the uncertainty of these things is very memo- 
 rable in the story of Eustathius, bishop of Antioch, 
 contesting- with Eusebius Pamphilus: Eustathius 
 accused Eusebius for going about to corrupt the 
 Nicene creed, of which slander he then acquitted 
 himself (saith Socrates);* and yet he is not cleared 
 by posterity, for still he is suspected, and his fame 
 not clear. However, Eusebius then escaped well; 
 but, to be quit with his adversary, he recriminates, 
 and accuses him to be a favourer of Sabellius, rather 
 than of the Nicene canons : an imperfect accusa- 
 tion, God knows, when the crime was a suspicion, 
 proveable only by actions capable of divers con- 
 structions, and at the most made but some degrees 
 of probability, and the fact itself did not consist in 
 any particular, and therefore was to stand or fall, 
 to be improved or lessened, according to the will of 
 the judges, whom in this case Eustathius, by his ill 
 fortune and a potent adversary, found harsh to- 
 wards him, insomuch that he was for heresy de- 
 posed in the synod of Antioch. And though this 
 was laid open in the eye of the world, as being most 
 ready at hand, with the greatest ease charged upon 
 every man, and with greatest difficulty acquitted 
 by any man, yet there weve other suspicions raised 
 upon him privately, or at least talked of afterwards, 
 and pretended as causes of his deprivation, lest the 
 sentence should seem too hard for the first offence. 
 And yet, what they were no man could tell, saith 
 the story. But it is observable what Socrates 
 saith, as in excuse of such proceedings :f * It is the 
 
 * Lib. i. c. 23. 
 
 i* Tovro de Itti TravTiov eiojSracri tu)v Karaipovf.iei'UJV ttouTu 
 ct iTrirXKOTTOi, Karrjyopovpreg fxkv Kai dcrelSii XeyovTsgj tclq de 
 alriag rijQ wejSeiag ov \kyovai. — Lib. i. c 24. 
 
48 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 manner among the bishops, ivhen they accuse them 
 that ure deposed, they call them ivicked, but they 
 publish not the actions of their impiety.' It might 
 possibly be that the bishops did it in tenderness of 
 their reputation : but yet hardly ; for to punish a 
 person publicly and highly is a certain declaring 
 the person punished guilty of a high crime ; and 
 then to conceal the fault, upon pretence to preserve 
 his reputation, leaves every man at liberty to con- 
 jecture what he pleaseth, who possibly will believe 
 it worse than it is, inasmuch as they think his 
 judges so charitable as therefore to conceal the 
 fault, lest the publishing of it should be his greatest 
 punishment, and the scandal greater than his de- 
 privation.* However, this course, if it were just 
 in any, was unsafe in all, for it might undo more 
 than it could preserve, and therefore is of more 
 danger than it can be of charity. It is therefore 
 too probable that the matter was not very fair, for 
 in public sentence the acts ought to be public ; but 
 that they rather pretend heresy to bring their ends 
 about, shows how easy it is to impute that crime, 
 and how forward they were to do it. And that they 
 might and did then as easily call heretic as after- 
 ward, when Vigilius was condemned of heresy, for 
 sayinc;^ there were antipodes; or as the friars of 
 late did, who suspected Greek and Hebrew of he- 
 resy, and called their professors heretics, and had 
 like to have put Terence and Demosthenes into the 
 Index Expurgatorius. Sure enough they railed at 
 them pro condone ; therefore, because they under- 
 stood them not, and had reason to believe they 
 
 * " Simpliciter pateat vitium fortasse pusillum, 
 
 Quod tegitur, majus creditur esse malum," — Martial, 
 
OF HERESY. 49 
 
 would accidentally be enemies to their reputation 
 among- the people. 
 
 By this instance, which was a while after the 
 Nicene council, where the acts of the church were 
 regular, judicial, and orderly, we may guess at 
 the sentences passed upon heresy, at such times 
 and in such cases, when their process was more 
 private and their acts more tumultuary, their infor- 
 mation less certain, and therefore their mistakes 
 more easy and frequent. And it is remarkable in 
 the case of the heresy of Montanus, the scene of 
 whose heresy lay within the first three hundred 
 years, though it was represented in the catalogues 
 afterwards; and possibly the mistake concerning- 
 it is to be put upon the score of Epiphanius, by 
 whom Montanus and his followers were put into 
 the catalogue of heretics, for commanding absti- 
 nence from meats, as if they were unclean and of 
 themselves unlawful. Now the truth was, Mon- 
 tanus said no such thing-; but commanded frecjuent 
 abstinence, enjoined dry diet and an ascetic table, 
 not for conscience' sake, but for discipline ; and yet, 
 because he did this with too muoh rigour and 
 strictness of mandate, the primitive church mis- 
 liked it in him, as being- too near their error, who, 
 by a Judaical superstition, abstained from meats 
 as from uncleanness. This, by the way, will much 
 concern them who place too much sanctity in such 
 rites and acts of discipline ; for it is an eternal rule, 
 and of never-failing truth, that such abstinences, 
 if they be obtruded as acts of original immediate 
 duty and sanctity, are unlawful and superstitious. 
 If they be for discipline, they may be good, but of 
 no very great profit : it is that bodily exercise which 
 St. Paul says profiteth but little; and just in the 
 
 E 
 
50 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 same degree the primitive church esteemed them, 
 for they therefore reprehended Montanus for urg- 
 ing such abstinences with too much earnestness, 
 though but in the way of discipline ; for that it was 
 no more, Tertullian, who v.as himself a Montanist, 
 and knew best the opinions of his own sect, testifies : 
 and yet Epiphanius, reporting the errors of Mon- 
 tanus, commends that which Montanus truly and 
 really taught, and which the primitive church con- 
 demned in him, and therefore represents that he- 
 resy to another sense, and affixes that to Montanus 
 which Epiphanius believed a heresy, and yet which 
 Montanus did not teach. And this also, among 
 many other things, lessens my opinion very much 
 of the integrity or discretion of the old catalogues 
 of heretics, and much abates my confidence to- 
 wards them. 
 
 And now that I have mentioned them casually 
 in passing by, I shall give a short account of them; 
 for men are much mistaken : some in their opinions 
 concerning the truth of them, as believing them to 
 be all true; some concerning their purpose, as 
 thinking them sufficient not only to condemn all 
 those opinions there called heretical, but to be a 
 precedent to all ages of the church to be free 
 and forward in calling heretic. But he that con- 
 siders the catalogues themselves, as they are col- 
 lected by Epiphanius, Philastrius, and St. Austin, 
 shall find that many are reckoned for heretics for 
 opinions in matters disputable and undetermined, 
 and of no consequence ; and that, in these cata- 
 logues of heretics, there are men numbered for he- 
 retics which by every side respectively are acquitted; 
 so that there is no company of men in the world 
 that admit these catalogues as good records or suf- 
 
OF HERESY. 51 
 
 ficient sentences of condemnation. For the churches 
 of the reformation, I am certain they acquit Aerius 
 for denying prayer for the dead, and the Eusta- 
 thians for denying invocation of saints. And I 
 am partly of opinion, that the church of Rome is 
 not willing to call the Collyridians heretics for of- 
 fering a cake to the Virgin Mary, unless she also 
 will run the hazard of the same sentence for offer- 
 ing candles to her ; and that they will be glad with 
 St. Austin (l.vi.DeHffires. c.86) to excuse theTer- 
 tullianists* for picturing God in a visible, corporal 
 representment. And yet these sects are put in the 
 black book by Epiphanius, and St. Austin, and 
 Isidore respectively. I remember also that the 
 Osseni are called heretics, because they refused to 
 worship toward the east ; and yet in that dissent I 
 find not the malignity of a heresy, nor any thing 
 against an article of faith or good manners ; and it 
 being only in circumstance, it were hard, if they 
 were otherwise pious men and true believers, to 
 send them to hell for such a trifle. The Parerme- 
 neutae refused to follow men's dictates like sheep, 
 but would expound Scripture according to the best 
 evidence themselves could find, and yet were called 
 heretics, whether they expounded true or no. The 
 Pauliciani,f for being offended at crosses; the Pro- 
 clians, for saying, in a regenerate man all his sins 
 w^ere not quite dead, but only curbed and assuaged, 
 were called heretics, and so condemned; for aught I 
 know, for affirming that which all pious men feel in 
 themselves to be too true. And he that will consider 
 how numerous the catalogues are, and to what a vo- 
 lume they are come in their last collections, to no less 
 
 * D. Thorn, i. Contr. Gent. c. 21. 
 -|- Euthym. part i. tit. 21. Epiphan. Hjeres. 64. 
 
 E 2 
 
52 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 than five hundred and twenty, (for so many heresies 
 and heretics are reckoned by Prateolus,) may think 
 that if a retrenchment were justly made of truths, 
 and all impertinences, and all opinions, either still 
 disputable or less considerable, the number would 
 much decrease ; and therefore that the catalogues 
 are much amiss, and the name heretic is made a 
 bugbear to affright people from their belief, or to 
 discountenance the persons of men, and disrepute 
 them, that their schools may be empty and their 
 disciples few. 
 
 So that I shall not need to instance how that 
 some men were called heretics by Philastrius, for 
 rejecting the translation of the Seventy, and follow- 
 ing the Bible of Aquila, wherein the great faults 
 mentioned by Philastrius are, that he translates 
 Xpi'^ov Qeov not Christum, but tnictum Dei, the 
 Anointed of God ; and instead of Emanuel, writes 
 Deus nobiscum, God with us. But this most con- 
 cerns them of the primitive church, with whom the 
 translation of Aquila was in great reputation : it 
 was supposed he was a greater clerk, and under- 
 stood more than ordinary. It may be, so he did : 
 but whether yea or no, yet since the other trans- 
 lators, by the confession of Philastrius, when com- 
 pelled by urgent necessity, did pass by some things, 
 if some wise men, or unwise, did follow^ a translator 
 who understood the original well, (for so Aquila had 
 learnt amongst the Jews,) it was hard to call men 
 heretics for following his translation, especially 
 since the other Bibles (which were thought to have 
 in them contradictories, and, it was confessed, had 
 omitted some things) were excused by necessity ; 
 and the others' necessity of following Aquila, when 
 they had no better^ was not at all considered, nor a 
 
OF HERESY. 53 
 
 less ci'ime than heresy laid upon their score. Such 
 another was the heresy of the Quartodecimani ; for 
 the Easterling-s were all proclaimed heretics, for 
 keeping Easter after the manner of the east ; and 
 as Socrates and Nicephorus report, the bishop of 
 Rome was very forward to excommunicate all the 
 bishops of the lesser Asia, for observing- the feast 
 according to the tradition of their ancestors, though 
 they did it modestly, quietly, and without faction ; 
 and although they pretended, and were as well 
 able to prove their tradition from St. John, of so 
 observing it, as the western church could prove 
 their tradition derivative from St. Peter and St 
 Paul. If such things as these make up the cata- 
 logues of heretics, (as we see they did,) their ac- 
 counts differ from the precedents they ought to 
 have followed ; that is, the censures apostolical; and 
 therefore are unsafe precedents for us; and unless 
 they took the liberty of using the word heresy in a 
 lower sense than the world now doth, since the 
 councils have been forward in pronouncing ana- 
 thema, and took it only for a distinct sense, and a 
 differing persuasion in matters of opinion and 
 minute articles, we cannot excuse the persons of 
 the men : but if they intended the crime of heresy 
 against those opinions, as they laid them down in 
 their catalogues, that crime (T say) which is a work 
 of the flesh, which excludes from the kingdom of 
 heaven, all that I shall say against them is, that 
 the causeless curse shall return empty, and no man 
 is damned the sooner because his enemy cries ' Oh, 
 accursed !' and they that were the judges and ac- 
 cusers might err as well as the persons accused, and 
 might need as charitable construction of their opi- 
 nions and practices as the other. And of this we 
 
54 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 are sure, they had no warrant from any rule of 
 Scripture, or practice apostolical, for driving so 
 furiously and hastily in such decretory sentences. 
 But I am willing rather to believe their sense of the 
 word heresy was more gentle than with us it is, and 
 for that they might have warrant from Scripture. 
 
 But, by the way, I observe that although these 
 catalogues are a great instance to show that they 
 whose age and spirits were far distant from the 
 apostles, had also other judgments concerning faith 
 and heresy than the apostles had, and the ages 
 apostolical; yet these catalogues, although they 
 are reports of heresies in the second and third ages, 
 are not to be put upon the account of those ages, 
 nor to be reckoned as an instance of their judg- 
 ment; which, although it was in some degrees more 
 culpable than that of their predecessors, yet in re- 
 spect of the following ages it was innocent and mo- 
 dest. But these catalogues I speak of were set 
 down according to the sense of the then present 
 ages, in which as they in all probability did differ 
 from the apprehensions of the former centuries, so 
 it is certain there were differing learnings, other 
 fancies, divers rep resentments and judgments of 
 men, depending upon circumstances, which the first 
 ages knew and the following ages did not; and 
 therefore the catalogues were drawn with some 
 truth, but less certainty, as appears in their differ- 
 ing about the authors of some heresies; several 
 opinions imputed to the same, and some put in the 
 roll of heretics by one, which the other left out ; 
 which to me is an argument that the collectors were 
 determined, not by the sense and sentences of the 
 three first ages, but by themselves, and some cir- 
 cumstances about them, which to reckon for here- 
 
OF HERESY. 65 
 
 tics, which not. And that they themselves were 
 the prime judges, or perhaps some in their own age 
 together with them ; but there was not any suffi- 
 cient external judicatory, competent to declare he- 
 resy, that by any public or sufficient sentence or 
 acts of court had furnished them with warrant for 
 their catalogues. And therefore they are no argu- 
 ment sufficient that the first ages of the church, 
 which certainly were the best, did much recede 
 from that which I showed to be the sense of the 
 Scripture and the practice of the apostles ; they all 
 contented themselves with the apostles' creed as 
 the rule of the faith, and therefore were not forward 
 to judge of heresy but by analogy to their rule of 
 faith ; and those catalogues made after these ages 
 are not sufficient arguments that they did other- 
 wise, but rather of the weakness of some persons, 
 or of the spirit and genius of the age in which the 
 compilers lived, in which the device of calling all 
 differing opinions by the name of heresies, might 
 grow to be a design to serve ends, and to promote 
 interests, as often as an act of zeal and just indig- 
 nation against evil persons, destroyers of the faith, 
 and corrupters of manners. 
 
 For whatever private men's opinions were, yet, 
 till the Nicene council, the rule of faith was entire 
 in the apostles' creed; and provided they retained 
 that, easily they broke not the unity of faith, how- 
 ever differing opinions might possibly commence 
 in such things in which a liberty were better suf- 
 fered than prohibited with a breach of charity. 
 And this appears exactly in the question between 
 St Cyprian, of Carthage, and Stephen, bishop of 
 Rome, in which one instance it is easy to see what 
 was lawful and safe for a wise and good man, and 
 
56 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 yet how others began, even then, to be abused by 
 that temptation, which since hath invaded all Chris- 
 tendom. St. Cyprian rebaptized heretics, and 
 thought he was bound so to do ; calls a synod in 
 Africa, as being metropolitan, and confirms his 
 opinion, by the consent of his suffragans and bre- 
 thren, but still with so much modesty, that if any 
 man was of another opinion, he judged him not, 
 but gave him that liberty that he desired himself: 
 Stephen, bishop of Rome, grows angry, excommu- 
 nicates the bishops of Asia and Africa, that in 
 divers synods had consented to rebaptization, and, 
 without peace and without charity, condemns them 
 for heretics. Indeed, here was the rarest mixture 
 and conjunction of unlikelihoods that I have ob- 
 served. Here was error of opinion with much mo- 
 desty and sweetness of temper on one side ; and on 
 the other, an over-active and impetuous zeal to 
 attest a truth. It uses not to be so, for error usu- 
 ally is supported with confidence, and truth sup- 
 pressed and discountenanced by indifferency. But 
 that it might appear that the error was not the sin 
 but the uncharitableness, Stephen was accounted 
 a zealous and furious person, and St. Cyprian,* 
 though deceived, yet a very good man, and of great 
 sanctity. For although every error is to be opposed, 
 yet, according to the variety of errors so is there 
 variety of proceedings. If it be against faith, that 
 is, a destruction of any part of the foundation, it is 
 with zeal to be resisted; and we have for it an apos- 
 tolical warrant, ' Contend earnestly for the faith : ' 
 but then, as these things recede farther from the 
 foundation, our certainty is the less, and their ne- 
 
 * Vid. St. Aug. lib. ii. c. 6. De Baptis. contra Donat. 
 
OF HERESY. 57 
 
 cessity not so much ; and therefore it were very fit 
 that our confidence should be according to our evi- 
 dence, and our zeal according- to our confidence, 
 and our confidence should then be the rule of our 
 communion ; and the lightness of an article should 
 be considered with the weight of a precept of cha- 
 rity. And therefore, there are some errors to be 
 reproved, rather by a private friend than a public 
 censure, and the persons of the men not avoided, 
 but admonished, and their doctrine rejected, not 
 their communion : few opinions are of that malig- 
 nity which are to be rejected with the same exter- 
 minating spirit, and confidence of aversation, with 
 which the first teachers of Christianity condemned 
 Ebion, Manes, and Cerinthus : and in the condem- 
 nation of heretics, the personal iniquity is more 
 considerable than the obliquity of the doctrine, not 
 for the rejection of the article, but for censuring the 
 persons ; and therefore it is the piety of the man 
 that excused St. Cyprian, which is a certain argu- 
 ment that it is not the opinion, but the impiety that 
 condemns and makes the heretic. And this was it 
 which Vincentius I^irinensis said, in this very case 
 of St. Cyprian : '' Strange as it may appear, we 
 judge the catholic authors and the heretics that fol- 
 lowed, to be of one and the same opinion. We excuse 
 the teachers, and condemn the scholars. They who 
 wrote the books are the inheritors of heaven, while 
 the defenders of these very books are thrust down 
 to hell."* Which saying, if we confront against the 
 
 * '• Unius et ejusdem opinionis (mirum videri potest) judi- 
 camus authores catholicos, et sequaces haereticos. Excusamus 
 magistros, et condemnamus scholasticos. Qui scripserunt libros 
 sunt hjeredes coeli, quorum librorum defensores detruduntur ad 
 jnfernum." — Adv. Hares, c ii. 
 
•58 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 saying of Salvian, condemning the first authors of 
 the Arian sect, and acquitting the followers, we 
 are taught by these two wise men, that an error is 
 not it that sends a man to hell, but he that begins 
 tlie heresy, and is the author of the sect, is the man 
 marked out to ruin ; and his followers escaped, 
 when the heresiarch commenced the error upon 
 pride and ambition, and his followers went after 
 him in simplicity of their heart ; and so it was 
 most commonly: hut on the contrary, when the 
 first man in the opinion was honestly and invincibly 
 deceived, as St. Cyprian was, and that his scholars, 
 to maintain their credit, or their ends, maintained 
 the opinion, not for the excellency of the reason 
 persuading, but for the benefit and accruments, or 
 peevishness, as did the Donatists, who, as St. Austin 
 said of them, indulged themselves in their lusts, 
 upon the supposed authority of Cyprian ; then the 
 scholars are the heretics, and the master is a ca- 
 tholic. For his error is not the heresy formally, 
 and an erring person may be a catholic. A wicked 
 person in his error becomes heretic, when the good 
 man in the same error shall have all the rewards of 
 faith. For whatever an ill man believes, if he 
 therefore believe it because it serves his own ends, 
 be his belief true or false, the man hath an heretical 
 mind ; for to serve his own ends, his mind is pre- 
 pared to believe a lie. But a good man, that be- 
 lieves what according to his light, and upon the use 
 of his moral industry he thinks true, whether he 
 hits upon the right or no, because he hath a mind 
 desirous of truth, and prepared to believe every 
 truth, is therefore acceptable to God ; because no- 
 thing hindered him from it but what he could not 
 help, his misery and his weakness, which being im- 
 
OF HERESY. 59 
 
 perfections merely natural, which God never pu- 
 nishes, he stands fair for a blessing of his morality, 
 which God always accepts. So that now, if Stephen 
 had followed the example of God Almighty, or 
 retained but the same peaceable spirit which his 
 brother of Carthage did, he might, with more advan- 
 tage to truth, and reputation both of wisdom and 
 piety, have done his duty in attesting what he be- 
 lieved to be true ; for we are as much bound to be 
 zealous pursuers of peace, as earnest contenders for 
 the faith. I am sure, more earnest we ought to be 
 for the peace of the church, than for an article 
 which is not of the faith, as this question of rebap- 
 tization was not; for St. Cyprian died in belief 
 against it, and yet was a catholic, and a martyr for 
 the Christian faith. 
 
 The sum is this, St. Cyprian did right in a 
 wrong cause; (as it hath been since judged ;) and 
 Stephen did ill in a good cause. As far, then, as 
 piety and charity is to be preferred before a true 
 opinion, so far is St. Cyprian's practice a better 
 precedent for us, and an example of primitive 
 sanctity, than the zeal and indiscretion of Stephen : 
 St. Cyprian had not learned to forbid to any one a 
 liberty of prophesying or interpretation, if he trans- 
 gressed not the foundation of faith and the creed 
 of the apostles. 
 
 Well, thus it was, and thus it ought to be, in the 
 first ages, the faith of Christendom rested still upon 
 the same foundation, and the judgments of heresies 
 were accordingly, or were amiss; but the first great 
 violation of this truth was, when general councils 
 came in, and the symbols were enlarged, and new 
 ailicles were made as much of necessity to be be- 
 lieved as the creed of the apostles, and damnation 
 
60 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 threatened to them that did dissent ; and at last the 
 creeds multiplied in number, and in articles, and 
 the liberty of jirophesying began to be something 
 restrained. 
 
 And this was of so much the more force and 
 efficacy, because it began upon great reason, and 
 in the first instance, with success good enough. 
 For I am much pleased with the enlarging of the 
 creed, which the council of Nice made, because 
 they enlarged it to my sense ; but I am not sure 
 that others are satisfied with it ; while we look upon 
 the article they did determine, we see all things well 
 enough ; but there are some wise personages con- 
 sider it in all circumstances, and think the church 
 had been more happy if she had not been in some 
 sense constrained to alter the simjilicity of her faith, 
 and make it more curious and articulate, so much 
 that he had need be a subtle man to understand 
 the very words of the new determinations. 
 
 For the first Alexander, bishop of Alexandria, in 
 the presence of his clergy, entreats somewhat more 
 curiously of the secret of the mysterious Trinity 
 and Unity ; so curiously, that Arius* (who was 
 a sophister too subtle as it afterward appeared) 
 misunderstood him ; and thought he intended 
 to bring in the heresy of Sabellius. For while 
 he taught the unity of the Trinity, either he did 
 it so inartificially or so intricately, that Arius 
 thought he did not distinguish the persons, when 
 the bishop intended only the unity of nature. 
 Against this Arius furiously drives; and to confute 
 Sabellius, and in him (as he thought) the bishop, 
 distinguishes the natures too, and so to secure the 
 
 * Socra. lib. i. c. 8. 
 
OF HERESY. 61 
 
 article of the Trinity, destroys the Unity. It was 
 the first time the question was disputed in the world ; 
 and in such mysterious niceties, possibly every 
 wise man may understand something, but few can 
 understand all, and therefore suspect what they 
 understand not, and are furiously zealous for that 
 part of it which they do perceive. Well, it hap- 
 pened in these as always in such cases, in things 
 men understand not they are most impetuous ; and 
 because suspicion is a thing- infinite in degrees, for 
 it hath nothing to determine it, a suspicious person 
 is ever most violent ; for his fears are worse than 
 the thing feared, because the thing is limited, but 
 his fears are not ; so that upon this grew conten- 
 tions on both sides, and tumults, railing and revil- 
 ing each other;* and then the laity were drawn 
 into parts, and the Meletians abetted the wrong 
 part, and the right part, fearing to be overborne, did 
 any thing that was next at hand to secure itself. 
 Now, then, they that lived in that age, that under- 
 stood the men, that saw how quiet the church was 
 before this stir, how miserably rent now, what little 
 benefit from the question, what schism about it, gave 
 other censures of the business than we since have 
 done, who only look upon the article determined 
 with truth and approbation of the church generally 
 since that time. But the epistle of Constantine to 
 Alexander and Arius,f tells the truth, and chides 
 them both for commencing the c^uestion; Alexander 
 for broaching it, Arius for taking it up : and 
 although this be true, that it had been better for 
 the church it never had begun, yet, being begun, 
 w^hat is to be done in it P Of this, also, in that admi- 
 
 * Id. lib. i. c. G. t Cap 7- 
 
62 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 rable epistle, we have the emjDeror's judgment; (I 
 suppose not without the advice and privity of Hosius, 
 bishop of Corduba, whom the emperor loved and 
 trusted much, and employed in the delivery of the 
 letters;) for first he calls it, *' a certain vain piece 
 of a question, ill begun and more unadvisedly pub- 
 lished ; a question which no law or ecclesiastical 
 canon defineth ; a fruitless contention, the product 
 of idle brains; a matter so nice, so obscure, so intri- 
 cate, that it was neither to be explicated by the 
 clergy, nor understood by the people ; a dispute of 
 words; a doctrine inexplicable, but most dangerous 
 when taught, lest it introduce discord or blas- 
 phemy ; and therefore, the objector was rash, and 
 the answerer unadvised ; for it concerned not the 
 substance of faith, or the worship of God, nor any 
 chief commandment of Scripture, and therefore, 
 why should it be the matter of discord ? For 
 though the matter be grave; yet, because neither' 
 necessary nor explicable, the contention is trifling 
 and toyish. And therefore, as the philosophers 
 of the same sect, though differing in explica- 
 tion of an opinion, yet more love for the unity of 
 their profession, than disagree for the difference of 
 opinion ; so should Christians, believing in the 
 same God, retaining the same faith, having the 
 same hopes, opposed by the same enemies, not fall 
 at variance upon such disputes, considering our 
 understandings are not all alike, and therefore, 
 neither can our opinions in such mysterious arti- 
 cles : so that the matter being of no great import- 
 ance, but vain, and a toy, in respect of the excellent 
 blessings of peace and charity, it were good that 
 Alexander and Arius should leave contending, keep 
 their opinions to themselves, ask each other forgive- 
 
OF HERESY. 63 
 
 ness, and give mutual toleration." This is the sub- 
 stance of Constantine's letter, and it contains in it 
 much reason, if he did not undervalue the ques- 
 tion ; but it seems it was not then thought a ques- 
 tion of faith, but of nicety of dispute ; they both did 
 believe one God, and the Holy Trinity. Now, then, 
 that he afterward called the Nicene council, it was 
 upon occasion of the vileness of the men of the 
 Arian part, their eternal discord and pertinacious 
 wrangling-, and to bring peace into the church ; 
 that w as the necessity ; and in order to it was the 
 determination of the article. But for the article 
 itself, the letter declares what opinion he had of 
 that, and this letter was by Socrates called " a won- 
 derful exhortation, full of grace and sober counsels;" 
 and such as Hosius himself, who was the messen- 
 ger, pressed with all earnestness, with all the skill 
 and authority he had. 
 
 I know the opinion the world had of the ar- 
 ticle afterwards, is quite differing from this cen- 
 sure given of it before ; and therefore they have 
 put it into the creed (I suppose) to bring the 
 world to unity, and to prevent sedition in this 
 question, and the accidental blasphemies, which 
 were occasioned by their curious talkings of such 
 secret mysteries, and by their illiterate resolutions. 
 But although the article was determined with an 
 excellent spirit, and we all, with much reason, pro- 
 fess to believe it ; yet it is another consideration, 
 whether or no, it might not have been better deter- 
 mined, if with more simplicity ; and another yet, 
 whether or no, since many of the bishops who did 
 believe this thing yet did not like the nicety and 
 curiosity of expressing it, it had not been more 
 agreeable to the practice of the apostles, to have 
 
64 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 made a determination of the article by way of ex- 
 position of the apostles' creed, and to have left this 
 in a rescript, for record to all posterity, and not to 
 have enlarged the creed with it ; for since it was an 
 explication of an article of the creed of the apos- 
 tles, as sermons are of places of Scripture, it was 
 thought by some, that Scripture might, with good 
 profit and great truth, be expounded, and yet the 
 expositions not put into the canon, or go for Scrip- 
 ture, but that left still in the naked original sim- 
 plicity ; and so much the rather, since that explica- 
 tion was further from the foundation, and though 
 most certainly true, yet not penned by so infallible 
 a spirit, as was that of the apostles, and therefore 
 not with so much evidence as certainty. And if 
 they had pleased, they might have made use of an 
 admirable precedent to this and many other great 
 and good purposes ; no less than of the blessed 
 apostles, whose symbol they might have imitated, 
 with as much simplicity as they did the expressions 
 of Scripture, when they first composed it. For it 
 is most considerable, that although, in reason, every 
 clause in the creed should be clear, and so inop- 
 portune and unapt to variety of interpretation, that 
 there might be no place left for several senses or 
 variety of expositions; yet, when they thought fit 
 to insert some mysteries into the creed, which in 
 Scripture were expressed in so mysterious words, 
 that the last and most explicit sense would still 
 be latent, yet they who (if ever any did) understood 
 all the senses and secrets of it, thought it not fit to 
 use any words but the words of Scripture, particu- 
 larly in the articles of Christ's descending into hell, 
 and sitting at the right hand of God, to show us, 
 that those creeds are best which keep the very 
 
OF HERESY. QQ 
 
 vv ords of Scripture ; and that faith is best which 
 hath greatest simplicity ; and that it is better, 
 in all cases, humbly to submit, than curiously 
 to inquire and pry into the mystery under the 
 cloud, and to hazard our faith by improving our 
 knowledge : if the Nicene fathers had done 
 so too, possibly the church never would have 
 repented it. 
 
 And indeed the experience the church had after- 
 wards, showed that the bishops and priests were 
 not satisfied in all circumstances, nor the schism 
 appeased, nor the persons agreed, nor the canons 
 accepted, nor the article understood, nor any 
 thing right, but when they were overborne with 
 authority, which authority, when the scales turned, 
 did the same service and promotion to the contrary. 
 
 But it is considerable, that it was not the article 
 or the thing itself that troubled the disagreeing 
 persons, but the manner of representing it: for 
 the five dissenters, Eusebius of Nicomedia, Theog- 
 nis. Maris, Theonas, and Secundus, believed Christ 
 to be very God of very God ; but the clause of 
 ofiooixjiog they derided, as being persuaded by their 
 logic, that he was neither of the substance of the 
 Father, by division, as a piece of a lump, nor deri- 
 vation, as children from their parents, nor by pro- 
 duction, as buds from trees ; and nobody could tell 
 them any other way at that time, and that made the 
 fire to burn still. A.nd that was it I said ; if the ar- 
 ticle had been with more simplicity, and less nicety 
 determined, charity would have gained more, and 
 faith would have lost nothing. And we shall find 
 the wisest of them all, for so Eusebius Pamphilus^ 
 
 18. 
 
66 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 was esteemed, published a creed or confession 
 in the synod; and though he and all the rest 
 believed that great mystery of godliness, ' God 
 manifested in the flesh/ yet he was not fully satis- 
 fied ; nor so soon of the clause of * one substance/ 
 till he had done a little violence to his own under- 
 standing ; for even when he had subscribed to the 
 clause of ' one substance/ he does it with a protes- 
 tation, that "heretofore he never had been ac- 
 quainted, nor accustomed himself to such speeches/' 
 And the sense of the word was either so ambiguous, 
 or their meaning so uncertain, that Andreas Fri- 
 cius* does, with some jDrobability, dispute, that the 
 Nicene fathers, by oixoovcriog, did mean likeness to 
 the Father, not unity of essence.f Sylva, iv. c. 1. 
 And it vras so well understood by personages dis- 
 interested, that when Arius and Euzoius had con- 
 fessed Christ to be Deus verhum, without inserting 
 the clause of ' one substance,' the emperor, by his 
 letter, approved of his faith, and restored him to 
 his country and office, and the communion of the 
 church. And a long time after, although the ar- 
 ticle was believed with nicety enough,! yet when 
 they added more words still to the mystery, and 
 brought in the word viroaraaig, (hypostasis,) saying 
 there were three hypostases in the Holy Trinity, it 
 was so long before it could be understood, that it 
 was believed therefore, because they would not 
 oppose their superiors, or disturb the peace of the 
 
 * Socrat. lib. i. capo 2G. 
 
 -j- " Patris similitudinem, non essentiEe unitatem." 
 J '" It was no injudicious application that some one made of 
 the saying of Ariston, the philosopher, to the nice exposition of 
 this mystery : ' Black hellebore cleanses and heals, if it be 
 taken in a state of consistence ; but when bruised and broken 
 small, it suffocates.' " 
 
OF HERESY. 67 
 
 church, in things which they thought could not 
 be understood: insomuch that St. Jerome writ to 
 Damasus : " Pray determine, for I shall not hesi- 
 tate to speak of three hypostases, if you com- 
 mand me:" and again: ''I implore thee, by the 
 Saviour of the world and the United Trinity, 
 that thou wouldst authorize me, by thy letters, 
 either to speak or to be silent on the subject of the 
 hypostases."* 
 
 But, without all question, the fathers determined 
 the question with much truth; though I cannot 
 say the arguments upon which they built their de- 
 crees were so good as the conclusion itself was 
 certain ; but that which in this case is considerable, 
 is, whether or no they did well in putting a curse 
 to the foot of their decree, and the decree itself into 
 the symbol, as if it had been of the same necessity. 
 For the curse, Eusebius Pamphilus could hardly 
 find in his heart to subscribe : at last he did ; but 
 with this clause, that he subscribed it because the 
 form of curse did only ''forbid men to acquaint 
 themselves with foreign speeches and unwritten 
 languages," whereby confusion and discord is 
 brought into the church. So that it was not so 
 much a magisterial high assertion of the article, as 
 an endeavour to secure the peace of the church. 
 And to the same purpose, for aught I Imow, the 
 fathers composed a form of confession, not as a 
 prescript rule of faith, to build the hopes of our 
 salvation on, but as a tessera (mark) of that com- 
 munion, which by public authority was therefore 
 
 * " Discerne, si placet, obsecro ; non timebo tres hypostases 
 dicere si jubetis. — Obtestor beatitudinem tuam per crucifixum 
 mundi Salutem, per bnoovniov Trinitatem, ut niihi epistolis tuis, 
 sive tacendarum sive dicendarum hypostaseon detur authoritas." 
 
 f2 
 
68 THE LIBERTY Of PROPHESYING. 
 
 established upon those articles, because the articles 
 were true, though not of prime necessity, and 
 because that unity of confession was judged, as 
 things then stood, the best preserver of the unity 
 of minds. 
 
 But I shall observe this, that although the Nicene 
 fathers, in that case, at that time, and in that con- 
 juncture of circumstances, did well, (and yet their 
 aj^probation is made by after ages ex post facto,) 
 yet, if this precedent had been followed by all 
 councils, (and certainly they had equal power,, if 
 they had thought it equally reasonable,) and that 
 they had put all their decrees into the creed, as 
 some have done since, to what a volume had the 
 creed by this time swelled ! and all the house had 
 run into foundation, nothing left for superstruc- 
 tures. But that they did not, it appears, first, that 
 since they thought all their decrees true, yet they 
 did not think them all necessary, at least not in 
 that degree ; and that they published such decrees, 
 they did it declaratively, not imperatively ; as doc- 
 tors in their chairs, not masters of other men's faith 
 and consciences. Secondly, and yet there is some 
 more modesty or wariness, or necessity, (what 
 shall I call it?) than this comes to; for why are 
 not all controversies determined ? but even when 
 general assemblies of prelates have been, some con- 
 troversies that have been very vexatious, have been 
 pretermitted, and others of less consequence have 
 been determined. Why did never any general 
 council condemn, in express sentence, the Pelagian 
 heresy, that great pest, that subtle infection of 
 Christendom ? and yet divers general councils 
 did assemble while the heresy was in the world. 
 Both these cases, in several degrees, leave men 
 
OF HERESY. 69 
 
 in their liberty of believing- and prophesying. 
 The latter proclaims, that all controversies cannot 
 be determined to sufficient purposes; and the first 
 declares, that those that are, are not all of them 
 matters of faith, and themselves are not so secure 
 but they may be deceived : and therefore, possibly, 
 it were better it were let alone ; for if the latter 
 leaves them divided in their opinions, yet their 
 communions, and therefore probably their charities, 
 are not divided ; but the former divides their com- 
 munions, and hinders their interest; and yet for 
 aught is certain, the accused person is the better 
 catholic. And yet, after all this, it is not safety 
 enough to say, let the council or prelates determine 
 articles warily, seldom, with great caution, and 
 with much sweetness and modesty : for though this 
 be better than to do it rashly, frequently, and fu- 
 riously, yet if we once transgress the bounds set us 
 by the apostles in their creed, and not only preach 
 other truths, but determine them magisterially as 
 well as exegetically, although there be no error in 
 the subject-matter, (as in Nice there was none,) yet 
 if the next ages say they will determine another 
 article, with as much care and caution, and pretend 
 as great a necessity, there is no hindering them 
 but by giving reasons against it : and so, like 
 enough, they might have done against the decreeing 
 tlie article at Nice ; yet that is not sufficient ; for 
 since the authority of the Nicene council hath 
 grown to the height of a mountainous prejudice 
 against him that should say it was ill done, the 
 same reason and the same necessity may be pre- 
 tended by any age and in any council, and they 
 think themselves warranted, by the great precedent 
 at Nice, to proceed as peremptorily as they did : but 
 
70 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 then, if any other assembly of learned men may 
 possibly be deceived, were it not better they should 
 spare the labour, than that they should, with so great 
 pomp and solemnities, engage men's persuasions, 
 and determine an article which after ages must 
 rescind ? For, therefore, most certainly in their 
 own age, the point, with safety of faith and salva- 
 tion, might have been disputed and disbelieved : 
 and that many men's ftiiths have been tied up by 
 acts and decrees of councils, for those articles in 
 which the next age did see a liberty had better 
 been preserved, because an error was determined, 
 we shall afterward receive a more certain account. 
 
 And therefore the council of Nice did well, and 
 Constantinople did well; so did Ephesus and 
 Chalcedon; but it is because the articles were truly 
 determined (for that is part of my belief) : but 
 who is sure it should be so beforehand, and whether 
 the points there determined were necessary or no 
 to be believed or to be determined ? If peace 
 had been concerned in it, through the faction and 
 division of the parties, I sujjpose the judgment 
 of Constantine, the emperor, and the famous 
 Hosius of Corduba, is sufficient to instruct us; 
 whose authority I rather urge than reasons, be- 
 cause it is a prejudice and not a reason I am to 
 contend against. 
 
 So that such determinations and publishing of 
 confessions, with authority of prince and bishop, are 
 sometimes of very good use for the peace of the 
 church ; and they are good also to determine the 
 judgment of indifferent persons, whose reasons of 
 either side are not too great to weigh down the pro- 
 bability of that authority: but for persons of con- 
 fident and imperious understandings, they on whose 
 
OF HERESY. 71 
 
 side the determination is, are armed with a preju- 
 dice against the other, and with a weapon to affront 
 them, but with no more to convince them; and 
 they against whom the decision is, do the more 
 readily betake themselves to the defensive, and are 
 engaged upon contestation and public enmities, for 
 such articles which either might safely have been 
 unknown, or with much charity disputed. There- 
 fore the Nicene council, although it have the advan- 
 tage of an acquired and prescribing authority, yet 
 it must not become a precedent to others, lest the 
 inconveniences of multiplying more articles, upon 
 as great pretence of reason as then, make the act of 
 the Nicene fathers, in straitening prophesying, 
 and enlarging the creed, become accidentally an 
 inconvenience. The first restraint, although, if it 
 had been complained of, might possibly have been 
 better considered of; yet the inconvenience is not 
 visible, till it comes by way of precedent to usher in 
 more. It is like an arbitrary power, which, al- 
 though by the same reason it take sixpence from 
 the subject it may take a hundred pounds, and then 
 a thousand, and then all, yet so long as it is within 
 the first bounds, the inconvenience is not so great ; 
 but when it comes to be a precedent or argument 
 for more, then the first may justly be complained 
 of, as having in it that reason in the principle 
 which brought the inconvenience in the sequel; 
 and we have seen very ill consequents from inno- 
 cent beginnings. 
 
 And the inconveniences which might possibly 
 arise from this precedent, those wise personages also 
 did foresee; and therefore, although they took 
 liberty in Nice to add some articles, or at least more 
 explicitly to declare the first creed, yet they then 
 
72 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 would have all the world to rest upon that, and go 
 no farther, as believing that to be sufficient, St. 
 Athanasius declares their opinion :* " That faith, 
 which those fathers there confessed, was sufficient 
 for the refutation of all impiety, and the establish- 
 ment of all faith in Christ and true religion." And 
 therefore there was a famous epistle written by 
 Zeno the emperor, called the 'Ev(OTiK6v,-\- or the 
 Epistle of Reconciliation, in which all disagreeing 
 interests are entreated to agree in the Nicene sym- 
 bol ; and a promise made, upon that condition, to 
 communicate with all other sects ; adding, withal, 
 that the church should never receive any other 
 symbol than that which was composed by the Nicene 
 fathers. And however IJonorius was condemned 
 for a Monothelite, yet, in one of the epistles which 
 the sixth synod alleged against him, (viz. the se- 
 cond,) he gave them counsel that would have done 
 the church as much service as the determination of 
 the article did ; for he advised them not to be curious 
 in their disputings, nor dogmatical in their deter- 
 minations about that question; and because the 
 church was not used to dispute in that question, it 
 were better to preserve the simplicity of faith, than 
 to ensnare men's consciences by a new article. And 
 when the emperor Constantius was, by his faction, 
 engaged in a contrary practice, the inconvenience 
 and unreasonableness was so great, that a prudent 
 heathen observed and noted it in this character of 
 Constantius, " That he mixed the Christian reli- 
 gion, pure and simple in itself, with a weak and 
 
 * "H yap sv civrij Trapa tmv Trarepiov Kara tclq Bfiag 
 ypatpaq OjjLoXoyrjBeiaa TTtVic, dvTapKr]Q £Ti TrpoQ civaTpOTrrjv 
 fiev 7rd(Tt]Q d(7e(3eiag, av^cKXiv de Tijg evrre^eiac Iv X|0i<7<^ 
 TTi^-fwc. — Epist. ad Epict. 
 
 f Evag. lib. iii. c. 14. 
 
OF HERESY. 73 
 
 foolish superstition, perplexing to examine, but 
 useless to contrive ; and excited dissensions which 
 were widely diffused, and which were maintained 
 with a war of words, while he endeavoured to regu- 
 late every sacred rite by his own will." * 
 
 And yet men are more led by example than 
 either by reason or by precept ; for in the council of 
 Constantino j)le one article, wholly new, was added ; 
 viz. " I believe one baptism for the remission of 
 sins :" and then, again, they were so confident that 
 that confession of faith was so absolutely entire, 
 and that no man ever after should need to add any 
 thing to the integrity of faith, that the fathers of 
 the council of Ephesus pronounced anathema to 
 all those that should add any thing to the creed of 
 Constantinople. And yet, for all this, the church of 
 Rome, in a synod at Gentilly, added the clause of 
 " Filioque" to the article of the procession of the 
 Holy Ghost; and what they have done since all the 
 world knows. All men were persuaded that it was 
 most reasonable the limits of faith should be no more 
 enlarged ; but yet they enlarged it themselves, and 
 bound others from doing it ; like an intemperate 
 father, who, because he knows he does ill himself, 
 enjoins temperance to his son, but continues to be 
 intemperate himself. 
 
 But now, if I should be questioned concerning 
 the symbol of Athanasius, (for we see the Nicene 
 symbol was the father of many more, some twelve 
 or thirteen symbols in the space of a hundred 
 
 * " Christianam religionem absolutam et simplicem anili 
 superstitione confudit. In qua scrutanda perplexius quani in 
 componenda gratius, excitavit dissidia quae progressa fusius 
 aluit concertatione verborum, dum ritum omuem ad suum tra- 
 here conatur arbitrium." 
 
^4 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 years,) I confess I cannot see that moderate sen- 
 tence and gentleness of charity in his jDreface and 
 conclusion, as there was in the Nicene creed. No- 
 thing there but damnation and perishing everlast- 
 ingly, unless the article of the Trinity be believed, 
 as it is there, with curiosity and minute particu- 
 larities, explained. Indeed, Athanasius had been 
 soundly vexed on one side, and much cried up on 
 the other ; and therefore it is not so much wonder 
 for him to be so decretory and severe in his cen- 
 sure; for nothing could more ascertain his friends to 
 him, and disrepute his enemies, than the belief of 
 that damnatory appendix ; but that does not jus- 
 tify the thing. For the articles themselves, I am 
 most heartily persuaded of the truth of them, and 
 yet I dare not say, all that are not so are irrevocably 
 damned, because m ithout this symbol the faith of 
 the ajDOstles' creed is entire, and he that believeth 
 and is baptized shall be saved ; that is, he that be- 
 lieveth such a belief as is sufficient disposition to 
 l>e baptized, that faith with the sacrament is suffi- 
 cient for heaven. Now the apostles' creed does 
 one ; why, therefore, doth not both entitle us to the 
 promise ? Besides, if it were considered concerning 
 Athanasius's creed, how many people understand 
 it not, how contrary to natural reason it seems, how 
 little the Scripture* says of those curiosities of ex- 
 plication, and how tradition was not clear on his 
 side for the article itself, much less for those forms 
 and minutes; how himself is put to make an an- 
 swer, and excuse, for the fathersf speaking in favour 
 
 * Vide Hosium de Author. S. Scrip, lib. iii. p. 53, et Gor- 
 don. Huntlaeum. torn. i. controv. i. de Yerbo Dei, cap. 19. 
 
 + Vide Gretser. et Tanner, in colloq. Ratisbon. F.usebium 
 fuisse Arianum ait Perron, lib. iii. cap. 2, contra Jacobum 
 
OF HERESY. 75 
 
 of the Arians, at least so seemingly that the Arians 
 appealed to them for trial, and the offer was de- 
 clined ; and after all this, that the Nicene creed 
 itself ^vent not so far, neither in article, nor ana- 
 thema, nor explication ; it had not been amiss if 
 the final judgment had been left to Jesus Christ, for 
 he is appointed Judge of all the world, and he shall 
 judge the people righteously, for he knows every 
 truth, the degree of every necessity, and all excuses 
 that do lessen or take away the nature or malice of 
 a crime; all which I think Athanasius, though a 
 very good man, did not know so well as to warrant 
 such a sentence. And put case, the heresy there 
 condemned be damnable, (as it is damnable 
 enough,) yet a man may maintain an opinion that 
 is in itself damnable, and yet he, not knowing it so, 
 and being invincibly led into it, may go to heaven; 
 his opinion shall burn, and himself be saved. But, 
 however, I find no opinions in Scripture called 
 damnable but what are impious in their effect upon 
 the life, or directly destructive of the faith or the 
 body of Christianity; such of which St. Peter 
 speaks ;* ' bringing in damnable heresies, even 
 denying the Lord that bought them : these are the 
 false prophets, who out of covetousness make mer- 
 chandize of you through cozening words.' Such 
 as these are truly heresies, and such as these are 
 certainly damnable. But because there are no de- 
 grees either of truth or falsehood, every true pro- 
 
 Regem. Idem ait Orighiem negasse Divinitateni Filii et 
 Spir. S. lib. ii. c. 7? de Euchar. contra Duplessis. Idem, cap. 5, 
 observ. 4, ait, Irensemn talia dixisse quae qui hodie diceret, pro 
 Ariano reputaretur. Vide etiam Fisher, in resp, ad 9 Quaest. 
 Jacobi Reg. et Epiphan. in Haeres. 65. 
 
 * 2 Pet. ii. 1. 
 
76 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 position being alike true, that an error is more or 
 less damnable, is not told us in Scripture, but is 
 determined by the man and his manners, by cir- 
 cumstance and accidents ; and therefore the cen- 
 sure in the preface and end are arguments of his 
 zeal and strength of his persuasion ; but they are 
 extrinsical and accidental to the articles, and might 
 as well have been spared. And, indeed, to me it 
 seems very hard to put uncharitableness into the 
 creed, and so to make it become as an article of 
 faith, though perhaps this very thing was no faith 
 of Athanasius,* who, if we may believe Aquinas, 
 made this manifestation of faith, non per modum 
 symhoU, secI per modum doctrines; that is, if I un- 
 derstood him right, not with a purpose to impose 
 it upon others, but with confidence to declare his 
 own belief; and that it was prescribed to others as 
 a creed, v* as the act of the bishops of Rome ; so he 
 said ; nay, possibly it was none of his. So said the 
 patriarch of Constantinople, IMeletius, about one 
 hundred and thirty years since, in his epistle to 
 John Douza : " We do not scruple plainly to pro- 
 test that the creed is falsely ascribed to Athanasius, 
 which was corrupted by the Roman pontiffs."f And 
 it is more than probable that he said true, because 
 this creed was written originally in Latin, which in 
 all reason Athanasius did not, and it was translated 
 into Greek; it being apparent that the Latin copy is 
 but one, but the Greek is various, there being three 
 editions, or translations rather, expressed by Gene- 
 brard, lib. iii. de Trinit. But, in this particular, 
 who list may better satisfy himself in a dis^jutation 
 
 * D. Tho. 22as. q. i. artic. 1 . ad 3. 
 
 i" " Athanasio falso aclscriptum symbolum cum pontificum 
 Rom. appendice ilH adulteratum, luce lucidius contestamur." 
 
OF HERESY. 77 
 
 De Symholo Athanasii, printed at Wertzburg, 1590, 
 supposed to be written by Serrarius or Clencherus. 
 
 And yet I must observe, that this symbol of Atha- 
 nasius, and that other of Nice, offer not at any new 
 articles ; they only pretend to a further explication 
 of the articles apostolical ; which is a certain confir- 
 mation that they did not believe more articles to be 
 of belief necessary to salvation : if they intended 
 these further explications to be as necessary as the 
 dogmatical articles of the apostles' creed, I know 
 not how to answer all that may be objected against 
 that; but the advantage that T shall gather from 
 their not proceeding to new matters, is laid out 
 ready for me in the words of Athanasius, saying of 
 this creed, "This is the catholic faith;" and if his 
 authority be good, or his saying true, or he the au- 
 thor, then no man can say of any other article, that 
 it is a part of the catholic faith, or that the catholic 
 faith can be enlarged beyond the contents of that 
 symbol ; and therefore it is a strange boldness in 
 the church of Rome,* first to add twelve new arti- 
 cles, and then to add the appendix of Athanasius to 
 the end of them, "This is the catholic faith, without 
 which no man can be saved." 
 
 But so great an example of so excellent a man 
 hath been either mistaken or followed with too much 
 greediness; for we see all the world in factions, all 
 damning one another; each party damned by all the 
 rest ; and there is no disagreeing in opinion from any 
 man that is in love with his own opinion, but dam- 
 nation presently to all that disagree. A ceremony 
 and a rite hath caused several churches to excom- 
 
 * Bulla Pii quart! supra fomia juramenti proress"cnis fideij 
 in fin. Cone. Trident. 
 
78 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 municate each other ; as in the matter of the Satur- 
 day fast and keeping Easter. But what the spirits 
 of men are when they are exasperated in a ques- 
 tion and difference of religion, as they call it, 
 though the thing itself may be most inconsiderable, 
 is very evident in that rec^uest of Pope Innocent 
 the Third, desiring of the Greeks, (but reasonably 
 a man would think,) that they would not so much 
 hate the Roman manner of consecrating in unlea- 
 vened bread, as to wash and scrape, and pare the 
 altars, after a Roman priest had consecrated. No- 
 thing more furious than a mistaken zeal, and the 
 actions of a scrupulous and abused conscience. 
 When men think every thing to be their faith and 
 their religion, commonly they are so busy in trifles 
 and such impertinences in which the scene of their 
 mistake lies, that they neglect the greater things of 
 the law, charity, and compliances, and the gentle- 
 ness of Christian communion ; for this is the great 
 principle of mischief, and yet is not more perni- 
 cious than unreasonable. 
 
 For, I demand, can any man say and justify that 
 the apostles did deny communion to any man that 
 believed the apostles' creed, and lived a good life ? 
 And dare any man tax that proceeding of remiss- 
 ness, and indiiferency in religion ? And since our 
 blessed Saviour promised salvation to him that be- 
 lieveth, (and the apostles, when they gave this 
 word the greatest extent, enlarged it not beyond the 
 borders of the creed,) how can any man warrant 
 the condemning of any man to the flames of hell, 
 that is ready to die in attestation of this faith, so 
 expounded and made explicit by the apostles, and 
 lives accordingly ? And to this purpose it w^as ex- 
 cellently said, by a wise and a pious prelate, St. 
 
OF HERESY. 79 
 
 Hilary,* " It is not tliroiigli thorny questions that 
 God invites us to heaven : our way to eternal life is 
 clear and easy: — to believe that Jesus was raised 
 from the dead by the power of God, to confess him 
 to be the Lord," &c. These are the articles which 
 we must believe, which are the sufficient and ade- 
 quate object of that faith which is required of us 
 in order to salvation. And therefore it was, that 
 when the bishops of Istria deserted the communion 
 of Pope Pelagius, in causa frium capitulorum,\ he 
 gives them an account of his faith by recitation of 
 the creed, and by attesting the four general coun- 
 cils, and is confident upon this that no question or 
 suspicion can arise respecting the validity of his 
 faith : let the apostles' creed, especially so expli- 
 cated, be but secured, and all faith is secured ; and 
 yet that explication too, was less necessary than the 
 articles themselves; for the explication was but ac- 
 cidental, but the articles, even before the explication, 
 were accounted a sufficient inlet to the kino-dom of 
 heaven. 
 
 And that there was security enough, in the simple 
 believing the first articles, is very certain amongst 
 them, and by their principles who allow of an im- 
 plicit faith to serve most persons to the greatest 
 purposes; for if the creed did contain in it the 
 whole faith, and that other articles were in it impli- 
 citly, (for such is the doctrine of the school, and 
 particularly of Aquinas,) then he that explicitly 
 believes all the creed, does implicitly believe all the 
 articles contained in it ; and then it is better the 
 
 * " Non per difficiles nos Deus ad beatam vitam qusstiones 
 vocat, &c. In absoluto nobis et facili est seternitas ; Jesum 
 suscitatum a mortuis per Deum credere, et ipsum esse Dominum 
 confiteri, &c." — Lib. x. De Trin. ad finem. 
 
 -j- Concil. torn. iv. edit. Paris, p. 473. 
 
80 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 implication should still continue, than that, by any 
 explication, (which is simply unnecessary,) the 
 church should be troubled with questions, and un- 
 certain determinations, and factions enkindled, and 
 animosities set on foot, and men's souls endangered, 
 who before were secured by the explicit belief of 
 all that the apostles required as necessary ; which 
 belief also did secure them for all the rest, because 
 it implied the belief of whatsoever was virtually 
 in the first articles, if such belief should by chance 
 be necessary. 
 
 The sum of this discourse is this : if we take an 
 estimate of the nature of faith from the dictates and 
 promises evangelical, and from the practice aposto- 
 lical, the nature of faith and its integrity consists 
 in such propositions which make the foundation of 
 hope and charity, that which is sufficient to make 
 us to do honour to Christ and to obey him, and to 
 encourage us in both ; and this is completed in the 
 apostles' creed. And since contraries are of the 
 same extent, heresy is to be judged by its proportion 
 and analogy to faith, and that is heresy only which 
 is against faith. Now, because faith is not only a 
 precept of doctrines, but of manners and holy life, 
 whatsoever is either opposite to an article of creed, 
 or teaches ill life, that is heresy ; but all those pro- 
 positions which are extrinsical to these two consider- 
 ations, be they true or be they false, make not 
 heresy, nor the man a heretic ; and therefore, how- 
 ever he may be an erring person, yet he is to be 
 used accordingly, pitied and instructed, not con- 
 demned or excommunicated : and this is the result 
 of the first ground, the consideration of the nature 
 of faith and heresy. 
 
81 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 Of the difficulty and uncertainty of Arguments from 
 Scripture, in Questions not simply necessary, not 
 literally determined. 
 
 God, who disposes of all things sweetly, and ac- 
 cording to the nature and capacity of things and 
 persons, had made those only necessary which he 
 had taken care should be sufficiently propounded 
 to all persons of whom he required the explicit 
 belief. And therefore all the articles of faith are 
 clearly and plainly set down in Scripture, and the 
 Gospel is not hid, excepting to them that are lost, 
 saith St. Paul ; " for there we find the encourage- 
 ment to every virtue, and the warning against every 
 vice," saith Damascen;* and that so manifestly, that 
 no man can be ignorant of the foundation of faith 
 without his own apparent fault. And this is ac- 
 knowledged by all wise and good men ; and is evi- 
 dent, besides the reasonableness of the thing, in the 
 testimonies of Saints Austin,f Jerome,! Chrysos- 
 tom,§ Fulgentius,|l Hugo de Sancto Victore,5[ Theo- 
 doret,* Lactantius,f Theophilus Antiochenus,t 
 Aquinas, § and the latter schoolmen. And God 
 
 * Ii.d(jr]C, ytip apsTrjQ irapaKkriaiv, Kai KaKiag cnrdffrjg 
 rpoTTijv ev TcivraiQ kvpiuKoiifv. — Orthod. Fidei. lib. iv. c. 18. 
 
 t Super. Psal. 88, et de Util. Cred. c. 6. 
 
 X Super Isa. c. 19, and in Psal. 86. 
 
 § Homil. 3, in Thess. Ep. ii. |1 Serm. de Confess. 
 
 k\ Miscel. ii. lib. i. tit. 46. 
 
 * In Gen. ap Struch. p. 87- f Cap. 6. 
 
 + Ad Antioch. lib. ii. p. 918. ^ Par. i. q. i. art. 9. 
 
 G 
 
82 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 hath done more ; for many thmgs which are only- 
 profitable, are also set down so plainly, that, as 
 St. Austin says, " every one may partake, if he 
 come in a devout and pious spirit :"* but of such 
 things there is no question commenced in Christen- 
 dom; and if there were, it cannot but be a crime 
 and human interest that are the authors of such 
 disjDutes; and therefore these cannot be simple 
 errors, but always heresies, because the principle of 
 them is a personal sin. 
 
 But besides these things, which are so plainly 
 set down, some lor doctrine, as St. Paul says, that 
 is, for articles and foundation of faith, some for in- 
 struction, some for reproof, some for comfort, that 
 is, in matters practical and speculative of several 
 tempers and constitutions, there are innumerable 
 places, containing in them great mysteries, but yet 
 either so enwrapped with a cloud, or so darkened 
 with lunbrages, or heightened with expressions, or 
 so covered with allegories and garments of rhetoric, 
 so profound in the matter, or so altered or made 
 intricate in the manner, in the clothing, and in the 
 dressing, that God may seem to have left them as 
 trials of our industry, and arguments of our im- 
 perfections, and incentives to the longings after 
 heaven, and the clearest revelations of eternity, and 
 as occasions and opportunities of our mutual cha- 
 rity and toleration to each other, and humility in 
 ourselves, rather than the repositories of faith and 
 furniture of creeds, and articles of belief 
 
 For wherever the word of God is kept, whether 
 in Scripture alone, or also in tradition, he that con- 
 siders that the meaning of the one, and the truth 
 
 * " Nemo inde haurire non possit, si modb ad hauriendum 
 devote ac pie accedat." — Ubi supra de Util. Cred. c. 6. 
 
OF ARGUMENTS FROM SCRIPTURE. 83 
 
 or certainty of the other, are things of great ques- 
 tion, will see a necessity in these things, (which are 
 the subject matter of most of the questions in 
 Christendom,) that men should hope to be ex- 
 cused by an implicit faith in God Almighty. For 
 when there are, in the explications of Scripture, so 
 many commentaries, so many senses and interpre- 
 tations, so many volumes in all ages, and all, like 
 men's faces, exactly none like another, either this 
 difference and inconvenience is absolutely no fault 
 at all, or, if it be, it is excusable, by a mind pre- 
 pared to consent in tltat truth which God intended. 
 And this I call an implicit faith in God, which is 
 certainly of as great excellency as an implicit faith 
 in any man or company of men. Because they 
 who do require an implicit faith in the church for 
 articles less necessary, and excuse the want of ex- 
 IDlicit faith by the implicit, do require an implicit 
 faith in the church, because they believe that God 
 hath required of them to have a mind prepared to 
 believe whatever the church says ; which, because 
 it is a proposition of no absolute certainty, whoso- 
 ever does, in readiness of mind, believe all that 
 God spake, does also believe that sufficiently, if it 
 be fitting to be believed ; that is, if it be true, and 
 if God hath said so ; for he hath the same obedi- 
 ence of understanding in this as in the other. But, 
 because it is not so certain God hath tied him in all 
 things to believe that which is called the church, 
 and that it is certain we must believe God in all 
 things, and yet neither know all that either God 
 hath revealed or the church taught, it is better to 
 take the certain than the uncertain, to believe God 
 rather than men ; especially since, if God hath 
 bound us to believe men, our absolute submission 
 
 G 2 
 
84 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 to God does involve that, and there is no inconve- 
 nience in the world this way, but that we impli- 
 citly believe one article more, viz. the church's au- 
 thority or infallibility, which may well be pardoned, 
 because it secures our belief of all the rest, and we 
 are sure if we believe all that God said expli- 
 citly or implicitly, we also believe the church impli- 
 citly, in case we are bound to it; but we are not 
 certain, that if we believe any company of men, 
 whom we call the church, that we therefore obey 
 God, and believe what he hath said. But, how- 
 ever, if this will not help vis, there is no help for 
 us, but good fortune or absolute predestination ; 
 for by choice and industry no man can secure him- 
 self, that in all the mysteries of relio-ion taus^ht in 
 Scripture he shall certainly understand and expli- 
 citly believe that sense that God intended. For to 
 this purpose there are many considerations. 
 
 I. There are so many thousands of copies that 
 were writ by persons of several interests and per- 
 suasions, such different understandings and tem- 
 pers, such distinct abilities and weaknesses, that it 
 is no wonder there is so great variety of readings 
 both in the Old Testament and in the New. In 
 the Old Testament, the Jews pretend that the 
 Christians have corrupted many places, on purpose 
 to make symphony between both the Testaments. 
 On the other side, the Christians have had so much 
 reason to suspect the Jews, that when Aquila had 
 translated the Bible in their schools, and had been 
 taught by them, they rejected the edition, many of 
 them, and some of them called it heresy to follow 
 it. And Justin Martyr justified it to Tryphon, 
 that the Jews had defalked many sayings from the 
 books of the old prophets, and amongst the rest he 
 
OF ARGUMENTS FROM SCRIPTURE. 85 
 
 instances in that of the Psalm, Dicite in natlonihus 
 quia Dominus regnavit a ligno. The last words 
 they have cut off, and prevailed so far in it, that to 
 this day none of our Bibles have it ; but if they 
 ought not to have it, then Justin Martyr's Bible 
 had more in it than it should have, for there it was ; 
 so that a fault there was, either under or over. But, 
 however, there are infinite readings in the New 
 Testament; (for in that I will instance;) some whole 
 verses in one that are not in another; and there was, 
 in some copies of St. Mark's Gospel, in the last 
 chapter, a whole verse, a chapter it was anciently 
 called, that is not found in our Bibles, as St. Jerome 
 ad Hedibiam, q. 3. notes. The vv^ords he repeats. 
 Lib. ii. Contra Polygamos : " They confessed, saying, 
 that it is the essence of iniquity and unbelief, which 
 does not allow the true power of God to be appre- 
 hended by unclean spirits ; therefore now display 
 thy righteousness."* These words are thought by 
 some to savour of Manicheism ; and, for ought I can 
 find, were therefore rejected out of many Greek 
 copies, and at last out of the Latin. Now, suppose 
 that a Manichee in disputation should urge this 
 place, having found it in his Bible, if a catholic 
 should answer him by saying, it is apocryphal, and 
 not found in divers Greek copies, might not the 
 Manichee ask, how it came in, if it was not the 
 word of God, and if it was, how came it out ? and 
 at last take the same liberty of rejecting any other 
 authority which shall be alleged against him, if he 
 can find any copy that may favour him, however 
 
 * " Et illi satis faciebant dicentes, seeculum istad iniquitatis 
 et incredulitatis substantia est, quae non sinit per immvmdos 
 spiritus veram Dei apprehendi virtutem, idcirco jam nunc 
 revela justitiam tuam." 
 
 ^ 
 
86 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 that favour be procured ? And did not the Ebio- 
 nites reject all the epistles of St. Paul, upon pre- 
 tence he was an enemy to the law of INIoses ? In- 
 deed, it was boldly and most unreasonably done ; 
 but if one title or one chajDter of St. Mark be called 
 apochryphal, for being suspected of Manicheism, it 
 is a plea that will too much justify others in their 
 taking and choosing what they list. But I will not 
 urge it so far ; but is not there as much reason for 
 the fierce Lutherans to reject the epistle of St. 
 James, for favouring justification by works, or the 
 epistle to the Hebrews, upon pretence that the 
 sixth and tenth chapters do favour Novatianism ; 
 especially, since it was by some famous churches 
 at first not accepted; even by the church of Rome 
 herself ? The parable of the woman taken in adul- 
 tery, which is now in John viii. Eusebius says, was 
 not in any gospel, but the Gospel according to the 
 Hebrews; and St. Jerome makes it doubtful, and so 
 does St. Chrysostom and Euthimius, the first not 
 vouchsafing to explicate it in his homilies upon St. 
 John, the other affirming it not to be found in the 
 exacter copies. I shall not need to urge, that there 
 are some v.ords so near in sound, that the scribes 
 might easily mistake. There is one famous one of 
 serving the Lord* which yet some copies read 
 serving the time ;f the sense is very unlike, though 
 the words be near, and there needs some little 
 luxation to strain this latter reading to a good 
 sense. That famous precept of St. Paul, that the 
 women must pray with a covering on their head, 
 cia TovQ rtyyeX^C} 'because of the angels,' hath brought 
 into the church an opinion that angels are present 
 
 * Kvpi(^ dsXevovTsg. -f Kaipip dnX(V0VT€g. 
 
OF ARGUMENTS FROM SCRIPTURE. 87 
 
 in churches, and are spectators of our devotion and 
 deportment. Such an opinion, if it should meet 
 with peevish opposites on one side, and confident 
 hyperaspists on the other, might possibly make a 
 sect : and here were a clear ground for the affirma- 
 tive ; and yet, who knows but that it might have 
 been a mistake of the transcribers to double the y ? 
 for if we read, did rove dyeXsQ, that the sense be, 
 ' Women in public assemblies must wear a veil, by 
 reason of companies of the young men there pre- 
 sent," it would be no ill exchange, for the loss of a 
 letter, to make so probable, so clear a sense of the 
 place. But the instances in this kind are too 
 many, as appears in the variety of readings in 
 several copies, proceeding from the negligence or 
 ignorance of the transcribers, or the malicious en- 
 deavour of heretics,* or the inserting marginal 
 notes into the text, or the nearness of several words. 
 Indeed there is so much evidence of this particular, 
 that it hath encouraged the servants of the vulgar 
 translation (for so some are now-a-days) to prefer 
 that translation before the original; for although 
 they have attempted that proposition with very ill 
 success, yet that they could think it possible to be 
 proved, is an argument there is much variety and 
 alterations in divers texts ; for if they were not, 
 it were impudence to pretend a translation, and 
 that none of the best, should be better than the 
 original. But so it is, that this variety of reading 
 is not of slight consideration ; for although it be 
 demonstrably true, that all things necessary to faith 
 
 * Graeci corruperunt Novum Testamentum ut testantur 
 Tertul. lib. v. adv. Marcion. Euseb. lib. v. Hist. c. ult. Irenge. 
 lib. i. c. 29. Allu. Heeres. Basil, lib. ii. contr. Eunomium. 
 
88 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 and good manners are preserved from alteration 
 and corruption, because they are of things neces- 
 sary ; and they could not be necessary, unless they 
 were delivered to us, God in his goodness and his 
 justice having obliged himself to preserve that 
 which he hath bound us to observe and keep ; yet, 
 in other things, which God hath not obliged him- 
 self so punctually to preserve, — in these things, since 
 variety of reading is crept in, every reading takes 
 away a degree of certainty from any proposition 
 derivative from those places so read : and if some 
 copies (especially if they be public and notable) 
 omit a verse or title, every argument from such a 
 title or verse loses mucli of its strength and repu- 
 tation ; and we find it in a great instance. For 
 when in probation of the mystery of the glorious 
 Unity in Trinity, we allege that saying of St. John, 
 ' There are three which bear witness in heaven, the 
 Father, the Word, and the Spirit, and these three 
 are one ;' the anti-trinitarians think they have an- 
 swered the argument, by saying, the Syrian transla- 
 tion and divers Greek copies have not that verse 
 in them, and therefore, being of doubtful authority, 
 cannot conclude with certainty in a question of 
 faith. And there is an instance on the catholic 
 part : for when the Arians urge the saying of our 
 Saviour, ' No man knows that day and hour, (viz. 
 of judgment,) no not the Son, but the Father only,' 
 to prove that the Son knows not all things, and 
 therefore cannot be God, in the proper sense ; St. 
 Ambrose thinks he hath answered the argument 
 by saying those words, ' no not the Son,* were 
 thrust into the text by the fraud of the Arians. So 
 that here we have one objection, which must first 
 be cleared and made infallible, before we can be 
 
OF ARGUMENTS FROM SCRIPTURE. 89 
 
 ascertained in any such question as to call them 
 heretics that dissent. 
 
 .11. I consider that there are very many senses 
 and designs of expounding Scripture, and when 
 the grammatical sense is found out, we are many 
 times never the nearer ; it is not that which was 
 intended; for there is, in very many Scriptures, a 
 double sense, a literal and a spiritual; (for the 
 Scripture is a book written within and without, 
 Apoc. V.) and both these senses are subdivided. 
 For the literal sense is either natural or figurative ; 
 and the spiritual is sometimes allegorical, some- 
 times anagogical ; nay, sometimes there are divers 
 literal senses in the same sentence, as St. Austin 
 excellently proves in divers places ;* and it appears 
 in divers quotations in the New Testament, where 
 the apostles and divine writers bring the same tes- 
 timony to divers purposes ; and particularly St. 
 Paul's making that saying of the Psalm, ' Thou art 
 my Son, this day have I begotten thee,' to be an 
 argument of Christ's resurrection, and a designa- 
 tion or ordination to his pontificate, is an instance 
 very famous in his first and fifth chapter to the He- 
 brews. But now, there being such variety of senses 
 in Scripture, and but few places so marked out, as 
 not to be capable of divers senses, if men will 
 write commentaries as Herod made orations, Kara 
 TToWrig (pavracriag, with a mind inflated with vanity, 
 what infallible criterion will be left, whereby 
 to judge of the certain dogmatical resolute sense of 
 such places which have been the matter of ques- 
 tion ? For put case, a question were commenced 
 
 * Lib. xii. Confess, cap. 2G. Lib. ii. de Civit. Dei. cap. 9. 
 Lib. iii. de Doctrina Christ, cap. 2(?, 
 
90 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 concerning the degrees of glory in heaven, as 
 there is in the schools a noted one. To show an 
 inequality of reward, Christ's parable is brought, of 
 the reward of ten cities, and of five, according to 
 the divers improvement of the talents ; this sense 
 is mystical, and yet very probable, and understood 
 by men, for aught I know, to this very sense. x\nd 
 the result of the argument is made good by St. 
 Paul : ' As one star difFereth from another in glory, 
 so shall it be in the resurrection of the dead.' Now, 
 suppose another should take the same liberty of 
 expounding another parable to a mystical sense 
 and interpretation, as all parables must be ex- 
 pounded ; then the parable of the labourers in the 
 vineyard, and though differing in labour, yet 
 having an equal reward, to any man's understand- 
 ing, may seem very strongly to prove the contrary; 
 and as if it were of purpose, and that it were the 
 main design of the parable, the lord of the vine- 
 yard determined the point resolutely, upon the 
 mutiny and repining of them that had borne the 
 burthen and heat of the day, ' I will give unto this 
 last even as to thee ;' which, to my sense, seems 
 to determine the question of degrees ; they that 
 work but little, and they that work long, shall not 
 be distinguished in the reward, though accidentally 
 they were in the work ; and if this opinion could 
 but answer St. Paul's words, it stands as fair, and 
 perhaps fairer than the other. Now, if we look 
 well ujDon the words of St. Paul, we shall find he 
 speaks nothing at all of diversity of degrees of 
 glory in beatified bodies, but the differences of glory 
 in bodies heavenly and earthly : ' There are,' says 
 he, ' bodies earthly, and there are heavenly bo- 
 dies : and one is the glory of the earthly, another 
 
OF ARGUMENTS FROM SCRIPTURE. 91 
 
 the glory of the heavenly ; one gloiy of the sun, 
 another of the moon, &c. So shall it be in the 
 resurrection ; for it is sown in corruption, it is 
 raised in incorruption.' Plainly thus, our bodies 
 in the resurrection shall difter as much from our 
 bodies here, in the state of corruption, as one star 
 does from another. And now, suppose a sect 
 should be commenced upon this question, (upon 
 lighter and vainer many have been,) either side 
 must resolve to answer the other's arguments, whe- 
 ther they can or no, and to deny to each other a 
 liberty of expounding the parable to such a sense, 
 and yet themselves must use it or want an argu- 
 ment. But men use to be unjust in their own 
 cases; and were it not better to leave each other 
 to their liberty, and seek to preserve their own 
 charity ? For when the words are capable of a 
 mystical or a diverse sense, I know not why men's 
 fancies or understandings should be more bound 
 to be like one another than their faces : and either, 
 in all such places of Scripture, a liberty must be 
 indulged to every honest and peaceable wise man, 
 or else all argument from such places must be 
 wholly declined. Now, although I instanced in a 
 question, which by good fortune never came to 
 open defiance, yet there have been sects framed 
 upon lighter grounds, more inconsiderable cjues- 
 tions, which have been disputed on either side with 
 arguments less material and less pertinent. St. 
 Austin laughed at the Donatists, for bringing that 
 saying of the spouse in the Canticles, to prove 
 their schism, ' Tell me where thou feedest, where 
 thou makest thy flock to rest at noon.' For from 
 thence they concluded, the residence of the church 
 was only in the south part of the world, only in 
 
92 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 Africa.* It was but a weak way of argument ; yet 
 the fathers were free enough to use such mediums, 
 to prove mysteries of great concernment ; but yet 
 again, when they speak either against an adversary, 
 or with consideration, they deny that such mystical 
 senses can sufficiently confirm a question of faith. 
 But I shall instance, in the great Cjuestion of rebap- 
 tization of heretics, which many saints, and mar- 
 tyrs, and confessors, and divers councils, and al- 
 most all Asia and Africa did once believe and 
 practise. Their grounds for the invalidity of the 
 baptism by a heretic, were such mystical words 
 as these : ' Thou hast covered my head in the day 
 of battle,' Ps. cxl. ; and, ' He that washeth him- 
 self, after the touching a dead body, if he touch it 
 again, what availeth his washing "^^ Ecclus. xxxiv. ; 
 and, ' Drink waters out of thine own cistern,' 
 Prov. V. ; and, ' We know that God heareth not 
 sinners,' John ix. ; and, ' He that is not with me 
 is against me,' Luke xi. I am not sure the other 
 part had arguments so good ; for the great one of 
 ' one faith, one baptism,' did not conclude it to 
 their understandings who were of the other opinion, 
 and men famous in their generations ; for it was 
 no argument that they who had been baptized by 
 John's baptism should not be baptized in the name 
 of Jesus, because ' one God, one baptism ;' and as it 
 is still one faith which a man confesseth several 
 times, and one sacrament of the eucharist, though 
 a man often communicates; so it might be one 
 baptism, though often ministered. And the unity 
 of baptism might not be derived from the unity of 
 the ministration, but from the unity of the religion 
 
 * Jerome, in Matth. xi. 
 
OF ARGUMENTS FROM SCRIPTURE. 93 
 
 into which they are bajDtized : though baptized a 
 thousand times, yet, because it was still in the 
 name of the holy Trinity, still into the death of 
 Christ, it might be ' one baptism.' Whether St. 
 Cyprian, Firmilian, and their colleagues, had this 
 discourse or no, (I know not,) I am sure they might 
 have had much better to have evacuated the force 
 of that argument, although I believe they had the 
 wrong- cause in hand. But this is it that I say, 
 that when a question is so undetermined in Scrip- 
 ture, that the arguments rely only upon such mys- 
 tical places whence the best fancies can draw the 
 greatest variety, and such which perhaps were 
 never intended by the Holy Ghost, it were good 
 the rivers did not swell higher than the fountain, 
 and the confidence higher than the argument and 
 evidence : for, in this case, there could not any thing 
 be so certainly proved, as that the disagreeing 
 party should deserve to be condemned, by a sen- 
 tence of excommunication, for disbelieving it ; and 
 yet they were ; which I wonder at so much the 
 more, because they who (as it was since judged) 
 had the right cause, had not any sufficient argu- 
 ment from Scripture, not so much as such mystical 
 arguments, but did fly to the tradition of the 
 church ; in which also I shall afterwards show, they 
 had nothing that was absolutely certain. 
 
 III. I consider that there are divers places of 
 Scripture, containing in them mysteries and ques- 
 tions of great concernment ; and yet the fiibric and 
 constitution is such, that there is no certain mark 
 to determine M^hether the sense of them should be 
 literal or figurative : 1 speak not here concerning 
 extrinsical means of determination, as traditive in- 
 terpretation, councils, fathers, popes, and the like j I 
 
94 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 shall consider them afterward, in their several places ; 
 but here the subject-matter being concerning' Scrip- 
 ture in its own capacity, I say there is nothing in 
 the nature of the thing to determine the sense and 
 meaning, but it must be gotten out as it can ; and 
 that therefore it is unreasonable, that what of itself 
 is ambiguous should be understood in its own 
 prime sense and intention, under the pain of either 
 a sin or an anathema : I instance, in that famous 
 place from whence hath sprung that question of 
 transubstantiation, ' This is my body.' The words 
 are plain and clear, apt to be understood in the 
 literal sense ; and yet this sense is so hard as it does 
 violence to reason ; and therefore it is the question, 
 whether or no it be not a figurative speech. But 
 here, what shall we have to determine it ? What 
 mean soever we take, and to what sense soever you 
 will expound it, you shall be put to give an ac- 
 count why you expound other places of Scripture, 
 in the same case, to quite contrary senses. For if 
 you expound it literally, then, besides that it seems 
 to intrench upon the words of our blessed Saviour, 
 ' The words that I speak, they are spirit, and they 
 are life/ that is, to be spiritually understood ; (and 
 it is a miserable thing to see what wretched shifts 
 are used to reconcile the literal sense to these 
 words, and yet to distinguish it from the Caper- 
 naitical fancy ;) but besides this, why are not those 
 other sayings of Christ expounded literally, *I am 
 a vine, I am the door, I am a rock ? ' Why do we 
 fly to a figure in those parallel words, * This is the 
 covenant which I make between me and you ? ' and 
 yet that covenant was but the sign of the covenant; 
 and why do we fly to a figure in a precept, as well 
 as in mystery and a proposition ? 'If thy right hand 
 
OF ARGUMENTS FROM SCRIPTURE. 95 
 
 offend thee, cut it off:' and yet we have figures 
 enough to save a limb'. Tf it be said, because rea- 
 son tells us these are not to be expounded accord- 
 ing to the letter; this will be no plea for them who 
 retain the literal exposition of the other instance, 
 against all reason, against all philosophy, against 
 all sense, and against two or three sciences. But 
 if you expound these words figuratively, besides 
 that you are to contest against a world of preju- 
 dices, you give yourself the liberty, which if others 
 will use when either they have a reason or a neces- 
 sity so to do, they may perhaps turn all into alle- 
 gory, and so may evacuate any precept, and elude 
 any argument. Well, so it is that very wise men 
 have expounded things allegorically, when they 
 should have expounded them literally.* So did 
 the famous Origen, who, as St. Jerome reports 
 of him, turned paradise so into an allegory, that he 
 took away quite the truth of the story, and not 
 only Adam was turned out of the garden, but the 
 gi^rden itself out of paradise. Others expound 
 things literally, when they should understand them 
 in allegory ; so did the ancient Papias understand 
 Christ's millenary reign upon earth {Apocal. xx.;) 
 and so depressed the hopes of Christianity, and 
 their desires to the longing and expectation of 
 temporal pleasures and satisfactions; and he was 
 followed by Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, 
 Lactantius, and indeed the whole church generally. 
 
 * Sic St. Hierom. " In adolescentia provocatus ardore et 
 studio Scripturarum allegorice interpretatus sum Abdiam pro- 
 phetam, cujus historiam nesciebam." De Sensu Allegorico S. 
 Script, dixit Basilius, 'Qq KeKoi.i-iptVf.di'ov j^iev rov \6yov 
 aTTooe^^OjUtS'a, dXij^r] ^£ elvai ov ircivv otocrojixev. — Lib. xxii. 
 de Civit. Dei. c. 7. Praefat. lib. xix. in Isai. et in c. 36. Ezek. - 
 
96 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 till St. Austin and St. Jerome's time; who, first of 
 any whose v/orks are exant, did reprov^e the error. 
 If such great spirits be deceived, in finding out 
 what kind of senses be to be given to Scriptures, it 
 may well be endured that we, who sit at their feet, 
 may also tread in the steps of them whose feet 
 could not always tread aright. 
 
 IV. I consider that there are some places of 
 Scripture that have the self-same expressions, the 
 same preceptive words, the same reason and ac- 
 count, in all appearance, and yet either must be 
 expounded to quite different senses, or else we 
 must renounce the communion, and the charities 
 of a great part of Christendom. And yet there is 
 absolutely nothing in the thing, or in its circum- 
 stances, or in its adjuncts that can determine it to 
 different purposes. I instance in those great ex- 
 clusive negatives for the necessity of both sacraments : 
 ' Except a man be born of water,' &c. ' Except ye 
 eat the flesh of the Son of Man, ye cannot enter into 
 the kingdom of heaven.* Now, then, the first is 
 urged for the absolute, indispensible necessity of bap- 
 tism, even in infants ; insomuch that infants go to 
 part of hell if (inculpably both on their own and 
 their parents' part) they miss of baptism ; for that is 
 the doctrine of the church of Rome, which they learnt 
 from St. Austin : and others also do, from hence, 
 baptize infants, though wdth a less opinion of its 
 absolute necessity. And yet the same manner of 
 precept, in the same form of w ords, in the same 
 manner of threatening, by an exclusive negative, 
 shall not enjoin us to communicate infants, though 
 damnation (at least in form of words) be ex- 
 actly, and in every particular, alike appendant to 
 the neglect of holy baptism and the venerable eu- 
 
OF ARGUMENTS FROM SCRIPTURE. 97 
 
 cliarist. If ' except ye be born again/ shall con- 
 clude against the anabaptist for necessity of bap- 
 tizing infants, (as sure enough we say it does,) why 
 shall not an equal, ' except ye eat,' bring infants to 
 the holy communion ? The primitive church, for 
 some two whole ages, did follow their own princi- 
 ples, wherever they led them ; and seeing that 
 upon the same ground equal results must follow, 
 they did communicate infants as soon as they had 
 baptized them. And why the church of Rome 
 should not do so too, being she expounds, ' except 
 ye eat,' of oral manducation, I cannot yet learn a 
 reason. And, for others that expound it of a spi- 
 ritual manducation, why they shall not allow the 
 disagreeing part the same liberty of expounding 
 ' except a man be born again,' too, I by no means 
 can understand. And in these cases no external 
 determiner can be pretended in answer : for what- 
 soever is extrinsical to the words, as councils, tra- 
 dition, church authority, and fathers, either have 
 said nothing at all, or have concluded, by their 
 practice, contrary to the present opinion ; as is plain 
 in their communicating infants by virtue of ' except 
 ye eat.' 
 
 5. I shall not need to urge the mysteriousness 
 of some points in Scripture, which, from the nature 
 of the subject, are hard to be understood, though 
 very plainly represented : for there are some mys- 
 teries in divinity,* which are only to be understood 
 by persons very holy and spiritual, which are rather 
 to be felt than discoursed of; and therefore, if per- 
 adventure they be offered to public consideration, 
 they will therefore be opposed, because they run 
 
 * Secreta Theologise. 
 
98 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 the same fortune with many other questions; that 
 is, not to be understood ; and so much the rather, 
 because their understanding, that is, the feeling 
 such secrets of the kingdom, are not the results of 
 logic and philosophy, or yet of public revelation, 
 but of the public spirit privately working, and in no 
 man is a duty, but in all that have it, is a reward ; 
 and is not necessary for all, but given to some; pro- 
 ducing its operations, not regularly, but upon occa- 
 sions, personal necessities, and new emergencies. 
 Of this nature are the spirit of obsignation, belief 
 of particular salvation, special influences and com- 
 forts coming from a sense of the spirit of adoption, 
 actual fervours and great conplacencies in devo- 
 tion, spiritual joys, which are little drawings aside 
 of the curtains of peace and eternity, and antepasts 
 of immortality. But the not understanding the 
 perfect constitution and temperof these mysteries, 
 (and it is hard for any man so to understand as to 
 make others do so too that feel them not,) is cause 
 that in many questions of secret theology, by being 
 very apt and easy to be mistaken, there is a ne- 
 cessity in forbearing one another; and this con- 
 sideration would have been of good use in the 
 question between Soto and Catharinus, both for 
 the preservation of their charity and explication of 
 the mystery. 
 
 6. But here it will not be unseasonable to con- 
 sider, that all systems and principles of science are 
 expressed so, that either by reason of the univer- 
 sality of the terms and subject-matter, or the infi- 
 nite variety of human understandings, and these 
 perad venture swayed by interest, or determined by 
 things accidental and extrinsical, they seem to di- 
 vers men, nay to the same men upon divers occa- 
 
OF ARGUMENTS FROM SCRIPTURE. 99 
 
 sions, to speak things extremely disparate, and some- 
 times contrary, but very often of great variety. And 
 this very thing happens also in Scripture, that if it 
 were not in a sacred subject, it were excellent sport 
 to observe, how the same place of Scripture serves 
 several turns upon occasion, and they at that time 
 believe the words sound nothing else; whereas, in 
 the liberty of their judgment and abstracting from 
 that occasion, their commentaries understand them 
 wholly to a differing sense. It is a wonder of what 
 excellent use to the church of Rome, is tibi dabo 
 claves, ' I will give thee the keys.' It was spoken 
 to Peter and none else, (sometimes,) and there- 
 fore it concerns him and his successors only ; the 
 rest are to derive from him. And yet, if you ques- 
 tion them for their sacrament of penance, and 
 priestly absolution, then * I will give thee the 
 keys' comes in, and that was spoken to St. Peter, 
 and in him to the whole college of the apostles, and 
 in them to the whole hierarchy. If you question 
 why the pope pretends to free souls from purga- 
 tory, * I will give thee the keys,' is his warrant ; 
 but if you tell him, the keys are only for binding 
 and loosing on earth directly, and in heaven conse- 
 quently ; and that purgatory is a part of hell, or 
 rather neither earth nor heaven nor hell, and so the 
 keys seem to have nothing to do with it, then his 
 commission is to be enlarged by a suppletory of 
 reason and consequences, and his keys shall unlock 
 this difficulty; for it is the key of knowledge, as well 
 as of authority. And these keys shall enable him 
 to expound Scriptures infallibly, to determine ques- 
 tions, to preside in councils, to dictate to all the 
 world magisterially, to rule the church, to dispense 
 with oaths, to abrogate laws: and if his key of 
 
 h2 
 
100 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 knowledge will not, the key of authority shall, 
 and 'I will give thee the keys' shall answer for 
 all. We have an instance in the single fancy of 
 one man, what rare variety of matter is afforded 
 from those plain words, ' I have prayed for thee, 
 Peter,' Luke, xxii. ; for that place, says Bellarmine,* 
 is otherwise to be understood of Peter, otherwise of 
 the popes, and otherwise of the church of Rome : 
 and ' for thee' signifies, that Christ prayed that 
 Peter might neither err personally nor judicially; 
 and that Peter's successors, if they did err person- 
 ally, might not err judicially; and that the Roman 
 church might not err personally. All this variety 
 of senses is pretended, by the fancy of one man, to 
 be in a few words which are as plain and simple as 
 are any words in Scripture. And what then in 
 those thousands that are intricate ? So is done 
 with *Feed my sheep,' which a man would think 
 were a commission as innocent and guiltless of de- 
 signs, as the sheep in the folds are. But if it be 
 asked, why the bishop of Rome calls himself univer- 
 sal bishop, 'Feed my sheep' is his warrant. Why 
 he pretends to a power of deposing princes, ' Feed 
 my sheep,' said Christ to Peter, the second time. If 
 it be demanded, why also he pretends to a power of 
 authorising his subjects to kill him, ' Feed my 
 lambs,' said Christ, the third time: and 'feed' 
 (pasce) is teach, and ' feed' is command, and * feed ' 
 is kill. Now if others should take the same (unrea- 
 sonableness I will not say, but the same) liberty in 
 expounding Scripture, or if it be not licence taken, 
 but that the Scripture itself is so full and redun- 
 dant in senses quite contrary, what man soever, or 
 
 * Bellar. lib. iv. de Pontif. c. 3. § Respondeo primo. 
 
DIFFICULTY OF EXPOUNDING SCRIPTURE. 101 
 
 what company of men soever shall use this prin- 
 ciple, will certainly find such rare productions from 
 several places, that either the unreasonableness of 
 the thing will discover the error of the proceeding-, 
 or else there will be a necessity of permitting a great 
 liberty of judgment, where is so infinite variety 
 without limit or mark of necessary determination. 
 If the first, then, because an error is so obvious and 
 ready to ourselves, it will be great imprudence or 
 tyranny to be hasty in judging others; but if the 
 latter, it is it that I contend for : for it is most un- 
 reasonable, when either the thing itself ministers 
 variety, or that we take licence to ourselves in va- 
 riety of interpretations, or proclaim to all the world 
 our great weakness, by our actually being deceived, 
 that we should either prescribe to others magiste- 
 rially, when we are in error, or limit thsir under- 
 standings, when the thing itself affords liberty and 
 variety. 
 
 SECTION IV. 
 
 Of the Difficulty of Expounding Scripture. 
 
 These considerations are taken from the nature of 
 Scripture itself ; but then, if we consider that we 
 have no certain ways of determining places of 
 difficulty and question, infallibly and certainly; 
 but that we must hope to be saved in the belief of 
 things plain, necessary, and fundamental, and our 
 pious endeavour to find out God's meaning in such 
 
102 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 places, which he hath left under a cloud, for other 
 great ends reserved to his own knowledge, we shall 
 see a very great necessity in allowing a liberty in 
 prophesying, without prescribing authoritatively to 
 other men's consciences, and becoming lords and 
 masters of their faith. Now the means of ex- 
 pounding Scripture are either external, or internal. 
 For the external, as church-authority, tradition, 
 lathers, councils, and decrees of bishops, they are 
 of a distinct consideration, and follow after in their 
 order. But here we will first consider the inva- 
 lidity and uncertainty of all those means of ex- 
 pounding Scripture, which are more proper and 
 internal to the nature of the thing. The great 
 masters of commentaries, some whereof have un- 
 dertaken to know all mysteries, have propounded 
 many ways to expound Scripture ; which indeed 
 are excellent helps, but not infallible assistances, 
 both because themselves are but moral instruments, 
 which force not truth from concealment, as also 
 because they are not infallibly used and applied. 
 1. Sometime the sense is drawn forth by the con- 
 text and connexion of parts : it is well when it 
 can be so. But when there is two or three ante- 
 cedents, and subjects spoken of, what man or what 
 rule shall ascertain me, that I make my reference 
 true, by drawing the relation to such an antecedent, 
 to which I have a mind to apply it, another hath 
 not ? For in a contexture where one part does not 
 always depend upon another, where things of dif- 
 fering natures intervene and interrupt the first in- 
 tentions, there it is not always very probable to 
 expound Scripture, to take its meaning by its pro- 
 portion to the neighbouring words. But who de- 
 sires satisfaction in this, may read the observation 
 
DIFFICULTY OF EXPOUNDING SCRIPTURE. 103 
 
 verified in S. Gregoi-y's Morals upon Job, lib. v. 
 c. 29. and the instances he there bring-s are ex- 
 cellent proof, that this way of interpretation does 
 not warrant any man to impose his expositions 
 upon the belief and understanding of other men 
 too confidently and magisterially. 
 
 2. Another great pretence of medium is the 
 conference of places, which Illyricus calls *' a mighty 
 remedy, and a very happy exposition of holy Scrip- 
 ture ;"* and indeed so it is, if well and temperately 
 used ; but then we are beholding to them that do 
 so, for there is no rule that can constrain them to 
 it; for comparing of places is of so indefinite ca- 
 pacity, that if there be ambiguity of words, variety 
 of sense, alteration of circumstances, or diflference 
 of style amongst divine writers, then there is nothing 
 that may be more abused by wilful people, or may 
 more easily deceive the unwary, or that may amuse 
 the most intelligent observer. The anabaptists 
 take advantage enough in this proceeding, (and 
 indeed so may any one that list,) and when we 
 pretend against them the necessity of baptizing 
 all, by authority of * unless a man be born of 
 water and of the Spirit,' they have a parallel for 
 it, and tell us, that Christ will ' baptize us with the 
 Holy Ghost and with fire,' and that one place ex- 
 pounds the other; and because by fire is not meant 
 an element, or any thing that is natural, but an 
 allegory and figurative expression of the same 
 thing, so also by water may be meant the figure 
 signifying the efl^ect or manner of operation of the 
 Holy Spirit. Fire in one place, and water in the 
 
 * " Ingens remedium et fcelicisbimam expositionem sanctae 
 Scripture." 
 
104 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 other, do bat represent to us, that Christ's baptism 
 is nothing else but the cleansing and purifying us 
 by the H(^ly Ghost. But that which I here note 
 as of greatest concernment, and which, in all reason, 
 ought to be an utter overthrow to this topic, is an 
 universal abase of it among those that use it 
 most ; and when two places seem to have the same 
 expression, or if a word have a double significa- 
 tion, because in this place it may have such a 
 sense, therefore it must ; because in one of the 
 places the sense is to their purpose, they conclude 
 that therefore it must be so in the other too. An 
 instance I give in the great question between the 
 Socinians and the Catholics. If any place be urged, 
 in which our blessed Saviour is called God, they 
 show you two or three where the word God is 
 taken in a depressed sense, for one like God ; as 
 when God said to. Moses, 'I have made thee a 
 god to Pharaoh ;' and hence they argue, because I 
 can show the word is used for a false god, therefore 
 no argument is sufficient to prove Christ to be 
 true God, from the appellative of God. And 
 might not another argue to the exact contrary, and 
 as well urge that Moses is the true God ; because 
 in some places the word God is used for the eter- 
 nal God ? Both ways the argument concludes 
 impiously and unreasonably. It is a fallacy to 
 conclude affirmatively from a possibility to a re- 
 ality; because breaking of bread is sometimes 
 used for an eucharistical manducation in Scripture, 
 therefore I shall not, from any testimony of Scrip- 
 ture affirming the first Christians to have broken 
 bread together, conclude that they lived hospitably 
 and in common society. Because it may possibly 
 be eluded, therefore it does not signify any thing. 
 
DIFFICULTY OF EXPOUNDING SCRIPTURE. 105 
 
 And this is the great way of answering all the ar- 
 guments that can be brought against any thing that 
 any man hath a mind to defend ; and any man 
 that reads any controversies of any side, shall find 
 as many instances of this vanity, almost, as he 
 finds arguments from Scripture : this fault was of 
 old noted by St. Austin, for then they had g-ot the 
 trick, and he is angry at it : * " We ought not," 
 says he, " to take it for granted, that because, in a 
 particular place, a thing has a certain signification, 
 it always signifies the same.^* 
 
 3. Oftentimes Scriptures are pretended to be ex- 
 pounded by a proportion and analogy of reason ; 
 and this is as the other, if it be well it is well. But 
 unless there were some universal intellect, fur- 
 nished with infallible propositions, by referring to 
 which every man might argue infallibly, this logic 
 may deceive as well as any of the rest. For it is 
 with reason as with men's tastes; although there 
 are some general principles which are reasonable 
 to all men, yet every man is not able to draw out all 
 its consequences, nor to understand them when 
 they are drawn forth, nor to believe when he does 
 understand them. There is a precept of St. Paul, 
 directed to the Thessalonians, before they were ga- 
 thered into a body of a church, 2 Thes. iii. 6, *To 
 withdraw from every brother that walketh disor- 
 derly :' but if this precept were now observed, 
 I would fain know whether we should not fall into 
 that inconvenience which St. Paul sought to avoid, 
 in giving the same commandment to the church of 
 
 * " Neque enim putare debemus esse praescriptum, ut quod 
 in aliquo loco res aliqua per similitudinem significaverit, hoc 
 etiam semper significare credamus." — De Doctri. Christian, 
 lib. iii. 
 
106 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 Corinth, 1 Cor. v. 9 : 'I wrote to you, that j e 
 should not company with fornicators ;' and, ' yet not 
 altogether with the fornicators of this world, for 
 then ye must go out of the world :' and therefore 
 he restrains it to a C|uitting the society of Chris- 
 tians living ill lives. But now that all the world 
 hath been Christians, if we should sin in keeping- 
 company with vicious Christians, must we not also 
 go out of this world ? Is not the precept made 
 null, because the reason is altered, and things are 
 come about, and that the ' many,' 6i ttoXXoi, are the 
 brethren, aceX<poi 6vofiaZ,6n(voi, 'called brethren,' as St. 
 Paul's phrase is? And yet either this never was 
 considered, or not yet believed ; for it is generally 
 taken to be obligatory, though (I think) seldom 
 practised. But when we come to expound Scrip- 
 tures to a certain sense, by arguments drawn from 
 prudential motives, then we are in a vast plain 
 without any sufficient guide, and we shall have so 
 many senses as there are human prudences. But 
 that which goes further than this is a parity of rea- 
 son, from a plain place of Scripture to an obscure, 
 from that which is plainly set dow n in a text to 
 another that is more remote from it. And thus is 
 that place in St. INIatthew^ forced : * If thy brother 
 refuse to be amended, tell it to the church.' 
 Hence some of the Roman doctors argue, if Christ 
 commands to tell the church, in case of adultery or 
 private injury, then much more in case of heresy. 
 Well, suppose this to be a good interpretation, 
 why must I stay here ? Why may not I also add, 
 by a parity of reason, if the church must be told 
 of heresy, much more of treason : and why may 
 not I reduce all sins to the cognizance of a church 
 tribunal, as some men do indirectly. ar»d Soecanus 
 
DIFFICULTY OF EXPOUNDING SCRIPTURE. 107 
 
 does heartily and plainly ? If a man's principles 
 be good, and his deductions certain, he need not 
 care whither they carry him. But when an autho- 
 rity is entrusted to a person, and the extent of his 
 power expressed in his commission, it will not be 
 safety to meddle beyond his commission upon con- 
 fidence of a parity of reason. To instance once 
 more : when Christ, in ' feed my sheep,' and 
 * thou art Peter,' gave power to the pope to govern 
 the church, (for to that sense the church of Rome 
 expounds those authorities,) by a certain conse- 
 quence of reason, say they, he gave all things ne- 
 cessary for exercise of this jurisdiction ; and there- 
 fore, in ' feed my sheep,' he gave him an indirect 
 power over temporals, for that is necessary that he 
 may do his duty. Well, having gone thus far, we 
 will go further upon the parity of reason; there- 
 fore he hath given the pope the gift of tongues, and 
 he hath given him power to give it; for how else 
 shall Xavier convert the Indians ? He hath given 
 him also power to command the seas and the 
 winds, that they should obey him, for this also is 
 very necessary in some cases : — and so * fieed my 
 sheep' is, ' receive the gift of tongues, command 
 the seas and the winds, dispose of the diadems of 
 princes, and the possessions of the people, and the 
 influences of heaven too,' and whatsoever the pa- 
 rity of reason will judge equally necessary in order 
 to feed ChrisVs sheep. When a man does speak 
 reason, it is but reason he should be heard ; but 
 though he may have the good fortune, or the great 
 abilities to do it, yet he hath not a certainty, no 
 regular infallible assistance, no inspiration of argu- 
 ments and deductions ; and if he had, yet because 
 it must be reason that must judge of reason, unless 
 
108 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 other men's understandings were of the same area, 
 the same constitution and ability, they cannot be 
 prescribed unto by another man's reason; especially 
 because such reasonings as usually are in explica- 
 tion of particular places of Scripture depend upon 
 minute circumstances and particularities, in which 
 it is so easy to be deceived, and so hard to speak 
 reason regularly and always, that it is the greater 
 wonder if we be not deceived. 
 
 4. Others pretend to expound Scripture by the 
 analogy of faith, and that is the most sure and in- 
 fallible way, (as it is thought :) but upon stricter 
 surv^ey, it is but a chimera, a thing in nubibiis, in 
 the clouds, which varies like the right hand and 
 left hand of a pillar ; and, at the best, is but like the 
 coast of a country to a traveller out of his way; it 
 may bring him to his journey's end, though twenty 
 miles about; it may keep him from running into 
 the sea, and from mistaking a river for dry land ; 
 but whether this little path or the other be the 
 light way, it tells not. So is the analogy of faith ; 
 that is, if I understand it right, the rule of faith ; 
 that is, the creed. Now, were it not a fine device 
 to go to expound all the Scripture by the creed, 
 there being in it so many thousand places which 
 have no more relation to any article in the creed 
 than they have to Virgil's Eclogues ? Indeed, if a 
 man resolves to keep the analogy of faith, that is, 
 to expound Scripture so as not to do any violence 
 to any fundamental article, he shall be sure, how- 
 ever he errs, yet not to destroy faith, he shall not 
 perish in his exposition. And that was the precept 
 given by St. Paul, that all prophesyings should be 
 estimated according to the analogy of faith. 
 Rom. xii. 6. And to this very purpose St. Austin, 
 
DIFFICULTY OF EXPOUNDING SCRIPTURE. 109 
 
 in his Exposition of Genesis, by way of preface, 
 sets down the articles of faith, with this design and 
 protestation of it, that if he says nothing against 
 those articles, though he miss the particular sense 
 of the place, there is no danger or sin in his expo- 
 sition : but how that analogy of faith should have 
 any other influence in expounding such places in 
 which those articles of faith are neither expressed 
 nor involved, I understand not. But then, if you 
 extend the analogy of faith further than that which 
 is proper to the rule or symbol of faith, then every 
 man expounds Scripture according to the analogy 
 of faith : but what ? his own faith : which faith, if 
 it be questioned, I am no more bound to expound 
 according to the analogy of another man's faith, 
 than he to expound according to the analogy of 
 mine. And this is it that is complained on of all 
 sides that overvalue their own opinions. Scrip- 
 ture seems so clearly to speak what they believe, 
 that they wonder all the world does not see it 
 as clear as they do ; but they satisfy themselves 
 with saying, that it is because they come with 
 prejudice; whereas, if they had the true belief, 
 that is, theii's, they would easily see what they 
 see. And this is very true ; for if they did believe 
 as others believe, they would expound Scriptures 
 to their sense ; but if this be expounding accord- 
 ing to the analogy of faith, it signifies no more 
 than this : be you of my mind, and then my ar- 
 guments will seem concluding, and my authorities 
 and allegations pressing and pertinent : and this 
 will serve on all sides, and therefore will do but 
 little service to the determination of questions, or 
 prescribing to other men's consciences, on any 
 side. 
 
110 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 Lastly: Consulting the originals is thought a 
 great matter to interpretation of Scriptures. But 
 this is to small purpose : for indeed it will expound 
 the Hebrew and the Greek, and rectify translations: 
 but I know no man that says that the Scriptures 
 in Hebrew and Greek are easy and certain to be 
 understood, and that they are hard in Latin and 
 English : the difficulty is in the thing, however it 
 be expressed, the least is in the language. If the 
 original languages were our mother tongue. Scrip- 
 ture is not much the easier to us; and a natural 
 Greek or a Jew can, with no more reason, nor au- 
 thority, obtrude his interpretation upon other 
 men's consciences, than a man of another nation. 
 Add to this, that the inspection of the original is 
 no more certain way of interpretation of Scripture 
 now, than it was to the fathers and primitive ages 
 of the church ; and yet he that observes m hat infi- 
 nite variety of translations of the Bible were in the 
 first ages of the church, (as St. Jerome observes,) 
 and never a one like another, will think that we 
 shall differ as much in our interpretations as they 
 did, and that the medium is as uncertain to us as it 
 was to them : and so it is ; witness the great num- 
 ber of late translations, and the infinite number of 
 commentaries, which are too pregnant an argu- 
 ment, that we neither agree in the understanding of 
 the words, nor of the sense. 
 
 The truth is, all these ways of interpreting of 
 Scripture, which of themselves are good helps, are 
 made, either by design or by our infirmities, ways 
 of intricating and involving Scriptures in greater 
 difficulty; because men do not learn their doctrines 
 from Scripture, but come to the understanding of 
 Scripture with preconceptions and ideas of doc- 
 
DIFFICULTY OF EXPOUNDING SCRIPTURE. 11 1 
 
 trines of their own ; and then no wonder that Scrip- 
 tures look like pictures, wherein every man in the 
 room believes they look on him only, and that 
 wheresoever he stands, or how often soever he 
 changes his station. So that now what was in- 
 tended for a remedy becomes the promoter of our 
 disease, and our meat becomes the matter of sick- 
 nesses : and the mischief is, the wit of man cannot 
 find a remedy for it, for there is no rule, no limit, 
 no certain principle, by which all men may be 
 guided to a certain and so infallible an interpreta- 
 tion, that he can, with any equity, prescribe to others 
 to believe his interpretations in places of contro- 
 versy or ambiguity. A man would think that the 
 memorable prophecy of Jacob, that the sceptre 
 should not depart from Judah till Shiloh come, 
 should have been so clear a determination of the 
 time of the Messias, that a Jew should never have 
 doubted it to have been verified in Jesus of Naza- 
 reth ; and yet, for this so clear vaticination, they 
 have no less than twenty-six answers. St. Paul 
 and St. James seem to speak a little diversely con- 
 cerning justification by faith and works, and yet to 
 my understanding it is very easy to reconcile them ; 
 but all men are not of my mind, for Osiander, in 
 his confutation of the book which Melancthon 
 wrote against him, observes, tliat there are twenty 
 several opinions concerning justification, all drawn 
 from the Scriptures, by the men only of the Au- 
 gustan confession. There are sixteen several opi- 
 nions concerning original sin ; and as many defini- 
 tions of the sacraments as there are sects of men 
 that disagree about them. 
 
 And now what help is there for us in the midst 
 of these uncertainties ? If we follow any one 
 
112 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 translation, or any one man's commentary, what 
 rule shall we have to choose the right by ? Or 
 is there any one man that hath translated per- 
 fectly, or expounded infallibly ? No translation 
 challenges such a prerogative as to be authentic, 
 but the vulgar Latin : and yet see with v/hat 
 good success ; for when it was declared authen- 
 tic by the council of Trent, Sixtus put forth a 
 copy much mended of what it was, and tied all 
 men to follow that ; but that did not satisfy, for 
 Pope Clement reviews and corrects it in many 
 places, and still the decree remains in a changed 
 subject. And, secondly, that translation will be 
 very unapt to satisfy, in which one of their own 
 men, Isidore Clarius, a monk of Brescia, found and 
 mended eight thousand faults, besides innumerable 
 others, which he says he pretermitted. And then, 
 thirdly, to show how little themselves were satisfied 
 with it, divers learned men amongst them did new 
 translate the Bible, and thought they did God and 
 the church good service in it. So that, if you take 
 this for your precedent, you are sure to be mis- 
 taken infinitely ; if you take any other, the authors 
 themselves do not promise you any security. If 
 you resolve to follow any one as far only as you 
 see cause, then you only do wrong or right by 
 chance ; for you have certainty just proportionable 
 to your own skill, to your own infalliljility. If 
 you resolve to follow any one, whithersoever he 
 leads, we shall oftentimes come thither, where we 
 shall see ourselves become ridiculous, as it hap- 
 pened in the case of Spiridion, bishop of Cyprus, 
 who so resolved to follow his old book, that when 
 an eloquent bishop, who was desired to preach, 
 read his text, ' Take up thy bed and walk,' Spiri- 
 
DIFFICULTY OF EXPOUNDING SCRIPTURE. 113 
 
 dion was very angry with him, because in his book 
 it was ' take up thy couch,' and thought it arro- 
 gance in the preacher to speak better Latin than 
 his translator had done : and if it be thus in trans- 
 lations, it is far worse in expositions, " because, in 
 truth, all do not receive the Holy Scriptures, on 
 account of their profundity, in the same sense, for 
 there are as many expositors as there are sentences 
 in it,"* said Vincent Lirinensis ; in which every man 
 knows what innumerable ways there are of being 
 mistaken, God having, in things not simply neces- 
 sary, left such a difficulty upon those parts of 
 Scripture which are the subject matters of contro- 
 versy, (as St. Austin gives a reason,f ) that all that 
 err honestly are therefore to be pitied and tolerated ; 
 because it may be the condition of every man, at 
 one time or other. 
 
 The sum is this : Since Holy Scripture is the re- 
 pository of divine truths, and the great rule of faith, 
 to which all sects of Christians do appeal for pro- 
 bation of their several opinions ; and since all agree 
 in the articles of the creed, as things clearly and 
 plainly set down, and as containing all that which 
 is of simple and prime necessity ; and since, on the 
 other side, there are in Scripture many other mys- 
 teries, and matters of cjuestion upon which there is 
 a veil ; since there are so many copies, with infinite 
 varieties of reading ; since a various interpunction, 
 a parenthesis, a letter, an accent, may much alter 
 the sense; since some places have divers literal 
 
 * '^ Quia scil. Scripturam Sacram pro ipsa sui altitudine non 
 uno eodemque sensu omnes accipiunt, ut pene quot homines tot 
 illic sententiae erui posse videantur." — In Commonit. 
 
 -|- " Ad edomandum labore superbiam, et intellectum a fas- 
 tidio revocandum." — Lib. ii. De Doctr. Christian, c. 6. 
 
114 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 senses, many have spiritual, mystical, and allego- 
 rical meanings; since there are so many tropes, 
 metonymies, ironies, hyperboles, proprieties, and 
 improprieties of language, whose understanding 
 depends upon such circumstances that it is almost 
 impossible to know its proper interpretation, now 
 that the knowledge of such circumstances and par- 
 ticular stories is irrevocably lost ; since there are 
 some mysteries which, at the best advantage of ex- 
 pression, are not easy to be apprehended, and 
 whose explication, by reason of our imperfections, 
 must needs be dark, sometimes weak, sometimes 
 unintelligible; and lastly, since those ordinary 
 means of expounding Scripture, as searching the 
 originals, conference of places, parity of reason, 
 and analogy of faith, are all dubious, uncertain, 
 and very fallible, — he that is the wisest, and by con- 
 sequence the likeliest to expound truest in all pro- 
 bability of reason, will be very far from confidence ; 
 because every one of these, and many more, are 
 like so many degrees of improbability and uncer- 
 tainty, all depressing our certainty of finding out 
 truth in such mysteries, and amidst so many diffi- 
 culties. And, therefore, a wise man that considers 
 this, would not willingly be prescribed to by others; 
 and, therefore, if he also be a just man, he will not 
 impose upon others ; for it is best every man should 
 be left in that liberty from which no man can justly 
 take him, unless he could secure him from error : 
 so that here also there is a necessity to conserve the 
 liberty of prophesying and interpreting Scripture ; 
 a necessity derived from the consideration of the 
 difficulty of Scripture in questions controverted, 
 and the uncertainty of any internal medium of 
 interpretation. 
 
115 
 
 SECTION V. 
 
 Of the insufficiency and uncertainty of Tradition to 
 expound Scripture, or determine Questions. 
 
 In the next place, we must consider those extrin- 
 sical means of interpreting Scripture, and deter- 
 mining- c|uestions, which they most of all confide 
 in, that restrain prophesying with the greatest 
 tyranny. The first and principal is Tradition, 
 which is pretended not only to expound Scrip- 
 ture, " for it is recjuisite, on account of the various 
 turns and windings of error, that the drift of pro- 
 phetic and apostolic interpretation be regulated 
 according to the concurrent opinion of the uni- 
 versal church;"* but also to propound articles upon 
 a distinct stock, such articles whereof there is no 
 mention and proposition in Scripture. And in 
 this topic, not only the distinct articles are clear 
 and plain, like as the fundamentals of faith ex- 
 pressed in Scripture, but also it pretends to ex- 
 pound Scripture, and to determine questions with 
 so much clarity and certainty, as there shall nei- 
 ther be error nor doubt remaining ; and therefore no 
 disagreeing is here to be endured. And indeed it 
 is most true, if tradition can perform these preten- 
 sions, and teach us plainly, and assure us infallibly 
 
 * " Necesse enim est propter tantos tarn varii erroris anfrac- 
 tus, ut propheticse et apostolicee interpretationis linea secundum 
 ecclesiastic! et catholici sensus normam dirigatur." — Vincent. 
 Lirinens. in Commonitor. 
 
 I 2 
 
116 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 of all truths which they require us to believe, we 
 can, in this case, have no reason to disbelieve them, 
 and therefore are certainly heretics if we do ; be- 
 cause, without a crime, without some human inte- 
 rest or collateral design, we cannot disbelieve tra- 
 ditive doctrine or traditive interpretation, if it be 
 infallibly proved to us that tradition is an infallible 
 guide. 
 
 But here I first consider that tradition is no repo- 
 sitory of articles of faith, and therefore the not 
 following it is no argument of heresy ; for, besides 
 that I have showed Scripture in its plain expresses 
 to be an abundant rule of faith and manners, tra- 
 dition is a topic as fallible as any other ; so fallible, 
 that it cannot be sufficient evidence to any man in 
 a matter of faith or question of heresy. 
 
 For, first, I find that the fathers were infinitely 
 deceived in their account and enumeration of tra- 
 ditions; sometimes they did call some traditions 
 such, not which they knew to be so, but by argu- 
 ments and presumptions they concluded them so. 
 Such as was that of St. Austin : " What is held by 
 the universal church, and not known to have been 
 decreed by councils, is to be considered as derived 
 from apostolical tradition."* Now, suppose this rule 
 probable, that is the most, yet it is not certain ; it 
 might come by custom, whose original was not 
 known, but yet could not derive from an apostolical 
 principle. Now, when they conclude of particular 
 traditions by a general rule, and that general rule 
 not certain, but at the most probable in any thing, 
 and certainly false in some things, it is no wonder 
 
 * " Ea quae universalis tenet ecclesia nee a conciliis instituta 
 reperiuntur, credibile est ab apostolorum traditione descendisse." 
 — Epist. cxviii. ad Sunar. de Bapt. Contr. Donat. lib. iv. c. 24. 
 
UNCERTAINTY OF TRADITION. 117 
 
 if the productions, that is, their judgments and 
 pretence fail so often. And if I should but in- 
 stance in all the particulars, in which tradition was 
 pretended, falsely or uncertainly, in the first ages, 
 I should multiply them to a troublesome variety ; 
 for it was then accounted so glorious a thing to 
 have spoken with the persons of the apostles, that 
 if any man could, with any colour, pretend to it, 
 he might abuse the whole church, and obtrude what 
 he listed, under the specious title of apostolical tra- 
 dition ; and it is very notorious to every man that 
 will but read and observe the recognitions or Stro- 
 mata of Clemens Alexandrinus, where there is 
 enough of such false wares showed in every book, 
 and pretended to be no less than from the apostles. 
 In the first age after the apostles, Papias pretended 
 he received a tradition from the apostles, that Christ, 
 before the day of judgment, should reign a thou- 
 sand years upon earth, and his saints with him, in 
 temjDoral felicities ; and this thing, proceeding from 
 so great an authority as the testimony of Papias, 
 drew after it all, or most, of the Christians in the 
 first three hundred years. For, besides that the 
 millenary opinion is expressly taught by Papias, 
 Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Origen, Lactantius, Seve- 
 rus, Victorinus, Apollinaris, Nepos, and divers 
 others, famous in their time, Justin Martyr, in his 
 dialogue against Tryphon, says, it was the belief of 
 all Christians exactly orthodox ; and yet there was 
 no such tradition, but a mistake in Papias ; but I 
 find it nowhere spoke against, till Dionysius of 
 Alexandria, confuted Nepos's book, and converted 
 Coracion, the Egyptain, from the opinion. Now, if 
 a tradition, whose beginning of being called so 
 began with a scholar of the apostles, (for so was 
 
118 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 Papias,) and then continued, for some ages, upon 
 the mere authority of so famous a man, did yet de- 
 ceive the church, much more fallible is the pre- 
 tence, when, two or three hundred years after, it but 
 commences, and then, by some learned man, is first 
 called a tradition apostolical. And so it happened 
 in the case of the Arian heresy, which the Nicene 
 fathers did confute by objecting a contrary tradi- 
 tion apostolical, as Theodoret reports ;* and yet if 
 they had not had better arguments from Scrip- 
 ture than from tradition, they would have failed 
 much in so good a cause ; for this very pretence 
 the Arians themselves made, and desired to be 
 tried by the fathers of the first three hundred 
 years ;f which was a confutation sufficient to them 
 who pretended a clear tradition, because it was 
 unimaginable that the tradition should leap so as 
 not to come from the first to the last by the middle. 
 But that this trial was sometime declined by that 
 excellent man St. Athanasius, although at other 
 times confidently and truly pretended, it was an 
 argument the tradition was not so clear, but both 
 sides might with some fairness pretend to it. And, 
 therefore, one of the prime founders of their heresy, 
 the heretic, Artemon,§ having observed the ad- 
 vantage might be taken by any sect that would 
 pretend tradition, because the medium was plausi- 
 ble, and consisting of so many particulars that it 
 was hard to be redargued, pretended a tradition 
 from the apostles, that Christ was a mere man, and 
 that the tradition did descend by a constant suc- 
 cession, in the church of Rome, to pope Victor's 
 
 * Lib. i. Hist. c. 8. 
 
 + Vide Petav. in Epiph. Haer. 69. 
 
 ± Euseb. lib. v. c. ult. 
 
UNCERTAINTY OF TRADITION. 119 
 
 time inclusively, and till Zepherinus had inter- 
 rupted the series, and corrupted the doctrine ; 
 which pretence, if it had not had some appearance 
 of truth, so as possibly to abuse the church, had 
 not been worthy of confutation, which yet was with 
 care undertaken by an old writer, out of whom 
 Eusebius transcribes a large passage, to reprove the 
 vanity of the pretender. But I observe from hence, 
 that it was usual to pretend to tradition, and that 
 it was easier pretended than confuted ; and I doubt 
 not but oftener done than discovered. A great 
 question arose in Africa, concerning the baptism of 
 heretics, whether it were valid or no. St. Cyprian 
 and his party appealed to Scripture ; Stephen, 
 bishop of Rome, and his party, would be judged 
 by custom, and tradition ecclesiastical. See how 
 much the nearer the question was to a determina- 
 tion : either that probation was not accounted by 
 St. Cyprian, and the bishops, both of Asia and 
 Africk, to be a good argument, and sufficient to 
 determine them, or there was no certain tradition 
 against them; for, unless one of these two do it, 
 nothing could excuse them from opposing a known 
 truth ; unless, peradventure, St. Cyprian, Firmilian, 
 the bishops of Galatia, Cappadocia, and almost two 
 parts of the world, were ignorant of such a tradi- 
 tion, for they knew of none such, and some of them 
 expressly denied it. And the sixth general synod 
 approves of the canon made in the council of Car- 
 thage, under Cyprian, upon this very ground, be- 
 cause " the tradition was preserved only in the 
 dioceses of those bishops, and accordingto a custom 
 handed down among them,"* They had a parti- 
 
 * " In prffidictorum prsesulum locis, et solum secundum tra- 
 ditam eis consuetudinem, servatus est." 
 
120 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 cular tradition for rebaptization ; and therefore, 
 there could be no tradition universal against it, 
 or, if there were, they knew not of it, but much 
 for the contrary; and then, it would be remem- 
 bered, that a concealed tradition was like a silent 
 thunder, or a law not promulgated ; it neither 
 was known, nor was obligatory. And I shall ob- 
 serve this too, that this very tradition was so ob- 
 scure, and was so obscurely delivered, so silently 
 proclaimed, that St. Austin,+ who disputed against 
 the Donatists upon this very question, was not able 
 to 23 rove it, but by a consequence which he thought 
 probable and credible, as appears in his discourse 
 against the Donatists. '' The apostles,^* saith St. 
 Austin, " prescribed nothing in this particular : 
 but this custom, which is contrary to Cyprian, 
 ought to be believed to have come from their tra- 
 dition, as many other things which the catholic 
 church observes." That is all the ground and all 
 the reason ; nay, the church did waver concerning 
 that question, and before the decision of a council, 
 Cyprian t and others might dissent without breach 
 of charity. It was plain, then, there was no clear 
 tradition in the question ; possibly there might be 
 a custom in some churches postnate to the times of 
 the apostles, but nothing that was obligatory, no 
 tradition apostolical. But this was a suppletory 
 device, ready at hand whenever they needed it ; 
 and St. Austin§ confuted the Pelagians, in the 
 question of original sin, by the custom of exorcism 
 and insufflation, which, St. Austin said, came from 
 the apostles by tradition, which yet Avas then, and 
 
 * Lib. V. De Baptism. Contr. Donat. c. 23. 
 
 i" Lib. i. De Baptism, c. 18. 
 
 J De Peccat. Original, lib. ii. c. 40. contra. Pelag. et Cselest. 
 
UNCERTAINTY OF TRADITION. 121 
 
 is now, so impossible to be proved, that he that 
 shall affirm it, shall gain only the reputation of a 
 bold man and a confident. 
 
 2. I consider, if the report of traditions in the 
 primitive times, so near the ages apostolical, was 
 so uncertain, that they were fain to aim at them 
 by conjectures, and grope as in the dark, the un- 
 certainty is much increased since; because there are 
 many famous writers whose works are lost, which 
 yet, if they had continued, they might have been 
 good records to us, as Clemens Rom anus, Ege- 
 sippus, NejDos, Coracion, Dionysius Areopagite, of 
 Alexandria, of Corinth, Firmilian, and many more : 
 and since we see pretences have been made, without 
 reason, in those ages where they might better have 
 been confuted than now they can, it is greater pru- 
 dence to suspect any later pretences, since so many 
 sects have been, so many wars, so many corruptions 
 in authors, so many authors lost, so much ignorance 
 hath intervened, and so many interests have been 
 served, that now the rule is to be altered : and 
 whereas it was of old time credible, that that was 
 apostolical whose beginning they knew not ; now, 
 quite contrary, we cannot safely believe them to 
 be apostolical, unless we do know their beginning 
 to have been from the apostles. For this consist- 
 ing of probabilities and particulars, which, put to- 
 gether, make up a moral demonstration, the argu- 
 ment which 1 now urge hath been growing these 
 fifteen hundred years ; and if anciently there was 
 so much as to evacuate the authoi-ity of tradition, 
 much more is there now absolutely to destroy it, 
 when all the particulars, which time and infinite 
 variety of human accidents have been amassing 
 together, are now concentered, and are united by 
 
122 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 way of constipation. Because every age, and 
 every great change, and every heresy, and every 
 interest, hath increased the difficulty of finding 
 out true traditions. 
 
 3. There are very many traditions which are 
 lost ; and yet they are concerning matters of as 
 great consequence as most of those questions, for 
 the determination whereof traditions are pre- 
 tended : it is more than probable, that as in bap- 
 tism and the eucharist the very forms of ministra- 
 tion are transmitted to us, so also in confirmation 
 and ordination, and that there were sj^ecial direc- 
 tions for visitation of the sick, and explicit inter- 
 pretations of those difficult jjlaces of St. Paul, 
 which St. Peter affirmed to be so difficult, that the 
 ignorant do wrest them to their own damnation ; 
 and yet no church hath conserved these, or those 
 many more which St. Basil affirms to be so many, 
 that the day would fail him in the very simple 
 enumeration of all traditions ecclesiastical.* And if 
 the church hath failed in keeping the great variety 
 of traditions, it will hardly be thought a fault in a 
 private person to neglect tradition, which either 
 the whole church hath very much neglected incul- 
 pably, or else the whole church is very much to 
 blame. And who can ascertain us that she hath 
 not entertained some which are no traditions, as 
 well as lost thousands that are ? That she did en- 
 tertain some false traditions, I have already proved ; 
 but it is also as probable that some of those which 
 these ages did propound for traditions are not so, 
 as it is certain that some, which the first ages called 
 traditions, were nothing less. 
 
 * 'EiriXei-ipr] i^^kpa tcl aypacpa rijg eicKXrjciag f.iv'^rjpia 
 hiriyovfitvov. — Cap. 29. De Spir. Sancto. 
 
UNCERTAINTY OF TRADITION. 123 
 
 4. There are some opinions, which when they 
 began to be publicly received, began to be ac- 
 counted prime traditions ; and so became such, not 
 by a native title, but by adoption ; and nothing is 
 more usual than for the fathers to colour their po- 
 pular opinion with so great an appellative. St. 
 Austin called the communicating of infants an 
 apostolical tradition; and yet we do not practise it, 
 because we disbelieve the allegation. And that 
 every custom, which at first introduction was but a 
 private fancy or singular practice, grew afterwards 
 into a public rite, and went for a tradition after a 
 while continuance, appears by Tertullian, who 
 seems to justify it : " You do not think it lawful 
 for any Christian to appoint, for discipline and sal- 
 vation, whatever he may deem well-pleasing to 
 God." And again, " Whoever tradition be intro- 
 duced by, you should regard, not the author, but 
 the authority."* And St. Jerome most plainly : 
 " The decisions of the fathers are to be esteemed by 
 all as apostolical traditions.^^f And when Irenaeus 
 had observed that great variety in the keeping of 
 Lent, which yet to be a forty days' fast is pretended 
 to descend from tradition apostolical, some fasting 
 but one day before Easter, some two, some forty, 
 and this even long before Irenseus's time, he gives 
 this reason : " That variety of fasting originated 
 with our fathers, who did not carefully observe 
 their custom, who either from simplicity or per- 
 
 * " Non enim existimas tu licitum esse cuicunque fideli 
 constituere quod Deo placere illi visum fuerit, ad disciplinam 
 et salutem." — Contra Marcion. " A quocunque traditore cen- 
 setur, nee authorem respicias sed authoritatem." — De Coron. mi- 
 lit, c. 3 et 4. 
 
 •j- " PrEecepta majorum apostolicas traditiones quisque 
 existimat." — Apud Euseb. lib. v. c. 24. 
 
124 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 sonal authority, were for ordaining- rites for their 
 posterity."" And there are yet some points of 
 good concernment, which if any man should ques- 
 tion in a high manner, they would prove indeter- 
 minable by Scripture, or sufficient reason ; and yet 
 I doubt not their confident defenders would say, 
 they are opinions of the church, and quickly pre- 
 tend a tradition from the very apostles, and believe 
 themselves so secure, that they could not be disco- 
 vered ; because the c|uestion never having been 
 disputed, gives them occasion to say, that which 
 had no beginning known was certainly from the 
 apostles. For why should not divines do in the 
 question of reconfirmation as in that of rebaptiza- 
 tion ? Are not the grounds equal from an indelible 
 character in one as in the other ? And if it happen 
 such a question as this, after contestation, should 
 be determined, not by any positive decree, but by 
 the cession of one part, and the authority and repu- 
 tation of the other, does not the next age stand fair 
 to be abused with a pretence of tradition in the 
 matter of reconfirmation, which never yet came to 
 a serious question ? for so it was in the Cjuestion of 
 rebaj^tization ; for which there was then no more 
 evident tradition than there is now in the question 
 of reconfirmation, as I proved formerly, but yet it 
 was carried upon that title. 
 
 5. There is great variety in the probation of tra- 
 dition ; so that whatever is proved to be tradition, 
 is not equally and alike credible ; for nothing but 
 universal tradition is of itself credible ; other tra- 
 
 * " Varietas ilia jejuni! coepit apud majores nostros, qui 
 non accurate consuetudinem eorum qui vel simplicitate qua- 
 dam vel privata authoritate in posterum aliquid statuissent, 
 observarant." — Ex translatione Christophersoni. 
 
UNCERTAINTY OF TRADITION. 125 
 
 ditions in their just proportion, as they partake of 
 the degrees of universality. Now, that a tradition 
 be universal, or, which is all one, that it be a cre- 
 dible testimony, St. lren£eus-^ requires that tradi- 
 tion should derive from all the churches apostolical ; 
 and, therefore, according to this rule, there was no 
 sufficient medium to determine the question about 
 Easter, because the eastern and western churches 
 had several traditions respectively, and both pre- 
 tended from the apostles. Clemens Alexandrinusf 
 says, it was a secret tradition from the apostles, 
 that Christ preached but one year : but IrenaeusX 
 says, it did derive from heretics; and says, that he, 
 by tradition, first from St. John, and then from his 
 disciples, received another tradition, that Christ 
 was almost fifty years old when he died ; and so, 
 by consequence, preached almost twenty years : 
 both of them were deceived, and so had all that 
 had believed the report of either, 'pretending tradi- 
 tion apostolical. Thus, the custom in the Latin 
 church of fasting on Saturday, was against that 
 tradition which the Greeks had from the apostles ; 
 and therefore, by this division, and want of consent, 
 which was the true tradition was so absolutely in- 
 determinable, that both must needs lose much of 
 their reputation. But how then, when not only 
 particular churches, but single persons, are all the 
 proof we have for a tradition ? and this often hap- 
 pened : I think St. Austin is the chief argument 
 and authority we have for the assumption of the 
 Virgin Mary ; the baptism of infants is called a 
 tradition by Origen alone, at first, and from him by 
 others. The procession of the Holy Ghost from the 
 Son, which is an article the Greek church disavows, 
 * Lib. iii. c. 4. -f- Lib. i. Stromat. ^ Lib. ii. c. 39. 
 
126 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 derives from the tradition apostolical, as it is pre- 
 tended; and yet, before St. Austin, we hear nothing 
 of it very clearly or certainly, forasmuch as that 
 whole mystery, concerning the blessed Spirit, was 
 so little explicated in Scripture, and so little de- 
 rived to them by tradition, that, till the council of 
 Nice, you shall hardly find any form of worship, or 
 personal address of devotion to the Holy Spirit, as 
 Erasmus observes; and I think the contrary will 
 very hardly be verified. And for this particular, 
 in which I instance, whatsoever is in Scripture con- 
 cerning it, is against that which the church of Rome 
 calls tradition ; which makes the Greeks so confi- 
 dent as they are of the point, and is an argument 
 of the vanity of some things which for no greater 
 reason are called traditions, but because one man 
 hath said so, and that they can be proved by no 
 better argument to be true. Now, in this case, 
 wherein tradition descends upon us with unequal 
 certainty, it would be very unequal to require of 
 us an absolute belief of every thing not written, for 
 fear we be accounted to slight tradition apostolical. 
 And since nothing can require our supreme assent, 
 but that which is truly catholic and apostolic, and 
 to such a tradition is required, as Irena^us says, the 
 consent of all those churches which the apostles 
 planted, and where they did preside, this topic will 
 be of so little use in judging heresies, that (besides 
 what is deposited in Scripture) it cannot be proved 
 in any thing but in the canon of Scripture itself; 
 and, as it is now received, even in that there is 
 some variety. 
 
 And therefore there is wholly a mistake in this 
 business ; for when the fathers appeal to tradition, 
 and with much earnestness and some clamour they 
 
UNCERTAINTY OF TRADITION. 127 
 
 call upon heretics to conform to, or to be tried by tra- 
 dition, it is such a tradition as delivers the fundamen- 
 tal points of Christianity, which were also recorded 
 in Scripture. But because the canon was not yet 
 perfectly consigned, they called to that testimony 
 they had, which was the testimony of the churches 
 apostolical, whose bishops and priests, being the 
 chief authorities in religion, did believe and preach 
 Christian religion, and conserve all its great myste- 
 ries according as they had been taught. Irenasus 
 calls this a tradition apostolical, " that Christ took 
 the cup, and said it was his own blood, and taught 
 the new oblation of the New Testament, which 
 the church, receiving from the apostles, presents 
 throughout the whole world."* And the fathers in 
 these ages confute heretics by ecclesiastical tra- 
 dition; that is, they confront against their impious 
 and blasphemous doctrines that religion which the 
 apostles having taught to the churches wherenhey 
 did preside, their successors did still preach ; and 
 for a long while together suffered not the enemy 
 to sow tares amongst their wheat. And yet these 
 doctrines, which they called traditions, were nothing 
 but such fundamental truths which were in Scrip- 
 ture, all coincident with holy w^rit, as Irenseusf in 
 Eusebius observes, in the instance of Polycarpus ; 
 and it is manifest, by considering what heresies they 
 fought against, the heresies of Ebion, Cerinthus, 
 Nicolaitans, Valentinians, Carpocratians,t persons 
 that denied the Son of God, the unity of the God- 
 head, that preached impurity, that practised sorcery 
 
 * " Christum accepisse calicem, et dixisse sanguinem suum 
 esse, et docuisse novam oblationem Novi Testamenti, quam 
 ecclesia per apostolos accipiens offert per totum mundum." 
 
 f Lib. V. cap. 20. $ Vide Irenae. lib. iii. et iv. Cont. Heres. 
 
128 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 and witchcraft. And now, that they did rather urge 
 tradition against them than Scripture, was, because 
 the public doctrine of all the apostolical churches 
 was at first more known and famous than many 
 parts of Scripture; and because some heretics de- 
 nied St. Luke's Gospel, some received none but St. 
 Matthew's, some rejected all St. Paul's Epistles; 
 and it was a long time before the whole canon was 
 consigned by universal testimony ; some churches 
 having one part, some another : Rome herself had 
 not all : so that, in this case, the argument from 
 tradition was the most famous, the most certain, 
 and the most prudent. And now, according to this 
 rule, they had more traditions than we have; and 
 traditions did by degrees lessen as they came to be 
 written, and their necessity was less as the knowledge 
 of them was ascertained to us by a better keeper 
 of divine truths. All that great mysteriousness of 
 Christ's priesthood, the unity of his sacrifice, Christ's 
 advocation and intercession for us in heaven, and 
 many other excellent doctrines, might very well be 
 accounted traditions, before St. Paul's Epistle to the 
 Hebrews was published to all the world ; but now 
 they are written truths; and if they had not, possi- 
 bly we might either have lost them quite, or doubted 
 of them, as we do of many other traditions, by rea- 
 son of the insufficiency of the propounder. And 
 therefore it was that St. Peter* took order that the 
 Gospel should be writ; for he had promised that he 
 would do something which, after his decease, should 
 have these things in remembrance. He knew it 
 was not safe trusting the report of men, where the 
 fountain miglit quickly run dry, or be corrupted so 
 
 * 2 Pet. i. 13. 
 
UNCERTAINTY OF TRADITION. 129 
 
 insensibly that no cure could be found for it, nor 
 any just notice taken of it till it were incurable. 
 And, indeed, there is scarce any thing but what is 
 written in Scripture, that can, with any confidence 
 of argument, pretend to derive from the apostles, 
 except rituals and manners of ministration ; but no 
 doctrines or speculative mysteries are so trans- 
 mitted to us by so clear a current, that we may see 
 a visible channel, and trace it to the primitive foun- 
 tains. It is said to be a tradition apostolical, that 
 no priest should baptize without chrism and the 
 command of the bishop ; suppose it were, yet we 
 cannot be obliged to believe it with much confidence, 
 because we have but little proof for it, scarce any 
 thing but the single testimony of St. Jerome.* And 
 yet, if it were, this is but a ritual, of which, in pass- 
 ing by, I shall give that account, that, suppose 
 this and many more rituals did derive clearly from 
 tradition apostolical, (which yet but very few do,) 
 yet it is hard that any church should be charged 
 with a crime for not observing such rituals, because 
 we see some of them, which certainly did derive 
 from the apostles, are expired and gone out in a 
 desuetude; such as are abstinence from blood and 
 from things strangled, the ccenobitic life of secular 
 persons, the college of widows, to worship standing 
 upon the Lord's- day, to give milk and honey to the 
 newly baptized, and many more of the like nature. 
 Now, there having been no mark to distinguish the 
 necessity of one from the indifferency of the other, 
 they are all alike necessary, or alike indiflferent; if 
 the former, why does no church observe them ? if 
 the latter, why does the church of Rome charge 
 upon others the shame of novelty, for leaving of 
 
 * Dialog, adv. Lucifer. 
 
 K 
 
130 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 some rites and ceremonies which, by her own prac- 
 tice, we are taught to have no obligation in them, 
 but to be adiaphorous ? St. Paul gave order, that 
 a bishop should be the husband of one wife ; the 
 church of Rome will not allow so much ; other 
 churches allow more : the apostles commanded 
 Christians to fast on Wednesday and Friday, as 
 appears in their canons ; the church of Rome fasts 
 Friday and Saturday, and not on Wednesday : 
 the apostles had their agapae or love-feasts ; we 
 should believe them scandalous : they used a kiss 
 of charity in ordinary addresses; the church of 
 Rome keeps it only in their mass, other churches 
 quite omit it : the apostles permitted priests and 
 deacons to live in conjugal society, as appears in 
 the fifth canon of the apostles, (which to them is 
 an argument who believe them such;) and yet the 
 church of Rome by no means will endure it : nay 
 more, INlichael Medina* gives testimony, that of 
 eighty-four canons apostolical which Clemens col- 
 lected, scarce six or eight are observed by the Latin 
 church ; and Peresius gives this account of it : 
 " Among these there are many which, owing to 
 the corruption of the times, are not fully observed ; 
 others are rejected, on account either of the times 
 or the nature of them, or by the authority of the 
 church. "t Now it were good that they which take 
 a liberty themselves, should also allow the same to 
 others. So that, for one thing or other, all traditions, 
 excepting those very few that are absolutely uni- 
 
 * De Sacr. Horn. Continent, lib. v. cap. 105. 
 
 ■f " In illis contineri multa qu?e temporum corruptione non 
 plene observantur, aliis pro temporis et materiee qualitate aut 
 obliteratis, aut totius ecclesias magisterio abrogatis." — De Tra- 
 ■dit. part iii c, De Author. Can. Apost. 
 
UNCERTAINTY OF TRADITION. 131 
 
 versal, will lose all their obligation, and become no 
 competent medium to confine men's practices, or 
 limit their faiths, or determine their persuasions. 
 Either for the difficulty of their being proved, the 
 incompetency of the testimony that transmits them, 
 or the indifferency of the thing transmitted, all 
 traditions, both ritual and doctrinal, are disabled 
 from determining our consciences either to a neces- 
 sary believing or obeying. 
 
 6. To which I add, by way of confirmation, that 
 there are some things called traditions, and are 
 oftered to be proved to us by a testimony, which is 
 either false or not extant. Clemens of Alexandria 
 pretended it a tradition, that the apostles preached 
 to them that died in infidelity, even after their death, 
 and then raised them to life; but he proved it only 
 by the testimony of the book of Hermes. He 
 affirmed it to be a tradition apostolical, that the 
 Greeks were saved by their philosophy; but he had 
 no other authority for it but the apocryphal books of 
 Peter and Paul. Tertullian and St. Basil pretend 
 it an apostolical tradition, to sign in the air with 
 the sign of the cross ; but this was only consigned 
 to them in the Gospel of Nicodemus. But to 
 instance once for all, in the epistle of Marcellus to 
 the bishop of Antioch, where he affirms that it is 
 the canon of the apostles, " that councils cannot 
 be held without the consent of the Roman pontiff:" 
 and yet there is no such canon extant, nor ever 
 was, for aught appears in any record we have ; 
 and yet the collection of the canons is so entire, 
 that though it hath something more than what was 
 apostolical, yet it hath nothing less. And now 
 that I am casually fallen upon an instance from 
 the canons of the apostles, I consider that there 
 
 K 2 
 
132 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 cannot, in the world, a greater instance be given 
 how easy it is to be abused in the believing of tra- 
 ditions : for first, to the first fifty, which many 
 did admit for apostolical, thirty-five more were 
 added, which most men now count spurious, all 
 men call dubious, and some of them universally 
 condemned by peremptory sentence, even by them 
 who are greatest admirers of that collection ; as 
 the sixty-fifth, sixty-seventh, and eighty-fourth and 
 eighty-fifth canons. For the first fifty, it is evident 
 that there are some things so mixed with them, 
 and no mark of difference left, that the credit of 
 all is much impaired, insomuch that Isidore of 
 Seville* says, "they were apocryphal, made by here- 
 tics, and published under the title apostolical ; but 
 neither the fathers nor the church of Rome did 
 give assent to them." And yet they have prevailed 
 so far amongst some, that Damascenf is of opinion 
 they should be received equally with the canonical 
 writings of the apostles. One thing only I ob- 
 serve, (and we shall find it true in most writings 
 whose authority is urged in questions of theology,) 
 that the authority of the tradition is not it which 
 moves the assent, but the nature of the thing ; and 
 because such a canon is delivered, they do not 
 therefore believe the sanction or proposition so de- 
 livered, but disbelieve the tradition, if they do not 
 like the matter; and so do not judge of the matter 
 by the tradition, but of the tradition by the matter. 
 And thus the church of Rome rejects the eighty- 
 fourth or eighty-fifth canon of the apostles, not 
 because it is delivered with less authority than the 
 last thirty-five are, but because it reckons the canon 
 
 * Apud Gratian. Dist. xvi. c. Canones. 
 t Lib. i. c. 18, De Orthod. Fide. 
 
UNCERTAINTY OF TRADITION. 133 
 
 of Scripture otherwise than it is at Rome. Thus 
 also the fifth canon amongst the first fifty, because 
 it approves the marriage of priests and deacons, 
 does not persuade them to approve of it too, but 
 itself becomes suspected for approving it : so that 
 either they accuse themselves of palpable con- 
 tempt of the apostolical authority, or else that the 
 reputation of such traditions is kept up to serve 
 their own ends ; and therefore, when they encounter 
 them, they are more to be upheld ; which what 
 else is it, but to teach all the world to contemn 
 such pretences, and undervalue traditions, and to 
 supply to others a reason why they should do that 
 which, to them that give the occasion, is most un- 
 reasonable ? 
 
 7. The testimony of the ancient church being the 
 only means of proving tradition, and sometimes 
 their dictates and doctrine being the tradition pre- 
 tended of necessity to be imitated, it is consider- 
 able that men, in their estimate of it, take their rise 
 from several ages and differing testimonies, and 
 are not agreed about the competency of their testi- 
 mony : and the reasons that on each side make 
 them differ, are such as make the authority itself 
 the less authentic, and more repudiable. Some 
 will allow only of the three first ages, as being 
 most pure, most persecuted, and therefore most 
 holy ; least interested, serving fewer designs, having 
 fewest factions, and therefore more likely to speak the 
 truth for God's sake and its own, as best complying 
 with their great end of acquiring heaven in recom- 
 pense of losing their lives : others say, that those 
 ages being persecuted, minded the present doc- 
 trines proportionable to their purposes and consti- 
 tution of the ages, and make little or nothing of 
 
134 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 those questions which at this day vex Christendom.* 
 And both speak true: the first ag-es speak greatest 
 truth, but least pertinently. The next ages, the 
 ages of the four general councils, spake some things 
 not much more pertinently to the present questions, 
 but were not so likely to speak true, by reason of 
 their dispositions, contrary to the capacity and cir- 
 cumstance of the first ages ; and if they speak 
 wisely as doctors, yet not certainly as witnesses of 
 such propositions, which the first ages noted not ; 
 and yet, unless they had noted, could not possibly 
 be traditions. And therefore either of them will 
 be less useful as to our present affairs. For, indeed, 
 the Cjuestions which now are the public trouble, 
 were not considered or thought upon for many 
 hundred years; and, therefore, prime tradition there 
 is none as to our purpose; and it will be an insuffi- 
 cient medium to be used or pretended in the de- 
 termination : and to dispute concerning the truth 
 or necessity of traditions, in the c[uestions of our 
 times, is as if historians, disputing about a question 
 in the English story, should fall on wrangling 
 whether Livy or Plutarch were the best writers : 
 and the earnest disputes about traditions are to no 
 better purpose. For no church, at this day, admits 
 the one half of those things, which certainly by 
 the fathers were called traditions apostolical ; and 
 no testimony of ancient writers does consign the 
 one half of the present questions, to be or not to 
 be traditions. So that they who admit only the 
 doctrine and testimony of the first ages, cannot be 
 determined in most of their doubts which now 
 trouble us, because their writings are of matters 
 
 * Vid. Card. Perron, Letre au Sieur Casaubon. 
 
UNCERTAINTY OF TRADITION. 135 
 
 wholly differing from the present disputes ; and 
 they which would bring in after ages to the autho- 
 rity of a competent judge or witness, say the same 
 thing; for they plainly confess, that the first ages 
 spake little or nothing to the present question, or 
 at least nothing to their sense of them : for there- 
 fore they call in aid from the following ages, and 
 make them suppletory and auxiliary to their de- 
 signs ; and therefore there are no traditions to our 
 purposes. And they who would willingly have it 
 otherwise, yet have taken no course it should be 
 otherwise ; for they, when they had opportunity, 
 in the councils of the last ages, to determine what 
 they had a mind to, yet they never named the 
 number, nor expressed the particular traditions 
 which they would fain have the world believe to 
 be apostolical ; but they have kept the bridle in 
 their own hands, and made a reserve of their own 
 power, that if need be, they may make new pre- 
 tensions, or not be put to it to justify the old, by 
 the engagement of a conciliary declaration. 
 
 Lastly : We are acquitted, by the testimony of 
 the primitive fathers, from any other necessity of 
 believing, than of such articles as are recorded in 
 Scripture : and this is done by them whose autho- 
 rity is pretended the greatest argument for tradi- 
 tion, as appears largely in Trenseus,* w ho disputes 
 professedly for the sufficiency of Scripture against 
 ceitain heretics, who affirm some necessary truths 
 not to be written. It was an excellent saying of 
 St. Basil, and will never be wiped out with all the 
 eloquence of Perron, in his sermon de Fide : " It is 
 a manifest departure from the faith, and mere su- 
 
 Lib. ill. ca. 2. Contr. Hgeres» 
 
136 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 perciliousness, either to reject what is taught in 
 Scripture, or to introduce any thing that is not 
 written."* And it is but a poor device to say, that 
 every particular tradition is consigned in Scripture, 
 by those places which give authority to tradition; 
 and so the introducing of tradition is not a super- 
 inducing any thing over or besides Scripture, be- 
 cause tradition is like a messenger, and the 
 Scripture is like his letters of credence, and there- 
 fore authorises whatsoever tradition speaketh. For 
 supposing Scripture does consign the authority of 
 tradition, (which it might do before all the whole 
 instrument of Scripture itself was consigned, and 
 then afterwards there might be no need of tradi- 
 tion,) yet supposing it, it will follow that all those 
 traditions which are truly prime and apostolical, 
 are to be entertained according to the intention of 
 the deliverers; which, indeed, is so reasonable of 
 itself, that we need not Scripture to persuade 
 us to it : itself is authentic as Scripture is, if 
 it derives from the same fountain ; and the word 
 is never the more the Word of God for being 
 written ; nor the less for not being written : but 
 it will not follow that whatsoever is pretended 
 to be tradition, is so ; neither in the credit of the 
 particular instances consigned in Scripture, et 
 dolosus versatur in geiieralibus ;\ but that this craft 
 is too palpable. And if a general and indefinite 
 consignation of tradition be sufficient to warrant 
 every particular that pretends to be tradition, then 
 St. Basil had spoken to no purpose, by saying it 
 
 • " Manifestus est fidei lapsus, et liquidum superbiae vitium, 
 vel respuere aliquid eorum quae Scriptura habet, vel inducere 
 quicquam quod Scriptum non est." 
 
 f " He who wishes to deceive, occupies himself in generalities." 
 
UNCERTAINTY OF TRADITION. 137 
 
 is pride and apostacy from the faith, to bring in 
 what is not written : for if either any man brings 
 in what is written, or what he says is delivered, 
 then the first being express Scripture, and the se- 
 cond being consigned in Scripture, no man can be 
 charged with superinducing what is not written; 
 he hath his answer ready; and then these are 
 zealous words absolutely to no purpose; but if 
 such general consignation does not warrant every 
 thing that pretends to tradition, but only such as 
 are truly proved to be apostolical, then Scripture 
 is useless as to this particular ; for such tradition 
 gives testimony to Scripture, and therefore is of 
 itself first, and more credible, for it is credible of 
 itself; and therefore, unless St. Basil thought that 
 all the will of God in matters of faith and doctrine 
 were written, I see not what end nor what sense he 
 could have in these words : for no man in the 
 world, except enthusiasts and madmen, ever ob- 
 truded a doctrine upon the church but he pre- 
 tended Scripture for it, or tradition ; and therefore 
 no man could be pressed by these words, no man 
 confuted, no man instructed, no not enthusiasts 
 or Montanists. For suppose either of them should 
 say, that since in Scripture the Holy Ghost is 
 promised to abide with the church for ever, to 
 teach whatever they pretend the Spirit in any 
 age hath taught them is not to superinduce any 
 thing beyond what is written, because the truth 
 of the Spirit, his veracity, and his perpetual teach- 
 ing being promised and attested in Scripture, 
 Scripture hath just so consigned all such revela- 
 tions, as Perron saith it hath all such traditions. 
 But I will trouble myself no more with arguments 
 from any human authorities : but he that is sur- 
 
138 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 prised with the belief of such authorities, and will 
 but consider the very many testimonies of antiquity 
 to this purpose, as of Constantine,* St. Jerome,f 
 St. Austin,: St. Athanasius,§ St. Hilary;] St. 
 Epiphanius,5[ ^^^ divers others, all speaking words 
 to the same sense with that saying of St. Paul,* 
 ' Let no man be wise above what is written,' will 
 see that there is reason, that since no man is mate- 
 rially a heretic, but he that errs in a point of faith, 
 and all faith is sufficiently recorded in Scripture, 
 tlie judgment of faith and heresy is to be derived 
 from thence, and no man is to be condemned for 
 dissenting in an article for whose probation tradi- 
 tion only is pretended ; only, according to the de- 
 gree of its evidence, let every one determine himself: 
 but of this evidence we must not judge for othei's; 
 for unless it be in things of faith, and absolute 
 certainties, evidence is a word of relation, and so 
 supposes two terms, the object and the faculty ; and 
 it is an imperfect speech, to say a thing is evident 
 in itself, (unless we speak of first principles, or 
 dearest revelations,) for that may be evident to one 
 that is not so to another, by reason of the preg- 
 nancy of some apprehensions, and the im.maturity 
 of others. 
 
 This discourse hath its intention in traditions, 
 doctrinal and ritual; that is, such traditions which 
 propose articles essentially new ; but, now, if Scrip- 
 ture be the repository of all divine truths sufficient 
 for us, tradition must be considered as its instru- 
 
 * Orat. ad Nicen. PP. apud. Theodor. lib. i. c. 7- 
 
 t In 3Iatth. lib. iv. c. 23, et in Aggseum. 
 
 J De Bono Viduil. c. i. § Orat. contr. Gent. 
 
 II In Psal. cxxxii. 
 
 % Lib. ii. Contra Haeres. torn. i. Haer. Gl. * 1. Cor. 4. 
 
UNCERTAINTY OF TRADITION. 139 
 
 ment, to convey its great mysteriousness to our 
 understandings. It is said, there are traditive inter- 
 pretations, as well as traditive propositions; but 
 tliese have not much distinct consideration in 
 them, both because their uncertainty is as great as 
 the other, upon the former considerations ; as also, 
 because, in very deed, there are no such things as 
 traditive interpretations universal : for as for parti- 
 culars, they signify no more but that they are not 
 sufficient determinations of questions theological ; 
 therefore, because they are particular, contingent, 
 and of infinite variety, and they are no more argu- 
 ment than the particular authority of those men 
 whose commentaries they are, and, therefore, must 
 be considered with them. 
 
 The sum is this : since the fathers, who are the 
 best witnesses of traditions, yet were infinitely de- 
 ceived in their account ; since sometimes they 
 guessed at them, and conjectured, by way of rule 
 and discourse, and not of their knowledge, not by 
 evidence of the thing ; since many are called tra- 
 ditions which were not so, many are uncertain 
 whether they were or no, yet confidently pretended ; 
 and this uncertainty, which at first was great 
 enough, is increased by infinite causes and acci- 
 dents, in the succession of sixteen hundred yeare ; 
 since the church hath been either so careless or so 
 abused, that she could not, or would not, preserve 
 traditions with carefulness and truth ; since it was 
 ordinary for the old writers to set out their own 
 fancies, and the rites of their church, which had 
 been ancient, under the specious title of apostolical 
 traditions; since some traditions rely but upon 
 single testimony at first, and yet descending upon 
 others, come to be attested by many, whose testi- 
 
140 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 mony, though conjunct, yet in value is but single, 
 because it relies upon the first single relater, and 
 so can have no greater authority, or certainty, than 
 they derive from the single person ; since the first 
 ages, who were most competent to consign tradi- 
 tion, yet did consign such traditions as be of a na- 
 ture wholly discrepant from the present questions, 
 and speak nothing at all, or very imperfectly, to 
 our purposes, and the following ages are no fit 
 witnesses of that which was not transmitted to them, 
 because they could not know it at all, but by such 
 transmission and prior consignation ; since what at 
 first was a tradition, came afterwards to be written, 
 and so ceased its being a tradition, yet the credit of 
 traditions commenced upon the certainty and repu- 
 ta4:ion of those truths first delivered by word, after- 
 ward consigned by writing ; since, what was cer- 
 tainly tradition apostolical, as many rituals were, is 
 rejected by the church, in several ages, and is gone 
 out into a desuetude ; and lastly, since, beside the 
 no necessity of traditions, there being abundantly 
 enough in Scripture, there are many things called tra- 
 ditions by the fathers, which they themselves either 
 proved by no authors, or by apocryphal and spu- 
 rious, and heretical, — ^the matter of tradition will, in 
 very much, be so uncertain, so false, so suspicious, 
 so contradictory, so improbable, so unproved, that 
 if a question be contested, and be oflTered to be 
 proved only by tradition, it will be very hard to 
 impose such a proposition to the belief of all men, 
 with any imperiousness or resolved determination ; 
 but it will be necessary men should preserve the 
 liberty of believing and prophesying, and not part 
 with it, upon a worse merchandize and exchange 
 than Esau made for his birth-right. 
 
141 
 
 SECTION VI. 
 
 Of the uncertainty and insuffimency of Councils 
 Ecclesiastical to the same purpose. 
 
 But since we are all this while in uncertainty, it is 
 necessary that we should address ourselves some- 
 where, where we may rest the sole of our foot : and 
 nature. Scripture, and experience, teach the world, 
 in matters of question, to submit to some final sen- 
 tence. For it is not reason, that controversies 
 should continue till the erring person shall be 
 willing to condemn himself; and the Spirit of God 
 hath directed us, by that great precedent at Jeru- 
 salem, to address ourselves to the church, that in 
 a plenary council and assembly she may synodi- 
 cally determine controversies. So that, if a general 
 council have determined a question, or expounded 
 Scripture, we may no more disbelieve the decree 
 than the Spirit of God himself who speaks in them. 
 And, indeed, if all assemblies of bishops were like 
 that first, and all bishops were of the same spirit of 
 which the apostles were, I should obey their decree 
 with the same religion as I do them whose preface 
 was, '' Tt seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to 
 us :" and I doubt not but our blessed Saviour in- 
 tended that the assemblies of the church should be 
 judges of controversies, and guides of our persua- 
 sions, in matters of difficulty. But he also intended 
 they should proceed according to his will, which 
 he had revealed, and those precedents which he 
 
142 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 had made authentic by the immediate assistance 
 of the Holy Spirit : he hath done his part, but we 
 do not do ours ; and if any private person, in the 
 simplicity and purity of his soul, desires to find 
 out a truth, of which he is in search and inquisi- 
 tion, if he prays for wisdom, we have a promise he 
 shall be heard and answered liberally ; and there- 
 fore much more when the representatives of the 
 catholic church do meet, because every person there 
 hatli, as an individual, a title to the promise, and 
 another title, as he is a governor and a guide 
 of souls, and all of them together have another 
 title in their united capacity, especially, if in that 
 union they pray, and proceed with simplicity and 
 purity. So that there is no disputing against the 
 pretence, and promises, and authority of general 
 councils : for if any one man can hope to be 
 guided by God's Spirit in the search, the pious, 
 and impartial, and unprejudicate search of truth, 
 then much more may a general council. If no 
 private man can hope for it, then truth is not ne- 
 cessary to be found, nor we are not obliged to 
 search for it, or else we are saved by chance ; but 
 if j^rivate men can, by virtue of a promise, upon 
 certain conditions, be assured of finding out suffi- 
 cient truth, much more shall a general council. 
 So that I consider thus : — there are many jDromises 
 pretended to belong to general assemblies in the 
 church ; but I know not any ground, nor any pre- 
 tence, that they shall be absolutely assisted, with- 
 out any condition on their own parts, and whether 
 they will or no : faith is a virtue as well as charity, 
 and therefore consists in liberty and choice, and 
 hath nothing in it of necessity. There is no question 
 but that they are obliged to proceed according to 
 
UNCERTAINTY OF COUNCILS. 143 
 
 some rule ; for they expect no assistance, by way 
 of enthusiasm : if they should, I know no warrant 
 for that; neither did any general council ever offer 
 a decree which they did not think sufficiently 
 proved by Scripture, reason, or tradition, as ap- 
 pears in the acts of the councils. Now, then, if 
 they be tied to conditions, it is their duty to observe 
 tliem ; but whether it be certain that they will 
 observe them, that they will do all their duty, that 
 they will not sin, even in this particular, in the 
 neglect of their duty, that is the consideration. So 
 that if any man questions the title and authority of 
 general councils, and whether or no great promises 
 appertain to them, I suppose him to be much mis- 
 taken ; but he also that thinks all of them have 
 proceeded according to rule and reason, and that 
 none of them were deceived, because, possibly, they 
 might have been truly directed, is a stranger to the 
 history of the church, and to the perpetual in- 
 stances and experiments of the faults and failings 
 of humanity. It is a famous saying of St. Gregory, 
 that he had the four first councils in esteem and 
 veneration, next to the four evangelists : I suppose 
 it was because he did believe them to have pro- 
 ceeded according to rule, and to have judged 
 righteous judgment ; but why had not he the same 
 opinion of other councils too, which were cele- 
 brated before his death, for he lived after the fifth 
 general ? not because they had not the same au- 
 thority ; for that which is warrant for one is war- 
 rant for all ; but because he was not so confident 
 that they did their duty, nor proceeded so without 
 interest, as the first four had done ; and the follow- 
 ing councils did never get that reputation which all 
 the catholic church acknowledged clue to the first 
 
144 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 four. And in the next order were the three follow- 
 ing generals ; for the Greeks and Latins did never 
 jointly acknowledge but seven generals to have 
 been authentic in any sense, because they were in 
 no sense agreed that any more than seven had pro- 
 ceeded regularly and done their duty : so that now, 
 the question is not whether general councils have a 
 promise that the Holy Ghost will assist them ; for 
 every private man hath that promise, that if he 
 does his duty, he shall be assisted sufficiently, in 
 order to that end to which he needs assistance ; 
 and, therefore, much more shall general councils, 
 in order to that end for which they convene, and to 
 which they need assistance ; that is, in order to the 
 conservation of the faith, for the doctrinal rules of 
 good life, and all that concerns the essential duty 
 of a Christian, but not in deciding questions to 
 satisfy contentious, or curious, or presumptuous 
 spirits. But, now, can the bishops so convened be 
 factious, can they be abused with prejudice, or 
 transported with interests, can they resist the Holy 
 Ghost, can they extinguish the Spirit, can they 
 stop their ears, and serve themselves upon the holy 
 Spirit and the pretence of his assistances, and cease 
 to serve him upon themselves, by captivating their 
 understandings to his dictates, and their wills to 
 his precepts ? Is it necessary they should perfoim 
 any condition P Is there any one duty Tor them to 
 perform in these assemblies, a duty which they 
 have power to do or not do ? If so, then they may 
 fail of it, and not do their duty. And if the assist- 
 ance of the Holy Spirit be conditional, then we 
 have no more assurance that they are assisted, than 
 that they do their duty and do not sin. 
 
 Now, let us suppose what this duty is. Cer- 
 
UNCERTAINTY OF COUNCILS. 145 
 
 tainly, if the Gospel be hid, it is hid to them that 
 are lost ; and all that come to the knowledge of the 
 truth, must come to it by such means which are 
 spiritual and holy dispositions, in order to a holy 
 and spiritual end. They must be shod with the 
 preparation of the Gospel of peace ; that is, they 
 must have peaceable and docible dispositions, no- 
 thing with them that is violent, and resolute to 
 encounter those gentle and sweet assistances. And 
 the rule they are to follow, is the rule which the 
 Holy Spirit hath consigned to the catholic church ; 
 that is, the Holy Scripture, either entirely, or, at 
 least, for the greater part of the rule :* so that, now, 
 if the bishops be factious and prepossessed with per- 
 suasions depending upon interest, it is certain they 
 may judge amiss ; and if they recede from the rule, 
 it is certain they do judge amiss. And this T say 
 upon their grounds who most advance the authority 
 of general councils ; for if a general council may 
 err, if a pope confirm it not, then, most certainly, 
 if in any thing it recede from Scripture, it does 
 also err ; because, that they are to expect the 
 pope's confirmation they offer to prove from 
 Scripture. Now, if the pope's confirmation be re- 
 quired by authority of Scripture, and that there- 
 fore the defailance of it does evacuate the authority 
 of the council, then also are the council's decree 
 invalid, if they recede from any other part of Scrip- 
 ture : so that Scripture is the rule they are to 
 follow ; and a man would have thought it had been 
 needless to have proved it, but that w^e are fallen 
 into ages in which no truth is certain, no reason 
 concluding, nor is there any thing that can convince 
 
 * Vid. Optat. JMiie'/. lib. v. adv. Parm. Baldvin in eundem. 
 et St. August, in Ps. xxi. Expos. 2. 
 
 L 
 
146 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 some men. For Stapleton,^ with extreme bold- 
 ness, against the piety of Christendom, against the 
 public sense of the ancient church, and the practice 
 of all pious assemblies of bishops, affirms the de- 
 crees of a council to be binding, " though not yet 
 confirmed by the probable testimony of the Scrip- 
 tures;"-}- nay, though it be quite unauthorized by 
 the Scriptures; but all wise and good men have 
 ever said that sense which St. Hilary expressed in 
 these words : " 1 will never defend what is not in 
 the Gospel." t This was it which the good em- 
 peror Constantine propounded to the fathers met at 
 Nice : " The Gospels, the writings of the apostles 
 and ancient prophets, plainly teach us what we 
 ought to believe in religion." § And this is con- 
 fessed by a sober man of the Roman church itself, 
 the cardinal of Cusa: " Whatever we are bound to 
 follow, ought to be found in the authorized books 
 of Scripture." II Now, then, all the advantage 1 
 shall take from hence, is this, that if the apostles 
 commended them who examined their sermons by 
 their conformity to the law and the prophets, and 
 the men of Berea were accounted noble for search- 
 ing the Scriptures whether those things which they 
 taught were so or no, I suppose it will not be de- 
 nied, but the council's decrees may also be tried 
 
 * Relect. Controv. iv. q. 1. a. 3. 
 
 •j- " Etiamsi non confirmetur ne probabili testimonio Scrip- 
 turarum." 
 
 X " Quae extra evangelium sunt non defendam." — Lib. ii. 
 ad Constant. 
 
 § " Libri evangelici, oracula apostorum, et veterum prophet- 
 arum clare nos instruunt quid sentiendum in divinis." — Apud 
 Theodor. lib. i. c. 7- 
 
 II " Oportet quod omnia talia quae legere debent, contine- 
 antur in authoritatibus sacrarum Scripturarum." — Concord. Ca- 
 thol. lib. ii. c. 10. 
 
UNCERTAINTY OF COUNCILS. 147 
 
 whether they be conform to Scripture, yea or no ; 
 and although no man can take cognizance and judge 
 the decrees of a council, as by public authority, 
 (pro authoritate publicd,) yet, for private and indi- 
 vidual information, (pro informat'ione privatd,) they 
 may ; the authority of a council is not greater than 
 the authority of the apostles, nor their dictates 
 more sacred or authentic. Now, then, j3ut case, a 
 council should recede from Scripture ; whether or 
 no, were we bound to believe its decrees ? I only 
 ask the question ; for it were hard to be bound to 
 believe what to our understandings seems contrary 
 to that which we know to be the Word of God ; 
 but if we may lawfully recede from the council's 
 decrees, in case they be contrariant to Scripture, it 
 is all that I require in this question : for if they 
 be tied to a rule ; then they are to be examined and 
 understood according to the rule, and then we are 
 to give ourselves that liberty of judgment which is 
 requisite to distinguish us from beasts, and to put 
 us into a capacity of reasonable people, following- 
 reasonable guides. But, however, if it be certain 
 that the councils are to follow Scripture, then, if it 
 be notorious that they do recede from Scrijoture, 
 we are sure we must obey God rather than men ; 
 and then we are well enough. For, unless we are 
 bound to shut our eyes, and not to look upon the 
 sun, if we may give ourselves liberty to believe what 
 seems most plain, and unless the authority of a 
 council be so great a prejudice as to make us to do 
 violence to our understanding, so as not to disbe- 
 lieve the decree because it seems contrary to 
 Scripture, but to believe it agrees with Scripture, 
 though we know not how, therefore, because the 
 council hath decreed it, — unless, I say, we be bound 
 
 L 2 
 
148 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 in duty to be so obediently blind and sottish, we 
 are sure that there are some councils which are pre- 
 tended general, that have retired from the public 
 notorious words and sense of Scripture. For what 
 wit of man can reconcile the decree of the thir- 
 teenth session of the council of Constance with 
 Scripture, in which session the half-communion 
 was decreed, in defiance of Scripture, and with a 
 non obstante, (notwithstanding,) to Christ's institu- 
 tion ? It is certain, Christ's institution, and the 
 council's sanction are as contrary as light and 
 darkness. Is it possible for any man to contrive a 
 way to make the decree of the council of Trent, 
 comm.anding the public offices of the church to be 
 in Latin, friends with the fourteenth chapter of the 
 Corinthians ? It is not amiss to observe how the 
 hyperaspists of that council sweat to ansv/er the 
 allegations of St. Paul, and the wisest of them do 
 it so extremely poor, that it proclaims to all the 
 world, that the strongest man that is cannot eat 
 iron, or swallow a rock. Now, then, would it not 
 be an unspeakable tyranny to all wise persons, 
 (who as much hate to have their souls enslaved as 
 their bodies imprisoned,) to command them to be- 
 lieve that these decrees are agreeable to the Word 
 of God ? Upon whose understanding soever these 
 are imposed, they may, at the next session, recon- 
 cile them to a crime, and make any sin sacred, or 
 persuade him to believe propositions contradictory 
 to a mathematical demonstration. All the argu- 
 ments in the world, that can be brought to prove 
 the infallibility of councils, cannot make it so cer- 
 tain that they are infallible, as these two instances 
 do prove infallibly that these were deceived ; and 
 if ever we may safely make use of our reason, and 
 
UNCERTAINTY OF COUNCILS. 149 
 
 consider whether councils have erred or no, v/e 
 cannot by any reason be more assured, that they 
 have or have not, than we have in these particulars : 
 so that, either our reason is of no manner of use in 
 the discussion of this question, and the thing itself 
 is not at all to be disputed, or if it be, we are cer- 
 tain that these actually were deceived, and we 
 must never hope for a clearer evidence in any dis- 
 pute. And if these be, others might have been, if 
 they did as these did ; that is, depart from their 
 rule. And it was wisely said of Cusanus, ''The 
 experience of it is notorious, that councils may 
 err : "* and all the arguments against experience 
 are but plain sophistry. 
 
 And, therefore, I make no scruple to slight the 
 decrees of such councils, wherein the proceedings 
 were as prejudicate and unreasonable as in the 
 council wherein Abailardus was condemned, where 
 the presidents having pronounced Damnamus, 
 they at the lower end, being awaked at the 
 noise, heard the latter part of it, and concurred as 
 far as mnamus went; and that was as good as 
 damnamus ; for if they had been awake at the 
 pronouncing the whole word, they would have 
 given sentence accordingly. But, by this means, 
 St. Bernard numbered the major part of voices 
 against his adversary, Abailardus :f and as far as 
 these men did do their duty, the duty of priests 
 and judges, and wise men, so we may presume 
 them to be assisted, but no further. But I am 
 content this (because but a private assembly) shall 
 pass for no instance. But what shall we say of all 
 
 * '' Notandum est experimento rerum universale concilium 
 posse deficere." — Lib. ii. c. 14, Concord. Cathol. 
 + Epist. Abailardi ad Heliss. Conjugem. 
 
150 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 the Arian councils, celebrated with so great fanc}% 
 and such numerous assemblies ? We all say that 
 they erred. And it will not be sufficient to say 
 they were not lawful councils ; for they were con- 
 vened by that authority which all the world knows 
 did, at that time, convocate councils, and by which 
 (as it is confessed and is notorious*) the first eight 
 generals did meet ; that is, by the authority of the 
 emperor, all were called, and as many and more did 
 come to them, than came to the most famous council 
 of Nice : so that the councils were lawful, and if 
 they did not proceed lawfully, and therefore did err, 
 this is to say, that councils are then not deceived, 
 when they do their duty, when they judge impar- 
 tially, when they decline interest, when they follow 
 their rule ; but this says, also, that it is not infallibly 
 certain that they will do so ; for these did not, and 
 therefore the others maybe deceived as well as these 
 were. But another thing is in the wind ; for coun- 
 cils not confirmed by the pope, have no warrant 
 that they shall not err ; and they, not being con- 
 firmed, therefore failed. But whether is the pope's 
 confirmation after the decree, or before ? It cannot 
 be supposed before ; for there is nothing to be con- 
 firmed till the decree be made, and the article 
 composed. But if it be after, then, possibly, the 
 pope's decree may be requisite, in solemnity of law, 
 and to make the authority popular, public, and hu- 
 man; but the decree is true or false before the 
 pope's confirmation, and is not at all altered by the 
 supervening decree, which being postnate to the 
 decree, alters not what went before. " Our opinion 
 of a previous as fact is not to be determined by a 
 
 * Cusanus, lib. ii. cap. 25, Concord. 
 
UNCERTAINTY OF COUNCILS. 151 
 
 subsequent decree,"* is the voice both of law and 
 reason. So that it cannot make it divine, and ne- 
 cessary to be heartily believed. It may make it 
 lawful, not make it true : that is, it may possibly 
 by such means become a law, but not a truth. I 
 speak now upon supposition the pope's confirma- 
 tion were necessary, and required to the making of 
 conciliary and necessary sanctions. But if it were, 
 the case were very hard : for suppose a heresy 
 should invade, and possess the chair of Rome, 
 what remedy can the church have in that case, if a 
 general council be of no authority without the 
 pope confirm it ? Will the pope confirm a council 
 against himself ? Will he condemn his own heresy ? 
 That the pope may be a heretic appears in the 
 canon law,f which says he may, for heresy, be de- 
 posed ; and therefore, by a council, which, in this 
 case, hath plenary authority without the pope. 
 And, therefore, in the synod at Rome, held un- 
 der po[)e Adrian II. the censure of the sixth sy- 
 nod against Honorius, who was convict of heresy, 
 is approved, with this appendix, that in this case, 
 the case of heresy, " inferiors may judge of their 
 superiors," (minores possint de majoribus judicare :) 
 and, therefore, if a pope were above a council, yet 
 when the question is concerning heresy, the case is 
 altered; the pope may be judged by his inferiors, 
 who, in this case, which is the main case of all, be- 
 come his superiors. And it is little better than 
 impudence to pretend that all councils were con- 
 firmed by the pope, or that there is a necessity in 
 respect of divine obligation, that any should be 
 
 * " Nunqiiam enim crescit ex post facto preeteriti sestimatio." 
 •\ Dist. xl. Can. si Papa. 
 
152 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 confirmed by him, more than by another of the 
 patriarchs. For the council of Chalcedon itself, 
 one of those four which St. Gregory did revere 
 next to the four Evans^elists, is rejected by pope 
 Leo, who, in his fifty-third epistle to Anatolius, and 
 in his fifty-fourth to Martian, and in his fifty-fifth 
 to Pulcheria, accuses it of ambition and inconsi- 
 derate temerity ; and, therefore, no fit assembly for 
 the habitation of the Holy Spirit. And Gelasius, in 
 his tome, De Vinculo Anathematis, affirms, that the 
 council is in part to be received, in part to be 
 rejected; and compares it to heretical books of a 
 mixed matter, and proves his assertion by the place 
 of St. Paul : ' Prove all things : hold fast that 
 which is good ;'* and Bellarmine says the same : 
 " In the council of Chalcedon some things are good, 
 some bad ; some are to be received, and some re- 
 jected; as is the case in regard to the books of 
 heretics ;"t and if any thing be false, then all is 
 questionable, and judicable, and discernable, and 
 not infallible antecedently. And however that 
 council hath, ex post facto, and by the voluntary 
 consenting of after ages, obtained great reputation ; 
 yet they that lived immediately after it, that observed 
 all the circumstances of the thing, and the disabili- 
 ties of the 23ersons, and the uncertainty of the truth 
 of its decrees, by reason of the unconcludingness 
 of the arguments brought to attest it, were of ano- 
 ther mind. ''As to the council of Chalcedon, it 
 \A as neither openly acknowledged by the churches, 
 nor rejected by all ; for the authorities, in every 
 
 * De Laicis, lib. iii. c. 20. § ad. hoc ult. 
 
 •f " In concilio Chalcedonensi queedam sunt bona, quaedam 
 mala, quaedam recipienda, quasdam rejicienda ; ita et in libris 
 haereticorum." 
 
UNCERTAINTY OF COUNCILS. 153 
 
 church, were guided by their own judgment;"* 
 and so did all men in the world, that were not 
 mastered with prejudices, and undone in their 
 understanding- with accidental impertinences ; they 
 judged upon those grounds which they had and 
 saw, and suffered not themselves to be bound to 
 the imperious dictates of other men, who are as 
 uncertain in their determinations as others in their 
 questions. And it is an evidence that there is 
 some deception and notable error, either in the 
 thing or in the manner of their proceeding, when 
 the decrees of a council shall have no authority 
 from the compilers, nor no strength from the rea- 
 sonableness of the decision, but from the accidental 
 approbation of joosterity : and if posterity had 
 pleased, Origen had believed well, and been an 
 orthodox person. And it was pretty sport to see 
 that Papias was right for two ages together, and 
 wrong ever since : and just so it was in councils, 
 particularly in this of Chalcedon, that had a fate 
 alterable according to the age, and according 
 to the climate : which, to my understanding, is 
 nothing else but an argument that the business of 
 infallibility is a later device, and commenced to 
 serve such ends as cannot be justified by true 
 and substantial grounds; and that the pope should 
 confirm it as of necessity, is a fit cover for the same 
 dish. 
 
 In the sixth general council, Honorius, pope of 
 Rome, was condemned ; did that council stay for 
 
 • " Quod autem ad concilium Chalcedonense attinet, illud id 
 temporis (viz. Anastasii Imp.) neque palam in ecclesiis sanctis- 
 simis prffidicatum fuit, neque ab omnibus rej ectum, nam singuli 
 ecclesiarum pragsides pro suo arbitratu in ea re egerunt." — Evag. 
 lib. iii. c. 30. 
 
154 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 the pope's confirmation, before they set forth their 
 decree ? Certainly they did not think it so needful, 
 as that they would have suspended or cassated the 
 decree, in case the pope had then disavowed it : for 
 besidesthe condemnation of popeHonorius for here- 
 sy, the thirteenth and fifty-fifth canons of that coun- 
 cil are expressly as^ainst the custom of the church of 
 Rome. But this particular is involved in that new 
 question, whether the pope be above a council. 
 Now, since the contestation of this question, there 
 was never any free or lawful council that deter- 
 mined for the pope; it is not likely any should; 
 and is it likely that any pope will confirm a coun- 
 cil that does not ? For the council of Basil is 
 therefore condemned by the last Lateran,* which 
 was an assembly in the pope's own palace ; and the 
 council of Constance is of no value in this question, 
 and slighted in a just proportion, as that article is 
 disbelieved. But I will not much trouble the 
 question with a long- consideration of this particu- 
 lar ; the pretence is senseless and illiterate, against 
 reason and experience, and already determined by 
 St. Austin sufficiently, as to this particular: " We 
 may be allowed to think the bishops, who gave their 
 judgment at Rome, were not good judges: there 
 still remained the full council of the whole church, 
 where the cause might yet be discussed with those 
 judges themselves, and their decree annulled, if 
 they were convicted of pronouncing a wrong judg- 
 ment."! For since popes may be parties, may be 
 
 * Vid. postea de Concil. Sinuessiano. § 6. N. 9. 
 
 •|- " Ecce putemus illos episcopos qui Romae judicaverunt, non 
 bonos judices fuisse : restabat adhuc plenarium ecclesiae uni- 
 versae concilium, ubi etiam cum ipsis judicibus causa possit agi- 
 tari, ut si male judicasse convicti essent eorum sententiae solve- 
 rentur." — Epist. xvi. ad Glorium. 
 
UNCERTAINTY OF COUNCILS. 155 
 
 Simoniacs, schismatics, heretics, it is against rea- 
 son that in their own causes they should be judges, 
 or that in any causes they should be superior to 
 their judges. And as it is against reason, so is it 
 against all experience too ; for the council Sinuessa- 
 num (as it said) was convened to take cognizance 
 of pope Marcellinus ; and divers councils were held 
 at Rome to give judgment in the causes of Damasus, 
 Sixtus III. Symmachus, and lico III. and IV. ; as 
 is to be seen in Platina, and the tomes of the coun- 
 cils. And it is no answer to this and the like alle- 
 gations, to say, in matters of fact and human con- 
 stitution the pope may be judged by a council, 
 but in matters of faith all the world must stand to 
 the pope's determination and authoritative de- 
 cision; for if the pope can, by any colour, pre- 
 tend to any thing, it is to a supreme judicature in 
 matters ecclesiastical, positive and of fact; and 
 if he fails in this pretence, he will hardly hold up 
 his head for any thing else; for the ancient bishops 
 derived their faith from the fountain, and held that 
 in the highest tenure, even from Christ their head ; 
 but, by reason of the imperial city,* it became the 
 principal seat ; and he surprised the highest judi- 
 cature, partly by the concession of others, partly 
 by his own accidental advantages; and yet, even in 
 these things, although he was major singulis^ ''su- 
 perior to each singly,'^ yet he was minor universis, 
 " inferior to all of them together.'^* And this is no 
 more than what was decreed of the eighth general 
 synod ; which, if it be sense, is pertinent to this 
 question ; for general councils are appointed to 
 take cognizance of questions and differences about 
 
 * Vide Concil. Chalced. act. 15. -|- Act. ult. Can. xxi. 
 
156 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 the bishop of Rome; ''not, however, to give sen- 
 tence against hini audaciously." * By audaciously, 
 as is supposed, is meant hastily and unreasonably : 
 but, if to give sentence against him be wholly for- 
 bidden, it is nonsense; for to what purpose is an 
 authority of taking cognizance, if they have no 
 power of giving sentence, unless it w^ere to defer it 
 to a superior judge, which in this case cannot be 
 supposed ? for either the pope himself is to judge 
 his own cause after their examination of him, or 
 the general council is to judge him: so that, al- 
 though the council is, by that decree, enjoined to 
 proceed modestly and warily, yet they may proceed 
 to sentence, or else the decree is ridiculous and im- 
 pertinent. 
 
 But, to clear all, I will instance in matters of 
 question and opinion : for not only some councils 
 have made their decrees without or against the 
 pope, but some councils have had the pope's con- 
 firmation, and yet have not been the more legi- 
 timate or obligatory, but are known to be heretical. 
 For the canons of the sixth synod, although some 
 of them were made against the popes and the cus- 
 tom of the church of Rome, a pope, awhile after, 
 did confirm the council ; and yet the canons are 
 impious and heretical, and so esteemed by the 
 church of Rome herself. I instance in the second 
 canon, which approves of that synod of Carthage, 
 under Cyprian, for rebaptization of heretics; and 
 the seventy-second canon, that dissolves marriage 
 between persons of differing persuasion in matters 
 of Christian religion ; and yet these canons were 
 approved by pope Adrian I. who, in his epistle to 
 
 * " Non tamen audacter in eum ferre sententiam." 
 
UNCERTAINTY OF COUNCILS. 157 
 
 Tharasiiis, wliicli is in the second act of the seventh 
 synod, calls them canones divine et legaliter prcedi- 
 cafos, " canons divinely and legally ordained." 
 And these canons were used by pope Nicholas I. 
 in his epistle ad Michaelem, and by Innocent III. 
 So that now (that we may apply this) there are 
 seven general councils which by the church of 
 Rome are condemned of error: — the council of 
 Antioch,* A. D. 345, in which St. Athanasius was 
 condemned ; the council of Millain, A. D. 354, of 
 above three hundred bishops; the council of Ari- 
 minum, consisting of six hundred bishops; the 
 second council of Ephesus, A. D. 449, in which 
 the Eutychian heresy v/as confirmed, and the pa- 
 triarch Flavianus killed by the faction of Dioscorus; 
 the council of Constantinople under Leo Isaurus, 
 A. D. 730; another at Constantinople, thirty-five 
 years after; and lastly, the council at Pisa, one 
 hundred and thirty-four years since.f Now that 
 these general councils are condemned, is a suf- 
 ficent argument that councils may err; and it is no 
 answer to say, they were not confirmed by the pope ; 
 for the pope's confirmation I have shov/n not to be 
 necessary ; or if it were, yet even that also is an argu- 
 ment that general councils may become invalid, 
 either by their own fault, or by some extrinsical 
 supervening accident, either of which evacuates 
 their authority ; and whether all that is required to 
 the legitimation of a council, was actually observed. 
 in any council, is so hard to determine, that no man 
 
 * Vid. Socra. lib. ii. c. 5, et Sozonien. lib. iii. c 5. 
 
 •f- Gregor. in Regist. lib. iii. caus. ^. ait, Concilium Numi- 
 dise errasse. Concilium Aquisgrani erravit. De raptore et 
 rapta dist. xx. can. de Libellis. in glossa. 
 
158 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 can be infallibly sure that such a council is authen- 
 tic and sufficient probation. 
 
 2, And that is the second thing- 1 shall observe : 
 There are so many c|uestions concerning the ef- 
 ficient, the form, the matter of general councils, 
 and their manner of proceeding, and their final 
 sanction, that after a question is determined by a 
 conciliary assembly, there are, perhaps, twenty 
 more c^uestions to be disputed, before we can, with 
 confidence, either believe the council upon its mere 
 authority, or obtrude it upon others. And upon 
 this ground, how easy it is to elude the pressure 
 of an argument drawn from the authority of a ge- 
 neral council, is very remarkable in the question 
 about the pope's or the council's superiority, 
 which question, although it be defined for the coun- 
 cil against the pope by five general councils, the 
 council of Florence, of Constance, of Basil, of Pisa, 
 and one of the Laterans, yet the Jesuits, to this 
 day, account this question undetermined, and have 
 rare pretences for their escape. As, first; it is true 
 a council is above a pope, in case there be no pope, 
 or he uncertain; which is Bellarmine's answer, 
 never considering whether he spake sense or no, nor 
 yet remembering that the council of Basil deposed 
 Eugenius, who was a true pope, and so acknow- 
 ledged. Secondly, sometimes the pope did not 
 confirm these councils ; that is their answer : and 
 although it was an exception that the fathers never 
 thought of, when they were pressed with the au- 
 thority of the council of Ariminum, or Syrmium, or 
 any other Arian convention; yet the council of 
 Basil was convened by pope Martin Y. then, in its 
 sixteenth session, declared by Eugenius IV. to be 
 lawfully continued, and confirmed expressly in 
 
UNCERTAINTY OF COUNCILS. 159 
 
 some of its decrees by pope Nicholas, and so stood 
 till it V, as at last rejected by Leo X. very many 
 years after. But that came too late, and with too 
 visible an interest; and this council did decree, 
 " that a council is to be considered as superior to a 
 pope."* But if one pope confirms it and another 
 rejects it, as it happened in this case, and in many 
 more, does it not destroy the competency of the 
 authority ? And we see it by this instance, that 
 it so serves the turns of men, that it is good in 
 some cases ; that is, when it makes for them, and 
 invalid when it makes against them. Thirdly; 
 but it is a little more ridiculous in the case of the 
 council of Constance, whose decrees were confirmed 
 by Martin V. But that this may be no argument 
 ag-ainst them, Bellarmine tells you, he only con- 
 firmed those things qu(e facta Juerant conciliariter, 
 re diligenter examinatd, "which were done with his 
 concurrence, after his diligent examination;" of 
 which there being no mark, nor any certain rule 
 to judge it, it is a device that may evacuate any 
 thing we have a mind to ; it was not done concili- 
 ariter, that is, not according to our mind; for 
 conciliariter is a fine new nothing, that may signify 
 what you please. Fourthly : but other devices yet 
 more pretty they have ; as whether the council of 
 Lateran was a general council or no, they know 
 not, (no, nor will not know) ; which is a wise and 
 plain reservation of their own advantages, to make 
 it general or not general, as shall serve their turns. 
 Fifthly : as for the council of Florence, they are 
 not sure whether it hath defined the question 
 " openly enough," satis aperte ; aperie they will 
 
 * " Fide Catholica tenendum concilium esse supree papam." 
 
ICO THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 ^rant, if you will allow them not satis aperte. 
 Sixthly and lastly : the council of Pisa is " neither 
 ap))roved nor disallowed ;"* which is the greatest 
 folly of all, and most prodigious vanity ; so that, 
 by something or other, eitlier they were not con- 
 vened lawfully, or they did not proceed concili- 
 ariter, or it is not certain that the council was ge- 
 neral or no, or whether the council were approba- 
 tuni, or reprohatnm ; or else it i^partim coiifirmatum, 
 pai'tim reprohatinn ;\ or else it is neque approbatum, 
 neque reprobatum ;% by one of these ways, or a 
 device like to these, all councils and all decrees 
 shall be made to signify nothing, and to have no 
 authority. 
 
 8. There is no general council that hath deter- 
 mined that a general council is infallible : no 
 Scripture hath recorded it ; no tradition universal 
 hath transmitted to us any such proposition ; so 
 that we must receive the authority at a lower rate, 
 and upon a less probability than the things con- 
 signed by that authority. And it is strange that 
 the decrees of councils should be esteemed au- 
 thentic and infallible, and yet it is not infallibly 
 certain, that the councils themselves are infallible, 
 because the belief of the councils' infallibility is 
 not proved to us by any medium but such as may 
 deceive us. 
 
 4. But the best instance that councils are some, 
 and may all be deceived, is the contradiction of 
 one council to another ; for in that case both 
 cannot be true, and which of them is true, must 
 
 * " Neque approbatum neque reprobatum." — Bellar. De Cone, 
 lib. i. c. 8. 
 
 + " Partly confirmed and partly disallowed." 
 X " Neither approved nor yet disallowed." 
 
UNCERTAINTY OF COUNCILS. 1(11 
 
 belong- to another judi^ment, wliicli is less tlian the 
 solemnity of a general comuil ; and tlie determin- 
 ation of this matter can be of no greater certain! y 
 after it is conclnded than when it was proponnck'd 
 as a question ; being it is to be determined by tlie 
 same authority, or by a less than itself. ]]ut for 
 this allegation we cannot want instances: the 
 council of Trent* allows picturing of (iod the 
 Father; the council of Nice altogether disallows 
 it: the same Nicene council,f which was the 
 seventh general, allows of picturing Christ in the 
 form of a lamb ; but the sixth synod by no means 
 will endure it, as Caranza aftirms. The council 
 of Neoca'sarea,! confirmed by Leo TV., dist. xx. 
 de Lihcllis, and approved by the first Nicene coun- 
 cil, as it is said in the seventh session of the council 
 of Florence, forbids second marriages, and im- 
 poses penances on them that are married the 
 second time, forbidding priests to be present at 
 such marriage feasts; besides that this is exj)ressly 
 against tlie doctrine of St. Paul, it is also against 
 the doctrine of the council of La()dicea,§ which 
 took off' such penances, and pronounced second 
 marriages to be free and lawful. Nothing is more 
 discre})ant than the third council of Carthage and 
 the council of liaodicea, about assignation of the 
 canon of Scri})ture; and yet the sixth general synod 
 approves both : and I would fain know, if all ge- 
 neral councils are of the same mind with the 
 fathers of the council of Carthage, who reckon 
 into the canon five books of Solomon. I am sure 
 St. Austin 1 1 reckoned but three, and I think all 
 
 * Scss. XXV. ■\ Act. ii. X f'l'i- Ixxxii. 
 
 S Cap. 1. II Lib. xvii. Dc Cul. Dei. c. 20. 
 
162 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 Christendom beside are of the same opinion. And 
 if we look into the title of the law de conciliisy 
 called Concordantia discordantiarum, we shall find 
 instances enough to confirm, that the decrees of 
 some councils are contradictory to others, and that 
 no wit can reconcile them : and whether they did 
 or no, that they might disagree, and former coun- 
 cils be corrected by later, was the belief of the 
 doctors in those ages in which the best and most 
 famous councils were convened ; as appears in that 
 famous saying of St. Austin, speaking concerning 
 the rebaptizing of heretics ; and how much the Afri- 
 cans were deceived in that question, he answers the 
 allegation of the bishops' letters, and those national 
 councils which confirmed St. Cyprian's opinion, 
 by saying, that they were no final determination. 
 Not only the occasion of the question, being a matter 
 not of fact but of faith, as being instanced in the 
 question of rebaptization,but also the very fabric and 
 economy of the words, put by all the answers of those 
 men who think themselves pressed with the autho- 
 rity of St. Austin. " For, as national councils may 
 correct the bishops* letters, and general councils 
 may correct national, so the later general may cor- 
 rect the former ;"'* that is, have contrary and better 
 decrees of manners, and better determinations in 
 matters of faith. And from hence hath risen a 
 question, whether is to be received the former or 
 the later councils, in case they contradict each 
 other. The former are nearer the fountains apos- 
 tolical, the later are of greater consideration; the 
 first have more authority, the later more reason; 
 
 * " Episcoporum literae emendari possunt a conciliis nation- 
 alibus, concilia nationalia a plenariis, ipsaque plenaria priora a 
 posterioribus emendari." — Lib. ii. De Bapt. Donat. c. 3. 
 
UNCERTAINTY OF COUNCILS. 163 
 
 the first are more venerable, the later more inquisi- 
 tive and seeing". And, now, what rule shall we have 
 to determine our beliefs, whether to authority or 
 reason ; the reason and the authority both of them 
 not being the highest in their kind, both of them 
 being repudiable, and at most but probable ? And 
 here it is that this great uncertainty is such as not 
 to determine any body, but fit to serve every body : 
 and it is sport to see that Belhirmine* will, by all 
 means, have the council of Carthage preferred be- 
 fore the council of Laodicea, because it is later; and 
 yet he prefers the second Nicene council f before 
 the council of Frankfort, because it is elder. St. 
 Austin would have the former generals to be mended 
 by the later ; but Isidore, in Gratian, says, " When 
 councils do diflfer, the elder must carry it : "t and 
 indeed these probables are buskins to serve every 
 foot ; and they are like magnum et parvum, they have 
 nothing of their own, all that they have is in com- 
 parison of others: so these topics have nothing of 
 resolute and dogmatical truth, but in relation to 
 such ends as an interested person hath a mind to 
 serve upon them. 
 
 5. There are many councils corrupted, and many 
 pretended and alleged, when there were no such 
 tilings ; both which make the topic of the authority 
 of councils to be little and inconsiderable. There is 
 a council brought to light, in the edition of Councils, 
 by Binius, viz. Sinuessanum, pretended to be kept 
 in the year 303 ; but it was so private till then, that 
 we find no mention of it in any ancient record ; 
 
 * Lib. ii. De Cone. c. 8, § Respondeo in primis. 
 f Ibid. § De Concilio autem. 
 J Dist. XX. Can. Domino Sancto. 
 
 M 2 
 
164 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 neither Eusebius, nor Ruffinus, St. Jerome, nor 
 Socrates, Sozomen, nor Theodoret, nor Eutropius, 
 nor Bede, knew any thing of it ; and the eldest alle- 
 gation of it is by pope Nicholas I. in the ninth cen- 
 tury. And he that shall consider, that three hundred 
 bishops, in the midst of horrid persecutions, (for so 
 then they were,) are pretended to have convened, 
 will need no greater argument to suspect the im- 
 posture : besides, he that was the framer of the en- 
 gine did not lay his ends together handsomely ; for 
 it is said, that the deposition of Marcellinus, by the 
 synod, was told to Diocletian when he was in the 
 Persian war ; w hereas it is known, before that time 
 he had returned to Rome, and triumphed for his 
 Persian conquest, as Eusebius in his chronicle re- 
 ports : and this is so plain that Binius and Baronius 
 pretend the text to be corrupted, and so go to mend 
 it by such an emendation as is a plain contradiction 
 to the sense, and that so unclerklike, viz. by putting 
 in two words and leaving out one ;* which, whether it 
 may be allowed them by any licence less than poeti- 
 cal, let critics judge. St. Gregory saith,f that the 
 Constantinopolitans had corrupted the synod of 
 Chalcedon, and that he suspected the same concern- 
 ing the Ephesine council : and, in the fifth synod, 
 there was a notorious prevarication, for there were 
 false epistles of pope Yigilius and Menna, the pa- 
 triarch of Constantinople, inserted ; and so they 
 passed for authentic till they were discovered in 
 the sixth general sjaiod. Actions xii. and xiv. And 
 
 * Pro, Cum esset in bello Persanim, legi volunt, Cum rever- 
 sus esset a bello Persarum. — Euseb. Chronicon. vide Binium in 
 Notis ad Concil. Sinuessanum. torn. i. Concil. et Baron. An- 
 nal. torn. iii. A. D. 303. num. 107. 
 
 -j- Lib. V. Ep. 14, ad Narsera. 
 
UNCERTAINTY OF COUNCILS. 165 
 
 not only false decrees and actions may creep into the 
 codes of councils, but sometimes the authority of a 
 learned man may abuse the church with pretended 
 decrees, of which there is no copy or shadow in the 
 code itself : and thus Thomas Aquinas says,* that 
 the Epistle to the Hebrews was reckoned in the canon 
 by the Nicene council ; no shadow of which appears 
 in those copies we now have of it ; and this pretence 
 and the reputation of the man prevailed so far with 
 Melchior Canus, the learned bishop of the Canaries, 
 that he believed it upon this ground, " that so holy 
 a man would not have asserted such a thing, if he 
 had not been fully assured of it :"f and there are 
 many things which have prevailed upon less reason 
 and a more slight authority. And that very coun- 
 cil of Nice hath not only been pretended by Aqui- 
 nas, but very much abused by others; and its autho- 
 rity and great reputation hath made it more liable to 
 the fraud and pretences of idle people : for whereas the 
 Nicene fathers made but twenty canons, for so many 
 and no more were received by Ceciliant of Carthage, 
 that was at Nice in the council ; by St. Austin, § and 
 two hundred African bishops with him ; by St. Cyril || 
 of Alexandria: ^ by Atticus of Constantinople;* by 
 Ruffinus, Isidore, and Theodoret, as Baroniusf 
 witnesses ; yet there are fourscore lately found out, 
 in an Arabian manuscript, and published in Latin 
 by Turrian and Alfonsus of Pisa, Jesuits surely, 
 
 • C!omment in Hebr. 
 
 ■j- " Vir sanctus rem adeo gravem non astrueret, nisi comper- 
 tum habuisset " 
 
 X Con. Carthag. vi. c. 9. § Con. African. 
 
 11 Ibid. c. 102, etc. 133. % Lib. i. Eccl. Hist. c. 6. 
 
 • In Princ. Con. de Synod. Princ 
 
 t Baronius, torn. iii. A.D. 325. n. 156. torn. iii. ad A.D. 325. 
 n. 62, 63. 
 
166 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 and like to be masters of the mint. And not only 
 the canons, but the very acts of the Nicene council 
 are false and spurious, and are so confessed by Ba- 
 ronius; though how he andLindanus* will be re- 
 conciled upon the point, I neither know well nor 
 much care. Now, if one council be corrupted, we 
 see, by the instance of St. Gregory, that another may 
 be suspected, and so all : because he found the coun- 
 cil of Chalcedon corrupted, he suspected also the 
 Ephesine ; and another might have suspected more, 
 for the Nicene was tampered foully with ; and so 
 three of the four generals were sullied and made 
 suspicious, and therefore we could not be secure of 
 any. If false acts be inserted in one council, who 
 can trust the actions of any, unless he had the keep- 
 ing the records himself, or durst swear for the regis- 
 ter ? And if a very learned man ( as Thomas Aquinas 
 was) did either wilfully deceive us, or was himself 
 ignorantly abused, in allegation of a canon which 
 was not, it is but a very fallible topic at the best, and 
 the most holy man that is may be abused himself, 
 and the wisest may deceive others. 
 
 6. And, lastly: To all this and to the former in- 
 stances, by way of corollary, I add some more par- 
 ticulars, in which it is notorious that councils general 
 and national, that is, such as were either general 
 by original, or by adoption into the canon of the 
 catholic church, did err, and were actually deceived. 
 The first council of Toledo admits to the commu- 
 nion him that hath a concubine, so he have no wife 
 besides ; and this council is approved by jDope Leo, 
 in the ninety-second epistle to Rusticus, bishop of 
 Narbona : Gratian says, f that the council means 
 
 * PampL lib. ii. c. 6. f Dist. xxxiv. Can. omnibus. 
 
UNCERTAINTY OF COUNCILS. 167 
 
 by a concubine, a wife married " without a portion 
 and due solemnity," sine dote et solennitate: but this 
 is daubing with untempered mortar. For, though 
 it was a custom amongst the Jews to distinguish 
 wives from their concubines by dowry and legal so- 
 lemnities, yet the Christian distinguished them no 
 otherwise than as lawful and unlawful, than as 
 chastity and fornication. And, besides, if by a con- 
 cubine is meant a lawful wife without a dowry, to 
 what purpose should the council make a law that 
 such a one might be admitted to the communion ? 
 for I suppose it was never thought to be a law of 
 Christianity, that a man should have a portion with 
 his wife, nor he that married a poor virgin should 
 deserve to be excommunicate. So that Gratian and 
 his followers are pressed so with this canon, that, to 
 avoid the impiety of it, they expound it to a signi- 
 fication without sense or purpose. But the business 
 then was, that adultery was so public and notorious 
 a practice, that the^council did choose rather to en- 
 dure simple fornication, that by such permission of 
 a less, they might slacken the public custom of a 
 greater ; just as at Rome they permit stews, to pre- 
 vent unnatural sins : but that, by a public sanction, 
 fornicators, habitually and notoriously such, should 
 be admitted to the holy communion, was an act of 
 priests so unfit for priests that no excuse can make 
 it white or clean. The council ofWormes* does 
 autliorise a superstitious custom, at that time too 
 much used, of discovering stolen goods by the holy 
 sacrament, which Aquinas f justly condemns for 
 superstition. The sixth synod % separates persons 
 lawfully married, upon an accusation and crime of 
 
 * Cap. 3. t Part iii. q. 80, a. 6, ad 3 m. % Can. Ixxii. 
 
168 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 heresy. The Roman council, under Pope Nicho- 
 las II. * defined, that not only the sacrament of 
 Christ's body, but the very body itself of our blessed 
 Saviour is handled and broke by the hands of the 
 priest, and chewed by the teeth of the communi- 
 cants ; which is a manifest error, derogatory from the 
 truth of Christ's beatifical resurrection, and glorifi- 
 cation in the heavens, and disavowed by the church 
 of Rome itself : but Bellarmine, f that answers all 
 the arguments in the world, whether it be possible 
 or not possible, would fain make the matter fair, 
 and the decree tolerable; for, says he, the decree 
 means, that the body is broken not in itself but in 
 sign ; and yet the decree says, that not only the sa- 
 crament (which, if any thing be, is certainly the 
 sign) but the very body itself is broken and champed, 
 with hands and teeth respectively ; which indeed 
 was nothing but a plain overacting the article, in 
 contradiction to Berengarius. And the answer of 
 Bellarmine is not sense, for he denies that the body 
 itself is broken in itself, (that was the error we 
 charged upon the Roman synod,) and the sign ab- 
 stracting from the body is not broken, (for that was 
 the opinion that council condemned in Berengarius,) 
 but, says Bellarmine, the body in the sign : What is 
 that ? for neither the sign, nor the body, nor both 
 together are broken : for, if either of them distinctly, 
 they either rush ujDon the error which the Roman 
 synod condemned in Berengarius, or upon that 
 which they would fain excuse in pope Nicholas. 
 But if both are broken, then it is true to affirm it of 
 either ; and then the council is blasphemous in say- 
 ing, that Christ's glorified body is passible and 
 
 * Can. ego Berengar. de Consecrat. dist. ii. 
 + Lib. ii. c. 8, De Concil. 
 
UNCERTAINTY OF COUNCILS. 169 
 
 frangible by natural manducation : so that it is 
 and it is not; it is not this way, and yet it is no 
 way else : but it is some way, and they know not 
 how; and the council spoke blasphemy, but it must 
 be made innocent, and therefore it was requisite a 
 cloud of a distinction should be raised, that the un- 
 wary reader might be amused, and the decree scape 
 untouched : but the truth is, they that undertake to 
 justify all that other men say, must be more subtle 
 than they that said it, and must use such distinc- 
 tions which possibly the first authors did not under- 
 stand. But I will multiply no more instances ; for 
 what instance soever I shall bring, some or other 
 will be answering it; which thing is so far from satis- 
 fying me in the particulars, that it increases the 
 difficulty in the general, and satisfies me in my first 
 belief: for, if no decrees of councils can make 
 against them,* though they seem never so plain 
 against them, then let others be allowed the same 
 liberty, (and there is all the reason in the world 
 they should,) and no decree shall conclude against 
 any doctrine, that they have already entertained^ 
 and by this means the church is no fitter instrument 
 to decree controversies than the Scripture itself, 
 there being as much obscurity and disputing in the 
 sense, and the manner, and the degree, and the 
 competency, and the obligation of the decree of a 
 council, as of a place of Scripture. And what are 
 we the nearer for a decree, if any sophister shall 
 think his illusion enough to contest against the au- 
 thority of a council ? Yet this they do that pre- 
 
 * Ilia demum eis videntur edicta et concilia quze in rem suam 
 faciunt ; reliqua non pluris aestimant quam conventum muliercula- 
 rum in textrina vel thermis.— Lud. Vives in Scholiis, lib. xx. 
 Aug. de Civit. Dei. c. 26. 
 
170 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 tend highest for their authority ; which considera- 
 Uon, or some like it, might possibly make Gratian* 
 prefer St. Jerome's single testimony before a whole 
 council, because he had Scripture of his side; which 
 says, that the authority of councils is not avroTrirog, 
 (deserving of credit and confidence on its own ac- 
 count,) and that councils may possibly recede from 
 their rule, from Scripture ; and, in that case, a single 
 person, proceeding according to rule, is a better ar- 
 gument; which indeed was the saying of Panormi- 
 taii : " In matters of faith, the oj^inion of a single 
 individual is preferable to the dictate of a pope, 
 or of a whole council, if he be guided in his de- 
 cision by better arguments.' 'f 
 
 I end this discourse with representing the words 
 of Gregory Nazianz en, in his epistle to Procopius : 
 '' To say the truth, such is my feeling, that I 
 would shun all the episcopal councils, for I have 
 never known one of them come to any good and 
 pi'osperous issue, or which did not tend rather to 
 tlie growth than the diminution of evils."t But 
 I will not be so severe and dogmatical against 
 them: for I believe many councils to have been 
 called with sufficient authority, to have been ma- 
 naged with singular piety and prudence, and to 
 
 * 36. q. 2. c. placuit. 
 
 •f* "■ In concernentibus fidem etiam dictvim unius privati esset 
 dicto papae aut totius concilii prsferendum, si ille moveretur 
 melioribus argumentis." — Part I. De Election, et Elect, potest. 
 cap. significasti. 
 
 X " Ego si vera scribere oportet ita animo afFectus sum, ut 
 onmia episcoporum concilia fugiani, quoniam nullius concilii 
 finem laetum faustumque vidi, nee quod depulsionem malorum 
 potius quam accessionem et incrementum habuerit.'" — Athanas. 
 lib. De Synod. Frustra igitur circumcursitantes praetexunt ob 
 fidem se Synodos postulare, cum sit Divina Scriptura omnibus 
 potentior. 
 
UNCERTAINTY OF COUNCILS. 171 
 
 have been finished with admirable success and 
 truth; and where we find such councils, he that 
 will not, with all veneration, believe their decrees, 
 and receive their sanctions, understands not that 
 great duty he owes to them who have the care of 
 our souls, whose ' faith we are bound to follow,' 
 saith St. PauL;* that is, so long as they follow 
 Christ, and certainly many councils have done so : 
 but this w^as then, when the public interest of Chris- 
 tendom was better conserved in determining a true 
 article than in finding a discreet temper, or a wise 
 expedient, to satisfy disagreeing persons ; (as the 
 fathers at Trent did, and the Lutherans and Cal- 
 vinists did at Sendomir, in Polonia; and the Sub- 
 lapsarians and Supralapsarians did at Dort.) It 
 was in ages when the sum of religion did not consist 
 in maintaining the dignity of the papacy ; where 
 thei'e was no order of men, with a fourth vow upon 
 them, to advance St. Peter's chair ; when there 
 was no man, or any company of men, that esteemed 
 themselves infallible ; and, therefore, they searched 
 for truth as if they meant to find it, and would 
 believe it if they could see it proved ; not resolved 
 to prove it, because they had, upon chance or in- 
 terest, believed it ; then they had rather have 
 sjjoken a truth than upheld their reputation, but 
 only in order to truth. This was done sometimes, 
 and when it was done, God's Spirit never failed 
 them, but gave them such assistances as were suffi- 
 cient to that good end for which they were assem- 
 bled, and did implore his aid : and therefore it is, 
 that the four general councils, so called by way of 
 eminency, have gained so great a reputation above 
 
 * Heb. xiii. 7- 
 
172 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 all others ; not because they had a better promise, 
 or more special assistances, but because they pro- 
 ceeded better, according to the rule, with less faction, 
 without ambition and temporal ends. 
 
 And yet those very assemblies of bishops had no 
 authority, by their decrees, to make a divine faith, 
 or to constitute new objects of necessary credence ; 
 they made nothing true that was not so before ; and, 
 therefore, they are to be apprehended in the nature 
 of excellent guides, and whose decrees are most 
 certainly to determine all those who have no argu- 
 ment to the contrary, of greater force and efficacy 
 than the authority or reasons of the council. And 
 there is a duty owing to every parish priest, and to 
 every diocesan bishop ; these are appointed over 
 us, and to answer for our souls, and are, therefore, 
 morally to guide us, as reasonable creatures are to 
 be guided ; that is, by reason and discourse : for 
 in things of judgment and understanding, they are 
 but in form next above beasts, that are to be ruled 
 by the imperiousness and absoluteness of authority, 
 unless the authority be divine; that is, infallible. 
 Now, then, in a juster height, but still in its true 
 proportion, assemblies of bishops are to guide us 
 with a higher authority ; because, in reason, it is 
 supposed they will do it better, with more argu- 
 ment and certainty, and w ith decrees, which have 
 the advantage, by being the results of many dis- 
 courses of very w ise and good men : but that the 
 authority of general councils was never esteemed 
 absolute, infallible, and unlimited, appears in this, 
 that before they were obliging, it was necessary 
 that each particular church, respectively, should 
 accept them : concurrente universali totius ecclesice 
 consensu, ^c. in declaratione veritatum quce credenda; 
 
UNCERTAINTY OF COUNCILS. 173 
 
 sunfi ^c* That is the way of making the decrees 
 of councils become authentic, and be turned into a 
 law, as Gerson observes ; and till they did, their 
 decrees were but a dead letter ; (and therefore it is, 
 that these later j:)opes have so laboured that the 
 council of Trent should be received in France: 
 and Carolus Molineus, a great lawyer, and of the 
 Roman communion, disputed against the recep- 
 tion ;f) and this is a known condition in the canon 
 law ; but it proves plainly that the decrees of 
 councils have their authority from the voluntary 
 submission of the particular churches, not from the 
 prime sanction and constitution of the council. 
 And there is great reason it should ; for as the re- 
 presentative body of the church derives all power 
 from the diffusive body which is represented, so it 
 resolves into it; and though it may have all the 
 legal power, yet it hath not all the natural ; for 
 more able men may be unsent than sent ; and they 
 who are sent may be wrought upon by stratagem, 
 which cannot hapjDen to the whole diffusive church : 
 it is, therefore, most fit, that since the legal power, 
 that is, the external, was passed over to the body 
 representative, yet the efficacy of it, and the in- 
 ternal, should so still remain in the diffusive, as to 
 have power to consider whether their representa- 
 tives did their duty, yea or no ; and so to proceed 
 accordingly, for, unless it be in matters of justice, 
 in which the interest of a third person is concerned, 
 no man will or can be supposed to pass away all 
 power from himself, of doing himself right in mat- 
 
 * Vid. St. August, lib. i. c. 1 8, de Bapt. Contr. Donat. 
 
 + So did the third estate of France, in the convention 
 of the three estates, under Lewis XIII., earnestly contend 
 against it. 
 
174 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 ters personal, i^roper, and of so high concernment : 
 it is most unnatural and unreasonable. But, be- 
 sides that they are excellent instruments of peace, 
 the best human judicatories in the world, rare ser- 
 mons for the determining a point in controversy, 
 and the greatest probability from human authority ; 
 besides these advantages, I say, T know nothing 
 greater that general councils can pretend to, with 
 reason and argument, sufficient to satisfy any wise 
 man : and as there was never any council so ge- 
 neral but it might have been more general ; for, in 
 respect of the whole church, even Nice itself was 
 but a small assembly ; so there is no decree so well 
 constituted but it may be proved by an argument 
 higher than the authority of the council. And, 
 therefore, general councils, and national, and pro- 
 vincial, and diocesan, in their several decrees, are 
 excellent guides for the prophets, and directions 
 and instructions for their prophesyings ; but not of 
 weight and authority to restrain their liberty so 
 wholly but that they may dissent, when they see a 
 reason strong enough so to persuade them as to be 
 willing, upon the confidence of that reason, and 
 their own sincerity, to answer to God for such their 
 modesty, and peaceable, but (as they believe) their 
 necessary disagreeing. 
 
175 
 
 SECTION VII. 
 
 Of the fallibility of the Pope, and the uncertainty 
 of his expounding Scripture, and resolving Ques- 
 tions. 
 
 But since the question between the council and the 
 pope grew high, they have not wanted abettors so 
 confident on the pope's behalf, as to believe general 
 councils to be nothing but pomps and solemnities 
 of the catholic church, and that all the authority of 
 determining controversies is formally and effec- 
 tually in the pope ; and, therefore, to appeal from 
 the pope to a future council is' a heresy ; yea, and 
 treason too, said pope Pius II. ;* and, therefore, it 
 concerns us now to be wise and wary. But before 
 I proceed, I must needs remember, that pope Pius 
 II. ,f while he was the wise and learned ^neas 
 Sylvius, was very confident for the pre-eminence of 
 a council, and gave a merry reason why more 
 clerks were for the popes than the council, though 
 the truth was on the other side ; even because the 
 pope gives bishoprics and abbeys, but councils 
 give none ; and yet, as soon as he was made pope, 
 as if he had been inspired, his eyes were opened to 
 see the great privileges of St. Peter's chair, which 
 before he could not see, being amused with the 
 truth, or else with the reputation of a general 
 council. But, however, there are many that hope 
 
 * Epist. ad Norimberg. 
 
 •f- " Patrum et avorum nostrorum tempore pauci audebant 
 dicere papam esse supra concil." — Lib. i. de Gestis ConciL Basil. 
 
176 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 tx) make it good, that the pope is the universal and 
 the infallible doctor, that he breathes decrees as 
 oracles, that to dissent from any of his cathedral 
 determinations, is absolute heresy, the rule of faith 
 being nothing else but conformity to the chair 
 of Peter. So that here we have met a restraint of 
 projDhesy indeed ; but yet, to make amends, I hope 
 we shall have an infallible guide ; and when a man 
 is in heaven, he will never complain that his choice 
 is taken from him, and he is confined to love and 
 to admire, since his love and his admiration is fixed 
 upon that which makes him happy, even upon God 
 himself. And in the church of Rome, there is, in 
 a lower degree, but in a true proportion, as little 
 cause to be troubled, that we are confined to believe 
 just so, and no choice left us for our understandings 
 to discover, or our wills to choose ; because, though 
 we be limited, yet we are pointed out where we 
 ought to rest ; we are confined to our centre, and 
 there where our understandings will be satisfied, 
 and therefore will be quiet, and where, after all our 
 strivings, studies, and endeavours, we desire to 
 come ; that is, to truth, for there we are secured to 
 find it, because we have a guide that is infallible : 
 if this prove true, we are well enough ; but if it be 
 false, or uncertain, it were better v/e had still kept 
 our liberty, than be cozened out of it with gay pre- 
 tences. This, then, we must consider. 
 
 And here we shall be oppressed with a cloud of 
 witnesses : for what more plain than the commis- 
 sion given to Peter P ' Thou are Peter, and upon 
 this rock will I build my church ;' and ' to thee 
 will I give the keys.' And again : ' For thee have I 
 prayed, that thy faith fail not ; but thou, when thou 
 art converted, confirm thy brethren.' And again : 
 
FALLIBILITY OF THE POPE. 177 
 
 ' If thou lovest me, feed my sheep.' Now, nothing 
 of this being spoken to any of the other apostles, 
 by one of these places St. Peter must needs be 
 appointed foundation, or head of the church ; and, 
 by consequence, he is to rule and govern all. By 
 some other of these places he is made the supreme 
 pastor, and he is to teach and determine all, and 
 enabled, with an infallible power so to do : and, in 
 a right understanding of these authorities, the fa- 
 thers spake great things of the chair of Peter ; for 
 we are as much bound to believe that all this was 
 spoken to Peter's successors, as to his j^erson ; that 
 must, by all means, be supposed ; and so did the 
 old doctors, who had as much certainty of it as we 
 have, and no more ; but yet let us hear what they 
 have said : " To this church, by reason of its more 
 powerful principality, it is necessary all churches 
 round about should convene."* " In this, tradition 
 apostolical always was observed; and, therefore, to 
 communicate with this bishop, with this church, 
 was to be in communion with the church catholic. "f 
 *'To this church error or perfidiousness cannot 
 have access."! '' Against this see gates of hell 
 cannot prevail. "§ " For we know this church to 
 be built upon a rock : and whoever eats the lamb, 
 not within this house, is prophane ; he that is not 
 in the ark of Noah perishes in the inundation of 
 waters. He that gathers not with this bishop, he 
 scatters ; and he that belongeth not to Christ, must 
 needs belong to antichrist :"|| and that is his final 
 
 * Irenge. Contr. Haeres. lib. iii. c. 3. 
 
 -f- Ambr. de Obitu Salyri. et lib. i. Ep. iv. ad Imp. Cypr. 
 Ep. Iii. 
 
 X Cypr. Ep. Iv. ad Cornel. 
 
 § St. Austin, in Psal. contra part. Donat. 
 
 II Hieron. Ep. Ivii. ad Damasum. 
 
 N 
 
178 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 sentence. But if you would have all this proved 
 by an infallible argument, Optatus,* of Milevis in 
 Africa, supplies it to us from the very name of Peter: 
 for therefore Christ gave him the cognomination 
 of Cephas, d-rrb rrjg KS(pa\i]c, to show that St. Peter 
 was the visible head of the catholic church. A 
 cover this, truly v. orthy of the dish ! f This long 
 harangue must needs be full of tragedy to all them 
 that take liberty to themselves to follow Scripture 
 and their best guides, if it happens, in that liberty, 
 that they depart from the persuasions or the commu- 
 nion of Rome : but, indeed, if with the peace of the 
 bishops of Rome I may say it, this scene is the 
 most unhandsomely laid, and the worst carried of 
 any of those pretences that have lately abused 
 Christendom. 
 
 1 . Against the allegations of Scripture, I shall lay 
 no greater prejudice than this, that if a person dis- 
 interested should see them, and consider what the 
 products of them might possibly be, the last thing 
 that he would think of would be, how that any of 
 these places should serve the ends or pretences of 
 the church of Rome. For, to instance in one of 
 the particulars, that' man had need have a strong 
 fancy, who imagines, that because Christ prayed 
 for St. Peter, (being he had designed him to be 
 one of those upon whose preaching and doctrine 
 he did mean to constitute a church,) ' that his faith 
 might not fail,' ( for it was necessary that no bitter- 
 ness, or stopping, should be in one of the first 
 springs, lest the current be either spoiled or ob- 
 structed,) that therefore the faith of pope Alex- 
 
 * Lib. ii. Contra Parmeiiian. 
 
 + " Dignum patella operculum !" 
 
FALLIBILITY OF THE POPE. 179 
 
 ander VI., or Gregory, or Clement, fifteen hundred 
 years after, should be preserved by virtue of that 
 prayer, which the form of words, the time, the oc- 
 casion, the manner of the address, the effect itself, 
 and all the circumstances of the action and person, 
 did determine to be personal : and when it was 
 more than personal, St. Peter did not represent his 
 successors at Rome, but the whole catholic church, 
 says Aquinas,^ and the divines of the university of 
 Paris. " They explain the prayer as referring to 
 the church alone,"f says Bellarmine of them ; and 
 the gloss upon the canon law plainly denies the 
 effect of this prayer at all to appertain to the pope : 
 " The question is, respecting what church we are 
 to understand it said, that it is infallible : is it of 
 the pope himself, who is called the church ? But it 
 is certain that the pope may err. — I answer, the 
 congregation of the faithful is here called the 
 church ; and it cannot be otherwise than such, for 
 our Lord himself prays for the church ; and will 
 not be disappointed of the request of his lips."j 
 But there is a little danger in this argument, when 
 we well consider it ; but it is likely to redound on 
 the head of those whose turns it should serve : for 
 it may be remembered, that for all this prayer of 
 Christ for St. Peter, the good man fell foully, and 
 denied his master shamefully : and shall Christ's 
 
 * 22. se. q. 2. a. 6. ar. 6 ad. 3 m. 
 
 •j- " Volunt enim pro solS ecclesia esse oratum." — Lib. iv. de 
 Rom. Pont. c. 3, §. 1. 
 
 Ij: " Quaere de qua ecclesia intelligas quod hoc dicitur, quod 
 non possit errare, si de ipso papa qui ecclesia dicitur ? sed 
 certum est, quod papa errare potest. Respondeo ipsa congre- 
 gatio fidelium hie dicitur ecclesia ; et talis ecclesia non potest non 
 esse, nam ipse Dominus orat pro ecclesia, et voluntate labiorum 
 suorum non fraudabitur." — Caus. xxi. cap. a recta, q. 1. xxix. 
 Dist Anastatius, 60, di. si Papa. 
 
 N 2 
 
180 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 prayer be of greater efficacy for bis successors^ for 
 wbom it was made but indirectly and by conse- 
 quence, tban himself, for whom it was directly and 
 in the first intention ? And if not, then, for all this 
 argument, the popes may deny Christ, as well as their 
 chief and decessor, Peter. But, it should not be for- 
 gotten, how the Roman doctors will by no means 
 allow that St. Peter was then the chief bishop, or pope, 
 when he denied his master. But, then, much less was 
 he chosen chief bishop when the prayer was made for 
 him, because the prayer was made before his fall ; 
 that is, before that time in which it is confessed he 
 was not as yet made pope : and how, then, the whole 
 succession of the papacy should be entitled to it, 
 passes the length of my hand to span. But, then, 
 also, if it be supposed and allowed, that these 
 words shall entail infallibility upon the chair of 
 Rome, why shall not also all the apostolical sees be 
 infallible, as well as Rome ? why shall not Constan- 
 tinople, or Byzantium, where St. Andrew sat ? why 
 shall notEphesus, where St. John sat; or Jerusalem, 
 where St. James sat ? for Christ prayed for them 
 all, ' that the Father should sanctify them by his 
 truth.' John, xvii. 
 
 2. For was it personal or not ? If it were, then 
 the bishops of Rome have nothing to do with it : if 
 it were not, then by what argument will it be made 
 evident that St. Peter, in the promise, represented 
 only his successors, and not the whole college of 
 apostles, and the whole hierarchy ? For, if St. Peter 
 was chief of the apostles and head of the church, 
 he might, fair enough, be the representative of the 
 whole college, and receive it in their right as well 
 as his own ; which also is certain that it was so, for 
 the same promise of binding and loosing, (which 
 
FALLIBILITY OF THE POPE. 181 
 
 certainly was all that the keys were given for,) was 
 made afterward to all the apostles, Matt, xviii ; and 
 the power of remitting and retaining, which, in rea- 
 son and according to the style of the church, is the 
 same thing in other words, was actually given to 
 all the apostles. And unless that was the perform- 
 ing the first and second promise, we find it not re- 
 corded in Scripture how, or when, or whether yet 
 or no, the promise be performed : that promise, I 
 say, which did not pertain to Peter principally and 
 by origination, and to the rest by communication, 
 society, and adherence ; but that promise which was 
 made to Peter first, but not for himself, but for all 
 the college, and for all their successors, and then 
 made the second time to them all, without repre- 
 sentation, but in diffusion, and performed to all 
 alike in presence, except St. Thomas. And if he 
 went to St. Peter to derive it from him, I know not; 
 I find no record for that ; but that Christ conveyed 
 the promise to him by the same commission, the 
 church yet never doubted, nor had she any reason. 
 But this matter is too notorious : I say no more to it, 
 but repeat the words and argument of St. Austin.* 
 " If the keys were only given and so promised to St. 
 Peter, that the church hath not the keys, then the 
 church can neither bind norjloose, remit nor retain; 
 which God forbid." If any man should endeavour 
 to answer this argument, I leave him and St. Austin 
 to contest it. 
 
 3. For 'Feed my sheep,' there is little in that 
 allegation, besides the boldness of the objectors; 
 for were not all the apostles bound to feed Christ's 
 
 * " Si hoc Petro tantum dictum est, non facit hoc ecclesia." — 
 Tra. 1. in Joann. 
 
182 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 sheep ? Had they not all the commission from 
 Christ, and Christ's Spirit immediately ? St. Paul 
 had certainly. Did not St. Peter himself say to all 
 the bishops of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, 
 and Bithinia, that they should feed the flock of 
 God, and the g-reat Bishop and Shepherd should 
 give them an immarcescible crown ; plainly imply- 
 ing, that from whence they derived their authority, 
 from him they were sure of a reward ? In pursu- 
 ance of which, St. Cyprian laid his argument upon 
 this basis.* Did not St. Paul call to the bishops 
 of Ephesus to feed the flock of God, of which the 
 Holy Ghost hath made them bishops or overseers ? 
 And that this very commission was spoken to Peter 
 not in a personal, but a public capacity, and in 
 him spoke to all the apostles, we see attested by 
 St. Austin and St. Ambrose,f and generally by all 
 antiquity ; and it so concerned even every priest, 
 that Damasus was willing enough to have St. Je- 
 rome explicate many questions for him. And Libe- 
 rius writes an epistle to Athanasius, with much 
 modesty requiring his advice in a question of faith : 
 " That T also may be persuaded, without all doubt- 
 ing, of those things which you shall be pleased to 
 command me.'t Now, Liberius needed not to have 
 troubled himself to have writ into the east to Atha- 
 nasius; for, if he had but seated himself in his chair, 
 and made the dictate, the result of his pen and ink 
 would certainly have taught him and all the church ; 
 
 * " Nam cum statutum sit omnibus nobis, &c. et singulis pas- 
 toribus portio gregis, &c." — Lib. i. Ep. 3. 
 
 -|- De Agone Christi, c. 30. 
 
 4! "Ii>a Kayii) TreTroiSfojg a> ddiaicpircog, Tvepl u)V d^iolg 
 KfXevsiv fioi. — Epist. ad Athanas. apud Athanas. torn. i. 
 page 42. Paris. 
 
FALLIBILITY OF THE POPE. 183 
 
 but that the g-ood pope was ignorant that either 
 * Feed my sheep' was his own charter and prero- 
 gative, or that any other words of Scripture had 
 made him to be infallible; or if he was not ignorant 
 of it, he did very ill to compliment himself oat of 
 it. So did all those bishops of Rome that, in that 
 troublesome and unprofitable question of Easter, be- 
 ing unsatisfied in the supputation of the Egyptians, 
 and the definitions of the mathematical bishops of 
 Alexandria, did yet require and entreat St. Am- 
 brose'^ to tell them his opinion, as he himself wit- 
 nesses. If ' Feed my sheep' belongs only to the 
 pope by primary title, in these cases the sheep came 
 to feed the shepherd; which, though it was well 
 enough in the thing, is very ill for the pretensions 
 of the Roman bishops; and if we consider how 
 little many of the popes have done toward feeding 
 the sheep of Christ, we shall hardly determine which 
 is the greater prevarication, that the pope should 
 claim the whole commission to be granted to him, 
 or that the execution of the commission should be 
 wholly passed over to others : and it may be, there 
 is a mystery in it, that since St. Peter sent a bishop 
 with his staff to raise up a disciple of his from the 
 dead, who was afterwards bishop of Triers, the 
 popes of Rome never wear a pastoral staflf, except 
 it be in that diocess, (says Aquinas, )f for great rea- 
 son, that he who does not do the office should, not 
 bear the symbol ; but a man would think that the 
 pope's master of the ceremonies was ill advised, not 
 to assign a pastoral staflf to him who pretends the 
 commission of ' Feed my sheep' to belong to him 
 by prime right and origination. But this is not ^ 
 business to be merry in. 
 
 * Lib. X. Ep. 83. + M. iv. Sent. Dist. 24. 
 
184 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 But the great support is expected from, 'Thou 
 art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church/ 
 &c. Now, there being so great difference in the ex- 
 position of these words, by persons disinterested, 
 who, if any, might be allowed to judge in this ques- 
 tion, it is certain that neither one sense nor other 
 can be obtruded for an article of faith ; much less 
 as a catholicon instead of all, by constituting an 
 authority which should guide us in all faith, and 
 determine us in all questions ; for if the church was 
 not built upon the person of Peter, then his succes- 
 sors can challenge nothing from this instance. Now, 
 that it was the confession of Peter upon which the 
 church was to rely for ever, we have witnesses very 
 credible ; St. Ignatius,* St. Basil,t St. Hilary,: St. 
 Gregory Nyssen,§ St. Gregory the Great, [| St. 
 Austin,^[ St. Cyril of Alexandria*, Isidore Pelu- 
 siot,f and very many more. And, although all these 
 witnesses concurring cannot make a proposition to 
 be true, yet they are sufficient witnesses, that it was 
 not the universal belief of Christendom that the 
 church was built upon St. Peter's person. Cardinal 
 Perron hath a fine fancy to elude this variety of 
 exposition, and the consequents of it; for (saith 
 he) these expositions are not contrary or exclusive 
 of each other, but inclusive and consequent to each 
 other : for the church is founded causally upon the 
 confession of St. Peter, formally upon the ministry 
 of his person ; and this was a reward or a conse- 
 quent of the former. So that these expositions are 
 both true, but they are conjoined as mediate and 
 
 * Ad Phikflelph. f Seleuc. Orat xxv. 
 
 J Lib. vi. De Trin. § De Trin. advers. Judaos. 
 
 li Lib. iii. Ep. 33. 5[ In 1 Eph. Joann. tr. 10. 
 
 * De Trin. Ub, iv. f Lib. i. Ep. 235. 
 
FALLIBILITY OF THE POPE. 185 
 
 immediate, direct and collateral, literal and moral, 
 original and perpetual, accessory and temporal ; the 
 one consigned at the beginning, the other intro- 
 duced upon occasion : for before the spring of the 
 Arian heresy, the fathers expounded these words of 
 the jaerson of Peter ; but after the Arians troubled 
 them, the fathers, finding great authority and energy 
 in this confession of Peter, for the establishment of 
 the natural filiation of the Son of God, to advance 
 the reputation of these words and the force of the 
 argument, gave themselves licence to expound these 
 words to the present advantage, and to make the 
 confession of Peter to be the foundation of the 
 church ; that, if the Arians should encounter this 
 authority, they might, with more prejudice to their 
 persons, declaim against their cause, by saying they 
 overthrew the foundation of the church. Besides 
 that this answer does much dishonour the reputa- 
 tion of the fathers' integrity, and makes their inter- 
 pretations less credible, as being made not of know- 
 ledge or reason, but of necessity and to serve a 
 present turn, it is also false; for Ignatius* ex- 
 pounds it in a spiritual sense, which also the liturgy 
 attributed to St. James calls sttI Trerpav riig TriVtwc* 
 ''upon the rock of the faith:'* and Origen ex- 
 pounds it mystically to a third purpose, but exclu- 
 sively to this : and all these were before the Arian 
 controversy. But if it be lawful to make such un- 
 proved observations, it would have been to better 
 purpose, and more reason, to have observed it thus : 
 the fathers, so long as the bishop of Rome kept him- 
 self to the limits prescribed him by Christ, and in- 
 dulged to him by the constitution or concession of 
 the church, were unwary and apt to expound this 
 * Epist. ad Philadelph. in c. 16. Mat, Tract. 1. 
 
186 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 place of the person of Peter ; but when the church 
 began to enlarge her phylacteries, by the favour of 
 princes and the sunshine of a prosperous fortune, 
 and the pope, by the advantage of the imperial seat, 
 and other accidents, began to invade upon the other 
 bishops and patriarchs, then, that he might have no 
 colour from Scripture for such new pretensions, 
 they did, most generally, turn the stream of their 
 expositions from the person to the confession of 
 Peter, and declared that to be the foundation of 
 the church. And thus I have requited fancy with 
 fancy : but, for the main point, that these two ex- 
 positions are inclusive of each other, I find no war- 
 rant; for though they may consist together well 
 enough, if Christ had so intended them, yet, unless 
 it could be shown by some circumstance of the 
 text, or some other extrinsical argument, that they 
 must be so, and that both senses were actually in- 
 tended, it is but gratis dictum, and a begging of the 
 question, to say that they are so ; and the fancy 
 so new, that when St. Austin had expounded this 
 place of the person of Peter, he reviews it again, 
 and, in his retractations, leaves every man to 
 his liberty which to take ; as having nothing cer- 
 tain in this article : which had been altogether 
 needless, if he had believed them to be inclusively 
 in each other, neither of them had need to have 
 been retracted ; both were alike true, both of them 
 might have been believed. But I said the fancy 
 was new, and I had reason ; for it was so unknown 
 till yesterday, that even the late writers, of his own 
 side, expound the words of the confession of St. 
 Peter, exclusively to his person, or any thing else, 
 as is to be seen in Marsilius,^ Petrus de Aliaco,\ 
 * Defens. Pads, part. ii. c 28. + Recommend. Sacr. Script. 
 
FALLIBILITY OF THE POPE. 187 
 
 and the gloss upon Dist. xix. Can. ita Dominus, § 2it 
 supra, which also was the interpretation of Phavo- 
 rinus Camers, their own bishop, from whom they 
 learnt the resemblance of the word ukvpog, (Peter,) 
 and irkvpa, (a rock,) of which they made so many 
 gay discourses. 
 
 5. But, upon condition I may have leave, at ano- 
 ther time, to recede from so great and numerous tes- 
 timony of fathers, T am willing to believe that it 
 was not the confession of St. Peter, but his person 
 upon which Christ said he would build his church; 
 or that these expositions are consistent with and 
 consequent to each other ; that this confession was 
 the objective foundation of faith, and Christ and 
 his apostles the subjective — Christ principally, and 
 St. Peter instrumentally ; and yet I understand not 
 any advantage will hence accrue to the see of Rome; 
 for upon St. Peter it was built, but not alone, for it 
 " was upon the foundation of the apostles and pro- 
 phets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner- 
 stone ;" and when St. Paul reckoned the economy 
 of hierarchy, he reckons not Peter first and then 
 the apostles, but first apostles, secondarily prophets, 
 &c. And whatsoever is first, either is before all 
 things else, or at least nothing is before it : so that, 
 at least, St. Peter is not before all the rest of the 
 apostles ; which also St. Paul expressly avers : ' I 
 am in nothing inferior to the very chiefest of the 
 apostles;' no, not in the very being a rock and a 
 foundation : and it was of the church of Ephesus 
 that St. Paul said, in particular, it was ' the pillar 
 and ground (or foundation) of the truth;' that 
 church was, not excludmg others, for they also 
 were as much as she : for so we keep close and be 
 united to the corner-stone, although some be master 
 
188 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 builders, yet all may build ; and we have known 
 whole nations converted by laymen and women, 
 who have been builders so far as to bring them to 
 the corner-stone. * 
 
 6. But suppose all these things concern St. Peter, 
 in all the capacities that can be with any colour pre- 
 tended, yet what have the bishops of Rome to do 
 with this ? For how will it appear that these pro- 
 mises and commissions did relate to him as a par- 
 ticular bishop, and not as a public apostle ? since 
 this latter is so much the more likely, because the 
 great pretence of all seems in reason more propor- 
 tionable to the founding of a church than its con- 
 tinuance : and, yet, if they did relate to him as a 
 particular bishop, (which yet is a further degree of 
 improbability, removed further from certainty,) yet 
 why shall St. Clement, or Linus, rather succeed in 
 this great office of headship than St. John, or any 
 of the apostles that survived Peter ? It is no way 
 likely a private person should skip over the head of 
 an apostle. Or why shall his successors at Rome 
 more enjoy the benefit of it than his successors at 
 Antioch, since that he was at Antioch and preached 
 there, we have a divine authority ; but that he did 
 so at Rome at most we have but a human. And 
 if it be replied, that because he died at Rome, it 
 was argument enough that there his successors were 
 to inherit his privilege, this, besides that at most 
 it is but one little degree of probability, and so not 
 of strength sufficient to support an article of faith, 
 it makes that the great divine right of Rome, and 
 the apostolical presidency was so contingent and 
 
 ^ * Vid. Socrat> lib. i. c. 19, 20. Sozom. lib. ii. c. 14. Niceph. 
 lib. xiv. c. 42. 
 
FALLIBILITY OF THE POPE. 189 
 
 fallible as to depend upon the decree of Nero ; and 
 if he had sent him to Antioch, there to have suf- 
 fered martyrdom, the bishops of that town had been 
 heads of the catholic church. And this thing pres- 
 ses the harder, because it is held by no mean per- 
 sons in the church of Rome, that the bishopric of 
 Rome and the papacy are things separable ; and the 
 pope may quit that see and sit in another : which, 
 to my understanding, is an argument, that he that 
 succeeded Peter at Antioch, is as much supreme by 
 divine right, as he that sits at Rome ; * both alike ; 
 that is, neither by divine ordinance : for, if the Ro- 
 man bishops, by Christ's intention, were to be head 
 of the church, then, by the same intention, the suc- 
 cession must be continued in that see ; and then, 
 let the pope go whither he will, the bishop of 
 Rome must be the head ; which they themselves 
 deny, and the pope himself did not believe, when 
 in a schism he sat at Avignon ; and that it was to 
 be continued in the see of Rome, it is but offered 
 to us upon conjecture, upon an act of providence, 
 as they fancy it, so ordering it by vision, and this 
 proved by an author which themselves call fabulous 
 and apochryphal. f A goodly building which relies 
 upon an event that was accidental, whose purpose 
 was but insinuated, the meaning of it but conjec- 
 tured at, and this conjecture so uncertain, that it 
 was an imperfect aim at the purpose of an event, 
 which, whether it was true or no, was so uncertain 
 that it is ten to one there was no such matter. And 
 yet, again, another degree of uncertainty is, to whom 
 
 * Vid. Cameracens. Qu. vespert. 
 
 i* Under the name of Linus, in Biblioth. P. P. de Passione 
 Petri et Pauli. 
 
190 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 the bishops of Rome do succeed ; for St. Paul was 
 as much bishop of Rome as St. Peter was : there 
 he presided, there he preached, and he it was that 
 was the doctor of the uncircumcision and of the 
 gentiles ; St. Peter, of the circumcision and of the 
 Jews only ; and, therefore, the converted Jews at 
 Rome might, with better reason, claim the privilege 
 of St. Peter, than the Romans and the churches in 
 her communion, who do not derive from Jewish 
 parents. 
 
 7. If the words were never so appropriate to 
 Peter, or also communicated to his successors, yet 
 of what value will the consequent be ? w^hat pre- 
 rogative is entailed upon the chair of Rome ? For, 
 that St. Peter was the ministerial head of the 
 church is the most that is desired to be proved by 
 those and all other words brought for the same 
 purposes and interests of that see. Now let the 
 ministerial head have w hat dignity can be imagined, 
 let him be the first; (and in all communities 
 that are regular and orderly, there must be some- 
 thing that is first, upon certain occasions where an 
 equal power cannot be exercised, and made pomp- 
 ous or ceremonial;) but will this ministerial head- 
 ship infer an infallibility ? w ill it infer more than 
 the headship of the Jewish synagogue, where clearly 
 the high-priest was supreme in many senses, yet in 
 no sense infallible ? will it infer more to us than 
 it did amongst the apostles ? amongst whom, if for 
 order's sake St. Peter was the first, yet he had no 
 compulsory power over the apostles; there was no 
 such thing spoke of, nor any such thing put in 
 practice. And, that the other apostles were, by a 
 personal privilege, as infallible as himself, is no 
 reason to liinder the exercise of jurisdiction, or any 
 
FALLIBILITY OF THE POPE. 191 
 
 compulsory power over them : for, though in faith 
 they were infallible, yet in manners and matter of 
 fact as likely to err as St. Peter himself was ; and 
 certainly there might have something happened in 
 the whole college that might have been a record of 
 his authority, by transmitting an example of the 
 exercise of some judicial power over some one of 
 them : — if he had but withstood any of them to their 
 faces, as St. Paul did him, it had been more than 
 yet is said in his behalf Will the ministerial head- 
 ship infer any more than, when the church, in a com- 
 munity or a public capacity, should do any act of 
 ministry ecclesiastical, he shall be first in order ? 
 Suppose this to be a dignity to preside in councils, 
 which yet was not always granted him ; suppose it 
 to be a power of taking cognizance of the major 
 causes of bishops, when councils cannot be called ; 
 suppose it a double voice, or the last decisive, or 
 the negative in the causes exterior ; suppose it to 
 be what you will of dignity or external regimen, 
 which, when all churches were united in commu- 
 nion, and neither the interest of states, nor the en- 
 gagement of opinions had made disunion, might 
 better have been acted than now it can ; yet this 
 will fall infinitely short of a power to determine 
 controversies infallibly, and to prescribe to all mens' 
 faith and consciences. A ministerial headship, or 
 the prime minister, cannot, in any capacity, become 
 the foundation of the church to any such purpose. 
 And, therefore, men are causelessly amused with 
 such premises, and are afraid of such conclusions 
 which will never follow from the admission of any 
 sense of these words that can with any probability 
 be pretended. 
 
 8. I consider that these arguments from Scrip- 
 
192 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 ture are too weak to support such an authority, which 
 pretends to give oracles, and to answer infallibly in 
 questions of faith ; because there is greater reason to 
 believe the popes of Rome have erred, and greater 
 certainty of demonstration, than these places can 
 be that they are infallible, as will appear by the in- 
 stances and perpetual experiment of their being 
 deceived, of which there is no question, but of the 
 sense of these places there is : and, indeed, if I had 
 as clear Scripture for their infallibility as I have 
 asfainst their half-communion, against their service 
 in an unknown tongue, worshipping of images, 
 and divers other articles, I would make no scruple 
 of believing, but limit and conform my under- 
 standing to all their dictates, and believe it reason- 
 able all prophesying should be restrained. But till 
 then I have leave to discourse, and to use my rea- 
 son ; and, to my reason, it seems not likely that 
 neither Christ nor any of his apostles, St. Peter 
 himself, nor St. Paul, writing to the church of Rome, 
 should speak the least word, or tittle of the infalli- 
 bility of their bishops ; for it was certainly as con- 
 venient to tell us of a remedy, as to foretell, that 
 certainly there must needs be heresies, and need of 
 a remedy. And it had been a certain determination 
 of the question, if when so rare an opportunity was 
 ministered in the c[uestion about circumcision, that 
 thej^ should have sent to Peter, who, for his infallibi- 
 lity in ordinary and his power of headship, would, not 
 only with reason enough, as being infallibly assisted, 
 but also for his authority, have best determined the 
 question, if at least the first Christians had known 
 so profitable and so excellent a secret; and, al- 
 though we have but little record, that the first 
 council at Jerusalem did much observe the solem- 
 
FALLIBILITY OF THE POPE. 193 
 
 nities of law, and the forms of conciliary pro- 
 ceedings, and the ceremonials, yet so much of it as 
 is recorded, is against them ; St. James, and not St. 
 Peter, gave the final sentence ; and, although St. Peter 
 determined the question in favour of liberty, yet St. 
 James made the decree and the assumenlum too, 
 and gave sentence they should abstain from some 
 things there mentioned, which by way of temper 
 he judged most expedient, and so it passed. And 
 St. Peter showed no sign of a superior authority, 
 nothing of superior jurisdiction, '' but entreated 
 him, that every thing might be determined by jDub- 
 lic decision, and nothing by any person's mere au- 
 thority a«d command."* 
 
 So that ir this question be to be determined by 
 Scripture, it must either be ended by plain places, 
 or by obscure : plain places there are none, and 
 those that are with greatest fancy pretended, are 
 expounded by antiquity to contrary purposes. 
 But if obscure places be all the av^ivria, (authority,) 
 by what means shall we infallibly find the sense of 
 them ? The pope's interpretation, though in all 
 other cases it might be pretended, in this cannot ; 
 for it is the thing in question, and therefore cannot 
 determine for itself: either, therefore, we have also 
 another infallible guide besides the pope, and so 
 we have two foundations and two heads, (for this, 
 as well as the other, upon the same reason;) or else 
 (which is indeed the truth) there is no infallible 
 way to be infallibly assured that the pope is infal- 
 lible. Now, it being against the common condi- 
 tion of men, above the pretences of all other gover- 
 
 • 'Opa de avTOV fierd KOivrjg ttcivtu ttoiovvtu yviofirjQf 
 ovSev dv^evTiKug ovd' dpxiKuig. — S. Chrysost. Horn. iii. in 
 Act. Apost, 
 
 O 
 
194 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 nors ecclesiastical, against the analogy of Scrip- 
 ture, and the deportment of the other apostles, 
 against the economy of the church, and St. Peter's 
 own entertainment, the presumption lies against 
 him; and these places are to be left to their prime 
 intentions, and not put upon the rack, to force 
 them to confess what they never thought. 
 
 But now, for antiquity, if that be deposed in this 
 question, there are so many circumstances to be 
 considered, to reconcile their words and their ac- 
 tions, that the process is more troublesome than 
 the argument can be concluding, or the matter 
 considerable : but I shall a little consider it, so far, 
 at least, as to show either that antiquity said no 
 such thing as is pretended, or if they did, it is but 
 little considerable, because they did not believe 
 themselves ; their practice was the greatest evi- 
 dence in the world against the pretence of their 
 words. But I am much eased of a long disquisi- 
 tion in this particular, (for I love not to prove a 
 question by arguments whose authority is in itself 
 as fallible, and by circumstances made as uncer- 
 tain as the Cj[uestion,) by the saying of ^Eneas 
 Sylvius, that before the Nicene council every man 
 lived to himself, and small respect was had to the 
 church of Rome; which practice could not well con- 
 sist with the doctrine of their bishop's infallibility, 
 and, by consequence, supreme judgment and last 
 resolution, in matters of faith ; but especially by 
 the insinuation, and consequent acknowledgment, 
 of Bellarmine,* that for one thousand years to- 
 gether, the fathers knew not of the doctrine of the 
 pope's infallibility; for Nilus, Gerson, Almain, the 
 
 • De Rom. Pont. lib. iv. c. 2, § Secunda Sententia. 
 
FALLIBILITY OF THE POPE. 195 
 
 divines of Paris, Alphonsus de Castro, and pope 
 Adrian VI„ persons who lived fourteen hundred 
 years after Christ, affirm that infallibility is not 
 seated in the pope's person, that he may err, and 
 sometimes actually hath ; which is a clear demon- 
 stration that the church knew no such doctrine as 
 this : there had been no decree, nor tradition, nor 
 general opinion of the fathers, or of any age before 
 them ; and therefore this opinion, which Bellar- 
 mine would fain blast if he could, yet in his con- 
 clusion he says, it is not properly heretical. A de- 
 vice and an expression of his own, without sense 
 or precedent. But if the fathers had spoken of it 
 and believed it, why may not a disagreeing person 
 as well reject their authority when it is in behalf 
 of Rome, as they of Rome, without scruple, cast 
 them off when they speak against it ? as Bellar- 
 mine, being pressed with the authority of Nilus, 
 bishop of Thessalonica, and other fathers, says, that 
 the pope acknowledges no fathers, but they are all 
 his children, and, therefore, they cannot depose 
 against him ; and if that be true, why shall v/e take 
 their testimonies for him ? for if sons depose in their 
 father's behalf, it is twenty to one but the adverse 
 party will be cast ; and therefore, at the best, it is but 
 suspicious evidence. But, indeed, this discourse 
 signifies nothing but a perpetual uncertainty in 
 such topics, and that where a violent prejudice, or 
 a concerning interest is engaged, men, by not 
 regarding what any man says, proclaim to all the 
 world, that nothing is certain but Divine authority. 
 But T will not take advantage of what Bellarmine 
 says, nor what Stapleton, or any one of them all 
 say ; for that will be but to press upon personal 
 persuasions, or to urge a general c^uestion with a 
 
 02 
 
196 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 particular clefailance, and the question is never the 
 nearer to an end ; for if Bellarmine says any thing 
 that is not to another man's purpose or persuasion, 
 that man will be tried by his own argument, not 
 by another's. And so would every man do that 
 loves his liberty, as all wise men do, and therefore 
 retain it by open violence, or private evasions : but 
 to return. 
 
 An authority from Irenaeus in this question, 
 and on behalf of the pope's infallibility, or the au- 
 thority of the see of Rome, or of the necessity of 
 communicating with them, is very fallible; for, 
 besides that there are almost a dozen answers to 
 the words of the allegation, as is to be seen in those 
 that trouble themselves in this question with the 
 allegation, and answering such authorities, yet, if 
 they should make for the affirmative of this ques- 
 tion, it is an affirmation contrary to fact.* For 
 Irenaeus had no such great opinion of pope Victor's 
 infallibility, that he believed things in the same 
 degree of necessity that the pope did ; for there- 
 fore he chides him for excommunicating the Asian 
 bishops a^p6h)Q, all at a blow, in the question con- 
 cerning Easter day ; and in a question of faith, he 
 expressly disagreed from the doctrine of Rome; for 
 Irenaeus was of the millenary opinion, and be- 
 lieved it to be a tradition apostolical : now, if the 
 church of Rome was of that opinion, then why is 
 she not now ? where is the succession of her doc- 
 trine ? But if she was not of that opinion then, 
 and Irenaeus was, where was his belief of that 
 church's infallibility ? The same I urge concern- 
 ing St. Cyprian, who was the head of a sect in 
 
 • Protestatio contra factum. 
 
FALLIBILITY OF THE POPE. 197 
 
 opposition to the church of Rome, in the question 
 of rebaptization; and he and the abettors, Firmilian, 
 and the other bishops of Cappadocia, and the vi- 
 cinage, spoke harsh words of Stephen, and such as 
 became them not to speak to an infallible doctor, 
 and the supreme head of the church. I will urge 
 none of them to the disadvantage of that see, but 
 only note the satires of Firmilian against him, 
 because it is of good use to show that it is possible 
 for them, in their ill carriage, to blast the reputa- 
 tion and efficacy of a great authority : for he says 
 that the church did pretend the authority of the 
 apostles, "when, in many of its religious ordi- 
 nances, it departed from the apostolic rule, and 
 from the practice of the church of Jerusalem, and 
 even defamed Peter and Paul as authorities."* 
 And a little after, says he, " I disdain the open 
 and manifest folly of Stephanus, by which the 
 verity of the Christian rock is annulled."f Which 
 words say plainly, that for all the goodly pretence 
 of apostolical authority, the church of Rome did 
 then, in many things of religion, disagree from 
 divine institution ; (and from the church of Jeru- 
 salem, which they had as great esteem of, for reli- 
 gion sake, as of Rome for its principality ;) and that 
 still, in pretending to St. Peter and St. Paul, they 
 dishonoured those blessed apostles, and destroyed 
 the honour of the pretence, by their untoward pre- 
 varication ; which words, I confess, pass my skill 
 to reconcile them to an opinion of infallibility ; 
 
 • *' Cum in multis sacramentis divines rei, a principio dis- 
 crepet, et ab ecclesia Hierosolymitana, et defamet Petrum et 
 Paulum tanquam authores." — Epist. Firmiliani, contr. Steph. 
 ad Cyprian. Vid. etiam Ep. Cypriani ad Pompeium. 
 
 •f- "Juste dedignor apertam et manifestam stultitiam Stephani, 
 per quam Veritas Christianae petrae aboletur." 
 
198 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 and although they were spoken by an angry per- 
 son, yet they declare, that in Africa they were not 
 then persuaded as now they were at Rome : " For 
 Peter, who was chosen by the Lord, did not vainly 
 and proudly arrogate to himself a claim to pre-emi- 
 nence."* That was their belief then, and how the 
 contrary hath grown up to that height where now 
 it is, all the world is witness. And now I shall not 
 need to note concerning St. Jerome, that he gave a 
 compliment to Damasus that he would not have 
 given to Liberius : Qui tecum non colligit spargit ; 
 *' He who gathereth not with you, scattereth." For 
 it might be true enough of Damasus, who was a 
 good bishop, and a right believer ; but if Liberius's 
 name had been put instead of Damasus, the case 
 had been altered with the name ; for St. Jerome 
 did believe, and write it so, that Liberius had sub- 
 scribed to Arianism.f And if either he, or any of 
 the rest, had believed the pope could not be a 
 heretic, nor his faith fail, but be so good and of so 
 competent authority as to be a rule to Christen- 
 dom, why did they not appeal to the pope in the 
 Arian controversy ? Vv hy was the bishop of Rome 
 made a party and a concurrent, as other good 
 bishops were, and not a judge and an arbitrator in 
 the question ? Why did the fathers prescribe so 
 many rules, and cautions, and provisos, for the 
 discovery of heresy ? Why were the emperors at 
 so much charge, and the church at so much trouble, 
 as to call and convene in councils respectively, to 
 dispute so frequently, to write so sedulously, to 
 
 * " Nam nee Petrus, quern primum Dominus elegit, vendi- 
 cavit sibi aliquid insolenter, aut arroganter assumpsit, ut diceret 
 se primatum tenere." — Cyprian. Epist. ad Quintum Fratrem. 
 
 •f- De Script. Eccles. iii Fortunatiano. 
 
FALLIBILITY OF THE POPE. 199 
 
 observe all advantages against their adversaries, 
 and for the truth, and never offered to call for the 
 pope to determine the question in his chair ? Cer- 
 tainly no way could have been so expedite, none 
 so concluding and peremptory, none could have 
 convinced so certainly, none could have triumphed 
 so openly over all discrepants as this, if they had 
 known of any such thing as his being infallible, 
 or that he had been appointed by Christ to be the 
 judge of controversies. And, therefore, I will not 
 trouble this discourse, to excuse any more words, 
 either pretended or really said to this purpose of 
 the pope; for they would but make books swell, 
 and the cjuestion endless. I shall only to this pur- 
 pose observe, that the old writers were so far from 
 believing the infallibility of the Roman church or 
 bishop, that many bishops, and many churches, did 
 actually live and continue out of the Roman com- 
 munion ; particularly St. Austin,* who, with two 
 hundred and seventeen bishops, and their successors, 
 for one hundred years together, stood separate from 
 that church, if we may believe their own records : 
 so did Ignatius of Constantinople, St. Chrysostom, 
 St. Cyprian, Firmilian, those bishops of Asia that 
 separated in the question of Easter, and those of 
 Africa in the question of rebaptization : but, be- 
 sides this, most of them had opinions which the 
 church of Rome disavows now, and, therefore, did 
 so then, or else she hath innovated in her doctrine ; 
 which, though it be most true and notorious, I am 
 
 • *' Ubi ilia Augustini et reliquorum prudentia ? quis jam ferat 
 crassissimae ignorantije illam vocem in tot et tantis Patribus ?" — 
 Alan. Cop. Dialog, p. 76, 77. Vide etiam Bonifac. II. Epist. 
 ad Eulalium Alexandrinum. Lindanuni Panopl. lib. iv. c. 89. 
 in fine Salmeron. torn. xii. Tract. 68, § ad Canonem. Sander. 
 de visibili Monarchia, lib vii. n. 411. Baron, torn. x. a.d. 878. 
 
200 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 sure she will never confess. But no excuse can be 
 made for St. Austin's disagreeing, and contesting, in 
 the question of appeals to Rome, the necessity of 
 communicating infants, the absolute damnation of 
 infants to the pains of hell, if they die before bap- 
 tism, and divers other particulars. It was a fa- 
 mous act of the bishops of Liguria and Istria, who, 
 seeing the pope of Rome consenting to the fifth 
 synod, in disparagement of the famous council of 
 Chalcedon, which, for their own interests, they did 
 not like of, they renounced subjection to his patri- 
 archate, and erected a patriarch at Acquileia, who 
 was afterwards translated to Venice, where his 
 name remains to this day. It is also notorious, 
 that most of the fathers were of opinion that the 
 souls of the faithful did not enjoy the beatific vi- 
 sion before doomsday : whether Rome was then of 
 that opinion or no, I know not ; I am sure now 
 they are not; witness the councils of Florence and 
 Trent ; but of this I shall give a more full account 
 afterwards. But if to all this which is already 
 noted, we add that great variety of opinions amongst 
 the fathers and councils, in assignation of the 
 canon, they not consulting with the bishop of Rome, 
 or any of them thinking themselves bound to follow 
 his rule in enumeration of the books of Scripture, 
 I think no more need to be said as to this particular. 
 8. But now, if after all this, there be some popes 
 which were notorious heretics, and preachers of 
 false doctrine, some that made impious decrees, 
 both in faith and manners ; some that have deter- 
 mined questions with egregious ignorance and stu- 
 pidity, some with apparent sophistry, and many to 
 serve their own ends most openly; I suppose then 
 the infallibility will disband, and we may do to him 
 
FALLIBILITY OF THE POPE. 201 
 
 as to other good bishops, believe him when there is 
 cause; but if there be none, then to use our con- 
 sciences. " For it cannot be sufficient for a Chris- 
 tian, that the pope constantly affirms the propriety 
 of his own command ; he must examine for him- 
 self, and form his opinion by the Divine law."* I 
 would not instance and repeat the errors of dead 
 bishops, if the extreme boldness of the pretence 
 did not make it necessary: but if we may believe 
 TertuUian, f pope Zepherinus approved the pro- 
 phesies of Montanus, and upon that approbation 
 granted peace to the churches of Asia and Phry- 
 gia, till Praxeas persuaded him to revoke his act : 
 but let this rest upon the credit of Tertullian, whe- 
 ther Zepherinus were aMontanist or no ; some such 
 thing there was for certain, j Pope Vigilius § denied 
 two natures in Christ ; and in his epistle to Theo- 
 dora, the empress, anathematized all them that said 
 he had two natures in one person: St. Gregory 
 himself permitted priests to give confirmation; 
 which is all one as if he should permit deacons to 
 consecrate, they being, by divine ordinance, an- 
 nexed to the higher orders; and, upon this very 
 ground, Adrianus affirms, that the pope may err 
 in his definition of the articles of faith. || And 
 that we may not fear we shall want instances, we 
 may, to secure it, take their own confession : " For 
 there are many heretical decretals," says Occham, 
 as he is cited by Almain, " which," says he, for his 
 
 * " Non enim salvat Christianum quod pontifex constanter 
 affirmat prsceptum suum esse justum, sed oportet illud exami- 
 nari, et se juxta regulam superius datam dirigere." — Tract, de 
 Interdict. Compos, a Theol. Venet. prop. 13. 
 
 ■f- Lib. adver. Praxeam. 
 
 J Vid. Liberal, in Breviario, c. 22. 
 
 § Durand. iv. dist. 7. q. 4. |1 Quae, de Confirm, art. ult. 
 
202 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 own particular, " I firmly believe ; but we must not 
 affirm contrary to what is decreed." * So that we 
 may as well see that it is certain that popes may 
 be heretics, as that it is dangerous to say so ; and 
 therefore there are so few that teach it. All the pa- 
 triarchs, and the bishop of Rome himself, sub- 
 scribed to Arianism, (as Baronius confesses ;f) 
 and Gratian affirms that pope Anastasius II. was 
 stricken of God for communicating with the 
 heretic Photinus. | I know it will be made light 
 of, that Gregory VIT. saith, the very exorcists 
 of the Roman church are superior to princes. 
 But what shall we think of that decretal of Grego- 
 ry III. who wrote to Boniface, his legate in Ger- 
 many, " That they whose wives refused them con- 
 jugal rights, on account of some bodily infirmity, 
 might marry others ?"§ Was this a doctrine fit for 
 the head of the church, and infallible doctor? It 
 was plainly, if any thing ever was, " the doctrine of 
 devils," and is noted for such by Gratian, caus. xxxii. 
 q. 7. can. Quod proposuisti ; where the gloss also 
 intimates, that the same privilege w as granted to 
 the Englishmen by Gregory, " on the ground of 
 their being but newly converted." And sometimes we 
 had little reason to expect much better ; for, not to 
 instance in that learned discourse in the canon law, 
 de majoritate et ohedientid, \\ where the pope's su- 
 premacy over kings is proved from the first chapter 
 
 • " Nam multae sunt decretales haereticee, et firm iter hoc credo ; 
 sed non licet dogmatizare oppositum, quoniam sunt determi- 
 natae." — 3 Dist. 24, q. unica. 
 
 t A. D. 357. n. 41. :|: Dist. xix. c. 9. lib. iv. Ep. 2. 
 
 \ " Quod illi quorum uxores infirmitate aliqua morbidae debi- 
 turn reddere noluerunt, aliis poterant nubere ?" — Vid. Corranz. 
 Sum. Concil. fol. 218. Edit. Antwerp. 
 
 II Cap. per venerabilem — qui filii sint legitimi. 
 
FALLIBILITY OF THE POPE. 203 
 
 of Genesis ; and the pope is the sun, and the em- 
 peror is the moon, for that was the fancy of one 
 pope perhaps, though made authentic and doc- 
 trinal by him ; it was (if it be possible) more ridi- 
 culous, that pope Innocent III. urges, that the 
 Mosaical law was still to be observed, and that upon 
 this argument saith he, " That by the very word 
 Deuteronomy, or second law, it is shewn, that what is 
 there determined ought to be observed in the New 
 Testament." * Worse yet ; for when there was a 
 corruption crept into the decree, called Sancta Ro- 
 mana, f where, instead of these words, Sedulii opus 
 heroicis versibus descriptum, "■ The work of Sedu- 
 lius, written in heroic verses," all the old copies, till 
 of late, read licereticis versibus descriptum, " written 
 in heretical verses;" this very mistake made many 
 wise men, (as Pierius says, t ) yea, pope Adrian 
 VI., no worse man, believe that all poetry was 
 heretical, because (forsooth) pope Gelasius, whose 
 decree that was, although be believed Sedulius 
 to be a good catholic, yet, as they thought, he 
 concluded his verses to be heretical. But these 
 were ignorances ; it hath been worse amongst some 
 others, whose errors have been more malicious. 
 Pope Honorius was condemned by the sixth gene- 
 ral synod, and his epistles burnt; and in the se- 
 venth action of the eighth synod, the acts of the 
 Roman council under Adrian IT. are recited, in 
 which it is said, that Honorius was justly anathe- 
 matised, because he was convict of heresy. Bel- 
 larmine says, it is probable that pope Adrian and 
 
 * " Sane cum Deuteronomium secunda lex interpretetur, ex 
 vi vocabuli comprobatur, ut quod ibi decernitur in Testamento 
 Novo debeat observari." 
 
 ■f- Dist. XV. apud Gratian. :{: De Sacerd. barb. 
 
204 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 the Roman council were deceived with false copies 
 of the sixth synod, and that Honorius was no here- 
 tic. To this I say, that although the Roman synod, 
 and the eighth general synod, and pope Adrian, 
 altogether, are better witnesses for the thing than 
 Bellarmine's conjecture is against it, yet, if we 
 allow his conjecture, we shall lose nothing in the 
 whole ; for either the pope is no infallible doctor, 
 but may be a heretic, as Honorius was ; or else a 
 council is to us no infallible determiner ; I say, as 
 to us, for if Adrian, and the whole Roman coun- 
 cil, and the eighth general, were all cozened with 
 false copies of the sixth synod, which was so little 
 a while before them, and whose acts were transacted 
 and kept in the theatre and records of the catholic 
 church, he is a bold man that will be confident 
 that he hath true copies now. So that let which 
 they please stand or fall, let the pope be a heretic, 
 or the councils be deceived and palpably abused, 
 (for the other, we will dispute it upon other in- 
 stances and arguments, when we shall know which 
 part they will choose,) in the mean time, we shall 
 get in the general what we lose in the particular. 
 This only, this device of saying the copies of the 
 councils were false, was the stratagem of Albertus 
 Pighius, * nine hundred years after the thing was 
 done ; of which invention, Pighius was presently 
 admonished, blamed, and wished to recant. Pope 
 Nicholas explicated the mystery of the sacrament 
 with so much ignorance and zeal, that, in condemn- 
 ing Berengarius, he taught a worse impiety. But 
 what need I any more instances ? It is a confessed 
 
 • Vid. Diatrib. de act. vi. et vii. Synod. Praefatione ad Lec- 
 torem et Dominicum Bannes, xxii. q. 1. a. 10. dub. 2. 
 
FALLIBILITY OF THE POPE. 205 
 
 case by Baronius, by Biel, by Stella, Almain, 
 Occham, and Canus, and generally by the best 
 scholars in the church of Rome,* that a pope may 
 be a heretic, and that some of them actually were 
 so; and no less than three general councils did 
 believe the same thing, viz., the sixth, seventh, and 
 eighth, as Bellarmine is pleased to acknowledge ; f 
 and the canon si Papa, dist. 40, affirms it in ex- 
 press terms, that a pope is judicable and pu- 
 nishable in that case. But there is no wound 
 but some empiric or other will pretend to cure it ; 
 and there is a cure for this too. For, though it be 
 ti'ue that if a pope were a heretic, the church might 
 depose him ; yet no pope can be a heretic, — not but 
 that the man may, but the pope cannot, for he 
 is ipso facto no pope, for he is no Christian : so 
 Bellarmine :% and so when you think you have him 
 fast, he is gone, and nothing of the pope left. But, 
 who sees not the extreme folly of this evasion ? 
 for, besides that out of fear and caution he grants 
 more than he needs, more than was sought for in 
 the question, the pope hath no more privilege than 
 the abbot of Cluny; for he cannot be a heretic, nor 
 be deposed by a council ; for, if he be manifestly a 
 heretic, he is ipso facto no abbot, for he is no Chris- 
 tian; and, if the pope be a heretic privately and 
 occultly, for that he may be accused and judged, 
 said the gloss upon the canon si Papa, dist. 40. And 
 the abbot of Cluny and one of his meanest monks 
 can be no more, therefore the case is all one. But 
 this is fitter to make sport with than to interrupt a 
 
 * Picus Mirand. in Exposit. theorem. 4. 
 
 + De Pontifice Romano, lib. iv. c. 11. Resp. ad Arg. 4. 
 
 X Lib. 11. c. 30, ubi supra, § est ergo. 
 
206 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 serious discourse.* And, therefore, although the 
 canon Sancta Romana approves all the decretals of 
 popes, yet that very decretal hath not decreed it firm 
 enough, but that they are so warily received by 
 them, that when they list they are pleased to dis- 
 sent from them ; and it is evident, in the Extrava- 
 gant of Sixtus IV. Com. de Reliquiis ;f who ap- 
 pointed a feast of the immaculate conception, a 
 special office for the day, and indulgences enough 
 to the observers of it : and yet the Dominicans 
 were so far from believing the pope to be infallible 
 and his decree authentic, that they declaimed against 
 it in their pulpits so furiously and so long, till 
 they were prohibited, under pain of excommunica- 
 tion, to say the Virgin INIary was conceived in 
 original sin. Now, what solemnity can be more 
 required for the pope to make a cathedral determi- 
 nation of an article ? The article was so concluded, 
 that a feast was instituted for its celebration, and 
 pain of excommunication threatened to them which 
 should preach the contrary. Nothing more solemn, 
 nothing more confident and severe : and yet, after 
 all this, to show that whatsoever those people would 
 have us to believe, they will believe what they list 
 themselves ; this thing was not determined de fide, 
 saith Victorellus. Nay, the author of the gloss of 
 the canon law hath these express words : *' With 
 regard to the feast of the conception, nothing is 
 said, because it is not kept, as it is in many places, 
 and especially in England ; and the reason is, that 
 the Virgin was conceived in sin, as were the other 
 
 • Vide Alphons. a Castr. lib. i. adv. Haeres. c. 4. 
 
 f Vid. etiam Innocentium, Serm. 2. de Consecrat. Fontif. 
 act. vii. viii. Synodi. et Concil. 5. sub Symmadio. Collat. viii. 
 can. 12. 
 
FALLIBILITY OF THE POPE. 207 
 
 saints. * And the commissaries of Sixtus V. and 
 Gregory XIII. did not expunge these words, but 
 left them upon record, not only against a received 
 and more approved opinion of the Jesuits and 
 Franciscans, but also in plain defiance of a decree 
 made by their visible head of the church, who (if 
 ever any thing was decreed by a pope with an in- 
 tent to oblige all Christendom) decreed this to 
 that purpose.! 
 
 So that without taking particular notice of it, 
 that egregious sophistry and flattery of the late 
 writers of the Roman church is in this instance, be- 
 sides divers others before mentioned, clearly made 
 invalid. For, here the bishop of Rome, not as a 
 private doctor, but as pope, not by declaring his 
 own opinion, but with an intent to oblige the church, 
 gave sentence in a question which the Dominicans 
 still account undetermined. And every decretal 
 recorded in the canon law, if it be false in the 
 matter, is just such another instance. And Alphon- 
 sus a Castro says it to the same purpose, in the 
 instance of Celestine dissolving marriages for he- 
 resy : " Neither ought this error of Celestine to be 
 imputed to negligence alone, so that we may say he 
 erred as a private individual, and not as a pope ; 
 because such a decision as this of his is found in 
 the ancient decretals, in the chapter concerning the 
 conversion of infidels which I myself have seen 
 
 * " De festo Conceptionis nihil dicitur, quia cslebrandum rvon 
 Kt, sicut in mulds regionibus sit, et maxime in Anglia ; et haec 
 est ratio, quia in peccatis concepta fuit sicut et cseteri Sancti."— 
 De Angelo custod. fol. 59. de Consecrat. dist. 3, can. pronunci 
 and gloss, verb. Nativit. 
 
 + " Hac in perpetuum valituni constitutione statuiraus," &c. 
 — De Reliquiis, &c. Extrav. Com. Sixt. IV. c. I. 
 
208 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 and read."* And, therefore, it is a most intoler- 
 able folly to pretend that the pope cannot err in 
 his chair, though he may err in his closet, and 
 may maintain a false opinion even to his death ; 
 for, besides that it is sottish to think that either he 
 would not have the world of his own opinion, (as all 
 men naturally would,) or that if he were set in his 
 chair, he would determine contrary to himself in 
 his study, (and therefore to represent it as possi- 
 ble, they are fain to fly to a miracle, for which they 
 have no colour, neither instructions, nor insinua- 
 tion, nor warrant, nor promise,) besides that it were 
 impious and unreasonable to depose him for heresy, 
 who may so easily, even by setting himself in his 
 chair, and reviewing his theorems, be cured ; it is 
 also against a very great experience : for, besides 
 the former allegations, it is most notorious, that 
 Pope Alexander III., in a council at Rome of 
 three hundred archbishops and bishops, A. D. 1179, 
 condemned Peter Lombard of heresy in a matter 
 of great concernment, no less than something about 
 the incarnation ; from which sentence he was, after 
 thirty-six years abiding it, absolved by Pope In- 
 nocent III. without repentance or dereliction of the 
 opinion. Now, if this sentence was not a cathe- 
 dral dictate, as solemn and great as could be ex- 
 pected, or as is said to be necessary to oblige all 
 Christendom, let the great hyperaspists of the 
 Roman church be judges, who tell us that a par- 
 
 * " Neque Caelestini error talis fuit qui soli negligentiae im- 
 putari deb eat, ita ut ilium errasse dicamus velut privatam per- 
 sonam et non ut papam, quoniam hujusmodi Cselestini definitio 
 habetur in antiquis decretalibus, in cap. Laudabilem, titulo de 
 conversione infidelium ; quam ego ipse vidi et legi." — Lib. i. 
 adv. Haeres. cap. 4. 
 
FALLIBILITY OF THE POPE. 209 
 
 ticular council, with the pope's confirmation, is 
 made oecumenical by adoption, and is infallible, 
 and obliges all Christendom ;* so Bellarmine ; 
 and therefore, he says, that it is " rash, erroneous, 
 and bordering on heresy,"f to deny it : but whether 
 it be or not it is all one, as to my purpose ; for it is 
 certain that in a particular council, confirmed by 
 the pope, if ever, then and there the pope sat him- 
 self in his chair ; and it is as certain that he sat 
 besides the cushion, and determined ridiculously 
 and falsely in this case : but this is a device for 
 which there is no Scripture, no tradition, no one 
 dogmatical resolute saying of any father, Greek or 
 Latin, for above one thousand years after Christ ; 
 and themselves, when they list, can acknowledge 
 as much.t And, therefore, Bellarmine's saying, I 
 perceive, is believed by them to be true, that there 
 are many things in the decretal epistles which make 
 not articles to be de fide. And, therefore, " We are 
 not implicitly to believe whatever the pope de- 
 crees,"§ says Almain. And this serves their turns 
 in every thing they do not like; and, therefore, I 
 am resolved it shall serve my turn also for some- 
 thing; and that is, that the matter of the pope's in- 
 fallibility is so ridiculous and improbable, that they 
 do not believe it themselves. Some of them clearly 
 practised the contrary ; and although pope Leo X. 
 hath determined the pope to be above a council, 
 yet the Sorbonne to this day scorn it at the very 
 heart. And I might urge upon them that scorn 
 
 * Lib. ii. de Concil. cap. 5. 
 
 •\ " Temerarium, erroneum, et proximum haeresi." 
 
 X De Pontif. Rom. c 14, § Respondeo. In 3 sent. d. 24. q. 
 in con. 6. dub. 6, in fine. 
 
 § '' Non est necessario credendum determinatis per summum 
 pontificem." 
 
 P 
 
210 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 that Almain truly enough, by way of argument, 
 alleges.* It is a wonder that they who affirm the 
 pope cannot err in judgment, do not also affirm 
 that he cannot sin : they are like enough to say 
 so, says he, if the vicious lives of the popes did not 
 make a daily confutation of such flattery. Now, 
 for my own particular, I am as confident, and think 
 it as certain, that popes are actually deceived in 
 matters of Christian doctrine, as that they do pre- 
 varicate the laws of Christian piety; and, there- 
 fore, Alphonsus a Castro calls them " impudent 
 flatterers of the pope,"f that ascribe to him infalli- 
 bility in judgment, or interpretation of Scripture. 
 
 But, if themselves did believe it heartily, what 
 excuse is there in the world for the strange un- 
 charita-bleness or supine negligence of the popes, 
 that they do not set themselves in their chair, and 
 write infallible commentaries, and determine all 
 controversies without error, and blast all heresies 
 with the word of their mouth, declare what is and 
 what is not de fide, that their disciples and con- 
 fidents may agree ujjon it ; reconcile the Francis- 
 cans and Domicans, and expound all mysteries? 
 For it cannot be imagined, but he that was en- 
 dued with so supreme power in order to so great 
 ends, was also fitted with proportionable, that is 
 extraordinary, personal abilities, succeeding and de- 
 rived upon the persons of all the popes. And then 
 the doctors of his church need not trouble them- 
 selves v\^ith study, nor writing explications of Scrip- 
 ture, but might wholly attend to practical devotion, 
 
 * De Authorit. Eccles. cap. 10, in fine. 
 
 -|- " Impudentes papas assentatores." — Lib i. c. 4. ad vers. 
 Hffires. edit. Paris, 1534. In seqq. non expurgantur ista verba, 
 at idem seiisus manet. 
 
FALLIBILITY OF THE POPE. 211 
 
 and leave all tbeir scholastical wranglings, the dis- 
 tinguishing opinions of their orders ; and they 
 might have a fine church, something like fairy land, 
 or Lncian's kingdom in the moon. But, if they say 
 they cannot do this when they list, but when they 
 are moved to it by the Spirit, then we are never the 
 nearer ; for so may the bishop of Angouleme write 
 infallible commentaries when the Holy Ghost moves 
 him to it ; for I suppose his motions are not in- 
 effectual, but he will sufficiently assist us in per- 
 forming of what he actually moves us to : but, 
 among so many hundred decrees which the popes 
 of Rome have made, or confirmed and attested, 
 (which is all one) I would fain know in how many 
 of them did the Holy Ghost assist them ? If they 
 know it, let them declare it, that it may be certain 
 which of their decretals are de fide; for as yet none 
 of their own church knows. If they do not know, 
 then neither can we know it from them, and then 
 we are uncertain as ever : and, besides, the Holy 
 Ghost may possibly move him, and he, by his igno- 
 rance of it, may neglect so profitable a motion; and 
 then his promise of infallible assistance will be to 
 very little purpose, because it is with very much 
 fallibility applicable to practice. And, therefore, 
 it is absolutely useless to any man or any church ; 
 because, suppose it settled in Thesi, that the pope 
 is infallible, yet, whether he will do his duty, and 
 perform those conditions of being assisted which 
 are required of him, or whether he be a secret 
 Simoniac, (for if he be, he is ipno facto no pope,) 
 or whether he be a bishop, or priest, or a Christian, 
 being all uncertain ; every one of these depending 
 upon the intention and power of the baptizer or 
 ordainer, which also are fallible, because they de- 
 
 p2 
 
212 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 pend upon the honesty and power of other men, 
 we cannot be infallibly certain of any pope that he 
 is infallible ; and, therefore, when our questions are 
 determined, we are never the nearer, but may hug 
 ourselves in an imaginary truth ; the certainty of 
 finding truth out depending upon so many fallible 
 and contingent circumstances. And, therefore, the 
 thing, if it were true, being so to no purpose, it is to 
 be presumed that God never gave a power so im- 
 pertinently, and from whence no benefit can accrue 
 to the Christian church, for whose use and benefit, 
 if at all, it must needs have been appointed. 
 
 But I am too long in this impertinency. If I 
 were bound to call any man master upon earth, 
 and to believe him upon his own affirmative and 
 authority, I would, of all men, least follow him that 
 pretends he is infallible and cannot prove it. For 
 that he cannot prove it, makes me as uncertain as 
 ever; and that he pretends to infallibility makes 
 him careless of using such means which will morally 
 secure those wise persons, who, knowing their own 
 aptness to be deceived, use what endeavours they 
 can to secure themselves from error, and so become 
 the better and more probable guides. 
 
 Well ! thus far we are come : although we are 
 secured in fundamental points from involuntary 
 error, by the plain, express, and dogmatical places 
 of Scripture, yet, in other things, we are not, but 
 may be invincibly mistaken, because of the obscu- 
 rity and difficulty in the controverted parts of 
 Scripture, by reason of the uncertainty of the means 
 of its interpretation ; since tradition is of an uncer- 
 tain reputation, and sometimes evidently false; 
 councils are contradictory to each other, and there- 
 fore, certainly, are equally deceived many of them. 
 
INCONSISTENCIES OF THE FATHERS. 213 
 
 and therefore all may ; and then the popes of Rome 
 are very likely to mislead us, but cannot ascertain 
 us of truth in matter of question ; and in this world 
 we believe in part, and prophesy in part ; and this 
 imperfection shall never be done away, till we be 
 translated to a more glorious state ; either we must 
 throw our chances, and get truth by accident or 
 predestination, or else we must lie safe in a mutual 
 toleration, and private liberty of persuasion, unless 
 some other anchor can be thought upon, where we 
 may fasten our floating vessels, and ride safely. 
 
 SECTION VIII. 
 
 Of the Disability of Fathers or Writers Ecclesiastical, 
 to determine our Questions, with certainty and 
 truth. 
 
 There are some that think they can determine all 
 questions in the world by two or three sayings of 
 the Fathers, or by the consent of so many as they 
 will please to call a concurrent testimony. But 
 this consideration will soon be at an end ; for, if 
 the fathers, when they are witnesses of tradition, do 
 not always speak truth, as it happened in the case 
 of Papias and his numerous followers, for almost 
 three ages together, then is their testimony more 
 improbable when they dispute or write commenta- 
 ries. 
 
 2. The fathers of the first ages spake unitedly 
 
214 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 concerning divers questions of secret theology, and 
 yet were afterwards contradicted by one personage 
 of great reputation, whose credit had so much in- 
 fluence upon the world, as to make the contrary 
 opinion become popular : why, then, may not w^e 
 have the same liberty, when so plain an uncertainty 
 is in their persuasions, and so great contrariety in 
 their doctrines ? But this is evident in the case 
 of absolute predestination, which, till St. Austin's 
 time, no man preached, but all taught the contrary ; 
 and yet the reputation of this one excellent man 
 altered the scene. But, if he might dissent from 
 so general a doctrine, w hy may not we do so too, 
 it being pretended that he is so excellent a prece- 
 dent to be followed, if we have the same reason ? 
 He had no more authority nor dispensation to dis- 
 sent, than any bishop hath now\ And therefore 
 St. Austin hath dealt ingenuously; and as he took 
 this liberty to himself, so he denies it not to others, 
 but, indeed, forces them to preserve their own li- 
 berty. And, therefore, when St. Jerome* had a 
 great mind to follow the fathers in a point that he 
 fancied, and the best security he had w as, Patiaris 
 me cum talibus errare, " You may allow me to err 
 with such men," St. Austin would not endure it, 
 but answered his reason, and neglected the autho- 
 thority. And therefore it had been most unrea- 
 sonable that we should do that now, though in his 
 behalf, which he, towards greater personages, (for 
 so they were then,) at that time judged to be un- 
 reasonable. It is a plain recession from antiquity, 
 which w as determined by the council of Florence, 
 " that the souls of the saints are received imme- 
 
 * Sess. ult. 
 
INCONSISTENCIES OF THE FATHERS. 2l0 
 
 diately in heaven, and clearly behold God himself, 
 three in one ;"* as who please to try, may see it dog-- 
 matically resolved to the contrary by Justin Martyr, f 
 Iraeneus,t byOrigen,§ St.Chrysostom,|| Theodoret,5[ 
 ArethasCaesariensis,* Euthymius,f vvhomay answer 
 for the Greek church; and it is plain that it was the 
 opinion of the Greek church, by that great difficulty 
 the Romans had of bringing' the Greeks to subscribe 
 to the Florentine council, where the Latins acted 
 their masterpiece of wit and stratagem, the greatest 
 that hath been till the famous and superpolitic de- 
 sign of Trent. And for the Latin church, Tertul- 
 lian t St. Ambrose,§ St. Austin,|j St. Hilary,f 
 Prudentius,* Lactantius,f Victorinus Martyr,t and 
 St. Bernard § are known to be of opinion that the 
 souls of the saints are in ahditis receptaculis, et ex- 
 terioribus atriis, " in secret receptacles and outer 
 courts," where they expect the resurrection of their 
 bodies, and the glorification of their souls; and 
 though they all believe them to be happy, yet 
 they enjoy not the beatific vision before the resur- 
 rection. Now, there being so full a consent of 
 Fathers, (for many more may be added,) and the 
 decree of pope John XXTI. besides, who was so 
 
 * " Piorum animas purgatas, &c. mox in coelum recipi, et 
 intueri clare ipsum Deuin trinum et unum sicuti est." 
 
 -j- Q. 60, ad. Christian. J Lib. v. § Horn. vii. in Levit. 
 II Horn, xxxix. in I Cor. ^ In c. 1 1, ad. Heb. 
 
 * In c. 6, ad Apoc. t In 16, c. Luc. 
 
 X Lib. iv. adv. Mar. § Lib. ii. de. Cain. c. 2. 
 
 11 Ep. iii. ad Fortunatianum. 5[ In Psal. 138. 
 
 * De exeq. Defunctor. + Lib. vii. c. 21. :{: In c. G, Apoc. 
 § Serm. iii. de Om. Sanctis. Vid. enim St. Aug. in Enchir. 
 
 c. 108, et lib. xii. de Civit. Dei. c. 9, et in Ps. 36, et in lib- i. 
 Retract, c. 14. Vid. insvxper testimonia quae collegit Spala. lib. 
 V. c. 8- n. 98, de Repub. Eccl. et Sixt. Senen. lib. 6, 
 Annot. 345. 
 
216 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 confident for his decree, that he commanded the 
 university of Paris to swear that they would preach 
 it and no other, and that none should be promoted 
 to degrees in theology that did not swear the like, 
 (as Occham,* Gerson,f Marsilius,t and Adrianus § 
 report.) Since it is esteemed lawful to dissent 
 from yll these, I hope no man will be so unjust to 
 press other men to consent to an authority which 
 he himself judges to be incompetent. These two 
 great instances are enough ; but if more were ne- 
 cessary, I could instance, in the opinion of the 
 Chiliasts, maintained by the second and third cen- 
 turies, and disavowed ever since; in the doctrine 
 of communicating infants, taught and practised as 
 necessary by the fourth and fifth centuries, and 
 detested by the Latin church in all the following 
 ages; in the variety of opinions concerning the 
 very form of baptism; some keeping close to the 
 institution and the words of its first sanction, others 
 affirming it to be sufficient, if it be administered 
 in nomine C/ir?s^/;|| particularly St. Ambrose, pope 
 Nicholas I. V. Bede^J and St. Bernard,* besides 
 some writers of after ages, as Hugo de S. Victore, 
 and the doctors generally, his contemporaries. And 
 it would not be inconsiderable to observe, that if 
 any synod, general, national, or provincial, be re- 
 ceded from by the church of the later age, (as there 
 have been very many,) then, so many fathers as 
 were then assembled and united in opinion, are 
 esteemed no authority to determine our persuasions. 
 Now, suppose two hundred fathers assembled in 
 
 * In Oper. nonag. dierum. + Serm. de Paschat. 
 
 X In iv. sent. q. 13. a 3. § In 4, de Sacram. Confirmat. 
 
 II De Consecrat. dist. 4, c. a quod in Judeo. 
 i[ Inc. 10, Act. * Ep. 340. 
 
INCONSISTENCIES OF THE FATHERS. 217 
 
 such a council, if all they had writ books and 
 authorities, two hundred authorities had been al- 
 leged in confirmation of an opinion, it would have 
 made a mighty noise, and loaded any man with an 
 insupportable prejudice that should dissent : and 
 yet every opinion maintained against the authority 
 of any one council, though but provincial, is, in its 
 proportion, such a violent recession and neglect of 
 the authority and doctrine of so many fathers as 
 were then assembled, who did as much declare 
 their opinion in those assemblies, by their suffrages, 
 as if they had writ it in so many books ; and their 
 opinion is more considerable in the assembly than 
 in their writings, because it was more deliberate, 
 assisted, united, and dogmatical. In pursuance of 
 this observation, it is to be noted, by way of 
 instance, that St. Austin, and two hundred and 
 seventeen bishops, and all their successors,*' for a 
 whole age together, did consent in denying appeals 
 to Rome ; and yet the authority of so many fathers 
 (all true catholics) is of no force now at Rome, in 
 this question; but if it be in a matter they like, one 
 of these fathers alone is sufficient. The doctrine of 
 St. Austin alone brought in the festival and vene- 
 ration of the assumption of the blessed virgin, and 
 the hard sentence passed at Rome upon unbaptized 
 infants, and the Dominican ojjinion concerning 
 predetermination, derived from him alone, as from 
 
 * Vid. Epist. Bonifacii II. apud Nicolinum, torn. ii. Concil. 
 pag. 544, et exemplar precum Eulalii apud eundem, ibid. p. 525. 
 Qui anathematizat omnes decessores suos, qui, in ea causa, Roma 
 se opponendo recta fidei regulam praevaricati sunt ; inter quos 
 tamen fuit Augustinus, quem pro maledicto Caelestinus tacite 
 agnoscit, admittendo so. exemplar precum. Vid. Doctor. Marta. 
 de Jurisdict. part. iv. p. 273, et Erasm. Annot. in Hieron. 
 praefat. in Daniel. 
 
218 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 their original; so that if a father speaks for them, 
 it is wonderful to see what tragedies are stirred up 
 against them that dissent, as is to be seen in that 
 excellent nothing of Campian's ten reasons. But 
 if the fathers be against them, then " tlie fathers 
 have, in some things, mistaken in no slight degree, 
 and some of them most egregiously,"* says Bel- 
 larmine; and it is certain, the chiefest of them 
 have foully erred. Nay, Posa, Salmeron, and 
 Wadding, in the question of the immaculate con- 
 ception, make no scruple to dissent from antiquity, 
 to prefer new doctors before the old; and, to justify 
 themselves, bring instances in which the church of 
 Rome had determined ai>-ainst the fathers. And it 
 is not excuse enough to say that, singly, the fathers 
 may err ; but if tliey concur they are certain testi- 
 mony : for there is no question this day disputed, 
 by persons that are willing to be tried by the 
 fathers, so generally attested on either side, as some 
 points are which both sides dislike severally or 
 conjunctly : and therefore, it is not honest for 
 either side to press the authority of the fathers, 
 as a concluding argument in matter of dispute, 
 unless themselves will be content to submit, in all 
 things, to the testimony of an equal number of 
 them ; which I am certain neither side will do. 
 
 3. If I should reckon all the particular reasons 
 against the certainty of this topic, it would be more 
 than needs as to this question; and therefore I 
 will abstain from all disparagement of those worthy 
 personages, who were excellent lights to their 
 several dioceses and cures. And therefore I will 
 
 * " Patres in quibusdam non leviter lapsi sunt ; constat, quos- 
 dam ex preecipuis." — De '\''erb. Dei, lib. iii. c. 10, § dices. 
 
INCONSISTENCIES OF THE FATHERS. 219 
 
 not instance, that Clemens Alexandrinus* taught, 
 that Christ felt no hunger or thirst, but eat only to 
 make demonstration of the verity of his human na- 
 ture ; nor that St. Hilary taught that Christ, in his 
 sufferings, had no sorrow ; nor that Origen taught 
 the pains of hell not to have an eternal duration ; 
 nor that St. Cyprian taught rebaptization ; nor 
 that Athenagoras condemned second marriages; nor 
 that St. John Damascen said, Christ only prayed 
 in appearance, not really and in truth : I ^vill let 
 them all rest in peace, and their memories in ho- 
 nour. For if I should inquire into the particular 
 probations of this article, I must do to them as I 
 should be forced to do now : if any man should 
 say that the writings of the schoolmen were excel- 
 lent argument and authority to determine men's 
 persuasions, I must consider their writings, and 
 observe their defailances, their contradictions, the 
 weakness of their arguments, the mis-allegations of 
 Scripture, their inconsequent deductions, their false 
 opinions, and all the weaknesses of humanity, and 
 the failings of their persons, which no good man is 
 willing to do, unless he be compelled to it by a 
 pretence that they are infallible, or that they are 
 followed by men even into errors or impiety. And, 
 therefore, since there is enough in the former in- 
 stances to cure any such mispersuasion and preju- 
 dice, I will instance, in the innumerable particulari- 
 ties that might persuade us to keep our liberty en- 
 tire, or to use it discreetly. For it is not to be denied 
 but that great advantages are to be made by their 
 writings, et probahile est quod omnibus, quod pliiribus, 
 quod sapient ibus videtur ; if one wise man says a 
 thing, it is an argument to me to believe it in its 
 * Strom, lib. iii. et vi. 
 
220 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 degree of probation ; that is, proportionable to such 
 an assent as the authority of a wise man can pro- 
 duce, and when there is nothing against it that is 
 greater ; and so in proportion, higher and higher, 
 as more wise men (such as the old doctors were) 
 do affirm it. But that which I complain of is, that 
 we look upon wise men that lived long ago, with 
 so much veneration and mistake, that we reverence 
 them, not for having been wise men, but that they 
 lived long since. But, when the question is con- 
 cerning authority, there must be something to build 
 it on ; a Divine commandment, human sanction, 
 excellency of spirit, and greatness of understand- 
 ing, on which things all human authority is regu- 
 larly built. But, now, if we had lived in their 
 times, (for so we must look upon them now, as they 
 did who, without prejudice, beheld them,) I sup- 
 pose we should then have beheld them as we, in 
 England, look on those prelates who are of great 
 reputation for learning and sanctity : here only is 
 the difference ; when persons are living, their au- 
 thority is depressed by their personal defailances 
 and the contrary interests of their contemporaries, 
 which disband, when they are dead, and leave their 
 credit entire, upon the reputation of those excellent 
 books and monuments of learning and piety which 
 are left behind : but beyond this, why the bishop 
 of Hippo shall have greater authority than the 
 bishop of the Canaries, ceteris paribus, I under- 
 stand not. For did they that lived (to instance) 
 in St. Austin's time, believe all that he wrote P If 
 they did they were much to blame, or else him- 
 self was to blame for retracting much of it a 
 little before his death : and if, while he lived, his 
 affirmative was no more authority than derives 
 
INCONSISTENCIES OF THE FATHERS. 221 
 
 from the credit of one very wise man, against whom, 
 also, very wise men were opposed, T know not why 
 his authority should prevail further now ; for there 
 is nothing- added to the strength of his reason 
 since that time, but only that he hath been in 
 great esteem with posterity. And if that be all, 
 why the opinion of the following ages shall be of 
 more force than the opinion of the first ages, against 
 whom St. Austin, in many things, clearly did op- 
 pose himself, I see no reason ; or whether the first 
 ages were against him, or no, yet that he is ap- 
 proved by the following ages is no better argu- 
 ment ; for it makes his authority not to be innate, 
 but derived from the opinion of others, and so to be 
 precarious, and to depend upon others, who, if they 
 should change their opinions, and such examples 
 there have been many, then there were nothing left 
 to urge our consent to him ; which, when it was at 
 the best, was only this, because he had the good 
 fortune to be believed by them that came after, he 
 must be so still ; and because it was no argument 
 for the old doctors before him, this will not be very 
 good in his behalf. The same I say of any com- 
 pany of them ; I say not so of all of them ; it is to 
 no purpose to say it, for there is no question this 
 day in contestation, in the explication of which all 
 the old writers did consent. In the assignation of 
 the canon of Scripture, they never did consent for 
 six hundred years together ; and then, by that 
 time the bishops had agreed indifferently well, 
 and but indifferently, upon that, they fell out in 
 twenty more; and except it be in the apostles' 
 creed, and articles of such nature, there is nothing 
 which may, with any colour, be called a consent, 
 much less tradition universal. 
 
222 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 4. But I will rather choose to show the uncer- 
 tainty of this topic, by such an argument which 
 was not in the fathers' power to help ; such as makes 
 no invasion upon their great reputation, which 
 I desire should be preserved as sacred as it ought. 
 For other things, let who please, read Mr. Daille, 
 " On the true Use of the Fathers ;" but I shall 
 only consider, that the writings of the fathers 
 have been so corrupted by the intermixture of 
 heretics, so many false books put forth in their 
 names, so many of their writings lost which 
 would more clearly have explicated their sense ; 
 and, at last, an open profession made, and a 
 trade of making the fathers speak, not what them- 
 selves thought, but what other men pleased ; that 
 it is a great instance of God's providence, and 
 care of his church, that we have so much good 
 preserved in the writings which we receive from 
 the fathers, and that all truth is not as clear gone 
 as is the certainty of their great authority and 
 reputation. 
 
 The publishing books with the inscription of 
 great names, began in St. Paul's time; for some 
 had troubled the church of Thessalonica with a 
 false epistle, in St. Paul's name, against the incon- 
 venience of which he arms them, in 2 Thess. ii. I, : 
 and this increased daily in the church. The 
 Arians wrote an epistle to Constantine,* under the 
 name of Athanasius, and the Eutychians wrote 
 against Cyril of Alexandria, under the name of 
 Theodoret; and of the age in which the seventh 
 synod was kept, Erasmus reports, *' That books, 
 under the assumed name of illustrious men, were 
 
 * Apolog. Athenas. ad. Constant. 
 
INCONSISTENCIES OF THE FATHERS. 223 
 
 everywhere to be met with."* It was then a public 
 business, and a trick not more base than public : 
 but it was more ancient than so, and it is memora- 
 ble in the books attributed to St. Basil, containing 
 thirty chapters " concerning- the Holy Spirit," 
 whereof, fifteen were plainly added by another 
 hand, under the covert of St. Basil, as appears in 
 the difference of the style, in the impertinent di- 
 gressions, against the custom of that excellent 
 man, by some passages contradictory to others of 
 St. Basil, by citing Meletius as dead before him, 
 who yet lived, three years after him,t and by the 
 very frame and manner of the discourse ; and yet 
 it was so handsomely carried, and so well served 
 the purposes of men, that it was quoted under the 
 title of St. Basil by many, but without naming the 
 number of chapters, and by St. John Damascen, in 
 these words : " Basil, in a work containing thirty 
 chapters, to Amphilochius;"| and to the same 
 purpose, and in the number of twenty-seven and 
 twenty-nine chapters, he is cited by Photius, § by 
 Euthymius, by Burchard, by Zonaras, Balsamon, 
 and Nicephorus; but for this, see more in Eras- 
 mus's preface upon this book of St. Basil. There 
 is an epistle goes still under the name of St. 
 Jerome, to the virgin Demetrias, and is of great 
 use in the question of predestination, with its ap- 
 pendices, and yet a very learned man,i| eight hun- 
 dred years ago, did believe it to be written by a 
 
 * " Libris falso celebrium virorum titulo commendatis 
 scaterc omnia." — Vid. Baron, a.d. 553. 
 
 -|- Vid. Baron, in Annal. 
 
 J " Basilius in opere triginta capitum de Spiritu S. ad Am- 
 pliilochium." — Lib. i. de Imagin. Orat. 1. 
 
 § Noraocan. tit. i. cap. 3. 
 
 li V. Beda de Gratia Christi. adv. Julianum. 
 
224 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 Pelagian, and undertakes to confute divers parts 
 of it, as being high and confident Pelagianism, 
 and written by Julianus Episc. Eclanensis ; ^- but 
 Grefforius Ariminensis, from St. Austin, affirms it 
 to have been written by Pelagius himself. I might 
 instance in too many. There is not any one of the 
 fathers who is esteemed author of any considerable 
 number of books, that hath escaped untouched : 
 but the abuse in this kind hath been so evident, 
 that now, if any interested person, of any side, be 
 pressed with an authority very pregnant against 
 him, he thinks to escape by accusing the edition, 
 or the author, or the hands it passed through, or, at 
 last, he therefore suspects it, because it makes 
 against him : both sides being resolved that they 
 are in the right, the authorities that they admit 
 they will believe not to be against them ; and they 
 which are too plainly against them shall be no 
 authorities : and, indeed, the whole world hath 
 been so much abused, that every man thinks he 
 hath reason to suspect whatsoever is against him, 
 that is, what he please ; which proceeding only 
 produces this truth, that there neither is, nor can 
 be any certainty, nor very much prolmbility, in 
 such allegations. 
 
 But there is a worse mischief than this, besides 
 those very many which are not yet discovered, 
 which like the pestilence destroys in the dark, and 
 grows into inconvenience more insensibly and 
 more irremediably ; and that is, corruption of par- 
 ticular jDlaces, by inserting words and altering them 
 to contrary senses ; a thing which the fathers of the 
 sixth general synod complained of concerning the 
 
 * Greg. Arim. in ii. sent. dist. xxvi. q. 1. a. 3. 
 
OF THE FATHERS. 225 
 
 constitutions of St. Clement, " in which certain 
 corruptions of the true faith are introduced by per- 
 sons heretically inclined, which have obscured the 
 beauty of the divine decrees:"* and so also have 
 his recognitions, so have his epistles been used, if, at 
 least, they were his at all; particularly the fifth de- 
 cretal epistle, that goes under the name of St. Cle- 
 ment, in which community of wives is taught upon 
 the authority of St. Luke, saying, the first Chris- 
 tians had all things common ; if all things, then 
 wives also, says the epistle : a forgery like to have 
 been done by some Nicolaitan, or other impure 
 person. There is an epistle of Cyril extant, to Suc- 
 cessus, bishop of Diocsesarea, in which he relates, 
 that he was asked by Bud us, bishop of Emessa, 
 whether he did approve of the epistle of Athanasius 
 to Epictetus, bishop of Corinth, and that his 
 answer was : " If the copies you have are not cor- 
 rupted, for many are found to be so by the enemies 
 of the church." f And this was done even while 
 the authors themselves were alive; for so Dionysius 
 of Corinth complained that his writings were cor- 
 rupted by heretics, and Pope Leo, that his epistle 
 to Flavianus was perverted by the Greeks : and in 
 the synod of Constantinople, t before quoted, (the 
 sixth synod,) Macarius, and his disciples, were 
 convicted " of garbling, or corrupting, the writings 
 
 * " Quibus jam olim, ab iis qui a fide aliena sentiunt, adul- 
 terina queedam etiam pietate aliena introducta sunt, quae divino- 
 rum nobis decretorum elegantem et venustam speciem obscura- 
 runt." — Can. ii. 
 
 •\ " Si haec apud vos scripta non sint adultera ; nam plura ex 
 
 his ab hostibus Ecclesias deprehenduntur esse depravata." 
 
 Euseb. lib. iv. c. 23. 
 
 X Act. viii. vid. etiam Synod, vii. act. 4. 
 
226 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 of the saints." * Thus the third chapter of St. Cy- 
 prian's book, " On the Unity of the Church," in the 
 edition of Pamelius, suffered great alteration. These 
 words, primafus Petro datiir, "the primacy is given 
 to St. Peter," wholly inserted; and these, super 
 caihedram Petri fundata est ecclesia, " the church 
 is founded upon the chair of St. Peter:" and 
 whereas it was before, super unum mdijicat eccle- 
 siam Christus, "Christ builds his church upon one ; ' 
 that not being enough, ihey have made it super 
 ilium unum, ''upon that one." Now, these addi- 
 tions are against the faith of all old copies before 
 Minutius and Pamelius, and against Gratian, even 
 after himself had been chastised by the Roman 
 correctors, the commissaries of Gregory XIII. ; as 
 is to be seen where these words are alleged, Decret. 
 c. 24, q. 1. can. Loquitur Dominus ad Petrum. So 
 that we may say of Cyprian's works, as Pamelius 
 himself said concerning his writings, and the writ- 
 ings of other of the fathers; saith he : "Whence 
 we gather, that the writings of Cyprian, and others 
 of the fathers, are in various ways corrupted by the 
 transcribers." f But Gratian himself could do as 
 fine a feat when he listed, or else somebody did it 
 for him ; and it was in this very question, their be- 
 loved article of the pope's supremacy ; for he 
 quotes these words out of St. Ambrose : " They do 
 not hold the inheritance of Peter, who do not pos- 
 sess the seat of Peter :"j jidem, " faith," not sedem, 
 
 * " Quod sanctorum testimonia aut truncarint aut deprava- 
 rint." 
 
 -f- " Cypriani scripta ut et aliorum Veterum a librariis varie 
 fuisse interpolata." — Annot. Ciprian. super. Concil. Carthag. n.l. 
 
 :!: " Non habent Petri heEreditatem, qui non habent Petri 
 sedem." 
 
OF THE FATHERS. 227 
 
 "seat," it is in St. Ambrose; but this error was 
 made authentic by being inserted into the code of 
 the law of the catholic church ; and considering 
 how little notice the clergy had of antiquity, but 
 what was transmitted to them by Gratian, it will be 
 no great wonder that all this part of the world 
 swallowed such a bole, and the opinion that was 
 wrapped in it. But I need not instance in Gratian 
 any further, but refer any one that desires to be 
 satisfied concerning this collection of his, to Au- 
 gustinus, archbishop of Tarracon, in Emendafione 
 Graiiani, where he shall find fopperies and cor- 
 ruptions, good store, noted by that learned man : 
 but that the Indices Expurgatorii, commanded by 
 authority, * and practised with public licence, pro- 
 fess to alter and correct the sayings of the fathers, 
 and to reconcile them to the catholic sense, by 
 putting in and leaving out, is so great an imposture, 
 so unchristian a proceeding, that it hath made the 
 faith of all books and all authors justly to be sus- 
 pected. For considering their infinite diligence and 
 great opportunity, as having had most of the 
 copies in their own hands, together with an un, 
 satisfiable desire of prevailing in their right, or 
 in their wrong, they have made an absolute destruc- 
 tion of this topic; and when the fathers speak 
 Latin, f or breathe in a Roman diocess, although 
 the providence of God does infinitely overrule 
 them, and that it is next to a miracle, that in the 
 
 * Vid. Ind. Expurg. Belg. in Bertram, et Fland. Hispan. 
 Portugal. Neopolitan. Romanum, Junium in prefat. ad Ind. 
 Expurg. Belg. Hasenmusserum, p. 275. Withlington, Apo- 
 log. mim. 449. 
 
 t Videat Lector Andream Cristovium, in Bello Jesuitico, et 
 Joh. Reynolds, in lib. de Idol. Rom. 
 
 q2 
 
228 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 monuments of antiquity there is no more found 
 that can pretend for their advantage than there is, 
 which, indeed, is infinitely inconsiderable; yet, 
 our questions and uncertainties are infinitely mul- 
 tiplied, instead of a probable and reasonable deter- 
 mination. For since the Latins always complained 
 of the Greeks, for privately corrupting the ancient 
 records, both of councils and fathers,* and now 
 the Latins make open profession, not of corrupt- 
 ing, but of correcting their writings, (that is the 
 word,) and at the most it was but a human autho- 
 rity, and that of persons not always learned, and 
 very often deceived; the whole matter is so unreason- 
 able, that it is not worth a further disquisition. But 
 if any one desires to inquire further, he may be sa- 
 tisfied in Erasmus; in Henry and Robert Stephens, 
 in the prefaces before the editions of Fathers, and 
 their observation upon them; in Bellarmine, de 
 Script. Eccles. ; in Dr. Reynolds, de Libris Apocry- 
 phis ; in Scaliger ; and Robert Coke of Leeds, in 
 Yorkshire, in his book de Censura Patrum. 
 
 * Vid. Ep. Nicolai ad jMichael. Imperat. 
 
229 
 
 SECTION IX. 
 
 Of the incompetency of the Church in its diffusive 
 capacity to he judge of Controversies, and the im- 
 pertinency of that pretence of the Spirit. 
 
 And now, after all these considerations of the se- 
 veral topics, tradition, councils, popes, and ancient 
 doctors of the church, I suppose it will not be ne- 
 cessary to consider the authority of the church 
 apart ; for the church either speaks by tradition, 
 or by a representative body in a council, by popes, 
 or by the fathers : for the church is not a chimaera, 
 not a shadow, but a company of men believing in 
 Jesus Christ, which men either speak by them- 
 selves immediately, or by their rulers, or by their 
 proxies and representatives. Now, I have consi- 
 dered it in all senses but in its diffusive cajjacity ; 
 in which capacity she cannot be supposed to be a 
 judge of controversies, both because in that capa- 
 city she cannot teach us, as also because if by a 
 judge we mean all the church diffused in all its 
 parts and members, so there can be no contro- 
 versy; for if all men be of that opinion, then there 
 is no question contested : if they be not all of a 
 mind, how can the whole diffusive catholic church 
 be pretended in defiance of any one article, where 
 the diffusive church being divided, part goes this 
 way and part another ? But if it be said, the 
 greatest part must carry it; besides that it is im- 
 
230 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 possible for us to know which way the greatest 
 part goes, in many questions, it is not always true 
 that the greater part is the best ; sometimes the 
 contrary is most certain, and it is often very 
 probable, but it is always possible. And when 
 paucity of followers was objected to Liberius, he 
 gave this in answer: " There was a time when but 
 three children of the captivity resisted the king's 
 decree."* And Athanasiusf wrote on purpose 
 against those that did judge of truth by multi- 
 tudes; and indeed it concerned him so to do, when 
 he alone stood in the gap against the numerous 
 armies of the Arians. 
 
 But if there could, in this case, be any distinct 
 consideration of the church, yet to know which is 
 the true church is so hard to be found out, that the 
 greatest questions of Christendom are judged be- 
 fore you can get to your judge, and then there is 
 no need of him. For those questions which ai^e 
 concerning the judge of questions, must be deter- 
 mined before you can submit to his judgment; and 
 if you can yourselves determine those great c[ues- 
 tions, which consist much in universalities, then 
 also you may determine the particulars, as being of 
 less difficulty. And he that considers how many 
 notes there are given to know the true church (no 
 less than fifteen by Bellarmine) and concerning 
 every one of them, almost, whether it be a ceitain 
 note or no, there are very many questions and un- 
 certainties ; and when it is resolved which are the 
 notes, there is more dispute about the application 
 of these notes than of the UpioroKpiiwix^vov, (ori- 
 ginal question,) will quickly be satisfied that he 
 
 * Theod. lib. ii. c. \G, Hist, f Tom. la. 
 
OF THE CHURCH. 231 
 
 had better sit still than to go round about a difficult 
 and troublesome passage, and at last get no fur- 
 ther, but return to the place from whence he first 
 set out. And there is one note amongst the rest, — 
 holiness of doctrine ; — that is, so as to have nothing- 
 false either in faith or morals, (for so Bellarmine 
 explicates it,) which supposes all your contro- 
 versies judged before they can be tried by the au- 
 thority of the church ; and when we have found out 
 all true doctrine, (for that is necessary to judge of 
 the church by, that as St Austin's council is, " We 
 should look for the church in the wordsof Christ;")* 
 then we are bound to follow because we judge it 
 true, not because the church hath said it : — and this 
 is to judge of the church by her doctrine; not of 
 the doctrine by the church. And, indeed, it is the 
 best and only way; but then how to judge of that 
 doctrine will be afterwards inquired into. In the 
 mean time, the church, that is, the governors of the 
 churches, are to judge for themselves, and for all 
 those who cannot judge for themselves. For others, 
 they must know that their governors judge for 
 them too, so as to keep them in peace and obedi- 
 ence, though not for the determination of their pri- 
 vate persuasions ; for the economy of the church 
 requires that her authority be received by all her 
 children. Now this authority is divine in its origi- 
 nal, for it derives immediately from Christ ; but it 
 is human in its ministration. We are to be led 
 like men, not like beasts: a rule is prescribed for 
 the guides themselves to follow, as we are to follow 
 the guides; and although, in matters indetermina- 
 ble or ambiguous, the presumption lies on behalf 
 
 * " Ecclesiara in verbis Christi invest! genius." 
 
232 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 of the governors; (for we do nothing for authority, 
 if we suffer it not to weigh that part down of an 
 indifferency and a question w^hich she chooses ;) yet 
 if there be a manifest error, as it often happens, or 
 if the church governors themselves be rent into in- 
 numerable sects, as it is this day in Christendom, 
 then we are to be as wise as we can in choosing our 
 guides, and then to follow so long as that reason 
 remains for which we first chose them. And even 
 in that government which was an immediate sanc- 
 tion of God, I mean the ecclesiastical government 
 of the synagogue, where God had consigned the 
 high priest's authority, with a menace of death to 
 them that should disobey, that all the world might 
 know the meaning and extent of such precepts, 
 and that there is a limit beyond which they cannot 
 command, and we ought not to obey ; it came 
 once to pass, that if the priest had been obeyed in 
 his conciliary degrees, the whole nation had been 
 bound to believe the condemnation of our blessed 
 Saviour to have been just ; and, at another time, the 
 apostles must no more have preached in the name 
 of Jesus. But here was manifest error; and the 
 case is the same to every man that invincibly, and 
 therefore innocently, believes it so. ' Obey God 
 rather than man,' is our rule in such cases. For 
 although every man is bound to follow his guide, 
 unless he believes his guide to mislead him, yet 
 when he sees reason against his guide, it is best to 
 follow his reason ; for though in this he may fall 
 into error, yet he will escape the sin — he may do 
 violence to truth, but never to his own conscience; 
 and an honest error is better than an hypocritical 
 profession of truth, or a violent luxation of the un- 
 derstanding ; since, if he retains his honesty and 
 
OF THE CHURCH. 233 
 
 simplicity, he cannot err in a matter of faith or abso- 
 lute necessity. God's goodness hath secured all 
 honest and careful persons from that — for other 
 things he must follow the best guides he can, and 
 he cannot be obliged to follow better than God 
 hath given him. 
 
 And there is yet another way pretended, of in- 
 fallible expositions of Scripture, and that is, by the 
 Spirit : but of this I shall say no more, but that it 
 is impertinent to this question. For put case, the 
 Spirit is given to some men, enabling them to ex- 
 pound infallibly ; yet because this is but a private 
 assistance, and cannot be proved to others, this in- 
 fallible assistance may determine my own assent, 
 but shall not enable me to prescribe to others ; be- 
 cause it were unreasonable I should, unless I could 
 prove to him that I have the Spirit, and so can se- 
 cure him from being deceived, if he relies upon me. 
 In this case I may say, as St. Paul, in the case of 
 praying with the Spirit : ' He verily giveth thanks 
 well; but the other is not edified.' So that, let 
 this pretence be as true as it will, it is sufficient 
 that it cannot be of consideration in this question. 
 
 The result of all this — since it is not reasonable 
 to limit and to prescribe to ail men's understandings, 
 by any external rule in the interpretation of diffi- 
 cult places of Scripture, which is our rule ; since 
 no man, nor company of men, is secure from error, 
 or can secure us that they are free from malice, in- 
 terest, and design ; and since all the ways by which 
 we usually are taught, as tradition, councils, decre- 
 tals, &c. are very uncertain in the matter, in their 
 authority, in their being legitimate and natural, 
 and many of them certainly false, and nothing cer- 
 tain but the divine authority of Scripture, in which 
 
234 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 all that is necessary is plain, and much of that 
 that is not necessary, is very obscure, intricate, and 
 involved ; either we must set up our rest only 
 upon articles of faith and plain places, and be in- 
 curious of other obscurer revelations; (which is a 
 duty for persons of private understandings, and of 
 no public function;) or, if we will search further, 
 (to which, in some measure, the guides of others 
 are obliged,) it remains, we inquire how men may 
 determine themselves, so as to do their duty to 
 God and not to disserve the church, that every 
 such man may do \^'hat he is bound to, in his per- 
 sonal capacity, and as he relates to the public as a 
 public minister. 
 
 SECTION X. 
 
 Of the Authority of Reason, and that it proceeding 
 upon best grounds is the best judge. 
 
 Here then I consider, that although no man may 
 be trusted to judge for all others, unless this person 
 were infallible and authorised so to do, which no 
 man nor no company of men is, yet every man 
 may be trusted to judge for himself; I say every 
 man that can judge at all; (as for others, they are 
 to be saved as it pleaseth God ;) but others that can 
 judge at all must either choose their guides, who 
 shall judge for them; (and then they oftentimes do 
 the wisest, and always save themselves a labour, 
 but then they choose too;) or if they be persons of 
 greater understanding, then they are to choose for 
 
THE AUTHORITY OF REASON. 235 
 
 themselves in particular what the others do in gene- 
 ral, and by choosing their guide : and for this any 
 man may be better trusted for himself than any 
 man can be for another : for, in this case, his own 
 interest is most concerned ; and ability is not so 
 necessary as honesty, which certainly every man 
 will best preserve in his own case, and to himself; 
 (and, if he does not, it is he that must smart for it ;) 
 and it is not required of us not to be in error, but 
 that we endeavour to avoid it. 
 
 2. He that follows his guide so far as his reason 
 goes along with him ; or which is all one, he that 
 follows his own reason, (not guided only by natural 
 arguments, but by divine revelation, and all other 
 good means,) hath great advantages over him that 
 gives himself wholly to follow any human guide 
 whatsoever; because he follows all their reasons and 
 his own too: he follows them till reason leaves 
 them, or till it seems so to him, which is all one to 
 his particular; for, by the confession of all sides, an 
 eiToneous conscience binds him, when a right guide 
 does not bind him. But he that gives himself up 
 wholly to a guide, is oftentimes (I mean, if he be a 
 discerning person) forced to do violence to his own 
 understanding, and to lose all the benefit of his own 
 discretion, that he may reconcile his reason to his 
 guide. And of this we see infinite inconveniences 
 in the church of Rome; for we find persons of great 
 understanding oftentimes so amused with the au- 
 tliority of their church, that it is pity to see them 
 sweat in answering some objections, which they 
 know not how to do, but yet believe they must, 
 because the church hath said it. So that if they 
 read, study, pray, search records, and use all the 
 means of art and industry in the pursuit of truth. 
 
236 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 it is not with a resolution to follow that which shall 
 seem truth to them, but to confirm what before 
 they did believe ; and if any argument shall seem 
 unanswerable ag^ainst any article of their church, 
 they are to take it for a temptation, not for an illu- 
 mination, and they are to use it accordingly ; which 
 makes them make the devil to be the author of 
 that which God's Spirit hath assisted them to find, 
 in the use of lawful means, and the search of truth ; 
 and when the devil of falsehood is like to be cast 
 out by God's Spirit, they, say that it is through 
 Belzebub, which was one of the worst things that 
 ever the Pharisees said or did. And was it not a 
 plain stifling of the just and reasonable demands 
 made by the emperor, by the kings of France and 
 Spain, and by the ablest divines among them, 
 w hich was used in the council of Trent, when they 
 demanded the restitution of priests to their liberty 
 of marriage, the use of the chalice, the service in 
 the vulgar tongue ; and these things not only in 
 pursuance of truth, but for other great and good 
 ends, even to take away an infinite scandal, and a 
 great schism ? And yet, when they themselves 
 did profess it, all the world knew these reasonable 
 demands were denied merely upon a politic consi- 
 deration ; yet that these things should be framed 
 into articles and decrees of faith, and they for ever 
 after bound, not only not to desire the same things, 
 but to think the contrary to be divine truths, never 
 was reason made more a slave, or more useless. 
 Must not all the world say, either they must be 
 great hypocrites, or do great violence to their un- 
 derstanding, when they not only cease from their 
 claim, but must also believe it to be unjust? If 
 the use of their reason had not been restrained by 
 
THE AUTHORITY OF REASON. 237 
 
 the tyranny and imperiousness of their guide, what 
 the emperor, and the kings, and their theologues 
 would have done, they can best judge who consi- 
 der the reasonableness of the demand, and the un- 
 reasonableness of the denial. But we see many 
 wise men, who, with their optandum esset ut ecclesia 
 licentiam daret, ^c, proclaim to all the world, that 
 in some things they consent and do not consent, 
 and do not heartily believe what they are bound 
 publicly to profess; and they themselves would 
 clearly see a difference, if a contrary decree should 
 be framed by the church ; they would, with an in- 
 finite greater confidence, rest themselves in other 
 propositions than what they must believe as the 
 case now stands ; and they would find that the 
 authority of a church is a prejudice as often as a 
 free and modest use of reason is a temptation. 
 
 3. God will have no man pressed with another's 
 inconveniences in matters sjDiritual and intellectual 
 — no man's salvation to depend upon another ; and 
 every tooth that eats sour grapes shall be set on 
 edge for itself, and for none else; and this is re- 
 markable in that saying of God by the prophet : 
 ' If the prophet ceases to tell my people of their 
 sins, and leads them into error, the people shall die 
 in their sins, and the blood of them I will require 
 at the hands of that prophet.'f Meaning, that God 
 hath so set the prophets to guide us ; that we also 
 ?ire to follow them by a voluntary assent, by an act 
 of choice and election. For, although accidentally 
 and occasionally the sheep may perish by the 
 shepherd's fault, yet that which hath the chiefest 
 influence upon their final condition, is their own 
 
 * " It were to be wished, that the church allowed, &c." 
 + Ezek. xxxiii. 
 
238 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 act and election; and therefore God hath so ap- 
 pointed guides to us, that if we perish it may be 
 accounted upon both our scores, upon our own and 
 the guides' too; which says plainly, that although 
 we are intrusted to our guides, yet Vv e are intrusted 
 to ourselves too. Our guides must direct us ; and 
 yet, if they fail, God hath not so left us to them, 
 but he hath given us enough to ourselves to dis- 
 cover their failings, and our own duties in all things 
 necessary; and for other things we must do as 
 well as we can. But it is best to follow our guides, 
 if we know nothing belter ; but if we do, it is 
 better to follow the pillar of fire, than a pillar of 
 cloud, though both possibly may lead to Canaan ; 
 but then, also, it is possible thrit it may be other- 
 wise. But I am sure, if I do my own best; then, 
 if it be best to follow a guide, and if it be also 
 necessary, I shall be sure, by God's grace and my 
 own endeavour, to get to it; but if I, without the 
 particular engagement of my understanding, fol- 
 low a guide, possibly I may be guilty of extreme 
 negligence, or I may extinguish God's Spirit, or do 
 violence to my own reason. And whether intrust- 
 ing myself wholly with another be not a laying up 
 my talent in a napkin, I am not so well assured : I am 
 certain the other is not. And since another man's 
 answering for me will not hmder, but that I also 
 shall answer for myself; as it concerns him to see 
 he does not wilfully misguide me, so it concerns 
 me to see that he shall not, if I can help it; if I 
 cannot, it will not be required at my hands : whether 
 it be his fault or his invincible error, I shall be 
 charged with neither. 
 
 4. This is no other than what is enjoined as a 
 duty. For since God will be justified with a free 
 
THE AUTHORITY OF REASON. 239 
 
 obedience — and there is an obedience of under- 
 standing- as well as of will and affection — it is of 
 great concernment, as to be willing- to believe what* 
 ever God says, so also to inquire diligently whether 
 the will of God be so as it is pretended. Even our 
 acts of understanding are acts of choice ; and there- 
 fore it is commanded, as a duty, to ' search the 
 Scriptures, to try the spirits, whether they be of 
 God or no, of ourselves to be able to judge what is 
 right, to prove all things, and to retain that which is 
 best.'* For he that resolves not to consider, resolves 
 not to be careful whether he have truth or no, and 
 therefore hath an affection indifferent to truth or 
 falsehood, which is all one as if he did choose 
 amiss ; and since, when things are truly propounded 
 and made reasonable and intelligible, we cannot 
 but assent, and then it is no thanks to us; we have 
 no way to give our wills to God in matters of be- 
 lief, but by our industry in searching it, and exa- 
 mining the grounds upon which the propounders 
 build their dictates. And the not doing it, is often- 
 times a cause that God gives a man over eig vovv 
 dSoKiiJiov, into a reprobate and undiscerning mind 
 and understanding. 
 
 5. And this very thing (though men will not un- 
 derstand it) is the perjDetual practice of all men in 
 the world, that can give a reasonable account of 
 their faith. The very Catholic church itself is ra- 
 tionahilis et ubiq. diffusa, saith Optatus, 'reasonable, 
 as well as diffused every where.' For, take the prose- 
 lytes of the church of Rome — even in their greatest 
 submission of understanding they seem to them- 
 
 * Matt. XV. 10 ; John, v. 40 ; 1 .John, iv. 1 ; Ephes. v. 17 ; 
 Luke, xxiv. 25 ; Rom. iii. 11, i. 28; Apoc. ii. 2; Acts. xvii. 
 
240 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 selves to follow their reason most of all : for if you 
 tell them. Scripture and tradition are their rules to 
 follow, they will believe you when they know a rea- 
 son for it ; and if they take you upon your word, 
 they have a reason for that too : either they believe 
 you a learned man, or a good man, or that you can 
 have no ends upon them, or something- that is of 
 an equal height to fit their understandings. If 
 you tell them they must believe the church, you 
 must tell them why they are bound to it; and 
 if you quote Scripture to prove it, you must give 
 them leave to judge whether the words alleged 
 S23eak your sense or no, and therefore to dissent if 
 they say no such thing ; and although all men are 
 not wise, and proceed discreetly, yet all make their 
 choice some way or other. He that chooses to 
 please his fancy, takes his choice as much as he 
 that chooses prudently. And no man speaks more 
 unreasonably than he that denies to men the use 
 of their reason in choice of their religion : for 
 that T may, by the way, remove the common pre- 
 judice, reason and authority are not things incom- 
 petent or repugnant, especially when the autho- 
 rity is infallible and supreme ; for there is no 
 greater reason in the world than to believe such 
 an authority. But then w^e must consider, whether 
 every authority that pretends to be such, is so 
 indeed : and therefore, Deus dixit, ergo hoc verum 
 est, " God hath said it, therefore it is true," is the 
 greatest demonstration in the world for things of 
 this nature. But it is not so in human dictates ; 
 and yet reason and human authority are not ene- 
 mies: for it is a good argument for us to follow 
 such an opinion, because it is made sacred by the 
 authority of councils and ecclesiastical tradition. 
 
THE AUTHORITY OF REASON. 241 
 
 and sometimes it is the best reason we have in a 
 question, and then it is to be strictly followed ; but 
 there may also be, at other times, a reason greater 
 than it that speaks against it, and then the autho- 
 rity must not carry it. But then the difference is 
 not between reason and authority, but between this 
 reason and that, which is greater; for authority is 
 a very good reason, and is to prevail, unless a 
 stronger comes and disarms it, but then it must 
 give place. So that in this question, by reason, I 
 do not mean a distinct topic, but a transcendent 
 that runs through all topics ; for reason, like logic, 
 is instrument of all things else ; and when revela- 
 tion, and philosophy, and public experience, and 
 all other grounds of probability or demonstration, 
 have supplied us with matter, then reason does but 
 make use of them : that is, in plain terms, there 
 being so many ways of arguing, so many sects, 
 such differing interests, such variety of authority, 
 so many pretences, and so many false beliefs, it 
 concerns every wise man to consider which is the 
 best argument, which proposition relies uj^on the 
 truest grounds: and if this were not his only way, 
 why do men dispute and urge arguments, why clo 
 they cite councils and fathers, why do they allege 
 Scripture and tradition, and all this on all sides, 
 and to contrary purposes ? If we must judge, then 
 we must use our reason; if we must not judge, 
 why do they produce evidence ? Let them leave 
 disputing, and decree propositions magisterially: 
 but then we may choose whether we will believe 
 them or no ; or, if they say we must believe them, 
 they must prove it, and tell us why. And all 
 these disputes concerning tradition, councils, fa- 
 thers, &c., are not arguments against or besides 
 
 R 
 
242 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 reason, but contestations and pretences to the best 
 arguments, and the most certain satisfaction of our 
 reason. But then all these coming into c{uestion, 
 submit themselves to reason; that is, to be judged 
 by human understanding, upon the best grounds 
 and information it can receive. So that Scripture, 
 tradition, councils, and fathers, are the evidence 
 in a question, but reason is the judge ; that is, we 
 being the persons that are to be persuaded, we 
 must see that we be persuaded reasonably. And 
 it is unreasonable to assent to a lesser evidence, 
 when a greater and clearer is propounded : but of 
 that every man for himself is to take cognizance, 
 if he be able to judge; if he be not, he is not bound 
 under the tie of necessity to know any thing of it. 
 That that is necessary shall be certainly conveyed 
 to him : God, that best can, will certainly take care 
 for that ; for if he does not, it becomes to be not 
 necessary ; or, if it should still remain necessary, 
 and he damned for not knowing it, and yet to know 
 it be ncft in his power, then who can help it ? there 
 can be no further care in this business. In other 
 things, there being no absolute and prime neces- 
 sity, we are left to our liberty to judge that way that 
 makes best demonstration of our piety, and of our 
 love to God and truth ; not that w ay that is always 
 the best argument of an excellent understanding, 
 for this may be a blessing, but the other only is a 
 duty. 
 
 And now that we are pitched upon that v/ay 
 which is most natural and reasonable in deter- 
 mination of ourselves, rather than of questions, 
 which are often indeterminable, since right reason, 
 proceeding upon the best grounds it can, viz. of 
 divine revelation and human authority and uroba- 
 
CAUSES OF ERROR IN REASONING. 243 
 
 bility, is our guide ; and supposing the assistance 
 of God's Spirit, (which he never denies them that 
 fail not of their duty in all such things in which he 
 requires truth and certainty,) it remains that we 
 consider how it comes to pass that men are so 
 much deceived in the use of their reason and 
 choice of their religion; and that, in this account, 
 we distinguish those accidents which make error 
 innocent, from those which make it become a 
 heresy. 
 
 SECTION XL 
 
 Of some Causes of Error in the exercise of Reason 
 ivhich are exculpate in themselves. 
 
 1. Then I consider that there are a great many 
 inculpable causes of error, which are arguments of 
 human imperfections, not convictions of a sin. 
 And first, the variety of human understandings 
 is so great, that what is plain and apparent to 
 one, is difficult and obscure to another ; one will 
 observe a consequent from a common principle, 
 and another from thence will conclude the quite 
 contrary. When St. Peter saw the vision of the 
 sheet let down, with all sorts of beasts in it, and a 
 voice, saying, ' Rise, Peter, kill and eat,* if he had 
 not, by a particular assistance, been directed to the 
 meaning of the Holy Ghost, possibly he might 
 have had other apprehensions of the meaning of 
 
 r2 
 
244 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 that vision ; for to myself it seems naturally to 
 speak nothing but the abolition of the Mosaical 
 rites, and the restitution of us to that part of Chris- 
 tian liberty which consists in the promiscuous 
 eating of meats ; and yet, besides this, there want 
 not some understandings in the world, to whom 
 these words seem to give St. Peter a power to kill 
 heretical princes. Methinks it is a strange under- 
 standing that makes such extractions, but Bozius 
 and Baronius did so. But men may understand 
 what they please, especially when they are to ex- 
 pound oracles. It was an argument of some wit, 
 but of singularity of understanding, that haj^pened 
 in the great contestation between the missals of St. 
 Ambrose and St. Gregory. The lot was thrown, 
 and God made to be judge, so as he was tempted 
 to a miracle, to answer a c^uestion which them- 
 selves might have ended without much trouble. 
 The two missals were laid upon the altar, and the 
 church door shut and sealed. By the morrow 
 mattins, they found St. Gregory's missal torn in 
 pieces, (saith the story,) and thrown about the 
 church, but St. Ambrose's opened and laid upon the 
 altar in a posture of being read. If I had been to 
 judge of the meaning of this miracle, I should have 
 made no scruple to have said, it had been the will of 
 God that the missal of St. Ambrose, which had been 
 anciently used, and publicly tried and approved of, 
 should still be read in the church, and that of Gregory 
 let alone, it being torn by an angelical hand, as an 
 argument of its imperfection, or of the inconve- 
 nience of innovation. But yet they judged it 
 otherwise ; for by the tearing and scattering about, 
 they thought it was meant, it should be used over 
 all the world, and that of St, Ambrose read only 
 
CAUSES OF ERROR IN REASONING. 245 
 
 in the church of Millain. I am more satisfied that 
 the former was the true meaning, than I am of the 
 truth of the story; but we must suppose that. 
 And now there might have been eternal disputings 
 about the meaning of the miracle, and nothing 
 left to determine, when two fancies are the liti- 
 gants, and the contestations about probabilities 
 hinc hide. And I doubt not this was one cause 
 of so great variety of opinions in the primitive 
 church, when they proved their several opinions, 
 which were mysterious questions of Christian theo- 
 logy, by testimonies out of the obscurer prophets, 
 out of the Psalms and Canticles, as who please to 
 observe tlieir arguments of discourse and actions 
 of council shall perceive they very much used to 
 do. Now although men's understandings be not 
 equal, and that it is fit the best understandings 
 should prevail, yet that will not satisfy the weaker 
 understandings; because all men will not think 
 that another understanding is better than his own ; 
 or, at least, not in such a particular in which, with 
 fancy, he hath pleased himself. But commonly 
 they that are least able are most bold, and the more 
 ignorant are the more confident : therefore it is but 
 necessary, if he would have another bear with him, 
 he also should bear with another ; and if he will not 
 be prescribed to, neither let him prescribe to others. 
 And there is the more reason in this, because such 
 modesty is commonly to be desired of the more im- 
 perfect; for wise men know the ground of their 
 persuasion, and have their confidence proportion- 
 able to their evidence ; others have not, but over- 
 act their trifles : and therefore I said, it is but a 
 reasonable demand, that they that have the least 
 reason should not be most imperious; and for 
 
246 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 others, it being reasonable enough, for all then- 
 great advantages upon other men, they will be 
 soon persuaded to it ; for although wise men might 
 be bolder, in respect of the persons of others less 
 discerning, yet they know there are but few things 
 so certain as to create much boldness and confi- 
 dence of assertion. If they do not, they are not 
 the men I take them for. 
 
 2. When an action or opinion is commenced 
 with zeal and piety, against a known vice, or a 
 vicious person, commonly all the mistakes of its 
 proceeding are made sacred by the holiness of the 
 principle, and so abuses the persuasions of good 
 people, that they make it as a characteristic note 
 to distinguish good persons from bad ; and then, 
 whatever error is consecrated by this means, is 
 therefore made the more lasting, because it is ac- 
 counted holy ; and the persons are not easily ac- 
 counted heretics, because they erred upon a pious 
 principle. There is a memorable instance in one 
 of the greatest questions of Christendom, viz. con- 
 cerning images. For when Philippicus had espied 
 the images of the six first synods upon the front of 
 a church, he caused them to be pulled down : now 
 he did it in hatred of the sixth synod ; for he, being 
 a Mo noth elite, stood condemned by that synod. 
 The catholics that were zealous for the sixth 
 synod, caused the images and representments to be 
 put up again ; and then sprung the question con- 
 cerning the lawfulness of images in churches.* 
 Philippicus and his party strived, by suppressing 
 images, to do disparagement to the sixth synod ; 
 the catholics, to preserve the honour of the sixth 
 
 * Vid. Paulum Diaconum. 
 
CAUSES OF ERROR IxN REASONING, 247 
 
 synod, would uphold images. And then the ques- 
 tion came to be changed, and they who were easy 
 enough to be persuaded to pull down images, were 
 overawed by a prejudice against the Monothelites ; 
 and the Monothelites strived to maintain the ad- 
 vantage they had got, by a just and pious pretence 
 against images. The Monothelites would have se- 
 cured their error by the advantage and consocia- 
 tion of a truth ; and the other would rather defend 
 a dubious and disputable error, than lose and let 
 go a certain truth. And thus the case stood, and 
 the successors of both parts were led invincibly : 
 for when the heresy of the Monothelites disbanded, 
 (which it did in a while after,) yet the opinion of 
 the Iconoclasts, and the question of images grew 
 stronger. Yet, since the Iconoclasts at the first 
 were heretics, not for their breaking images, but 
 for denying the two wills of Christ, his divine and 
 his human ; — that they were called Iconoclasts was 
 to distinguish their opinion in the question con- 
 .cerning the images ; — but that then Iconoclasts so 
 easily had the reputation of heretics, was because 
 of the other opinion, which was conjunct in their 
 persons ; which opinion men afterwards did not 
 easily distinguish in them, but took them for here- 
 tics in gross, and whatsoever they held to be 
 heretical. And thus, upon this prejudice, grew 
 great advantages to the veneration of images; and 
 the persons at first were much to be excused, be- 
 cause they were misguided by that which might 
 have abused the best men. And if Epiphanius, 
 who was as zealous against images in churches as 
 Philippicus or Leo Tsaurus, had but begun a public 
 contestation, and engaged emperors to have made 
 decrees asrainst them, Christendom would have had 
 
248 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 other apprehensions of it than they had when the 
 Monothelites began it : for few men will endure 
 a truth from the mouth of the devil, and if the 
 person be suspected, so are his ways too. And it 
 is a great subtlety of the devil so to temper truth 
 and falsehood in the same person that truth may 
 lose much of its reputation by its mixture with 
 error, and the error may become more plausible by 
 reason of its conjunction with truth. And this we 
 see by too much experience; for we see many 
 truths are blasted in their reputation, because per- 
 sons whom we think v.e hate, upon just grounds of 
 religion, have taught them. And it was plain 
 enough in the case of Maldonat,* that said of an 
 explication of a place of Scripture, that it was most 
 agreeable to antiquity, but because Calvin had so 
 expounded it he therefore chose a new one : this 
 was malice. But when a prejudice works tacitly, 
 undiscernibly, and irresistibly, of the person so 
 wrought upon, the man is to be pitied, not con- 
 demned, though possibly his opinion deserves it 
 highly. And therefore it hath been usual to dis- 
 credit doctrines by the personal defailances of them 
 that preach them, or with the disreputation of that 
 sect that maintains them, in conjunction with other 
 perverse doctrines. Faustus,t the Manichee, in St.' 
 Austin, glories much that in their religion God was 
 worshipped purely, and without images. St. A ustin 
 liked it well^ for so it was in his too ; but from hence, 
 Sanders concludes, that to pull down images in 
 churches was the heresy of the Manichees. The 
 Jews endure no iraao^es; therefore Bellarmine makes 
 
 * In cap. G, Johan. 
 
 t Lib. XX. c. 3, Cont. Faustum Man. Lib. i. c. ult. de Imagin. 
 
CAUSES OF ERROR IN REASONING. 249 
 
 it to be a piece of Judaism to oppose them.* He 
 might as well have concluded against saying our 
 prayers, and church music, that it is Judaical, be- 
 cause the Jews used it. And he would be loath to 
 be served so himself; for he that had a mind to 
 use such arguments might, with much better 
 probability, conclude against their sacrament of 
 extreme unction ; because, when the miraculous 
 healing was ceased, then they were not catho- 
 lics but heretics that did transfer it to the use of 
 dying persons, says Irenoeus ; t for so did the Va- 
 lentinians : and, indeed, this argument is something 
 better than I thought for at first, because it was in 
 Irenseus's time reckoned among the heresies. But 
 there are a sort of men that are even with them, 
 and hate some good things which the church of 
 Rome teaches, because she who teaches so many 
 errors, hath been the publisher, and is the practiser 
 of those things. I confess the thing is always un- 
 reasonable, but sometimes it is invincible and in- 
 nocent ; and then may serve to abate the fury of 
 all such decretory sentences as condemn all the 
 world but their own disciples. 
 
 3. There are some opinions that have gone hand 
 in hand with a blessing, and a prosperous profes- 
 sion ; and the good success of their defenders hath 
 amused many good people, because they thought 
 they heard God's voice where they saw God's hand ; 
 and therefore have rushed upon such opinions with 
 great piety, and as great mistaking. For where 
 they once had entertained a fear of God, and ap- 
 prehension of his so sensible declaration, such a 
 fear produces scruple ; and a scrupulous conscience 
 
 * De Reliq. SS. lib. ii. c. 6, Sect. Nicolaus. 
 t Lib. i. c. 8, Adv. liter. 
 
250 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 is always to be pitied, because, though it is seldom 
 wise, it is always pious. And this very thing hath 
 prevailed so far upon the understandings even of 
 wise men, that Bellarmine makes it a note of the true 
 church : which opinion, when it prevails, is a ready 
 way to make that, instead of martyrs, all men should 
 prove heretics or apostates in persecution ; for since 
 men in misery are very suspicious, out of strong 
 desires to find out the cause, that by removing it 
 they may be relieved, they apprehend that to be it 
 that is first presented to their fears ; and then, if ever 
 truth be afflicted, she shall also be destroyed. I 
 will say nothing in defiance of this fancy, although 
 all the experience in the world says it is false ; and 
 that, of all men. Christians should least believe 
 it to be true, to whom a perpetual cross is their 
 certain expectation ; (and the argument is like the 
 moon, for which no garment can be fit ; it alters 
 according to the success of human affairs, and in 
 one age will serve a papist, and in another a 
 protestant;) yet, when such an opinion does pre- 
 vail upon timorous persons, the malignity of their 
 error (if any be consequent to this fancy, and 
 taken up upon the reputation of a prosperous 
 heresy) is not to be considered simply and na- 
 kedly, but abatement is to be made in a just pro- 
 portion to that fear, and to that apprehension. 
 
 4. Education is so great and so invincible a pre- 
 judice, that he who masters the inconvenience of it 
 is more to be commended than he can justly be 
 blamed that complies with it. For men do not 
 always call them principles which are the prime 
 fountains of reason, from whence such consequents 
 naturally flow, as are to guide the actions and dis- 
 courses of men ; but they are principles w hich they 
 
CAUSES OF ERROR IN REASONING. 251 
 
 are first taught, which they sucked in next to their 
 milk; and, by a proportion to those first principles, 
 they usually take their estimate of propositions. For 
 whatsover is taught to them at first they believe 
 infinitely, for they know nothing to the contrary : 
 they have had no other masters whose theorems 
 might abate the strength of their first persuasions. 
 And it is a great advantage in those cases to get 
 possession ; and before their first principles can 
 be dislodged, they are made habitual and com- 
 plexional; it is in their nature then to believe 
 them, and this is helped forward very much by the 
 advantage of love and veneration which we have to 
 the first parents of our persuasions; and we see it 
 in the orders of regulars in the church of Rome. 
 That opinion which was the opinion of their patron 
 or founder, or of some eminent personage of the 
 institute, is enough to engage all the order to be of 
 that opinion ; and it is strange that all the Domi- 
 nicans shall be of one opinion in the matter of pre- 
 determination and immaculate conception, and all 
 the Franciscans of the quite contrary ; as if their 
 understandings were formed in a different mould, 
 and furnished with various principles by their very 
 rule. Now this prejudice works by many princi- 
 ples ; but how strongly they do possess the under- 
 standing, is visible in that great instance of the 
 affection and perfect persuasion the weaker sort of 
 people have to that which they call the religion of 
 their forefathers.* You may as well charm a fever 
 asleep with the noise of bells, as make any pre- 
 tence of reason against that religion which old men 
 
 * " Optima rati ea quae niagno assensu recepta sunt, quorumq. 
 exempla multa sunt; nee ad rationem, sed ad similitudinem 
 viviinus." — Sen. Vid. Minut. Fel. octav. 
 
252 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 have entailed u^^on their heirs male so many gene- 
 rations till they can prescribe. And the apostles 
 found this to be most true in the extremest diffi- 
 culty they met with, to contest against the rites of 
 Moses, and the long superstition of the Gentiles, 
 which they therefore thought fit to be retained, be- 
 cause they had done so formerly ; ' proceeding as 
 things uere or had been, not as they ought to be,'* 
 and all the blessings of this life which God gave 
 them, they had in conjunction with their religion, 
 and therefore they believed it was for their religion, 
 and this persuasion was bound fast in them with 
 ribs of iron ; the ajDostles were forced to unloose 
 the whole connjuncture of parts and principles in 
 their understandings, before they could make them 
 malleable and receptive of any impresses : but the 
 observation and experience of all wise men can 
 justify this truth. All that I shall say to the pre- 
 sent purpose is this, that consideration is to be had 
 to the weakness of persons when they are prevailed 
 upon by so innocent a prejudice; and, when there 
 cannot be arguments strong enough to overmaster 
 an habitual persuasion, bred with a man, nourished 
 up with him, that always eat at his table, and lay 
 in his bosom, he is not easily to be called heretic ; 
 for, if he keeps the foundation of faith, other articles 
 are not so clearly demonstrated on either side but 
 that a man may innocently be abused to the con- 
 trary. And therefore, in this case, to handle him 
 charitably, is but to do him justice ; and when an 
 opinion in minoribus articiilis, " in points of in- 
 ferior moment," is entertained upon the title and 
 stock of education, it may be the better permitted 
 
 * Pergentes non quo eundum est, sed quo itur. 
 
CAUSES OF ERROR IN REASONING. 253 
 
 to him, since upon no better stock nor stronger 
 arguments, most men entertain their whole religion, 
 even Christianity itself. 
 
 5. There are some persons of a differing persua- 
 sion, who, therefore, are the rather to be tolerated, 
 because the indirect practices and impostures of 
 their adversaries have confirmed them, that those 
 opinions which they disavow are not from God, as 
 being upheld by means not of God's appointment, 
 for it is no unreasonable discourse to say, that God 
 will not be served with a lie, for he does not need 
 one, and he hath means enough to suj^port all those 
 truths which he hath commanded ; and hath sup- 
 plied every honest cause with enough for its main- 
 tenance, and to contest against its adversaries. And 
 (but that they which use indirect arts will not be 
 willing to lose any of their unjust advantages, 
 nor yet be charitable to those persons whom either 
 to gain or to undo they leave nothing unattempted) 
 the church of Rome hath much reason not to be so 
 decretory in her sentences against persons of a dif- 
 fering persuasion ; for if their cause were entirely 
 the cause of God, they have given wise people 
 reason to suspect it, because some of them have 
 gone to the devil to defend it. And if it be re- 
 membered what tragedies were stirred up against 
 Luther, for saying the devil had taught him an argu- 
 ment against the mass, it will be of as great ad- 
 vantage against them that they go to the devil for 
 many arguments to support not only the mass, but 
 the other distinguishing articles of their church ; I 
 instance in the notorious forging of miracles, and 
 framing of false and ridiculous legends. For the 
 former, I need no other instances than what hap- 
 pened in the great contestation about the immacu- 
 
254 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 late conception, when there were miracles brought 
 on both sides to prove the contradictory parts; 
 and though it be more than probable that both sides 
 played the jugglers, yet the Dominicans had the ill 
 luck to be discovered, and the actors burned at 
 Berne. But this discovery happened by Provi- 
 dence ; for the Dominican opinion hath more de- 
 grees of probability than the Franciscan, is clearly 
 more consonant both to Scripture and all antiquity, 
 and this part of it is acknowledged by the greatest 
 patrons themselves, as Salmeron, Posa, and Wad- 
 ding; yet because they played the knaves in a 
 just question, and used false arts to maintain a 
 true proposition, God Almighty, to show that he 
 will not be served by a lie, was pleased rather to dis- 
 cover the imposture in the right opinion than in the 
 false; since nothing is more dishonourable to God 
 than to offer a sin in sacrifice to him, and nothing 
 more incongruous in the nature of the thing, than 
 that truth and falsehood should support each other, 
 or that true doctrine should live at the charges of a 
 lie. And he that considers the arguments for each 
 opinion, will easily conclude, that if God would not 
 have truth confirmed by a lie, much less would he 
 himself attest a lie with a true miracle. And by 
 this ground it will easily follow, that the Fran- 
 ciscan party, although they had better luck than 
 the Dominicans, yet had not more honesty, because 
 their cause was worse, and therefore their argu- 
 ments no whit the better. And although the 
 argument drawn from miracles is good to attest 
 a holy doctrine, which by its own worth will sup- 
 port itself, after way is a little made by miracles ; 
 yet of itself, and by its own reputation, it will not 
 support any fabric ; for instead of proving a doc- 
 
CAUSES OF ERROR IN REASONING. 255 
 
 trine to be true, it makes that the miracles them- 
 selves are suspected to be illusions, if they be pre- 
 tended in behalf of a doctrine which we think we 
 have reason to account false. And therefore the 
 Jews did not believe Christ's doctrine for his mira- 
 cles, but disbelieve the truth of his miracles be- 
 cause they did not like his doctrine. And if the 
 holiness of his doctrine, and the Spirit of God by 
 inspirations and infusions, and by that which St. 
 Peter calls * a surer word of prophecy,' had not at- 
 tested the divinity both of his person and his office, 
 we should have wanted many degrees of confidence 
 which now we have upon the truth of Christian 
 religion.* But now, since we are foretold by this 
 surer word of prophecy, that is, the prediction of 
 Jesus Christ, that Antichrist should come in all 
 wonders and signs, and lying miracles; and that 
 the church saw much of that already verified in 
 Simon Magus, ApolloniusTyaneeus, and Manetho, 
 and divers heretics ;f it is now come to that pass, 
 that the argument, in its best advantage, proves 
 nothing so much as that the doctrine which it pre- 
 tends to prove is to be suspected, because it was 
 foretold that false doctrine should be obtruded 
 under such pretences. But then, when not only 
 true miracles are an insufficient argument to prove 
 a truth, since the establishment of Christianity, but 
 that the miracles themselves are false and spurious ; 
 it makes that doctrine in whose defence they come, 
 justly to be suspected, because they are a demon- 
 stration that the interested persons use all means, 
 
 * Vide Baron. A. D. 68, n. 22, Philostrat. lib, iv. t. 4ao. 
 Compend. Cedren, p. 202. 
 
 t Stapelton, Prompt. JMoral. pars .Estiva, p. 627. 
 
256 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 leave nothing unattempted, to prove their proposi- 
 tions ; but since they so fail as to bring nothing 
 from God, but something from the devil for its 
 justification, it is a great sign that the doctrine is 
 false, because we know the dev il, unless it be against 
 his will, does nothing to prove a true proposition 
 that makes against him. And now, then, those 
 persons who will endure no man of another opinion, 
 might do well to remember how, by their exor- 
 cisms, their devils' tricks at Loudun, and the other 
 side pretending to cure mad folks and persons be- 
 witched, and the many discoveries of their juggling, 
 they have given so much reason to their adver- 
 saries to suspect their doctrine, that either they 
 must not be ready to condemn their persons who 
 are made suspicious by their indirect proceed- 
 ing, in attestation of that which they value so high 
 as to call their religion, or else they must con- 
 demn themselves for making the scandal active and 
 effectual. 
 
 As for false legends, it will be of the same consi- 
 deration, because they are false testimonies of mi- 
 racles that were never done; which differs only 
 from the other, as a lie in words from a lie in action. 
 But of this we have witness enough in that decree 
 of pope Leo X., session the eleventh of the last 
 Lateran council, where he excommunicates all the 
 forgers and inventors of visions and false miracles, 
 which is a testimony that it was then a practice so 
 public as to need a law for its suppression ; and if 
 any man shall doubt whether it were so or no, let him 
 see the Centum Gravamina of the princes of Germany, 
 where it is highly complained of. But the extreme 
 stupidity and sottishness of the inventors of lying 
 stories is so great, as to give occasion to some per- 
 
CAUSES OF ERROR IN REASONING. 257 
 
 sons to suspect the truth of all church story ;- 
 witness the Legend of Lombardy, of the author of 
 which the bishop of the Canaries gives this testi- 
 mony : " You will oftener read in this book mon- 
 strous prodigies than real miracles ; he who wrote 
 it was a shameless and dull fellow, and far enough 
 from being of a serious and judicious mind."t 
 But, I need not descend so low; for St. Gregory 
 and V. Bede themselves reported miracles, for the 
 authority of which they only had the report of the 
 common people ;t and it is not certain than St. 
 Jerome had so much in his stories of St. Paul and 
 St. Anthony, and the fauns and the satyrs which 
 appeared to them, and desired their prayers. § But T 
 shall only, by way of eminency, note what Sir Thomas 
 More says, in his epistle to Ruthal, the king's secre- 
 tary, before the dialogue of Lucian (Philopseudes ;) 
 that, therefore, he undertook the translation of that 
 dialogue, to free the world from a superstition that 
 crept in under the face and title of religion. For 
 such lies, says he, are transmitted to us with such 
 authority, that a certain impostor had persuaded 
 St. Austin, that the very fable which Lucian scoffs, 
 and makes sport withal in that dialogue,|| was a real 
 story, and acted in his own days. The epistle is 
 worth the reading to this purpose : but, he says, this 
 abuse grew to such a height, that scarce any life of 
 
 * Ta yap jxi) doi]fxkva eK€ia!!,6[.ievoi, icj rci dtidrojg iipri[uva 
 VTroTTTevstrOai TrapacrKEvZsrnv. — Isid, Pelus. 
 
 •f " In illo enim libro miraculorum monstra ssepius qviam 
 vera miracula legas. Hanc homo scripsit ferrei oris, plainbei 
 cordis, aniiTii certe parum severi et prudentis." 
 
 + Vide lib. xi. loc. Theol. cap, 6. § Canus, ibid. 
 
 II Viz. De duobus spurinis, altero decedente, altero in vitam 
 rsdeunte post viginti dies ; quam in aliis nominibus ridet Lu- 
 cianus. Vide etiam argumentum Gilberti Cognati, in Annotat. in 
 hunc Dialog. 
 
 S 
 
258 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING, 
 
 any saint or martyr is truly related, but is full of 
 lies and lying wonders ; and some persons thought 
 they served God, if they did honour to God's saints 
 by inventing some prodigious story or miracle for 
 their reputation. So that now it is no wonder, if 
 the most pious men are apt to believe, and the 
 greatest historians are easy enough to report such 
 stories, which, serving to a good end, are also con- 
 signed by the report of persons otherwise pious and 
 prudent enough. I will not instance in Vincentius 
 his Speculum, Turonensis, Thomas Cantipratanus, 
 John Herolt, Vit(B Patrum,* nor the revelations of 
 St. Bridget, though confirmed by two popes, Martin 
 V. and Boniface IX. : even the best and most de- 
 liberate amongst them, Lippoman, Surius, Lipsius, 
 Bzovius, and Baronius, are so full of fables, that 
 they cause great disreputation to the other monu- 
 ments and records of antiquity, and yet do no ad- 
 vantage to the cause under which they serve and 
 take pay. They do no good, and much hurt; but 
 yet, accidentally, they may procure this advan- 
 tage to charity, since they do none to faith ; that, 
 since they have so abused the credit of story, that 
 our confidences want much of that support we 
 should receive from her records of antiquity, yet 
 the men that dissent and are scandalized by such 
 proceedings should be excused, if they should 
 chance to be afraid of truth that hath put on gar- 
 ments of imposture ; and, since much violence is 
 done to the truth and certainty of their judging, 
 let none be done to their liberty of judging : since 
 they cannot meet a right guide, let them have a 
 charitable judge. And, since it is one very great ar- 
 
 * Vide Palseot. de Sacra Sindone, part i. Epist. ad Lector. 
 
CAUSES OF ERROR IN REASONING. 259 
 
 gument against Simon Magus and against Mahomet, 
 that we can prove their miracles to be impostures, it 
 is much to be pitied if timorous and suspicious per- 
 sons shall invincibly and honestly less apprehend 
 a truth which they see conveyed by such a testi- 
 mony, which we all use as an argument to reprove 
 the Mahometan superstition. 
 
 6. Here also comes in all the weaknesses and 
 trifling prejudices which operate not by their own 
 strength, but by advantage taken from the weak- 
 ness of some understandings. Some men, by a 
 proverb or a common saying, are determined to 
 the belief of a proposition, for which they have no 
 argument better than such a proverbial sentence. 
 And when divers of the common people in Jeru- 
 salem were ready to yield their understandings to 
 the belief cf the Messias, they were turned clearly 
 from their apprehensions by that proverb, " Look 
 and see, does any good thing come from Galilee ?" 
 and this : ''When Christ comes, no man knows from 
 whence he is;" but this man was known of what 
 parents, of what city. And thus the weakness of 
 their understanding was abused, and that made the 
 argument too hard for them. And the whole seventh 
 chapter of St. John's Gospel is a perpetual instance 
 of the efficacy of such trifling prejudices, and the 
 vanity and weakness of popular understandings. 
 Some whole ages have been abused by a definition, 
 which, being once received, as most commonly they 
 are, upon slight grounds, they are taken for cer- 
 tainties in any science respectively, and for prin- 
 ciples ; and upon their reputation men use to frame 
 conclusions, which must be false or uncertain, ac- 
 cording as the definitions are. And he that hath 
 observed any thing of the weaknesses of men, and 
 
 s 2 
 
260 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 the successions of groundless doctrines from age 
 to age, and how seldom definitions which are put 
 into systems, or that derive from the fathers, or ap- 
 proved among school-men, are examined by per- 
 sons of the same interests, will bear me witness, 
 how many great inconveniences press hard upon 
 the persuasions of men, who are abused, and yet 
 never consider who hurt them. Others, and they 
 very many, are led by authority, or examples of 
 princes, and great personages : ' Have any of the 
 rulers believed on him ?'* Some, by the reputation 
 of one learned man, are carried into any persuasion 
 whatsoever. And, in the middle and latter ages of 
 the church, this was the more considerable, because 
 the infinite ignorance of the clerks and the men of 
 the long robe, gave them over to be led by those 
 few guides which were marked to them by an emi- 
 nency, much more than their ordinary; which also 
 did the more amuse them, because most commonly 
 they were fit for nothing but to admire what they 
 understood not; their learning then was in some 
 skill in the master of the sentences, in Aquinas or 
 Scotus, whom they admired next to the most intel- 
 ligent order of angels. Hence came opinions that 
 made sects and division of names — ^Thomists, Scot- 
 ists, Albertists, Nominals, Reals, and I know not 
 what monsters of names ; and whole families of the 
 same opinion, the whole institute of an order being 
 engaged to believe according to the opinion of some 
 leading man of the same order; as if such an opinion 
 were imposed upon them as a proof of holy obedi- 
 ence. But this inconvenience is greater when the 
 principle of the mistake runs higher, when the 
 
 * John. vii. 
 
CAUSES OF ERROR IN REASONING. 261- 
 
 opinion is derived from a primitive man and a saint ; 
 for then it often haj^pens, that what at first was 
 but a plain, innocent seduction, comes to be made 
 sacred by the veneration which is consequent to the 
 person, for having lived long agone; and then, be- 
 cause the person is also since canonized, the error is 
 almost made eternal, and the cure desperate. These, 
 and the like prejudices, which are as various as the 
 miseries of humanity, or the variety of human un- 
 derstandings, are not absolute excuses, unless to 
 some persons; but truly, if they be to any, they are 
 exemptions to all, from being pressed with too per- 
 emptory a sentence against them ; especially if we 
 consider what leave is given to all men, by the 
 church of Rome, to follow any one probable doctor, 
 in an opinion which is contested against by many 
 more. And as for the doctors of the other side, 
 they being destitute of any pretences to an infalli- 
 ble medium to determine questions, must, of neces- 
 sity, allow the same liberty to the people, to be as 
 prudent as they can in the choice of a fallible 
 guide ; and when they have chosen, if they do fol- 
 low him into error, the matter is not so inexpiable 
 for being deceived in using the best guides we had, 
 which guides, because themselves were abused, did 
 also, against their wills, deceive me : so that this 
 prejudice may the easier abuse us, because it is 
 almost like a duty to follow the dictates of a pro- 
 bable doctor ; or, if it be over acted, or accidentally 
 pass into an inconvenience, it is therefore to be ex- 
 cused, because the principle was not ill, unless we 
 judge by our event, not by the antecedent probabi- 
 lity. Of such men as these it was said by St. 
 Austin, " The common sort of people are safe, in 
 their not inquiring by their own industry, and, in 
 
262 THE LJBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 the simplicity of their understanding, relying- upon 
 the best guides they can get."* 
 
 But this is of such a nature, in which, as we may 
 inculpahly be deceived, so we may turn it into a 
 vice or a design, and then the consecjuent errors 
 will alter the property, and become heresies. There 
 are some men that have men's persons in admira- 
 tion, because of advantage ; and some that have 
 itching ears, and heap up teachei*s to themselves. 
 In these and the like cases, the authority of a per- 
 son, and the prejudices of a great reputation, is not 
 the excuse but the fault : and a sin is so far from 
 excusing an error, that error becomes a sin by 
 reason of its relation to that sin, as to its parent and 
 principle. 
 
 SECTION XII. 
 
 Of the innocency of Error in opinion, in a pious 
 Person. 
 
 And, therefore, as there are so many innocent 
 causes of error as there are weaknesses within, and 
 harmless and unavoidable prejudices from without, 
 so, if ever error be procured by a vice, it hath no 
 excuse, but becomes such a crime, of so much ma- 
 lignity, as to have influence upon the effect and 
 consequent, and, by communication, makes it be- 
 
 * " Caeteram turbam non intelligendi vivacitas, sed credendi 
 simplicitas tutissimam facit." — Contr. Fund. cap. 4. And Gre- 
 gory Nazianzen, 2w,^£t TroXXciKig rbv Xabv to 'ci^aadvi'^ov. — 
 Orat. xxi. 
 
INNOCENCY OF ERROR IN OPINION. 263 
 
 come criminal. The apostles noted two such causes, 
 covetousness and ambition ; the former in them of 
 the circumcision, and the latter in Diotrephes and 
 Simon IMagus ; and there were some that were ' led 
 away by divers lusts:'* they were of the long- robe 
 too; but they were the she disciph , upon whose 
 consciences some false apostles had intluence, by 
 advantage of their wantonness ; and thus the three 
 principles of all sin become also the principles of 
 heresy — the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, 
 and the pride of life. And in pursuance of these 
 arts, the devil hath not wanted fuel to set awork in- 
 cendiaries, in all ages of the church. The bishops 
 were always honourable, and, most commonly, 
 had great revenues, and a bishopric would satisfy 
 the two designs of covetousness and ambition ; and 
 this hath been the golden apple very often con- 
 tended for, and very often the cause of great fires 
 in the church. " Thebulis created great distur- 
 bances in the church, because he could not obtain 
 the bishopric of Jerusalem," said Egesippus, in 
 Eusebius. Tertullian turned Montanist, in discon- 
 tent for missing the bishopric of Carthage, after 
 Agrippinus; and so did Montanus himself, for 
 the same discontent, saith Nicephorus. Novatus 
 would have been bishop of Rome; Donatus, of 
 Carthage ; Arius, of Alexandria ; Aerius, of Se- 
 bastia : but they all missed, and therefore all of 
 them vexed Christendom. And this was so com- 
 mon a thing, that oftentimes the threatening the 
 church with a schism, or a heresy, was a design to 
 get a bishopric: and Socrates reports of Asterius, 
 that he did frequent the conventicles of the Arians, 
 
 • 2 Tim. ill. 
 
264 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 "for he aimed at some bishopric." And setting 
 aside the infirmities of men, and their innocent 
 prejudices, Epiphanius makes pride to be the only 
 cause of heresies; vQpig kj TrpoKpiaLg, pride and preju- 
 dice cause them all, the one criminally, the other 
 innocently. And, indeed, St. Paul does almost 
 make j^ride the only cause of heresies; his words 
 cannot be expounded, unless it be at least the 
 principal : ' If any man teach otherwise and con- 
 sent not to sound words, and to the doctrine that 
 is according to godliness, he is proud, knowing 
 nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of 
 words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil 
 surmisings.'* 
 
 The sum is this ; if ever an opinion be begun 
 w ith pride, or managed with impiety, or ends in a 
 crime, the man turns heretic ; but let the error be 
 never so great, so it be not against an article of 
 creed, if it be simple, and hath no confederation 
 with the personal iniquity of the man, the opi- 
 nion is as innocent as the person, though, per- 
 haps, as false as he is ignorant ; and therefore 
 shall burn, though he himself escape. But in 
 these cases, and many more, (for the causes of 
 deception increase by all accidents, and weak- 
 nesses, and illusions,) no man can give certain 
 judgment upon the persons of men in particular, 
 unless the matter of fact and crime be accident and 
 notorious. The man cannot, by human judgment, 
 be concluded a heretic, unless his opinion be an 
 open recession from jjlain, demonstrative, divine 
 authority, (which must needs be notorious, volun- 
 tary, vincible, and criminal,) or that there be a 
 
 * 1 Tim. vi. 3, 4. 
 
INNOCENCY OF ERROR IN OPINION. 265 
 
 palpable serving of an end, accidental and extrin- 
 sical to the opinion. 
 
 But this latter is very hard to be discerned ; be- 
 cause those accidental and adherent crimes which 
 make the man a heretic, in questions not simply 
 fundamental or of necessary practice, are actions 
 so internal and spiritual, that cognizance can but 
 seldom be taken of them. And therefore, to instance, 
 though the opinion of purgatory be false, yet to 
 believe it cannot be heresy, if a man be abused into 
 the belief of it invincibly ; because it is not a doc- 
 trine either fundamentally false or practically im- 
 pious, it neither proceeds from the will, nor hath 
 any immediate or direct influence upon choice and 
 manners. And as for those other ends of uphold- 
 ing that opinion, which possibly its patrons may 
 have ; as for the reputation of their church's infal- 
 libility, for the advantage of dirges, requiems, 
 masses, monthly minds, anniversaries, and other 
 offices for the dead, which usually are very profit- 
 able, rich, and easy, these things may possibly 
 have sole influences upon their understanding, but 
 whether they have or no God only knows. If the 
 proposition and article were true, these ends might 
 justly be subordinate, and consistent with a true 
 proposition. And there are some truths that are 
 also profitable ; as the necessity of maintenance to 
 the clergy, the doctrine of restitution, giving alms, 
 lending freely, remitting debts, in cases of great 
 necessity : and it would be but an ill argument that 
 the preachers of these doctrines speak false, because, 
 possibly, in these articles, they may serve their own 
 ends. For although Demetrius and the craftsmen 
 were without excuse for resisting the preaching of 
 St. Paul, because it was notorious they resisted the 
 
266 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 truth upon ground of profit and personal emolu- 
 ments, and the matter was confessed by them- 
 selves ; yet, if the clergy should maintain their just 
 rights and revenues, which by pious dedications 
 and donatives were long since ascertained upon 
 them, is it to be presumed, in order of law and 
 charity, that this end is in the men subordinate to 
 truth, because it is so in the thing itself, and that 
 therefore no judgment, in prejudice of these truths, 
 can be made from that observation ? 
 
 But if in any other way we are ascertained of 
 the truth or falsehood of a proposition respectively, 
 yet the judgment of the personal ends of the men 
 cannot ordinarily be certain and judicial, because, 
 most commonly, the acts are private and the purposes 
 internal, and temporal ends may sometimes consist 
 with truth ; and whether the purposes of the men 
 make these ends principal or subordinate, no man 
 can judge ; and be they how they will, yet they do 
 not always prove that when they are conjunct with 
 error, the error was caused by these purposes and 
 criminal intentions. 
 
 But in c|uestions practical, the doctrine itself, 
 and the person too, may with more ease be re- 
 proved, because matter of fact being evident, and 
 nothing being so certain as the exjjeriments of hu- 
 man affairs, and these being the immediate conse- 
 quents of such doctrines, are with some more cer- 
 tainty of observation redargued, than the specula- 
 tive ; whose judgment is of itself more difficult, 
 more remote from matter and human observation, 
 and with less curiosity and explicitness declared in 
 Scripture, as being of less consequence and con- 
 cernment, in the order of God's and man's great 
 end. In other things, which end in notion and 
 
TNNOCENCY OF ERROR IN OPINION. 267 
 
 ineffective contemplation, where neither the doc- 
 trine is malicious, nor the person apparently ci'i- 
 minal, he is to be left to the judgment of God; 
 and as there is no certainty of human judicature in 
 this case, so it is to no purpose it should be judged. 
 For if the person may be innocent with his error, 
 and there is no rule whereby he can certainly be 
 pronounced that he is actually criminal, (as it 
 happens in matters speculative,) since the end of 
 the commandment is love out of a ' pure con- 
 science, and faith unfeigned;' and the command- 
 ment may obtain its end in a consistence with this 
 simple speculative error; why should men trouble 
 themselves with such opinions, so as to disturb the 
 public charity or the private confidence ? Opi- 
 nions and persons are just so to be judged as other 
 matters and persons criminal ; for no man can 
 judge any thing else : it must be a crime, and it 
 must be open, so as to take cognizance, and make 
 true human judgment of it. And this is all I am 
 to say concerning the causes of heresies, and of the 
 distinguishing rules for guiding of our judgments 
 towards others. 
 
 As for guiding our judgments, and the use of 
 our reason in judging for ourselves, all that is to 
 be said is reducible to this one proposition. Since 
 errors are then made sins when they are contrary 
 to charity, or inconsistent with a good life and the 
 honour of God, that judgment is the truest, or, at 
 least, that opinion most innocent, that, first, best 
 promotes the reputation of God's glory, and, se- 
 condly, is the best instrument of holy life. For in 
 questions and interpretations of dispute, these two 
 analogies are the best to make propositions, and 
 
268 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 conjectures, and determinations. Diligence and 
 care in obtaining the best guides, and the most con- 
 venient assistances, prayer, and modesty of spirit, 
 simplicity of purposes and intentions, humility 
 and aptness to learn, and a peaceable disposition, 
 are therefore necessary to finding out truths, be- 
 cause they are parts of good life, ^vithout which 
 our ti'uths will do us but little advantage, and our 
 errors can have no excuse; but with these disposi- 
 tions, as he is sure to find out all that is necessary, 
 so what truth he inculpably misses of, he is sure is 
 therefore not necessary, because he could not find 
 it when he did his best and his most innocent en- 
 deavours. And this I say to secure the persons, 
 because no rule can antecedently secure the propo- 
 sition in matters disputable. For even in the pro- 
 portions and explications of this rule, there is in- 
 finite variety of disputes ; and when the dispute is 
 concerning free will, one party denies it, because he 
 believes it magnifies the grace of God, that it works 
 irresistibly ; the other affirms, because he believes 
 it engages us upon greater care and piety of our 
 endeavours. The one opinion thinks God reaps 
 the glory of our good actions, the other thinks it 
 charges our bad actions upon him. So in the question 
 of merit, one part chooses his assertion, because he 
 thinks it encourages us to do good works ; the other 
 believes it makes us proud, and therefore he rejects 
 it. The first believes it increases piety, the second 
 believes it increases spiritual presumption and va- 
 nity. The first thinks it magnifies God's justice, 
 the other thinks it derogates from his mercy. Now 
 then, since neither this, nor any ground can se- 
 cure a man from possibility of mistaking, we were 
 
INNOCEiNCY OF ERROR IN OPINION. 269 
 
 infinitely miserable if it would not secure us from 
 punishment, so long- as we willingly consent not to 
 a crime, and do our best endeavour to avoid an 
 error. Only by the way, let me observe, that since 
 there are such great differences of apprehension 
 concerning the consequents of an article, no man 
 is to be charged with the odious consequences of 
 his opinion. Indeed, his doctrine is, but the per- 
 son is not, if he understands not such things to be 
 consequent to his doctrine; for if he did, and then 
 avows them, they are his direct opinions, and he 
 stands as chargeable with them as with his first 
 propositions ; but if he disavows them, he would 
 certainly rather quit his own opinion than avow 
 such errors or impieties, which are pretended to be 
 consequent to it; because every man knows that 
 can be no truth, from whence falsehood naturally 
 and immediately does derive; and he therefore 
 believes his first propositions, because he believes 
 it innocent of such errors as are charged upon it, 
 directly or consequently. 
 
 So that now, since no error, neither for itself, 
 nor its consequents, is to be charged as criminal 
 upon a pious person, since no simple error is a sin, 
 nor does condemn us before the throne of God, 
 since he is so pitiful to our crimes, that he pardons 
 many de toto et integro, in all makes abatement for 
 the violence of temptation, and the surprisal and 
 invasion of our faculties, and, therefore, much less 
 will demand of us an account for our weaknesses ; 
 and since the strongest understanding cannot pre- 
 tend to such an immunity and exemption from the 
 condition of men, as not to be deceived and con- 
 fess its weakness ; it remains, we inquire what de- 
 portment is to be used towards persons of a differ- 
 
270 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 ing' persuasion, when we are (I do not say doubt- 
 ful of a proposition, but) convinced that he that 
 differs from us is in error ; for this was the first in- 
 tention and the last end of this discourse. 
 
 SECTION XIII. 
 
 Of the Deportment to he used towards Persons dis- 
 agreeing, and the Reasons why they are not to be 
 ■punished ivith Death, ^c. 
 
 For although every man may be deceived, yet 
 some are right and may know it too, for every man 
 that may err does not therefore certainly err; and 
 if he errs because he recedes from his rule, then if 
 he follows it he maj^ do right ; and if ever any man 
 upon just grounds did change his opinion, then he 
 was in the right and was sure of it too ; and, al- 
 though confidence is mistaken for a just persuasion 
 many times, yet some men are confident, and have 
 reason so to be. Now when this happens, the 
 question is, what deportment they are to use to- 
 wards persons that disagree from them, and by con- 
 sequence are in error. 
 
 1 . Then no Christian is to be put to death, dis- 
 membered, or otherwise directly persecuted for his 
 opinion, which does not teach impiety or blasphemy. 
 If it plainly and apparently brings in a crime, and 
 himself does act it or encourage it, then the matter 
 of fact is punishable according to its proportion or 
 
TREATMENT OF PERSONS IN ERROR. 271 
 
 malignity ; as, if he preaches treason or sedition, 
 his opinion is not his excuse, because it brings in a 
 crime, and a man is never the less traitor because 
 he believes it lawful to commit treason ; and a man 
 is a murderer if he kills his brother unjustly, al- 
 though he thinks he does God good service in it. 
 Matters of fact are equally judicable, whether the 
 principle of them be from within or from without ; 
 and if a man could pretend to innocence in being 
 seditious, blasphemous, or perjured, by persuad- 
 ing himself it is lawful, there were as great a gate 
 opened to all iniquity as will entertain all the pre- 
 tences, the designs, the impostures, and disguises 
 of the world. And therefore God hath taken order, 
 that all rules concerning matters of fact and good 
 life shall be so clearly explicated that, without the 
 crime of the man, he cannot be ignorant of all his 
 practical duty. And therefore the apostles and 
 primitive doctors made no scruple of condemning 
 such persons for heretics that did dogmatise a sin. 
 He that teacheth others to sin is worse than he 
 that commits the crime, whether he be tempted by 
 his own interest, or encouraged by the other's doc- 
 trine. It was as bad in Basilides to teach it to be 
 lawful to renounce faith and religion, and take all 
 manner of oaths and covenants in time of perse- 
 cution, as if himself had done so ; nay, it is as 
 much worse, as the mischief is more universal, or 
 as a fountain is greater than a drop of water taken 
 from it. He that writes treason in a book, or 
 preaches sedition in a pulpit, and persuades it to 
 the people, is the greatest traitor and incendiary, 
 and his opinion there is the fountain of a sin; and 
 therefore could not be entertained in his under- 
 standing upon weakness, or inculpable or innocent 
 
272 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 prejudice : he cannot, from Scripture or divine re- 
 velation, have any pretence to colour that so fairly 
 as to seduce either a wise or an honest man. If it 
 rests there and goes no further, it is not cogniza- 
 ble, and so scapes that way ; but if it be published, 
 and comes, a stylo ad machceram, (as Teitullian's 
 phrase is,) " from the pen to the sword," then it 
 becomes matter of fact in principle and in persua- 
 sion, and is just so punishable as is the crime that 
 it persuades. Such were they of whom St. Paul 
 complains,* who brought in damnable doctrines and 
 lusts. St. Paul's, ' I would they were even cut off,' 
 is just of them; take it in any sense of rigour and 
 severity, so it be proportionable to the crime, or 
 criminal doctrine. Such were those of w hom God 
 spake in Deut. xiii. : ' If any prophet tempts to 
 idolatry, saying. Let us go after other gods, he 
 shall be slain.' But these do not come into this 
 question. But the proposition is to be understood 
 concerning questions disputable as matter of opi- 
 nion, w hich also, for all that law of killing, such 
 false prophets were permitted with impunity in the 
 synagogue, as appears beyond exception in the 
 great divisions and disputes betw-een the Pharisees 
 and the Sadducees. I deny not, but certain and 
 known idolatry, or any other sort of practical im- 
 piety, w ith its principiant doctrine may be punished 
 corporally, because it is no other but matter of fact ; 
 but no matter of mere opinion, no errors that of 
 themselves are not sins, are to be persecuted, or 
 punished by death, or corporal inflictions. This 
 is now to be proved. 
 
 2. All the former discourse is sufficient argu- 
 
 * Gal. V. 
 
TREATMENT OF PERSONS IN ERROR. 273 
 
 ment how easy it is for us, in such matters, to be 
 deceived. So long- as Christian religion was a 
 simple profession of the articles of belief, and a 
 hearty prosecution of the rules of good life, the 
 fewness of the articles and the clearness of the 
 rule was cause of the seldom prevarication. But 
 when divinity is swelled up to so great a body, 
 when the several questions, which the peevishness 
 and wantonness of sixteen ages have commenced, 
 are concentered into one, and from all these ques- 
 tions something is drawn into the body of theology 
 till it hath ascended up to the greatness of a moun- 
 tain, and the sum of divinity collected by Aquinas 
 makes a volume as great as was that of Livy, 
 mocked at in the epigram, 
 
 " Quern mea vix totum bibliotheca capit, — " * 
 
 it is imjiossible for any industry to consider so 
 many particulars, in the infinite numbers of ques- 
 tions as are necessary to be considered before we 
 can with certainty determine any. And after all 
 the considerations which we can have in a whole 
 age, we are not sure not to be deceived. The ob- 
 scurity of some questions, the nicety of some arti- 
 cles, the intricacy of some revelations, the variety 
 of human understandings, the windings of logic, 
 the tricks of adversaries, the subtlety of sophisters, 
 the engagement of educations, personal affections, 
 the portentous number of writers, the infinity of 
 authorities, the vastness of some arguments, as 
 consisting in enumeration of many particulars, the 
 vmcertainty of others, the several degrees of pro- 
 bability, the difficulties of Scripture, the invalidity 
 
 * " A work which shelves like mine can scarce contain." 
 
 T 
 
274 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 of probation of tradition, the opposition of all ex- 
 terior arguments to each other, and their open 
 contestation, the public violence done to authors 
 and records, the private arts and supplantings, 
 the falsifyings, the indefatigable industry of some 
 men to abuse all understandings and all persua- 
 sions into their own opinions, — these, and thou- 
 sands more, even all the difficulty of things, and 
 all the weaknesses of man, and all the arts of the 
 devil, have made it impossible for any man, in so 
 great variety of matter, not to be deceived. No 
 man pretends to it but the pope, and no man is 
 more deceived than he is in that very particular. 
 
 3. From hence proceeds a danger which is con- 
 sequent to this proceeding; for if we, who are so 
 apt to be deceived and so insecure in our resolu- 
 tion of questions disputable, should persecute a 
 disagreeing person, we are not sure we do not fight 
 against God ; for if his proposition be true and per- 
 secuted, then, because all truth derives from God, 
 this proceeding is against God ; and therefore this 
 is not to be done, upon Gamaliel's ground, lest per- 
 adventure we be Ibund to fight against God, of 
 which, because we can have no security (at least) 
 in this case, we have all the guilt of a doubtful or 
 an uncertain conscience. For if there be no security 
 in the thing, as I have largely proved, the con- 
 science, in such cases, is as uncertain as the ques- 
 tion is : and if it be not doubtful where it is uncer- 
 tain, it is because the man is not wise, but as con- 
 fident as ignorant; the first without reason, and 
 the second without excuse. And it is very dispro- 
 portionable for a man to persecute another cer- 
 tainly, for a proposition that, if he were wise, he 
 would know is not certain, at least the other per- 
 
TREATMENT OF PERSONS IN ERROR. 275 
 
 son may innocently be uncertain of it. If he be 
 killed he is certainly killed ; but if he be called 
 heretic it is not so certain that he is an heretic. It 
 were good, therefore, that proceedings were accord- 
 ing to evidence, and the rivers not swell over the 
 banks, nor a certain definitive sentence of death 
 passed upon such persuasions which cannot cer- 
 tainly be defined. And this argument is of so 
 much the more force because we see that the 
 greatest persecutions that ever have been were 
 against truth, even against Christianity itself; and 
 it was a prediction of our blessed Saviour, that 
 persecution should be the lot of true believers : and 
 if we compute the experience of suffering Christen- 
 dom, and the prediction, that truth should suffer, 
 with those few instances of suffering heretics, it is 
 odds but persecution is on the wrong side, and that 
 it is error and heresy that is cruel and tyrannical, 
 especially since the truth of Jesus Christ, and of 
 his religion, are so meek, so charitable, and so mer- 
 ciful. And we may, in this case, exactly use the 
 words of St. Paul : ' But, as then, he that was born 
 after the flesh, persecuted him that was born after 
 the spirit ; even so it is now ;' and so it ever will be 
 till Christ's second coming. 
 
 4. Whoever persecutes a disagreeing person, arms 
 all the world against himself,* and all pious people 
 of his own persuasion, when the scales of authority 
 return to his adversary and attest his contradictory ; 
 and then what can he urge for mercy for himself, 
 
 * " Quo comperto illi in nostram perniciem licentiore audatia 
 grassabuntur." — St. Aug. Epist. ad Donat. Procons. et Contr. ep 
 Fund. " Ita nunc debeosustinere et tanta patientia vobiscum agere 
 quanta mecum egerunt proximi mei cum in vestro dogmate rabi- 
 osus ac ccecus errarem." 
 
 T 2 
 
276 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 or his party, that showeth none to others ? If he 
 says, that he is to be spared because he believes 
 true, but the other was justly persecuted because 
 he was in error, he is ridiculous ; for he is as confi- 
 dently believed to be a heretic as he believes his 
 adversary such ; and whether he be or no, being the 
 thing- in question, of this he is not to be his own 
 judge ; but he that hath authority on his side will 
 be sure to judge against him. So that what either 
 side can indifferently make use of, it is good that 
 neither would, because neither side can, with reason 
 sufficient, do it in prejudice of the other. If a man 
 will say that every man must take his adventure, 
 and if it happens authority to be with him, he will 
 persecute his adversaries ; and if it turns against 
 him he will bear it as well as he can, and hope 
 for a reward of martyrdom and innocent suffering; 
 besides that this is so equal to be said of all sides ; 
 besides that this is a way to make an eternal dis- 
 union of hearts and charities, and that it will make 
 Christendom nothing but a shambles, and a per- 
 petual butchery ; and as fast as men's wits grow 
 wanton, or confident, or proud, or abused, so often 
 there w ill be new executions and massacres ; — 
 besides all this, it is most unreasonable and unjust, 
 as being contrarient to those laws of justice and 
 charity, whereby we are bound with greater zeal 
 to spare and preserve an innocent than to condemn 
 a guilty person : and there is less malice and in- 
 iquity in sparing the guilty than in condemning 
 the good ; because it is in the power of men to re- 
 mit a guilty person to divine judicature, and for 
 divers causes not to use severity, but in no case is 
 it lawful, neither hath God at all given to man a 
 power to condemn such j^ersons as cannot be 
 
TREATMENT OF PERSONS IN ERROR. 277 
 
 proved other than pious and innocent ; and there- 
 fore it is better, if it should so happen, that we 
 should spare the innocent person and one that is 
 actually deceived, than that, upon the turn of the 
 wheel, the true believers should be destroyed. 
 
 And this very reason he that had authority suf- 
 ficient and absolute to make laws, was pleased to 
 urge as a reasonable inducement for the establish- 
 ing of that law which he made for the indemnity of 
 erring persons. It was in the parable of the tares 
 mingled with the good seed, in the Lord's field ; 
 the good seed (Christ himself being the interpreter) 
 are the children of the kingdom, the tares are the 
 children of the wicked one ; upon this comes the 
 precept, * Gather not the tares by themselves, but 
 let them both grow together till the harvest,' that 
 is, till the day of judgment. This parable hath 
 been tortured infinitely to make it confess its mean- 
 ing, but we shall soon dispatch it. All the diffi- 
 culty and variety of exposition is reducible to these 
 two questions : what is meant by gather not, and 
 what by tares? That is, what kind of sword 
 is forbidden, and what kind of persons are to be 
 tolerated ? The former is clear, for the spiritual 
 sword is not forbidden to be used to any sort of 
 criminals, for that would destroy the power of 
 excommunication : the prohibition therefore lies 
 against the use of the temporal sword in cutting off 
 some persons ; who they are is the next difficulty. 
 But by tares, or the children of the wicked one, are 
 meant, either persons of ill lives, wicked persons 
 only in re practicd, (in conduct;) or else another 
 kind of evil persons, men criminal or faulty in re 
 intellectuali, (in understanding.) One or other of 
 these two must be meant — a third I know not. 
 
278 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 But the former cannot be meant^, because it would 
 destroy all bodies politic, which cannot consist 
 without laws, nor laws without a compulsory and 
 a power of the sword ; therefore, if criminals were 
 to be let alone till the day of judgment, bodies 
 politic must stand or fall ad arhitrium impiorum, 
 " according to the pleasure of evil men ;" and no- 
 thing good could be protected, not innocence itself; 
 nothing could be secured but violence and tyranny. 
 It follows then, that since a kind of persons which 
 are indeed faulty are to be tolerated, it must be 
 meant of persons faulty in another kind, in which 
 the Gospel had not, in other places, clearly esta- 
 blished a power externally compulsory ; and there- 
 fore, since in all actions practically criminal a 
 power of the sword is permitted, here, where it is 
 denied, must mean a crime of another kind, and, 
 by consequence, errors intellectual, commonly cal- 
 led heresy. 
 
 And, after all this, the reason there given con- 
 firms this interpretation,* for therefore it is forbid- 
 den to cut off these tares, lest we also pull up the 
 wheat with them, which is the sum of these two 
 last arguments. For, because heresy is of so nice 
 consideration and difficult sentence, in thinking to 
 root up heresies we may, by our mistakes, f de- 
 stroy true doctrine ; which, although it be possible 
 to be done, in all cases of practical question, by 
 mistake,'yet, because external actions are more dis- 
 cernible than inward speculations and opinions. 
 
 * Vide St. Chrysost. Horn, xlvii. in cap. 13, Matt, et St. 
 August. Qu^est. in cap. 13, Matt. St. Cyprian. Ep. lib. iii. 
 Ep. 1. Theophyl. in 13, 3Iatt. 
 
 •\ S. Hieron. in cap. 13, IVIatt. ait, " Per hanc parabolam sig- 
 nificari, ne in rebus dubiis prseceps fiat judicium." 
 
TREATMENT OF PERSONS IN ERROR. 279 
 
 innocent persons are not so easily mistaken for the 
 guilty, in actions criminal as in matters of inward 
 persuasion. And upon that very reason St. Mar- 
 tin was zealous to have procured a revocation of a 
 commission granted to several tribunes, to make 
 inquiry in Spain for sects and opinions : for under 
 colour of rooting out the Priscillianists there was 
 much mischief done, and more likely to happen to 
 the orthodox : for it happened then, as oftentimes 
 since, " a heretic was sometimes discovered rather 
 by his pallid countenance and his dress than by 
 his creed."* They were no good inquisitors of heret- 
 ical pravity, so Sulpitius witnesses. But, secondly, 
 the reason says, that therefore these persons are so 
 to be permitted as not to be persecuted, lest, when 
 a revolution of human affairs sets contrary opinions 
 in the throne or chair, they who were persecuted 
 before should now themselves become persecutors 
 of others, and so, at one time or other, before or 
 after, the wheat be rooted up, and the truth be 
 persecuted. But as these reasons confirm the law 
 and this sense of it, so, abstracting from the law, it 
 is of itself concluding by an argument ab incom- 
 modo, (from inconvenience,) and that founded 
 upon the principles of justice and right reason, as I 
 formerly alleged. 
 
 5. We are not only uncertain of finding out 
 truths, in matters disputable, but we are certain 
 that the best and ablest doctors of Christendom f 
 
 * " Pallore potius et veste quam fide hsereticus dijudicari so- 
 bat aliquando per tribunes Maximi." 
 
 •f- '' lUi in vos saeviant, qui nesciunt cum quo labore verum 
 inveniatur, et quam difficile caveantur errores. Illi in vos 
 SEBviant, qui nesciunt quam rarum et arduum sit carnalia phan- 
 tasmata piae mentis serenitate superare. Illi in vos sgeviant, qui 
 nesciunt quibus et suspiriis et gemitibus fiat ut ex quantula- 
 
280 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 have been actually deceived in matters of great 
 concernment ; which thing is evident in all those 
 instances of persons from whose doctrines all sorts 
 of Christians, respectively, take liberty to dissent. 
 The errors of Papias, Irenaeus, Lactantius, Justin 
 INIartyr, in the millenary opinion ; of St. Cyprian, 
 Firmilian, the Asian and African fathers, in the 
 question of rebaptization ; St. Austin, in his decre- 
 tory and uncharitable sentence against the unbap- 
 tized children of Christian parents; the Roman or 
 the Greek doctors, in the question of the proces- 
 sion of the Holy Ghost, and in the matter of 
 images, are examples beyond exception. " The 
 errors that attach to the minds of men are number- 
 less."* Now, if these great personages had been 
 persecuted or destroyed for their opinions, who 
 should have answered the invaluable loss the 
 church of God should have sustained, in missing 
 so excellent, so exemplary, and so great lights ? 
 But, then, if these persons erred, and by conse- 
 quence might have been destroyed, what should 
 have become of others whose understanding was 
 lower, and their security less, their errors more, 
 and their danger greater ? At this rate all men 
 should have passed through the fire ; for who can 
 escape when St. Cyprian and St. Austin cannot ? 
 Now, to say these persons were not to be perse- 
 cuted because, although they had errors, yet none 
 condemned by the church at that time or before, 
 is to say nothing to the purpose, nor nothing that 
 
 cunque parte possit intelligi Deus. Postremo illi in vos sasviant, 
 qui nullo tali errore decepti sunt, quali vos deceptos vident." — 
 St. August. Contr. Ep. Fund. 
 
 * "AfjKpi c' 'avBptJTTWv (ppeaiv '«ji{7rXoK-i«t 'avapi^fxriToi 
 Kpsfiavrai. 
 
TREATMENT OF PERSONS IN ERROR. 281 
 
 is true. Not true, because St. Cyprian's error was 
 condemned by pope Stephen, which, in the present 
 sense of the prevailing party in the church of 
 Rome, is to be condemned by the church. Not to 
 the purpose, because it is nothing- else but to say 
 that the church did tolerate their errors ; for since 
 those opinions were open and manifest to the world, 
 that the church did not condemn them, it was either 
 because those opinions were by the church not 
 thought to be errors, or if they were, yet she thought 
 fit to tolerate the error and the erring person. 
 And if she would do so still it would, in most 
 cases, be better than now it is. And yet, if the 
 church had condemned them it had not altered the 
 case as to this question ; for either the persons, upon 
 the condemnation of their error, should have been 
 persecuted, or not. If not, why shall they now, 
 against the instance and precedent of those ages 
 who were confessedly wise and pious, and whose 
 practices are often made to us arguments to follow ? 
 If yea, and that they had been persecuted, it is 
 the thing which this argument condemns, and the 
 loss of the church had been invaluable in the losing 
 or the provocation and temptation of such rare per- 
 sonages; and the example and the rule of so ill 
 consecj[uence, that all persons might, upon the 
 same ground, have suffered ; and though some had 
 escaped, yet no man could have any more security 
 from punishment than from error. 
 
 6. Either the disagreeing person is in error or 
 not, but a true believer ; in either of the cases, to 
 persecute him is extremely imprudent. For if he 
 be a true believer, then it is a clear case that we do 
 open violence to God, and his servants, and his 
 truth. If he be in error, what greater folly and 
 
282 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 stupidity than to give to error the glory of mar- 
 tyrdom, and the advantages which are accidentally 
 consequent to a persecution ? For as it was true 
 of the martyrs, Quoties morimur toties nascimur ; * 
 and the increase of their trouble was the increase 
 of their confidence and the establishment of their 
 persuasions, so it is in all false opinions ; for that 
 an opinion is true or false, is extrinsical or acci- 
 dental to the consequents and advantages it gets 
 by being afflicted. And there is a popular pity 
 that follows all persons in misery, and that com- 
 passion breeds likeness of affections, and that very 
 often produces likeness of persuasion ; and so much 
 the rather, because there arises a jealousy and 
 pregnant suspicion that they who persecute an 
 opinion are destitute of sufficient arguments to 
 confute it, and that the hangman is the best dis- 
 putant. For if those arguments which they have 
 for their own doctrine were a sufficient ground of 
 confidence and persuasion, men would be more 
 willing to use those means which are better com- 
 pliances with human understanding, which more 
 naturally do satisfy it, which are more human and 
 Christian, than that way which satisfies none, which 
 destroys many, which provokes more, which makes 
 all men jealous. To which add, that those who die 
 for their opinion leave in all men great arguments 
 of the heartiness of their belief, of the confidence of 
 their persuasion, of the piety and innocency of 
 their persons, of the purity of their intention and 
 simplicity of purposes ; that they are persons to- 
 tally disinterested and sejDarate from design. For 
 no interest can be so great as to be put in balance 
 
 * " As often as we die, so often do we begin to live." 
 
TREATMENT OF PERSONS IN ERROR. 283 
 
 against a man's life and his soul, and he does very 
 imprudently serve his ends who seeingly and fore- 
 knowingly loses his life in the prosecution of them. 
 Just as if Titius should offer to die for Sempronius, 
 upon condition he might receive twenty talents 
 when he had done his work. It is certainly an ar- 
 gument of a great love, and a great confidence, 
 and a great sincerity, and a great hope, when a 
 man lays down his life in attestation of a proposi- 
 tion. ' Greater love than this hath no man, than 
 to lay down his life,' saith our blessed Saviour. 
 And although laying of a wager is an argument of 
 confidence more than truth, yet laying such a 
 wager, staking of a man's soul, and pawning his 
 life, gives a hearty testimony that the person is 
 honest, confident, resigned, charitable, and noble. 
 And I know not whether truth can do a person or 
 a cause more advantages than these can do to an 
 error. And therefore, besides the impiety, there 
 is great imprudence in canonizing a heretic and 
 consecrating an error by such means, which were 
 better preserved as encouragements of truth and 
 comforts to real and true martyrs. And it is not 
 amiss to observe, that this very advantage was 
 taken by heretics, who v/ere ready to show and 
 boast their catalogues of martyrs; in particular, 
 the Circumcellians did so, and the Donatists ; and 
 yet the first were heretics, the second schismatics. 
 And it was remarkable in the scholars of Priscil- 
 lian, who, as they had their master in the reputa- 
 tion of a saint while he was living, so when he was 
 dead they had him in veneration as a martyr ; 
 they with reverence and devotion carried his, and 
 the bodies of his slain companions, to an honour- 
 able sepulchre, and counted it religion to swear by 
 
284 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 the name of Priscillian. So that the extinguishing 
 of the person gives life and credit to his doctrine, 
 and when he is dead he yet speaks more effectually. 
 7. It is unnatural and unreasonable to persecute 
 disagreeing opinions. Unnatural ; for understand- 
 ing being a thing wholly spiritual^ cannot be re- 
 strained, and therefore neither punished by cor- 
 poral afflictions. It is in aliend republicd, a matter of 
 another world ; you may as well cure the colic by 
 brushing a man's clothes, or fill a man's belly with 
 a syllogism : these things do not communicate in 
 matter, and therefore neither in action nor passion ; 
 and since all punishments, in a prudent govern- 
 ment, punish the offender to prevent a future 
 crime, and so it proves more medicinal than vin- 
 dictive, the punitive act being in order to the cure 
 and prevention ; and since no punishment of the 
 body can cure a disease in the soul, it is dispropor- 
 tionable in nature ; and in all civil government, to 
 punish where the punishment can do no good, it 
 may be an act of tyranny, but never of justice. 
 For is an opinion ever the more true or false for 
 being persecuted ? Some men have believed it the 
 more, as being provoked into a confidence and 
 vexed into a resolution ; but the thing itself is not 
 the truer ; and though the hangman may confute 
 a man with an inexplicable dilemma, yet not con- 
 vince his understanding ; for such premises can 
 infer no conclusion but that of a man's life; and a 
 wolf may as well give laws to the understanding as 
 he whose dictates are only propounded in violence 
 and writ in blood. And a dog is as capable of a 
 law as a man, if there be no choice in his obedience, 
 nor discourse in his choice, nor reason to satisfy 
 his discourse. And as it is unnatural, so it is 
 
TREATMENT OF PERSONS IN ERROR. 285 
 
 unreasonable that Sempronius should force Caius 
 to be of his opinion, because Sempronius is consul 
 this year and commands the Lictors ; as if he that 
 can kill a man cannot but be infallible : and if he 
 be not, why should I do violence to my conscience 
 because he can do violence to my person ? 
 
 8. Force in matters of opinion can do no good, 
 but is very apt to do hurt ; for no man can change 
 his opinion when he will, or be satisfied in his rea- 
 son that his opinion is false because discounte- 
 nanced. If a man could change his opinion when 
 he lists, he might cure many inconveniences of his 
 life : all his fears and his sorrows would soon dis- 
 band, if he would but alter his opinion, whereby 
 he is persuaded that such an accident that afflicts 
 him is an evil, and such an object formidable; let 
 him but believe himself impregnable, or that he re- 
 ceives a benefit when he is plundered, disgraced, 
 imprisoned, condemned, and afflicted, neither his 
 sleeps need to be disturbed, nor his quietness dis- 
 composed. But if a man cannot change his opi- 
 nion when he lists, nor ever does heartily or reso- 
 lutely but when he cannot do otherwise, then to 
 use force may make him an hypocrite but never 
 to be a right believer ; and so, instead of erecting a 
 trophy to God and true religion, we build a monu- 
 ment for the devil. Infinite examples are recorded 
 in church story to this very purpose ; but Socrates 
 instances in one for all ; for when Eleusius, bishop 
 of Cyzicum, was threatened by the emperor Valens 
 with banishment and confiscation if he did not 
 subscribe to the decree of Ariminum, at last he 
 yielded to the Arian opinion, and presently fell 
 into great torment of conscience, openly at Cyzicum 
 recanted the error, asked God and the church for- 
 
286 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 giveness, and complained of the emperor's injus- 
 tice, and that was all the good the Arian party got 
 by offering violence to his conscience. And so 
 many families in Spain, which are, as they call 
 them, new Christians, and of a suspected faith, into 
 which they were forced by the tyranny of the In- 
 quisition, and yet are secret Moors, is evidence 
 enough of the inconvenience of preaching a doc- 
 trine in m ore gladii cmentandi, at the point of the 
 sword. For it either punishes a man for keeping a 
 good conscience or forces him into a bad ; it either 
 punishes sincerity or persuades hypocrisy ; it per- 
 secutes a truth or drives into error ; and it teaches 
 a man to dissemble and to be safe, but never to be 
 honest. 
 
 9. It is one of the glories of Christian religion, 
 that it was so pious, excellent, miraculous, and per- 
 suasive that it came in upon its own piety and 
 wisdom, with no other force but a torrent of argu- 
 ments, and demonstration of the Spirit ; a mighty 
 rushing wind to beat down all strong holds, and 
 every high thought and imagination ; but towards 
 the persons of men it was always full of meekness 
 and charity, compliance and toleration, condescen- 
 sion and bearing with one another, " restoring per- 
 sons overtaken with an error, in the spirit of meek- 
 ness, considering lest we also be tempted." The 
 consideration is as prudent and the proposition as 
 just as the precept is charitable and the precedent 
 was pious and holy. Now, things are best con- 
 served with that which gives it the first being, and 
 which is agreeable to its temper and constitution. 
 That precept which it chiefly preaches, in order to 
 all the blessedness in the world, that is, of meek- 
 ness, mercy, and charity, should also preserve itself. 
 
TREATMENT OF PERSONS IN ERROR. 287 
 
 and promote its own interest. For, indeed, nothing 
 will do it so well ; nothing- doth so excellently insi- 
 nuate itself into the understandings and affections 
 of men, as when the actions and persuasions of a 
 sect, and every part and principle and promotion 
 are univocal. And it would be a mighty dis- 
 paragement to so glorious an institution, that in its 
 principle it should be merciful and humane, and in 
 the promotion and propagation of it so inhuman ; 
 and it would be improbable and unreasonable that 
 the sword should be used in the persuasion of one 
 proposition, and yet, in the persuasion of the whole 
 religion, nothing like it. To do so may serve the 
 end of a temporal prince, but never promote the 
 honour of Christ's kingdom; it may secure a de- 
 sign of Spain, but will very much disserve Christen- 
 dom, to offer to support it by that which good men 
 believe to be a distinctive cognizance of the Maho- 
 metan religion from the excellency and piety of 
 Christianity, whose sense and spirit is described in 
 those excellent words of St. Paul, 2 Tim. ii. 24 : ' The 
 servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle 
 unto all men, in meekness instructino; those that 
 oppose themselves, if God peradventure will give 
 them repentance to the acknowledging the truth.' 
 They that oppose themselves must not be stricken 
 by any of God's servants ; and, if yet any man will 
 smite these who are his opposites in opinion, he 
 will get nothing by that; he must quit the title of 
 being a servant of God for his pains. And I think 
 a distinction of persons secular and ecclesiastical 
 will do no advantage for an escape ; because even 
 the secular power, if it be Christian and a servant 
 of God, must not be * a striker ; the servant of the 
 Lord must not strive.' I mean in those cases where 
 
288 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 meekness of instruction is tbe remedy, or if the case 
 be irremediable, abscission by censures is the pe- 
 nalty. 
 
 10. And if yet in the nature of the thing it were 
 neither unjust nor unreasonable, yet there is nothing 
 under God Almighty that hath power over the soul 
 of man so as to command a persuasion, or to judge 
 a disagreeing. Human positive laws direct all 
 external acts in order to several ends, and the judges 
 take cognizance accordingly ; but no man can 
 command the will, or punish him that obeys the 
 law against his will : for, because its end is served 
 in external obedience, it neither looks after more, 
 neither can it be served by more, nor take notice of 
 any more. And yet, possibly, the understanding 
 is less subject to human power than the will, for 
 the human power hath a command over external 
 acts, which naturally and regularly flow from the 
 will ; and at most, suppose a direct act of will, but 
 always either a direct or indirect volition, primary 
 or accidental ; but the understanding is a natural 
 faculty, subject to no command but where the com- 
 mand is itself a reason fit to satisfy and 23ersuade 
 it. And therefore God commanding us to believe 
 such revelations, persuades and satisfies the under- 
 standing by his commanding and revealing ; for 
 there is no greater probation in the world that a 
 proposition is true, than because God hath com- 
 manded us to believe it. But because no man's 
 command is a satisfaction to the understanding, or 
 a verification of the proposition, therefore the un- 
 derstanding is not subject to human authority. 
 They may persuade, but not enjoin where God 
 hath not ; and where God hath, if it appears so to 
 him, he is an infidel if he does not believe it. And, 
 
PRACTICE OF THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. 289 
 
 if all men have no other efficacy or authority on 
 the understanding but by persuasion, proposal, 
 and entreaty, then a man is bound to assent but 
 according- to the operation of the argument, and 
 the energy of persuasion ; neither, indeed, can he, 
 though he would never so fain ; and he that, out 
 of fear and too much compliance and desire to be 
 safe, shall desire to bring his understanding with 
 some luxation to the belief of human dictates and 
 authorities, may as often miss of the truth as hit it, 
 but is sure always to lose the comfort of truth, be- 
 cause he believes it upon indirect, insufficient, and 
 incompetent arguments ; and as his desire it should 
 be so is his best argument that it is so, so the 
 pleasing of men is his best reward, and his not 
 being condemned and contradicted all the posses- 
 sion of a truth. 
 
 SECTION XIV. 
 
 Of the Practice of Christian Churches toivards Per- 
 sons disagreeing, and when Persecution first came 
 in. 
 
 And thus this truth hath been practised in all 
 times of Christian religion, when there were no col- 
 lateral designs on foot, nor interests to be served, 
 nor passions to be satisfied. In St. Paul's time, 
 though the censure of heresy were not so loose and 
 forward as afterwards; and all that were called 
 heretics were clearly such, and highly criminal ; 
 yet as their crime was, so was their censure, that 
 is, spiritual. They were first admonished, once at 
 
 u 
 
290 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 least, for so Irenseus,* Tertullian,-]- Cyprian,! Am- 
 brose,§ and Jerome, || read that place of Titus iii. 
 But since that time all men, and at that time 
 some read it, ' after a second admonition' reject a 
 heretic. Rejection from the communion of saints, 
 after two warnings, that is the penalty. St. John 
 expresses it by not eating- with them, not bidding 
 them God speed ; but the persons against whom 
 he decrees so severely, are such as denied Christ 
 to be come in the flesh, direct antichrists; and, let 
 the sentence be as high as it lists, in this case all 
 that I observe is, that since in so damnable doctrines 
 nothing but spiritual censure, separation from the 
 communion of the faithful, was enjoined and pre- 
 scribed, we cannot pretend to an apostolical pre- 
 cedent, if in matters of dispute and innocent ques- 
 tion, and of great uncertainty and no malignity, 
 we should proceed to sentence of death. 
 
 For it is but an absurd and illiterate aro-uing, to 
 say that excommunication is a greater j^unish- 
 ment, and killing a less ; and, therefore, whoever 
 may be excommunicated may also be put to death; 
 (which, indeed, is the reasoning that Bellarmine 
 uses;) for, first, excommunication is not directly 
 and of itself a greater punishment than corporal 
 death ; because it is indefinite and incomplete, 
 and in order to a further punishment, which, if it 
 happens, then the excommunication was the inlet 
 to it ; if it does not, the excommunication did not 
 signify half so much as the loss of a member, much 
 less death. For it may be totally ineffectual, either 
 by the iniquity of the proceeding or repentance of 
 the person ; and, in all times and cases, it is a me- 
 
 * Lib. iii. c. 3. + De Prsescript. 
 
 t Lib. ad Quirinum. § In hunc locum. || Ibidem. 
 
PRACTICE OF THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. 291 
 
 dicine if the man please ; if he will not, but perse- 
 veres in his impiety, then it is himself that brings 
 the censure to effect, that actuates the judgment, 
 and gives a sting and an energy upon that which 
 otherwise would be xfTp uKvpog, " an authority without 
 force." Secondly, but when it is at worst, it does 
 not kill the soul, it only consigns it to that death 
 which it had deserved, and should have received 
 independently from that sentence of the church. 
 Thirdly, and yet excommunication is to admirable 
 purpose; for whether it refers to the person cen- 
 sured or to others, it is prudential in itself, it is ex- 
 emplary to others, it is medicinal to all. For the 
 person censured is by this means threatened into 
 piety, and the threatening made the more energe- 
 tical upon him because, by fiction of law, or as it 
 were, by a sacramental rep resentment, the pains of 
 hell are made presential to him; and so becomes 
 an act of prudent judicature and excellent dis- 
 cipline, and the best instrument of spiritual go- 
 vernment: because the nearer the threatening is 
 reduced to matter, and the more present and cir- 
 cumstantial it is made, the more operative it is 
 upon our spirits while they are immerged in mat- 
 ter. And this is the full sense and power of ex- 
 communication in its direct intention : consequently 
 and accidentally other evils might follow it, as in 
 the times of the apostles the censured persons were 
 buffeted by Satan ; and even at this day there is 
 less security even to the temporal condition of such 
 a person whom his spiritual parents have anathe- 
 matised. But, besides this, I know no warrant to 
 affirm any thing of excommunication, for the sen- 
 tence of the church does but declare, not effect the 
 final sentence of damnation. Whoever deserves 
 
 v2 
 
292 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 excommunication deserves damnation ; and he that 
 repents shall be saved, though he die out of the 
 church's external communion ; and if he does not 
 repent he shall be damned, though he was not ex- 
 communicate. 
 
 Bnt suppose it greater than the sentence of cor- 
 poral death, yet it follows not because heretics 
 may be excommunicate therefore killed ; for from 
 a greater to a less, in a several kind of things, 
 the argument concludes not. It is a greater thing 
 to make an excellent discourse than to make a 
 shoe ; yet he that can do the greater cannot do this 
 less. An angel cannot beget a man, and yet he 
 can do a greater matter, in that kind of operations 
 which we term spiritual and angelical. And if this 
 were concluding, that whoever may be excommu- 
 nicate may be killed, then, because of excommu- 
 nications the church is confessed the sole and en- 
 tire judge, she is also an absolute disposer of 
 the lives of persons. I believe this will be but 
 ill doctrine in Spain : for in Bui fa Cannes Domini, 
 the king of Spain is every year excommunicated on 
 Maunday Thursday. But if, by the same power, 
 he might also be put to death, (as upon this ground 
 he may,) the pope might, with more ease, be in- 
 vested in that part of St. Peter's patrimony which 
 that king hath invaded and surprised. But besides 
 this, it were extreme harsh doctrine in a Roman con- 
 sistory, from whence excommunications issue for tri- 
 fles, for fees, for not suffering themselves infinitely to 
 be oppressed, for any thing : if this be greater than 
 death, how great a tyranny is that which does more 
 than kill men for less than trifies; or else how inconse- 
 quent is that argument which concludes its pur- 
 pose upon so false pretence and supposition !^ 
 
PRACTICE OF THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. 293 
 
 Well, however zealous the apostles were against 
 heretics, yet none were by them or their dictates 
 put to death. The death of Annanias and Sapphira, 
 and the blindness of Elymas the sorcerer, amount 
 not to this, for they were miraculous inflictions; 
 and the first was a punishment to vow-breach and 
 sacrilege, the second of sorcery and open contest- 
 ation against the religion of Jesus Christ ; neither 
 of them concerned the case of this present question. 
 Or if the case were the same, yet the authority is 
 not the same ; for he that inflicted these punish- 
 ments was infallible, and of a power competent; 
 but no man at this day is so. But, as yet, people 
 were converted by miracles, and preaching, and dis- 
 puting ; and heretics, by the same means, were re- 
 dargued, and all men instructed, none tortured 
 for their opinion. And this continued till Christian 
 people were vexed by disagreeing .persons, and 
 were impatient and peevish, by their own too much 
 confidence, and the luxuriancy of a prosperous for- 
 tune ; but then they would not endure persons 
 that did dogmatize any thing which might intrench 
 upon their reputation or their interest. And it is 
 observable, that no man nor no age did ever teach 
 the lawfulness of putting heretics to death, till they 
 grew wanton with prosperity. But when the re- 
 putation of the governors was concerned, when the 
 interests of men were endangered, when they had 
 something to lose, when they had built their esti- 
 mation upon the credit of disputable questions, 
 when they began to be jealous of other men, when 
 they overvalued themselves and their own opinions, 
 when some persons invaded bishoprics upon pre- 
 tence of new opinions — then they, as they thrived 
 in the favour of emperors, and in the success of 
 
294 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 their disputes, solicited the temporal power to 
 banish, to fine, to imprison, and to kill their ad- 
 versaries. 
 
 So that the case stands thus : — In the best times, 
 amongst the best men, when there were fewer tem- 
 poral ends to be served, when religion and the 
 pure and simple designs of Christianity were only 
 to be promoted ; in those times, and amongst such 
 men, no persecution was actual, nor persuaded, nor 
 allowed, towards disagreeing persons. But as 
 men had ends of their own and not of Christ's, as 
 they receded from their duty, and religion from 
 its purity; as Christianity began to be compound- 
 ed with interests, and blended with temporal de- 
 signs, so men were persecuted for their opinions. 
 This is most apparent, if we consider when perse- 
 cution first came in, and if we observe how it was 
 checked by the holiest and the wisest persons. 
 
 The first great instance I shall note, was in Pris- 
 cillian and his followers, who were condemned to 
 death by the tyrant Maximus : which instance, 
 although St. Jerome observes as a punishment and 
 judgment for the crime of heresy, yet is of no use 
 in the present question, because Maximus put some 
 Christians of all sorts to death promiscuously, ca- 
 tholic and heretic, without choice ; and therefore 
 the Priscillianists might as well have called it a 
 judgment upon the catholics, as the catholics upon 
 them. 
 
 But when Ursaeus and Statins, two bishops, pro- 
 cured the Priscillianists' death, by the jDOwer they 
 had at court, St. Martin was so angry at them for 
 their cruelty, that he excommunicated them both. 
 And St. Ambrose, upon the same stock, denied his 
 communion to the Itaciani. And the account that 
 
PRACTICE OF THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. 295 
 
 Sulpitius gives of the story is this : " The example 
 was worse than the men. If the men were heretical 
 the execution of them, however, was unchristian."* 
 
 But it was of more authority that the Nicene 
 fathers supplicated the emperor, and prevailed for 
 the banishment of Arius ;f of this we can give no 
 other account, but that, by the history of the time, we 
 see baseness enough, and personal misdemeanour, 
 and factiousness of spirit in Arius to have deserved 
 worse than banishment,! though the obliquity of 
 his opinion were not put into the balance ; which we 
 have reason to believe was not so much as consider- 
 ed, because Constantine gave toleration to differing 
 ojDinions, and Arius himself was restored upon 
 such conditions to his country and office, which 
 would not stand with the ends of the catholics, if 
 they had been severe exactors of concurrence and 
 union of persuasions. 
 
 I am still within the scene of ecclesiastical per- 
 sons, and am considering what the opinions of the 
 learnedest and the holiest prelates were concerning 
 this great question. If we will believe St. Austin, 
 (who was a credible person,) no good man did allow 
 it. '' No good men approve of inflicting death upon 
 any one, though he be a heretic." § This was St. 
 Austin's final opinion ; for he had first been of the 
 mind that it was not honest to do any violence to 
 
 * " Hoc modo homines luce indignissimi pessimo exemplo 
 necati sunt." 
 
 t Sozom. lib. i. c. 20. 
 
 X Socrat. lib. i. c. 26. cont. Crescon. Grammat. lib. iii. c 50. 
 Vide etiam Epist. Ixi. ad Dulcilium, et Epist. clviii, et cxcix. et 
 lib. i.e. 29. cont. tit. Petilian. Vide etiam Socrat. lib. iii. c. 3, et. 29. 
 
 § " NuUis tamen bonis in catholica hoc placet, si usque ad mor- 
 tem in quenquam, licet haereticum, saeviatur." — Lib. ii. cap. 5. 
 Retractat. Vide Epist. 48, ad Vincent, script, post Retract, et 
 Epist. 50, ad Bonifac. 
 
296 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 mispersuaded persons; and when, upon an acci- 
 dent happening in Hippo, he had altered and re- 
 tracted that part of the opinion, yet, then also he 
 excepted death, and would by no means have any 
 mere opinion made capital. But for aught appears, 
 St. Austin had greater reason to have retracted 
 that retraction than his first opinion : for his say- 
 ing, of nullis bonis placet, " no good men approve 
 of it,^' was as true as the thing was reasonable it 
 should be so. Witness those known testimonies of 
 TertuUian,* Cyprian,t Lactantius,! Jerome,§ Sul- 
 pitius Severus,|| Minutius,5[ Hilary,* Damascen,f 
 Chrysostom,t Theophylact,§ and Bernard,|| and 
 divers others, whom the reader may find cjuoted 
 by the archbishop of Spalato.^f 
 
 Against this concurrent testimony my reading 
 can furnish me with no adversary nor contrary in- 
 stances, but in Atticus of Constantinople, Theodo- 
 sius of Synada, in Statins and Ursaeus, before reck- 
 oned. Only, indeed, some of the later popes of 
 Rome began to be busy and unmerciful, but it was 
 then when themselves were secure, and their in- 
 terests great, and their temporal concernments 
 highly considerable. 
 
 For it is most true, and not amiss to observe it, 
 that no man who was under the ferula did ever 
 think it lawful to have opinions forced, or heretics 
 put to death; and yet many men, who themselves 
 have escaped the danger of a pile and a faggot. 
 
 * Ad Scapulam. + Lib. iii. Ep. 1. Epist. 
 
 X Lib. V. c. 20. § In cap. 13, Matt, et in cap. 2. Hos. 
 
 II In Vit St. Martin. ^ Octav. * Cont. Auxent. Arr. 
 
 + 3 Sect. c. 32. + In cap. 13, Matt. Horn. 47. 
 
 § In Evang. Matt. || In verba Apost. fides ex auditu. 
 
 % Lib. viii. de Rep. Eccles. cap. 8. 
 
PRACTICE OF THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. 297 
 
 have chang-ed their opinion just as the case was 
 altered ; that is, as themselves were unconcerned in 
 the suffering. Petilian, Parmenian, and Ganden- 
 tius,* by no means would allow it lawful, for them- 
 selves were in danger, and were upon that side that 
 is ill thought of and discountenanced : but Gre- 
 gory f and Leo, i popes of Rome, upon whose side 
 the authority and advantages were, thought it lawful 
 they should be punished and persecuted, for them- 
 selves were unconcerned in the danger of suffering. 
 And therefore St. Gregory commends the exarch 
 of Ravenna, for forcing them who dissented from 
 those men who called themselves the church. And 
 there were some divines in the Lower Germany, 
 who, upon great reasons, spake against the tyranny 
 of the inquisition, and restraining prophesying, 
 who yet, when they had shaked off the Spanish 
 yoke, began to persecute their brethren. It was 
 unjust in them, in all men unreasonable and un- 
 charitable, and often increases the error, but never 
 lessens the danger. 
 
 But yet, although the church, I mean in her 
 dictinct and clerical capacity, was against destroy- 
 ing or punishing difference in opinion, till the 
 popes of Rome did super-seminate, and persuade 
 the contrary, yet the bishops did persuade the em- 
 perors to make laws against heretics, and to punish 
 disobedient persons with fines, with imprisonment, 
 with death and banishment respectively. This, 
 indeed, calls us to a new account : for the church- 
 men might not proceed to blood, nor corporal in- 
 
 * Apud. Aug. lib. i. c. 7i cont. Epist. Parmenian. et lib. ii. 
 c. 10, cont. tit. Petilian. 
 
 t Epist. i. ad Turbium. $ Lib. i. Ep. 72. 
 
298 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 flictions, but might they not deliver over to the 
 secular arm, and persuade temporal princes to do 
 it ? For this I am to say, that since it is notori- 
 ous that the doctrine of the clergy was against 
 punishing heretics, the laws which were made by 
 the emperors against them might be for restraint 
 of differing religion, in order to the preservation of 
 the public peace, which is too frequently violated 
 by the division of opinions. But I am not certain 
 whether that was always the reason, or whether or 
 no some bishops of the court did not also serve 
 their own ends, in giving their princes such un- 
 toward counsel ; but we find the laws made severally 
 to several purposes, in divers cases, and with diffe- 
 rent severity. Constantine the emperor made a 
 sanction, " that they who erred might enjoy the 
 blessing of peace and quietness equally with the 
 faithful." * The emperor Gratian decreed, " that 
 every one might follow what religious opinion he 
 chose, and that all might come to the ecclesiastical 
 conventions without apprehension ;" f but he ex- 
 cepted the Manichees, the Photinians, and Euno- 
 mians. Theodosius the elder made a law of 
 death against the Anabaptists of his time, and ba- 
 nished Eunomius, and against other erring persons 
 appointed a pecuniary mulct ; but he did no exe- 
 cutions so severe as his sanctions, to show they were 
 made in terrorem only. % So were the laws of 
 Valentinian and Martian, § decreeing, contra omnes 
 
 * " Ut parem cum fidelibus ii qui errant pads et quietis frui- 
 tionem gaudentes accipiant." — Apud. Euseb. de Vita Constant. 
 
 -f- " Ut quam quisque vellet religionem sequeretur ; et con- 
 ventus Ecclesiasticos semoto metu omnes agerent." 
 
 + Vide Socrat. lib, vii. c. 12. 
 
 § Vid. Cod, de Haeretic. L. INIanidiees. et leg. Arriani, et 
 1. Quicunque. 
 
PRACTICE OF THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. 299 
 
 qui prava docere tenent, " who persisted in teaching 
 heretical opinions," that they should be put to 
 death; so did Michael* the emperor, but Justi- 
 nian only decreed banishment. 
 
 But whatever whispers some politics might make 
 to their princes, as the wisest and holiest did 
 not think it lawful for churchmen alone to do exe- 
 cutions, so neither did they transmit such persons 
 to the secular judicature. And therefore, when 
 the edict of Macedonius, the president, was so am- 
 biguous, that it seemed to threaten death to here- 
 tics unless they recanted, St. Austin admonished 
 him carefully to provide that no heretic should be 
 put to death ; alleging it, also, not only to be un- 
 christian, but illegal also, and not warranted by 
 imperial constitutions ; for before his time no laws 
 were made for their being put to death; but, how- 
 ever, he prevailed that Macedonius published ano- 
 ther edict, more explicit and less seemingly severe. 
 But in his epistle to Donatus, the African procon- 
 sul, he is more confident and determinate: " We 
 are impelled by necessity rather to perish by them, 
 than to rush upon those who are devoted to de- 
 struction by your decrees." f 
 
 But afterwards, many got a trick of giving them 
 over to the secular power, which at the best is no 
 better than hypocrisy, removing envy from them- 
 selves, and laying it upon others; a refusing to do 
 that in external act which they do in council and 
 approbation ; which is a transmitting the act to ano- 
 ther, and retaining a proportion of guilt unto them- 
 selves, even their own and the others' too. I end this 
 
 * Apud Paulum Diac. lib. xvi. et lib. xxiv. 
 -|- " Necessitate nobis impactu et indicta, ut potius occidi ab 
 eis eligamus, quam eo§ ocgidendos vestris judiciis iiigeraraus." 
 
300 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 with the saying of Chiysostom : '' We ought to re- 
 prove and condemn impieties and heretical doc- 
 trines, but to spare the 7nen, and to pray for their 
 salvation."* 
 
 SECTION XV. 
 
 How far the Church or Governors may act to the 
 restraining false or differing Opinions. 
 
 But although heretical persons are not to be de- 
 stroyed, yet heresy being a work of the flesh, and 
 all heretics criminal persons, whose acts and doc- 
 trine have influence upon communities of men, 
 whether ecclesiastical or civil, the governors of the 
 republic, or church, respectively, are to do their 
 duties in restraining those michiefs which may 
 liappen to their several charges, for whose indem- 
 nity they are answerable. And therefore, accord- 
 ing to the effect or malice of the doctrine or the 
 person, so the cognizance of them belongs to several 
 judicatures. If it be false dostrine in any capacity, 
 and doth mischief in any sense, or teaches ill life 
 in any instance, or encourages evil in any particu- 
 lar, ^n liri'rof.iiZeiv, these men must be silenced ; they 
 must be convinced by sound doctrine, and put to 
 silence by spiritual evidence, and restrained by 
 authority ecclesiastical; that is, by spiritual cen- 
 
 * " Dogmata impia, et quae ab haereticis profecta sunt ar- 
 guere et anathematizare oportet, hominibus autem parcendum et 
 pro salute orum orandum." — Serm. de Anathemate. 
 
DUTY or ECCLESIASTICAL GOVERNORS. 301 
 
 sures, according' as it seems necessary to him 
 who is most concerned in the regimen of the 
 church. For all this we have precept, and precedent 
 apostolical, and much reason. For by thus doing 
 the governor of the church uses all that authority that 
 is competent, and all the means that is reasonable, 
 and that proceeding which is regular, that he may 
 discharge his cure and secure his flock. And that 
 he possibly may be deceived in judging a doctrine 
 to be heretical, and, by consequence, the person ex- 
 communicate suffers injury, is no argument against 
 the reasonableness of the proceeding. For all the 
 injury that is is visible and in appearance, and so 
 is his crime. Judges must judge according to 
 their best reason, guided by the law of God as 
 their rule, and by evidence and appearance as their 
 best instrument, and they can judge no belter. If 
 the judges be good and prudent, the error of pro- 
 ceeding will not be great nor ordinary ; and there 
 can be no better establishment of human judica- 
 ture than is a fallible proceeding upon an infallible 
 ground : and if the judgment of heresy be made 
 by estimate and proportion of the opinion to a 
 good or a bad life respectively, supposing an error 
 in the deduction, there will be no malice in the 
 conclusion ; and that he endeavours to secure piety 
 according to the best of his understanding, and yet 
 did mistake in his proceeding, is only an argument 
 that he did his duty after the manner of men, pos- 
 sibly with the piety of a saint, though not with the 
 understanding of an angel. And the little incon- 
 venience that happens to the person injuriously 
 judged, is abundantly made up in the excellency 
 of the discipline, the goodness of the example, the 
 care of the public, and all those great influences 
 
302 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 into the manners of men vvliich derive from such 
 an act so publicly consigned. But such public 
 judgment in matters of opinion must be seldom 
 and curious, and never but to secure piety and a 
 holy life ; for in matters speculative, as all deter- 
 minations are fallible, so scarce any of them are to 
 purpose, nor ever able to make compensation of 
 either side, either for the public fraction or the 
 particular injustice, if it should so happen in the 
 censure. 
 
 But then, as the church may proceed thus far, 
 yet no Christian man, or connnunity of men, may 
 proceed farther. For if they be deceived in their 
 judgment and censure, and yet have passed only 
 spiritual censures, they are totally ineffectual, and 
 come to nothing ; there is no effect remaining 
 upon the soul, and such censures are not to meddle 
 with the body so much as indirectly. But, if any 
 other judgment pass upon persons erring, such 
 judgments whose effects remain, if the person be 
 unjustly censured, nothing will answer and make 
 compensation for such injuries. If a person be ex- 
 communicate unjustly, it will do him no hurt; but 
 if he be killed, or dismembered unjustly, that cen- 
 sure and infliction is not made ineffectual by his 
 innocence, he is certainly killed and dismembered. 
 So that as the church's authority in such cases, so re- 
 strained and made prudent, cautelous, and orderly, 
 is just and competent; so the proceeding is reason- 
 able, it is provident for the public, and the incon- 
 veniences that may fail upon particulars so little, 
 as that the public benefit makes ample compen- 
 sation, so long as the proceeding is but spiritual. 
 
 This discourse is in the case of such opinions, 
 which, by the former rules, are formal heresies, and 
 
DUTY OF ECCLESIASTICAL GOVERNORS. 303 
 
 upon practical inconveniences. But, for matters 
 of question which have not in them an enmity to 
 the public tranquillity, as the republic hath nothing- 
 to do, upon the ground of all the former discourses, 
 so, if the church meddles with them where they do 
 not derive into ill life, either in the person or in the 
 consequent, or else the destructions of the foundation 
 of religion, which is all one; for that those funda- 
 mental articles are of greatest necessity, in order to 
 a virtuous and godly life, which is wholly built 
 upon them, (and therefore are principally neces- 
 sary) — if she meddles further, otherwise than by 
 preaching, and conferring, and exhortation, she 
 becomes tyrannical in her government, makes her- 
 self an immediate judge of consciences and persua- 
 sions, lords it over their faith, destroys unity and 
 charity; and, as he that dogmatizes the opinion 
 becomes criminal, if he troubles the church with an 
 immodest, peevish, and pertinacious proposal of 
 his article, not simply necessary; so the church 
 does not do her duty, if she so condemns it pro 
 tribunaU, as to enjoin him and all her subjects to 
 believe the contrary. And as there may be perti- 
 nacy in doctrine, so there may be pertinacy in judg- 
 ing, and both are faults. The peace of the church, 
 and the unity of her doctrine is best conserved 
 when it is judged by the proportion it hath to that 
 rule of unity which the apostles gave, that is, the 
 creed for articles of mere belief, and the precepts of 
 Jesus Christ, and the practical rules of piety, which 
 are most plain and easy, and without controversy 
 set down in the gospels and writings of the apostles. 
 But to multiply articles, and adopt them into the 
 family of the faith, and to require assent to such 
 articles, which (as St, Paul's phrase is) are of 
 
304 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 doubtful disputation, equal to that assent we give 
 to matters of faith, is to build a tower upon the 
 top of a bulrush ; and the further the effect of such 
 proceedings does extend, the worse they are ; the 
 very making such a law is unreasonable ; the in- 
 flicting spiritual censures upon them that cannot 
 do so much violence to their understanding as to 
 obey it, is un j ust and ineffectual ; but to punish the 
 person with death, or with corporal infliction, in- 
 deed it is effectual, but it is therefore tyrannical. 
 We have seen what the church may do towards re- 
 straining false or differing opinions; next I shall 
 consider, by way of corollary, what the prince may 
 do as for his interest, and only in securing his peo- 
 ple, and serving the ends of true religion. 
 
 SECTION XVI. 
 
 Whether it be lawful for a Prince to give Toleration 
 to several Religions. 
 
 For upon these very grounds we may easily give 
 account of that great question, whether it be lawful 
 for a prince to give toleration to several religions ? 
 
 For, first, it is a great fault that men will call the 
 several sects of Christians by the names of several 
 religions. The religion of Jesus Christ is the form 
 of sound doctrine and wholesome words, which is 
 set down in Scripture indefinitely, actually con- 
 veyed to us by plain places, and separated as for 
 the question of necessary or not necessary by the 
 
DUTY OF PRINCES. 305 
 
 symbol of the apostles. Those impertinencies 
 which the wantonness and vanity of men hath com- 
 menced, which their interests have promoted, which 
 serve not truth so much as their own ends, are far 
 from being distinct religions ; for matters of opinion 
 are no parts of the worship of God, nor in order to 
 it, but as they promote obedience to his command- 
 ments ; and when they contribute towards it, are, 
 in that proportion as they contribute, parts and 
 actions, and minute particulars of that religion to 
 whose end they do, or pretend to serve. And such 
 are all the sects and all the pretences of Christians, 
 but pieces and minutes of Christianity, if they do 
 serve the great end, as every man for his own sect 
 and interest believes for his share it does. 
 
 2. Toleration hath a double sense or purpose: 
 for sometimes by it men understand a public license 
 and exercise of a sect ; sometimes it is only an in- 
 demnity of the persons privately to convene and to 
 opine as they see cause, and as they mean to an- 
 swer to God. Both these are very much to the 
 same purpose, unless some persons whom we are 
 bound to satisfy be scandalized ; and then the 
 prince is bound to do as he is bound to satisfy. 
 To God it is all one. For, abstracting from the 
 offence of persons, which is to be considered just as 
 our obligation is to content the persons, it is all 
 one whether we indulge to them to meet publicly 
 or privately, to do actions of religion, concerning 
 which we are not persuaded that they are truly 
 holy. To God it is just one to be in the dark and 
 in the light ; the thing is the same, only the circum- 
 stance of public and private is different, which can- 
 not be concerned in any thing, nor can it concern 
 
 X 
 
306 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 any thing but the matter of scandal and relation to 
 the minds and fantasies of certain persons. 
 
 '3. So that to tolerate is not to persecute. And 
 the question, whether the prince may tolerate divers 
 persuasions, is no more than whether he may law- 
 fully persecute any man for not being of his opi- 
 nion. Now, in this case, he is just so to tolerate 
 diversity of persuasions as he is to tolerate public ac- 
 tions; for no opinion is judicable, nor no person 
 punishable, but for a sin ; and if his opinion, by 
 reason of its managing or its effect, be a sin in 
 itself, or becomes a sin to the person, then, as he 
 is to do towards other sins, so to that opinion or 
 man so opining. But to believe so, or not so, 
 when there is no more but mere believing, is not in 
 his power to enjoin, therefore not to punish. And 
 it is not only lawful to tolerate disagreeing persua- 
 sions, but the authority of God only is competent 
 to take notice of it, and infallible to determine it, 
 and fit to judge; and therefore no human autho- 
 rity is sufficient to do all those things which can 
 justify the inflicting temporal punishments upon 
 such as do not conform in their persuasions to a 
 rule or authority which is not only fallible, but 
 supposed by the disagreeing person to be actually 
 deceived. 
 
 But I consider, that in the toleration of a differ- 
 ent opinion, religion is not properly and imme- 
 diately concerned, so as in any degree to be en- 
 dangered. For it may be safe in diversity of 
 persuasions, and it is also a part of Christian reli- 
 gion,* that the liberty of men's consciences should 
 
 * '' Humani juris et naturalis potestatis, unicuiq. quod pu- 
 taverit, colere. Sed nee religionis est cogere religionem, quae 
 suscipi sponte debet^ non vi." — Tertul. ad Scapulam. 
 
DUTY OF PRINCES. 307 
 
 be preserved in all things, where God hath not set 
 a limit and made a restraint ; that the soul of man 
 should be free, and acknowledge no master but 
 Jesus Christ; that matters spiritual should not be 
 restrained by punishments corporal ; that the same 
 meekness and charity should be preserved in the 
 promotion of Christianity, that gave it founda- 
 tion, and increment, and firmness in its first pub- 
 lication; that conclusions should not be more dog- 
 matical than the virtual resolution and efficacy of 
 the premises ; and that the persons should not 
 more certainly be condemned than their opinions 
 confuted ; and lastly, that the infirmities of men 
 and difficulties of things should be both put in 
 balance, to make abatement in the definitive sen- 
 tence against men's persons. But then, because 
 toleration of opinions is not properly a question of 
 religion, it may be a question of policy : and al- 
 though a man may be a good Christian, though he 
 believe an error not fundamental, and not directly 
 or evidently impious, yet his opinion may acci- 
 dentally disturb the public peace, through the over- 
 activeness of the person, and the confidence of their 
 belief, and the opinion of its appendant necessity ; 
 and therefore toleration of differing persuasions, in 
 these cases, is to be considered upon political 
 grounds, and is just so to be admitted or denied as 
 the opinions or toleration of them may consist with 
 the public and necessary ends of government. Only 
 this : as Christian princes must look to the interest 
 of their government, so especially must they con- 
 sider the interests of Christianity, and not call 
 redargution or modest discovery of an established 
 error, by the name of disturbance of the peace. 
 For it is very likely that the peevishness and im- 
 
 X 2 
 
308 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 patience of contradiction in the governors may 
 break the peace. Let them remember but the gen- 
 tleness of Christianity, the liberty of consciences 
 which ought to be preserved; and let them do 
 justice to the persons, whoever they are that are 
 peevish, provided no man's person be overborne with 
 prejudice. For if it be necessary for all men to 
 subscribe to the present established religion, by the 
 same reason, at another time, a man may be bound 
 to subscribe to the contradictory, and so to all reli- 
 gions in the world. And they only who by their 
 too much confidence entitle God to all their fancies, 
 and make tbem to be cjuestions of religion and evi- 
 dences for heaven, or consignations to hell, they 
 only think this doctrine unreasonable; and they 
 are the men that first disturb the church's peace, 
 and then think there is no appeasing the tumult 
 but by getting the victory. But they that consider 
 things wisely, understand, that since salvation and 
 damnation depend not upon impertinencies, and 
 yet that public peace and tranquillity may; the 
 prince is in this case to seek how to secure govern- 
 ment, and the issues and intentions of that, while 
 there is in the cases directly no insecurity to reli- 
 gion, unless by the accidental uncharitableness of 
 them that dispute; which uncharitableness is also 
 much prevented when the public peace is secured, 
 and no person is on either side engaged upon re- 
 venge,* or troubled with disgrace, or vexed with 
 punishments by any decretory sentence against 
 him. It was the saying of a wise statesman, (I 
 mean Thuanus:)f "If you persecute heretics or 
 
 * " Dextera prsecipue capit indulgentia mentes, asperitas 
 odium sEBvaque bella parit." 
 
 -|- " Pleeretici qui pace data factionibus scinduntur, persecu- 
 ione uniuntur contra remp." 
 
DUTY OF PRINCES. 309 
 
 discrepants, they unite themselves as to a common 
 defence : if you permit them, they divide them- 
 selves upon private interest;" and the rather, if 
 this interest was an ingredient of the opinion. 
 
 The sum is this : it concerns the duty of a 
 prince because it concerns the honour of God, that 
 all vices and every part of ill life be discounte- 
 nanced and restrained ; and therefore, in relation 
 to that, opinions are to be dealt with. For the un- 
 derstanding- being to direct the will, and opinions 
 to guide our practices, they are considerable only 
 as they teach impiety and vice, as they either dis- 
 honour God or disobey him. Now all such doc- 
 trines are to be condemned; but for the persons 
 preaching such doctrines, if they neither justify 
 nor approve the pretended consec^uences which are 
 certainly impious, they are to be separated from 
 that consideration. But if tliey know such conse- 
 quences and allow them, or if they do not stay till 
 the doctrines produce impiety, but take sin before- 
 hand, and manage them impiously in any sense ; 
 or if either themselves or their doctrine do really 
 and without colour or feigned pretext disturb the 
 public peace and just interests, they are not to be 
 suffered. In all other cases, it is not only lawful to 
 permit them, but it is also necessary that princes 
 and all in authority should not persecute discre- 
 pant opinions And in such cases, wherein per- 
 sons not otherwise incompetent are bound to re- 
 prove an error, (as they are in many,) in all these, 
 if the prince makes restraint he hinders men from 
 doing their duty, and from obeying the laws of 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
310 
 
 SECTION XVII. 
 
 Of Compliance with disagreeing Persons, or weak 
 Consciences in general. 
 
 Upon these grounds it remains that we reduce 
 this doctrine to practical conclusions, and consider 
 among the differing sects and opinions which 
 trouble these parts of Christendom, and come into 
 our concernment, which sects of Christians are to 
 be tolerated, and how far ; and which are to be 
 restrained and punished in their several propor- 
 tions. 
 
 The first consideration is, that since diversity of 
 opinions does more concern public peace than reli- 
 gion, what is to be done to persons who disobey a 
 public sanction, upon a true allegation that they 
 cannot believe it to be lawful to obey such consti- 
 tutions, although they disbelieve them upon insuf- 
 ficient grounds ; that is, whether in constituta lege 
 disagreeing persons or weak consciences are to be 
 complied withal, and their disobeying and disa- 
 greeing tolerated ? 
 
 1 . In this cjuestion, there is no distinction can 
 be made between persons truly weak, and but pre- 
 tending so. For all that pretend to it are to be 
 allowed the same liberty, whatsoever it be ; for no 
 man's spirit is known to any but to God and him- 
 self; and therefore pretences and realities, in this 
 case, are both alike, in order to the public tolera- 
 tion. And this very thing is one argument to per- 
 
OF COMPLIANCE WITH WEAK MINDS. 311 
 
 suade a negative. For the chief thing in this case 
 is the concernment of public government, which is 
 then most of all violated, when what may pru- 
 dently be permitted to some purposes may be de- 
 manded to many more, and the piety of the laws 
 abused to the impiety of other men's ends. And 
 if laws be made so malleable, as to comply with 
 weak consciences, he that hath a mind to disobey 
 is made impregnable against the coercitive power 
 of the law by this pretence. For a weak conscience 
 signifies nothing in this case but a dislike of the 
 law upon a contrary persuasion. For if some weak 
 consciences do obey the law, and others do not, it 
 is not their weakness indefinitely that is the cause 
 of it, but a definite and particular persuasion to 
 the contrary. So that if such a pretence be excuse 
 sufficient from obeying, then the law is a sanction 
 obliging every one to obey that hath a mind to it, 
 and he that hath not may choose ; that is, it is no 
 law at all ; for he that hath a mind to it may do it, 
 if there be no law, and he that hath no mind to it 
 need not for all the law. 
 
 And therefore the wit of man cannot prudently 
 frame a law of that temper and expedient, but 
 either he must lose the formality of a law, and nei- 
 ther have power coercitive nor obligatory, but by 
 the will of inferiors, or else it cannot, antecedently 
 to the particular case, give leave to any sort of 
 men to disagree or disobey. 
 
 2. Suppose that a law be made, with great rea- 
 son, so as to satisfy divers persons, pious and pru- 
 dent, that it complies with the necessity of govern- 
 ment, and promotes the interest of God's service 
 and public order, it may be easily imagined that 
 these persons, which are obedient sons of the church. 
 
312 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 may be as zealous for the public order and disci- 
 pline of the church, as others for their opinion 
 against it, and may be as much scandalized, if dis- 
 obedience be tolerated, as others are if the law be 
 exacted ; and what shall be done in this case ? 
 Both sorts of men cannot be complied withal, 
 because, as these pretend to be offended at the 
 law, and by consequence, (if they understand the 
 consequents of their own opinion,) at them that 
 obey the law; so the others are justly offended 
 at them that unjustly disobey it. If, therefore, 
 there be any on the right side as confident and 
 zealous as they who are on the wrong side, then 
 the disagreeing persons are not to be complied with 
 to avoid giving oflence; for if they be, offence is 
 given to better persons, and so the mischief which 
 such complying seeks to prevent is made greater 
 and more unjust, obedience is discouraged, and 
 disobedience is legally canonized for the result of 
 a holy and a tender conscience. 
 
 3. Such complying with the disagreeings of a sort 
 of men, is the total overthrow of all discipline; and it 
 is better to make no laws of public worship, than to 
 rescind them in the very constitution; and there 
 can be no end in making the sanction but to make 
 the law ridiculous, and the authority contemptible. 
 For, to say that complying with weak consciences, 
 in the very framing of a law of discipline, is the 
 way to preserve unity, were all one as to say, to 
 take away all laws is the best way to prevent diso- 
 bedience. In such matters of indifferency, the 
 best way of cementing the fraction is to unite the 
 parts in the authority ; for then the question is but 
 one, viz. whether the authority must be obeyed or 
 not ? But if a permission be given of disputing the 
 
OF COMPLIANCE WITH WEAK MINDS. 313 
 
 particulars, the questions become next to infinite. 
 A mirror, when it is broken, represents the object 
 multiplied and divided ; but if it be entire, and 
 through one centre transmits the species to the eye, 
 the vision is one and natural. Laws are the mirror 
 in which men are to dress and compose their ac- 
 tions, and therefore must not be broken with such 
 clauses of exception, which may, without remedy, 
 be abused, to the prejudice of authority, and peace, 
 and all human sanctions. And I have known, in 
 some churches, that this pretence hath been no- 
 thing but a design to discredit the law, to dis- 
 mantle the authority that made it, to raise their 
 own credit, and a trophy of their zeal, to make it a 
 characteristic note of a sect, and the cognizance of 
 holy persons; and yet the men that claimed ex- 
 emption from the laws, upon pretence of having 
 weak consciences, if in hearty expression you had 
 told them so to their heads, they would have spit 
 in your face, and were so far from confessing them- 
 selves weak, that they thought themselves able to 
 give laws to Christendom, to instruct the greatest 
 clerks, and to catechise the church herself. And 
 which is the worst of all, they who were perpetu- 
 ally clamorous that the severity of the laws should 
 slacken as to their particular, and in matter adia- 
 phorous, (in which, if the church hath any autho- 
 rity, she hath power to make laws,) to indulge a 
 leave to them to do as they list, yet were the most 
 imperious amongst men, most decretory in their 
 sentences, and most impatient of any disagreeing 
 from them, though in the least minute and parti- 
 cular ;. whereas, by all the justice of the world, 
 they who persuade such a compliance in matters of 
 fact, and of so little question, should not deny to 
 
314 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 tx^lerate persons that differ in questions of great 
 difficulty and contestation. 
 
 4. But yet, since all things almost in the world 
 have been made matters of dispute, and the will of 
 some men, and the malice of others, and the infinite 
 industry and pertinacy of contesting, and resolution 
 to conquer, hath abused some persons innocently 
 into a persuasion that even the laws themselves, 
 though never so prudently constituted, are super- 
 stitious or impious, such persons who are otherwise 
 pious, humble, and religious, are not to be destroyed 
 for such matters, which in themselves are not of 
 concernment to salvation, and neither are so acci- 
 dentally to such men and in such cases where 
 they are innocently abused, and they err without 
 purpose and design. And therefore, if there be a 
 public disposition in some persons to dislike laws 
 of a certain quality, if it be foreseen, it is to be con- 
 sidered in lege dicendd, (in the framing of a statute ;) 
 and whatever inconvenience or particular offence 
 is foreseen, is either to be directly avoided in the 
 law, or else a compensation in the excellency of 
 the law, and certain advantages made to outweigh 
 their pretensions: but in lege jam dicta, (in a sta- 
 tute already enacted,) because there may be a ne- 
 cessity some persons should have a liberty in- 
 dulged them, it is necessary that the governors of 
 the church should be entrusted with a power to 
 consider the particular case, and indulge a liberty 
 to the person, and grant personal dispensations. 
 This, I say, is to be done at several times, upon 
 particular instance, upon singular consideration, 
 and new emergencies. But that a whole kind of 
 men, such a kind to which all men, without possi- 
 bility of being confuted may pretend, should at 
 
OF COMPLIANCE WITH WEAK MINDS. 315 
 
 once, in the very frame of the law, be permitted to 
 disobey, is to nullify the law, to destroy discipline, 
 and to hallow disobedience; it takes away the 
 obliging part of the law, and makes that the thing 
 enacted shall not be enjoined, but tolerated only ; 
 it destroys unity and uniformity, which to preserve 
 was the very end of such laws of discipline ; it 
 bends the rule to the thing which is to be ruled, so 
 that the law obeys the subject, not the subject the 
 law ; it is to make a law for particulars, not upon 
 general reason and congruity, against the prudence 
 and design of all laws in the world, and absolutely 
 without the example of any church in Christen- 
 dom; it prevents no scandal, for some will be 
 scandalized at the authority itself, some at the 
 complying, and remissness of discipline, and several 
 men at matters and upon ends contradictory : all 
 which cannot, some ought not, to be complied 
 withal. 
 
 6. The sum is this : the end of the laws of disci- 
 pline is in an immediate order to the conservation 
 and ornament of the public, and therefore the laws 
 must not so tolerate, as by conserving persons to 
 destroy themselves and the public benefit ; but if 
 there be cause for it, they must be cassated ; or if 
 there be no sufficient cause, the complyings must 
 be so as may best preserve the particulars, in con- 
 junction with the public end, which, because it is 
 primarily intended, is of greatest consideration ; 
 but the particulars, whether of case or person, are 
 to be considered occasionally and emergently by 
 the judges, but cannot antecedently and regularly 
 be determined by a law. 
 
 But this sort of men is of so general pretence, 
 that all laws and all judges may easily be abused 
 
316 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 by them. Those sects which are signified by a 
 name, which have a system of articles, a body of 
 profession, may be more clearly determined in 
 their question concerning the lawfulness of per- 
 mitting their professions and assemblies. 
 
 I shall instance in two, which are most trouble- 
 some and most disliked; and by an account made 
 of these, we may make judgment what may be 
 done towards others, whose errors are not appre- 
 hended of so great malignity. The men I mean 
 are the anabaptists and the papists. 
 
 SECTION XVIII. 
 
 A parficidar consideration of the Opinions of the 
 Anabaptists. 
 
 In the AnabaptistsI consider only their two capital 
 opinions, the one against the baptism of infants, 
 the other against magistracy ; and because they 
 produce different judgments and various effects, all 
 their other fancies, which vary as the moon does, 
 may stand or fall in their proportion and likeness 
 to these. 
 
 And first, I consider their denying baptism to 
 infants : although it be a doctrine justly condemned 
 by the most sorts of Christians, upon great grounds 
 of reason, yet possibly their defence may be so 
 great as to take off much, and rebate the edge of 
 their adversaries' assault. It will be neither un- 
 pleasant nor unprofitable to draw a short scheme 
 
CASE OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 317 
 
 of plea for each party, the result of which possibly 
 may be, that though they be deceived, yet they 
 have so great excuse on their side that their error 
 is not impudent or vincible. The baptism of in- 
 fants rests wholly upon this discourse. 
 
 When God made a covenant with Abraham, for 
 himself and his posterity, into which the gentiles 
 were reckoned by spiritual adoption, he did, for the 
 present, consign that covenant with the sacrament 
 of circumcision. The extent of which rite was to all 
 his family, from the viajor domo, (the head or pa- 
 triarch,) to the proselytus domicilio, (the proselyte 
 amonghis servants,) and to infants of eight days old. 
 Now the very nature of this covenant being a co- 
 venant of faith for its formality, and with all faith- 
 ful people for the object, and circumcision being 
 a seal of this covenant, if ever any rite do super- 
 vene to consign the same covenant, that rite must 
 acknowledge circumcision for its type and prece- 
 dent. And this the apostle tells us, in express doc- 
 trine. Now the nature of types is to give some 
 proportions to its successor, the antitype ; and they 
 both being seals of the same righteousness of faith, 
 it will not easily be found where these two seals 
 have any such distinction in their nature or pur- 
 poses, as to appertain to persons of differing capa- 
 city, and not equally concern all ; and this argu- 
 ment was thought of so much force by some of 
 those excellent men which were bishops in the 
 primitive church, that a good bishop writ an epistle 
 to St. Cyprian, to know of him whether or no it 
 were lawful to baptize infants before the eighth 
 day, because the type of baptism was ministered in 
 that circumcision ; he, in his discourse, supposing 
 that the first rite was a direction to the second. 
 
318 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 which prevailed with him so far as to believe it to 
 limit every circumstance. 
 
 And not only this type, but the acts of Christ 
 which were previous to the institution of baptism, 
 did prepare our understanding by such impresses 
 as were sufhcient to produce such persuasion in us, 
 that Christ intended this ministry for the actual 
 advantage of infants as well as of persons of un- 
 derstanding. For Christ commanded that chil- 
 dren should be brought unto him, he took them in 
 his arms, he imposed hands on them and blessed 
 them ; and, without question, did, by such acts of 
 favour, consign his love to them, and them to a 
 capacity of an eternal participation of it. And 
 possibly the invitation which Christ made to all to 
 come to him, all them that are heavy laden, did, in 
 its proportion, concern infants as much as others, 
 if they be guilty of original sin, and if that sin be 
 a burthen, and presses them to spiritual danger or 
 inconvenience. And it is all the reason of the 
 world, that since the grace of Christ is as large as 
 the prevarication of Adam, all they who are made 
 guilty by the first Adam should be cleansed by the 
 second. But as they are guilty by another man's 
 act, so they should be brought to the font to be 
 purified by others, there being the same propor- 
 tion of reason, that by others' acts they should be 
 relieved who were in danger of perishing by the 
 act of others. And therefore St. Austin argues 
 excellently to this purpose : " The church fur- 
 nishes them with the feet of others that they maj'^ 
 come, with the heart of others that they may be- 
 lieve, with the tongue of others that they may 
 make confession ; in order that, as they are dis- 
 eased in consequence of another's sin, so being 
 
CASE OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 319 
 
 made whole by another's confession, they may be 
 saved."* And Justin Martyr: '' The children of 
 pious parents are accounted worthy of baptism, 
 through the faith of those who bring them to be 
 baptized. "f 
 
 But whether they have original sin or no, yet 
 take them in their state as they are by nature, they 
 cannot go to God, or attain to eternity, to which 
 they were intended in their first being and creation : 
 and therefore, much less since their naturals are 
 impaired by the curse on human nature procured 
 by Adam's prevarication. And if a natural agent 
 cannot in its state of nature attain to heaven, 
 which is a supernatural end, much less when it 
 is loaden with accidental and grievous impedi- 
 ments. Now, then, since the only way revealed to 
 us of acquiring heaven is by Jesus Christ, and the 
 first inlet into Christianity and access to him is by 
 baptism, as appears by the perpetual analogy of the 
 New Testament, either infants are not persons ca- 
 pable of that end which is the perfection of human 
 nature, and to which the soul of man, in its being 
 made immortal, was essentially designed, and so 
 are miserable and deficient from the end of human- 
 ity, if they die before the use of reason ; or else 
 they must be brought to Christ by the church doors, 
 that is, by the font and waters of baptism. 
 
 And, in reason, it seems more pregnant and 
 plausible, that infants, rather than men of under- 
 
 * " Accommodat illis mater ecclesia aliorum pedes, ut veni- 
 ant ; aliorum cor, ut credant ; aliorum linguam, vit fateantur : 
 ut quoniam, quod fegri sunt, alio peccante prcegravantur, sic cvim 
 sani fiantalio confitente salventur."— Serm. x. de Verb. Apost. 
 
 f 'A^iovvTciL de tS)v did rov (3a7rTi(TnaTOQ dya^Mv rd 
 l3pe(pT} ry ttiV^i tG)v 7rpo(r(pep6vT(oi> dvrd toj l3cnrTi<rj.iart. — 
 Resp. ad Orthodoxos. 
 
320 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 standing, should be baptized. For since the effi- 
 cacy of the sacraments depends upon divine in- 
 stitution and immediate benediction, and that they 
 produce their effects independently upon man, in 
 them that do not hinder their operation ; since in- 
 fants cannot by any act of their own promote the 
 hope of their own salvation, which men of reason and 
 choice may, by acts of virtue and election ; it is 
 more agreeable to the goodness of God, the honour 
 and excellency of the sacrament, and the necessity 
 of its institution, that it should in infants supply 
 the want of human acts and free obedience. Which 
 the very thing itself seems to say it does, because 
 its effect is from God, and requires nothing on 
 man's part but that its efficacy be not hindered : 
 and then in infants the disposition is equal, and 
 the necessity more; they cannot object to other's 
 acts, and by the same reason cannot do other's 
 acts, which, without the sacraments, do advantage 
 us towards our hopes of heaven; and therefore 
 have more need to be supplied by an act and an in- 
 stitution divine and supernatural. 
 
 And this is not only necessary in respect of the 
 condition of infants' incapacity to do acts of grace, 
 but also in obedience to divine precept. For Christ 
 made a law, whose sanction is with an exclusive 
 negative to them that are not baptized : ' Unless a 
 man be born of water and of the Spirit, he shall 
 not enter into the kingdom of heaven.' If then in- 
 fants have a capacity of being co-heirs with Christ, 
 in the kingdom of his Father, as Christ affirms 
 they have, by saying, *For of such is the king- 
 dom of heaven,' then there is a necessity that they 
 should be brought to baptism, there being an ab- 
 solute exclusion of all persons unbaptized, and 
 
CASE OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 321 
 
 all persons not spiritual, from the kingdom of 
 heaven. 
 
 But, indeed, it is a destruction of all the hopes 
 and happiness of infants, a denying to them an 
 exemption from the final condition of beasts and 
 insects, or else a designing of them to a worse 
 misery, to say that God hath not appointed some 
 external or internal means of brins^ing them to an 
 eternal happiness. Internal they have none ; for 
 grace being an improvement, and heightening the 
 faculties of nature, in order to a heigthened and 
 supernatural end, grace hath no influence or effi- 
 cacy upon their faculties, who can do no natural 
 acts of understanding; and if there be no external 
 means, then they are destitute of all hopes and 
 possibilities of salvation. 
 
 But, thanks be to God, he hath provided better, 
 and told us accordingly ; for he hath made a pro- 
 mise of the Holy Ghost to infants as well as to 
 men. ' The promise is made to you and to your 
 children,' said St. Peter ; ' the promise of the Fa- 
 ther,' the promise that he would send the Holy 
 Ghost. Now, if you ask how this promise shall 
 be conveyed to our children, we have an ex- 
 press out of the same sermon of St. Peter : * 'Be 
 baptized, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy 
 Ghost :' so that, because the Holy Ghost is pro- 
 mised, and baptism is the means of receiving the 
 promise, therefore baptism pertains to them to 
 whom the promise, which is the effect of baptism, 
 does appertain. And that we may not think this ar- 
 gument is fallible, or of human collection, observe 
 that it is the argument of the same apostle in express 
 
 • Acts, ii. 38, 39. 
 
322 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 terms ; for in the case of Cornelius and his family, 
 he justified his proceeding by this very medium; 
 * Shall we deny baptism to them who have received 
 the gift of the Holy Ghost as well as we ? ' Which 
 discourse, if it be reduced to form of argument, says 
 this : they that are capable of the same grace are 
 receptive of the same sign ; but then (to make the 
 syllogism up with an assumption proper to our 
 present purpose) infants are capable of the same 
 grace, that is, of the Holy Ghost, (for the promise 
 is made to our children as well as to us, and St. 
 Paul says, the children of believing parents are 
 holy, and therefore have the Holy Ghost, who is 
 the fountain of holiness and sanctifi cation,) there- 
 fore they are to receive the sign and the seal of it ;, 
 that is, the sacrament of baptism. 
 
 And indeed, since God entered a covenant with 
 the Jews, which did also actually involve their 
 children, and gave them a sign to establish the 
 covenant and its appendant promise, either God 
 does not so much love the church as he did the 
 synagogue, and the mercies of the gospel are more 
 restrained than the mercies of the law, God having 
 made a covenant with the infants of Israel, and 
 none with the children of Christian parents ; or if 
 he hath, yet we want the comfort of its consigna- 
 tion ; and, unless our children are to be baptized, 
 and so intitled to the promises of the new covenant, 
 as the Jewish babes were by circumcision, this 
 mercy which appertains to infants is so secret, and 
 undeclared, and unconsigned, that we want much 
 of that mercy and outward testimony which gave 
 them comfort and assurance. 
 
 And in proportion to these precepts and revela- 
 tions was the practice apostolical; for they (to 
 
CASE OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 323 
 
 whom Christ gave in precept to make disciples all 
 nations, baptizing- them, and knew that nations 
 without children never were, and that therefore 
 they were passively concerned in that commission,) 
 baptized whole families, particularly that of Ste- 
 phanus, and divers others, in which it is more than 
 probable there were some minors, if not sucking 
 babes. And this practice did descend upon the 
 church in after ages, by tradition apostolical. Of 
 this we have sufficient testimony from Origen : " The 
 church has received it by tradition from the apos- 
 tles, to admit little children to the rite of bap- 
 tism:"* and St. Austin : " This practice the church 
 has received upon the faith of the fathers."f And 
 generally all writers (as Calvin says) affirm the 
 same thing, for " there is no writer so ancient as 
 not to refer its origin to the apostolic age." t From 
 hence the conclusion is, that infants ought to be 
 baptized, that it is simply necessary, that they 
 who deny it are heretics, and such are not to be 
 endured, because they deny to infants hopes, and 
 take away the possibility of their salvation, which 
 is revealed to us on no other condition of which 
 they are capable, but baptism. For by the insinua- 
 tion of the type, by the action of Christ, by the 
 title infants have to heaven, by the precept of the 
 gospel, by the energy of the promise, by the rea- 
 sonableness of the thing, by the infinite necessity 
 
 * " Pro hoc ecclesia ab apostolis traditionem accepit, etiam 
 parvulis baptismum dare." — In Rom. vi. torn. ii. p. 643. 
 
 f " Hoc ecclesia a majorum fide percepit." — Serm. x. de 
 Verb. A post. c. 2. 
 
 X " Nullus est scriptor tarn vetustus, qui non ejus originem 
 ad apostolorum saeculum pro certo referat." — 4 Instit. cap. 16, 
 §S. 
 
 y2 
 
324 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 on the infants' part, by the practice apostolical, by 
 their tradition, and the universal practice of the 
 church ; by all these, God and good people pro- 
 claim the lawfulness, the conveniency, and the ne- 
 cessity of infants' baptism. 
 
 To all this the Anabaptist gives a soft and gen- 
 tle answer, that it is a goodly harangue, which 
 upon strict examination will come to nothing ; that 
 it pretends fairly and signifies little ; that some of 
 these allegations are false, some impertinent, and 
 all the rest insufficient. 
 
 For the argument from circumcision is invalid 
 upon infinite considerations : figures and types 
 prove nothing, unless a commandment go along 
 with them, or some express to signify such to be 
 their purpose. For the deluge of waters and th^ 
 ark of Noah were a figure of baptism, said Peter; 
 and if, therefore, the circumstances of one should 
 be drawn to the other, we should make baptism a 
 prodigy rather than a rite. The paschal lamb was 
 a type of the eucharist, which succeeds the other 
 as baptism does to circumcision ; but because there 
 w^as, in the manducation of the paschal lamb, no 
 prescription of sacramental drink, shall we thence 
 conclude that the eucharist is to be ministered 
 but in one kind ? And even in the very instance 
 of this argument, supposing a correspondence of 
 analogy between circumcision and baptism, yet 
 there is no correspondence of identity ; for al- 
 though it were granted that both of them did con- 
 sign the covenant of faith, yet there is nothing in 
 the circumstance of children's being circumcised, 
 that so concerns that mystery but that it might 
 very well be given to children, and yet baptism 
 onlv to men of reason ; because circumcision left a 
 
CASE OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 325 
 
 character in the flesh, which being imprinted upon 
 infants did its work to them when they came to 
 age; and such a character was necessary, because 
 there was no word added to the sign ; but baptism 
 imprints nothing that remains on the body, and if 
 it leaves a character at all it is upon the soul, to 
 which also the word is added, which is as much a 
 part of the sacrament as the sign itself is. For both 
 which reasons, it is requisite that the persons bap- 
 tized should be capable of reason, that they may be 
 capable both of the word of the sacrament and the 
 impress made upon the spirit. Since, therefore, the 
 reason of this parity does wholly fail, there is no- 
 thing left to infer a necessity of complying in this 
 circumstance of age, any more than in the other 
 annexes of the type : and the case is clear in the 
 bishop's question to Cyprian ;* for vVhy shall not 
 infants be baptized just upon the eighth day, as 
 well as circumcised ? If the correspondence of the 
 rites be an argument to infer one circumstance 
 which is impertinent and accidental to the mys- 
 teriousness of the rite, why shall it not infer all ? 
 And then, also, females must not be baptized, 
 because they were not circumcised. But it were 
 more proper, if we would understand it right, to 
 prosecute the analogy from the type to the anti- 
 type, by way of letter, and spirit, and signification; 
 and as circumcision figures baptism, so also the 
 adjuncts of the circumcision shall signify some- 
 thing spiritual in the adherencies of baptism ; and 
 therefore, as infants were circumcised, so spiritual 
 infants shall be baptized, which is spiritual circum- 
 cision ; for therefore babes had the ministry of the 
 
 * Lib. iii. Epist. 8. ad Fidum. 
 
326 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 type, to signify that we must, when we give our 
 names to Christ, become vi^ttioi Iv Trovijpia, children 
 in malice ; ' for unless you become like one of these 
 little ones, you cannot enter into the kingdom of 
 heaven,' said our blessed Saviour; and then the 
 type is made complete. And this seems to have 
 been the sense of the primitive church ; for in the 
 age next to the apostles they gave to all baptized 
 persons milk and honey, to represent to them their 
 duty, that though in age and understanding they 
 were men, yet they were babes in Christ, and chil- 
 dren in malice. But to infer the sense of the paedo- 
 baptists is so weak a manner of arguing, that 
 Austin, whose device it was, (and men use to be 
 in love with their own fancies,) at the most pre- 
 tended it but as probable and a mere conjecture. 
 
 And as ill success will they have with the other 
 arguments as with this ; for, from the action of 
 Christ's blessing infants, to infer that they are to 
 be baptized, proves nothing so much as that there 
 is great want of better arguments. The conclusion 
 would be with more probability derived thus : Christ 
 blessed children and so dismissed them, but bap- 
 tized them not, therefore infants are not to be bap- 
 tized ; but let this be as weak as its enemy, yet that 
 Christ did not baptize them is an argument suffi- 
 cient that Christ hath other ways of bringing 
 them to heaven than by baptism ; he passed his 
 act of grace upon them by benediction and impo- 
 sition of hands. 
 
 And therefore, although neither infants nor any 
 man by nature can attain to a supernatural end 
 without the jcddition of some instrument or means of 
 God's appointing, ordinarily and regularly; yet 
 where God hath not appointed a rule nor an order, as 
 
CASE OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 327 
 
 in the case of infants we contend he hath not, the 
 argument is invalid. And as we are sure that 
 God hath not commanded infants to he baptized, 
 so we are sure God will do them no injustice, nor 
 damn them for what they cannot help. 
 
 And therefore let them be pressed with all the 
 inconveniences that are consequent to original sin, 
 yet either it will not be laid to the charge of in- 
 fants, so as to be sufficient to condemn them, or if 
 it could, yet the mercy and absolute goodness of 
 God will secure them, if he takes them away before 
 they can glorify him with a free obedience. " Why 
 is innocent infancy to be anxious for the remission 
 of sins ?"* was the question of Tertullian, (lib. de 
 Bapt.) he knew no such danger from their original 
 guilt, as to drive them to a laver of which, in that 
 age of innocence, they had no need, as he con- 
 ceived. And therefore there is no necessity of 
 flying to the help of others, for tongue, and heart, 
 and faith, and predispositions to baptism ; for 
 what need all this stir ? As infants without their 
 own account, without any act of their own, and 
 without any exterior solemnity, contracted the 
 guilt of Adam's sin, and so are liable to all the 
 punishment which can with justice descend upon 
 his posterity, who are personally innocent ; so in- 
 fants shall be restored without any solemnity or 
 act of their own, or of any other men for them, 
 by the second Adam, by the redemption of Jesus 
 Christ, by his righteousness and mercies, applied 
 either immediately, or how or when he shall be 
 pleased to appoint. And so St. Austin's argument 
 will come to nothing, without any need of god- 
 
 * " Quid ergo festinat innocens aetas ad remissionem pecca- 
 torum." 
 
328 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 fathers, or the faith of any body else. And it is 
 too narrow a conception of God Almighty, because 
 he hath tied us to the observation of the ceremo- 
 nies of his own institution, that therefore he hath 
 tied himself to it. Many thousand ways there 
 are by which God can bring- any reasonable soul 
 to himself; but nothing is more unreasonable, 
 than because he hath tied all men of years and 
 discretion to this way, therefore we, of our own 
 heads, shall carry infants to him that way with- 
 out his direction : the conceit is poor and low, 
 and the action consequent to it is too bold and 
 venturous. " I have nothing to do in religion but 
 with myself and my household.'^* Let him do 
 what he please to infants, we must not. 
 
 Only this is certain, that God hath as great care 
 of infants as of others; and because they have no 
 capacity of doing such acts as may be in order to 
 acquiring salvation, God will, by his own immedi- 
 ate mercy, bring them thither where he hath in- 
 tended them ; but to say that therefore he will do 
 it by an external act and ministry, and that con- 
 fined to a particular, viz. this rite and no other, 
 is no good argument, unless God could not do it 
 without such means, or that he had said he would 
 not. And why cannot God as well do his mer- 
 cies to infants now immediately, as he did before 
 the institution either of circumcision or baptism ? 
 
 However, there is no danger that infants should 
 perish for want of this external ministry, much 
 less for prevaricating Christ's precept of ' Except a 
 man be born again,' &c. For, first, the water and 
 the Spirit in this j^lace signify the same thing; and 
 
 * " Mysterium meum mihi et filiis domus meas." 
 
CASE OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 3'29 
 
 by water is meant the effect of the Spirit, cleansing 
 and purifying the soul, as appears in its parallel 
 place of Christ baptizing with the Spirit and with 
 fire. For although this was literally fulfilled in Pen- 
 tecost, yet morally there is more in it, for it is the 
 sign of the effect of the Holy Ghost, and his produc- 
 tions upon the soul ; and it was an excellency of our 
 blessed Saviour's office, that he baptizes all that 
 come to him with the Holy Ghost and with fire; 
 for so St. John, preferring Christ's mission and 
 office before his own, tells the Jews, not Christ's 
 disciples, that Christ shall baptize them with fire 
 and the Holy Spirit; that is, 'all that come to 
 him,' as John the Baptist did with water, for so 
 lies the antithesis : and you may as well conclude 
 that infants must also pass through the fire as 
 through the water. And that we may not think 
 this a trick to elude the pressure of this place, 
 Peter says the same thing; for when he had said 
 that baptism saves us, he adds, by way of explica- 
 tion, ' not the washing of the flesh, but the confi- 
 dence of a good conscience towards God ;' plainly 
 saying, that it is not water, or the purifying of the 
 body, but the cleansing of the spirit, that does that 
 which is supposed to be the effect of baptism ; and 
 if our Saviour's exclusive negative be expounded 
 by analogy to this of Peter,, as certainly the other 
 parallel instance must, and this may, then it will 
 be so far from proving the necessity of infant's 
 baptism, that it can con«lude for no man that he 
 is obliged to the rite ; and the doctrine of the bap- 
 tism is only to derive from the very words of in- 
 stitution, and not be forced from words which were 
 spoken before it was ordained. But to let pass 
 this advantage, and to suppose it meant of ex- 
 
330 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 ternal baptism, yet this no more infers a necessity 
 of infants' baptism, than the other words of Christ 
 infer a necessity to give them the holy communion : 
 ' Except ye eat the flesh of the son of man, and 
 drink his blood, ye cannot enter into the kingdom 
 of heaven/ And yet we do not think these words 
 sufficient argument to communicate them; if men, 
 therefore, will do us justice, either let them give 
 both sacraments to infants, as some ages of the 
 church did, or neither. For the wit of man is not 
 able to show a disjDarity in the sanction, or in the 
 energy of its expression. And therefore they were 
 honest that understood the obligation to be parallel, 
 and perfonned it accordingly ; and yet because 
 we say they were deceived in one instance, and 
 yet the obligation (all the world cannot reason- 
 ably say but) is the same, they are as honest and 
 as reasonable that do neither. And since the an- 
 cient church did with an equal opinion of neces- 
 sity give them the communion, and yet men now- 
 a-days do not, why shall men be more burthened 
 with a prejudice and a name of obloquy for not 
 giving the infants one sacrament, more than they 
 are disliked for not affording them the other ? If 
 Anabaptist shall be a name of disgrace, why shall 
 not some other name be invented for them that 
 deny to communicate infants, which shall be 
 equally disgraceful, or else both the opinions sig- 
 nified by such names, be accounted no disparage- 
 ment, but receive their estimate according to their 
 truth ? 
 
 Of which truth, since we are now taking account 
 from pretences of Scripture, it is considerable that 
 the discourse of St. Peter, which is pretended for 
 the entitling infants to the promise of the Holy 
 
CASE OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 331 
 
 Ghost, and by consequence to baptism, which is 
 supposed to be its instrument and conveyance, is 
 wholly a fancy, and hath in it nothing of certainty 
 or demonstration, and not much probability. For 
 besides that the thing itself is unreasonable, and 
 the Holy Ghost works by the heightening and im- 
 proving our natural faculties, and therefore is a 
 promise that so concerns them as they are reason- 
 able creatures, and may have a title to it in pro- 
 portion to their nature, but no possession or recep- 
 tion of it till their faculties come into act ; besides 
 this, I say, the words mentioned in St. Peter's ser- 
 mon (which are the only record of the promise) 
 are interpreted upon a weak mistake. ' The pro- 
 mise belongs to you and to your children,^ there- 
 fore infants are actually receptive of it in that 
 capacity. That is the argument, but the reason of 
 it is not yet discovered, nor ever will; for 'to you 
 and your children,' is to you and your posterity, 
 to you and your children when they are of the 
 same capacity in which you are effectually re- 
 ceptive of the promise ; but he that, whenever the 
 word children is used in Scripture, shall by chil- 
 dren understand infants, must needs believe that 
 in all Israel there were no men, but all were in- 
 fants ; and if that had been true it had been the 
 greater wonder they should overcome the Anakims, 
 and beat the king of Moab, and march so far, and 
 discourse so well, for they were all called the chil- 
 dren of Israel. 
 
 And for the allegation of St. Paul, that infants 
 are holy if their parents be faithful, it signifies 
 nothing but that they are holy by designation, 
 just as Jeremiah and John Baptist were sanctified 
 in their mother's womb, that is, they were appointed 
 
332 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 and designed for holy ministries, but had not re- 
 ceived the promise of the Father — the gift of the 
 Holy Ghost — for all that sanctifi cation ; and just 
 so the children of Christian parents are sanctified : 
 that is, designed to the service of Jesus Christ and 
 the future participation of the promises. 
 
 And as the promise appertains not (for aught 
 appears) to infants in that capacity and con- 
 sistence, but only by the title of their being rea- 
 sonable creatures, and when they come to that 
 act of which by nature they have the faculty, 
 so if it did, yet baptism is not the means of con- 
 veying the Holy Ghost. For that which Peter 
 says, ' Be baptized and ye shall receive the Holy 
 Ghost,' signifies no more than this : first, be bap- 
 tized, and then by imposition of the apostles' hands 
 (which was another mystery and rite) ye shall 
 receive the promise of the Father. And this is no- 
 thing but an insinuation of the rite of confirma- 
 tion, as is to this sense expounded by divers an- 
 cient authors ; and in ordinary ministry the eflfect 
 of it is not bestowed upon any unbaptized persons, 
 for it is in order next after baptism, and upon 
 this ground Peter's argument in the case of Corne- 
 lius was concluding enough, a majori ad minus, 
 (from the greater to the less). Thus the Holy 
 Ghost was bestowed upon him and his family, 
 which gift, by ordinary ministry, was consequent 
 to baptism, (not as the effect is to the cause or to 
 the proper instrument, but as a consequent is to an 
 antecedent, in a chain of causes accidentally and 
 by positive institution depending upon each other.) 
 God by that miracle did give testimony, that the 
 persons of the men were in great dispositions to- 
 w^ards heaven, and therefore were to be admitted 
 
CASE OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 333 
 
 to those rites which are the ordinary inlets into 
 the kingdom of heaven. But then, from hence to 
 arg-ue that wherever there is a capacity of receiv- 
 ing the same grace there also the same sign is to 
 be ministered, and from hence to infer paedo- 
 baptism, is an argument very fallacious upon seve- 
 ral grounds. First, because baptism is not the 
 sign of the Holy Ghost, but by another mystery it 
 was conveyed ordinarily, and extraordinarily it was 
 conveyed independently from any mystery; and 
 so the argument goes upon a wrong supposition. 
 Secondly, if the supposition were true, the proposi- 
 tion built upon it is false; for they that are capable of 
 the same grace are not always capable of the same 
 sign ; for women, under the law of Moses, although 
 they were capable of the righteousness of faith, yet 
 they were not capable of the sign of circumcision. 
 For God does not always convey his graces in the 
 same manner, but to some mediately, to others imme- 
 diately ; and there is no better instance in the world 
 of it than the gift of the Holy Ghost, (which is the 
 thing now instanced in this contestation) ; for it is 
 certain in Scripture, that it was ordinarily given by 
 imposition of hands, and that after baptism; (and 
 when this came into an ordinary ministry it was 
 called by the ancient church chrism, or confirma- 
 tion); but yet it was given sometimes without im- 
 position of hands, as at Pentecost and to the family 
 of Cornelius ; sometimes before baptism, sometimes 
 after, sometimes in conjunction with it. 
 
 And after all this, lest these arguments should 
 not ascertain their cause, they fall on complaining 
 against God, and will not be content with God 
 unless they may baptize their children, but take 
 exceptions that God did more for the children of 
 
334 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING, 
 
 the Jews. But why so ? Because God made a 
 covenant with their children actually as infants, 
 and consigned it by circumcision. Well, so he 
 did with our children too in their joroportion. He 
 made a covenant of spiritual promises on his part, 
 and spiritual and real services on ours; and this 
 pertains to children when they are capable, but 
 made with them as soon as they are alive, and yet 
 not so as with the Jews' babes ; for as their rite 
 consigned them actually, so it was a national and 
 temporal blessing and covenant, as a separation of 
 them from the portion of the nations, a marking 
 them for a peculiar people, (and therefore, while 
 they were in the wilderness, and separate from the 
 commixture of all people, they were not all circum- 
 cised,) but as that rite did seal the righteousness of 
 faith, so by virtue of its adherency and remanency 
 in their flesh, it did that work when the children 
 came to age. But in Christian infants the case is 
 otherwise ; for the new covenant being established 
 upon better promises, is not only to better pur- 
 poses, but also in distinct manner to be under- 
 stood; when their spirits are as receptive of a 
 spiritual act or impress as the bodies of Jewish 
 children were of the sign of circumcision, then it 
 is to be consigned : but this business is quickly at 
 an end, by saying that God hath done no less for 
 ours than for their children ; for he will do the 
 mercies of a Father and Creator to them, and he 
 did no more to the other; but he hath done more 
 to ours, for he hath made a covenant \vith them, 
 and built it upon promises of the greatest concern- 
 ment ; he did not so to them. But then, for the 
 other part, which is the main of the argument, that 
 unless this mercy be consigned by baptism, as 
 
CASE OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 335 
 
 good not at all in respect of us, because we want the 
 comfort of it; this is the greatest vanity in the 
 world ; for when God hath made a promise per- 
 taining also to our children, (for so our adversaries 
 contend, and we also acknowledge in its true sense,) 
 shall not this promise, this word of God, be of suf- 
 ficient truth, certainty, and efficacy to cause com- 
 fort, unless we tempt God, and require a sign of 
 him ? May not Christ say to these men as some- 
 time to the Jews, *a wicked and adulterous gene- 
 ration seeketh after a sign, but no sign shall be 
 given unto it?' But the truth is, this argument 
 is nothing but a direct quarrelling with God Al- 
 mighty. 
 
 Now, since there is no strength in the doctrinal 
 part, the practice and precedents apostolical and 
 ecclesiastical will be of less concernment, if they 
 were true, as is pretended ; because actions aposto- 
 lical are not always rules for ever. It might be fit 
 for them to do it pro loco et tempore, (for the place 
 and time,) as divers others of their institutions, but 
 yet no engagement passed thence upon following 
 ages; for it might be convenient at that time, in 
 the new spring of Christianity, and till they had 
 engaged a considerable party, by that means to 
 make them parties against the gentiles' supersti- 
 tion, and by way of preoccupation to ascertain 
 them to their own sect when they came to be men; or 
 for some other reason not transmitted to us, because 
 the question of fact itself is not sufficiently deter- 
 mined. For the insinuation of that precept of bap- 
 tizing all nations, of which children certainly are a 
 part, does as little advantage as any of the rest, be- 
 cause other parallel expressions of Scripture do de- 
 termine and expound themselves to a sense that 
 
336 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 includes not all persons absolutely, but of a capa- 
 ble condition, as ' Worship him all ye nations, 
 praise him all ye people of the earth,' &c. and di- 
 vers more. 
 
 As for the conjecture concerning the family of 
 Stephanus, at the best it is but a conjecture ; and 
 besides that, it is not proved that there were children 
 in the family ; yet if that were granted, it follows 
 not that they were baptized, because by whole fami- 
 lies, in Scripture, is meant all persons of reason and 
 age within the family. For it is said of the ruler 
 at Capernaum, that 'he believed and all his house.' 
 Now, you may also suppose that in his house were 
 little babes — that is likely enough — and you may 
 suppose that they did believe too before they could 
 understand, but that is not so likely. And then 
 the argument from baptizing of Stephen's house- 
 hold may be allowed just as probable: but this is 
 unmanlike to build upon such slight airy con- 
 jectures. 
 
 But tradition, by all means, must supply the 
 place of Scripture, and there is pretended a tradi- 
 tion apostolical that infants were baptized : but at 
 this we are not much moved; for we, who rely 
 upon the written word of God as sufficient to 
 establish all true religion, do not value the allega- 
 tion of traditions ; and however the world goes, 
 none of the reformed churches can pretend this ar- 
 gument against this opinion, because they who 
 reject tradition when it is against them, must not 
 pretend it at all for them. But if we should allow 
 the topic to be good, yet how will it be verified ? 
 for so far as it can yet appear, it relies wholly 
 upon the testimony of Origen, for from him Austin 
 had it Now a tradition apostolical, if it be not 
 
CASE OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 337 
 
 consigned with a fuller testimony than of one per- 
 son, whom all after ages have condemned of many 
 errors, will obtain so little reputation amongst 
 those who know that things have upon greater au- 
 thority pretended to derive from the apostles, and 
 yet falsely, that it will be a great argument that he 
 is credulous and weak that shall be determined by 
 so weak probation in matters of so great concern- 
 ment. And the truth of the business is, as there 
 was no command of Scripture to oblige children to 
 the susception of it, so the necessity of paedobap- 
 tism was not determined in the church till in the 
 eighth age after Christ; but in the year 418, in the 
 Milevitan council, a provincial of Africa, there was 
 a canon made for psedobaptism : — never till then ! 
 I grant it was practised in Africa before that time, 
 and they or some of them thought well of it ; and 
 though that be no argument for us to think so, yet 
 none of them did ever before pretend it to be ne- 
 cessary, none to have been a precept of the gospel. 
 St. Austin was the first that ever preached it to be 
 absolutely necessary, and it was in his heat and 
 anger against Pelagius, who had warmed and 
 chafed him so in that question that it made him 
 innovate in other doctrines, possibly of more con- 
 cernment than this. And that although this was 
 practised anciently in Africa, yet that it was with- 
 out an opinion of necessity, and not often there, 
 nor at all in other places, we have the testimony of 
 a learned paedobaptist, Ludovicus Vives, who in 
 his annotations upon St. Austin, De Civif. Dei, lib. 
 i. c. 27, affirms, " that anciently none bat adults 
 were baptized."* 
 
 * " Neminem nisi adultum antiquitus solere baptizari." 
 
 z 
 
338 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 But, besides that the tradition cannot be proved 
 to be apostolical, we have very good evidence from 
 antiquity, that it was the opinion of the primitive 
 church that infants ought not to be baptized ;' and 
 this is clear in the sixth canon of the council of 
 Neocsesarea. The words are these : " A woman 
 with child may be baptized when she please; for 
 her baptism concerns not the child."* The reason 
 of the connexion of the parts of that canon is in the 
 following words : "because every one in that confes- 
 sion is to give a demonstration of his own choice and 
 election :" meaning plainly, that if the baptism of 
 the mother did also pass upon the child, it were not 
 fit for a pregnant woman to receive baptism ; be- 
 cause in that sacrament there being a confession 
 of faith, which confession supposes understanding 
 and free choice, it is not reasonable the child should 
 be consigned with such a mystery, since it cannot 
 do any act of choice or understanding. The canon 
 speaks reason, and it intimates a practice, which 
 was absolutely universal in the church, of interro- 
 gating the catechumens concerning the articles of 
 creed ; which is one argument that either they did 
 not admit infants to baptism, or that they did pre- 
 varicate egregiously in asking questions of them, who 
 themselves knew were not capable of giving answer. 
 
 And to supply their incapacity^by the answer of a 
 godfather, is but the same unreasonableness acted 
 with a worse circumstance. f And there is no sen- 
 
 * Ilepi KVO(popov(r7]Q on del (pMri^efrOctL ottots iSovXeTciif 
 ovShv yap koivojvh i) TiKTOvaa Ttp TiKTOf.iSifOJ' Sid to eKciTOv 
 ididv Ti)v irpoalpeaiv ti)v Iv rij o/ioXoyia deiKWcrOai. 
 
 •j- " Quid ni necesse est sponsores etiam periculo ingeri, qui 
 et ipsi per mortalitatem destituere promissiones suas possint, et 
 proventu malae indolis falli?" — Franc. Junius in notis ad Tertul. 
 lib. de Baptis. ap. 18. 
 
CASE OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 339 
 
 sible account can be given of it ; for that which 
 some imperfectly murmur concerning stipulations 
 civil, performed by tutors in the name of their 
 pupils, is an absolute vanity. For what if by 
 positive constitution of the Romans such solemni- 
 ties of law are required in all stipulations, and by 
 indulgence are permitted in the case of a notable 
 benefit accruing to minors, must God be tied, and 
 Christian religion transact her mysteries by propor- 
 tion and compliance with the law of the Romans ? 
 I know God might, if he would, have appointed 
 godfathers to give answer in behalf of the chil- 
 dren, and to be fidejussors for them; but we can- 
 not find any authority or ground that he hath, and 
 if he had, then it is to be supposed he would have 
 given them commission to have transacted the so- 
 lemnity with better circumstances, and given an- 
 swers with more truth. For the question is asked 
 of believing in the present. And if the godfathers 
 answer in the name of the child, " I do believe," it 
 is notorious they speak false and ridiculously ; for 
 the infant is not capable of believing ; and if he 
 were he were also capable of dissenting, and how 
 then do they know his mind? And therefore Ter- 
 tullian gives advice, that the baptism of infants 
 should be deferred till they could give an account 
 of their faith,* and the same also is the counsel of 
 Gregory,f bishop of Nazianzum, although he 
 allows them to hasten it in case of necessity; for 
 though his reason taught him what was fit, yet he 
 
 • Lib. de Baptis. prope finem, cap. 18. " Itaque pro persons 
 cuj usque conditione ac dispositione, etiam agtate, cunctatio 
 baptism! utilior est, prsecipue tamen circa parvulos.— Fiant 
 Christiani cum Christum nosse potuerint." 
 
 f Orat. xl. qusest. in S. Baptisma. 
 
 z2 
 
340 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 was overborne with the practice and opinion of his 
 age, which began to bear too violently upon him; 
 and yet, in another place, he makes mention of 
 some to whom baptism was not administered, did 
 vrjirioTrira, " by reason of infancy." To which if 
 we add that the parents of St. Austin, St. Jerome, 
 and St. Ambrose, although they were Christian, 
 yet did not baptize their children before they were 
 thirty years of age, it will be very considerable in 
 the example, and of great efficacy for destroying 
 the supposed necessity or derivation from the 
 apostles. 
 
 But, however, it is against the perpetual ana- 
 logy of Christ's doctrine to baptize infants : for 
 besides that Christ never gave any precept to bap- 
 tize them, nor ever himself nor his apostles (that 
 appears) did baptize any of ihem, all that either 
 he or his apostles said concerning it, requires such 
 previous dispositions to baptism of which infants 
 are not capable, and these are faith and repentance. 
 And not to instance in those innumerable places 
 that require faith before this sacrament, there needs 
 no more but this one saying of our blessed Sa- 
 viour : ' He that believeth and is baptized shall be 
 saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned ; ' * 
 plainly thus, faith and baptism in conjunction will 
 bring a man to heaven ; but if he have not faith, 
 baptism shall do him no good. So that if baptism 
 be necessary then so is faith, and much more ; for 
 want of faith damns absolutely — it is not said so 
 of the want of baptism. Now if this decretory sen- 
 tence be to be understood of persons of age, and 
 if children by such an answer (which indeed is 
 
 * Mark, xvi. 
 
CASE OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 341 
 
 reasonable enough) be excused from the necessity 
 of faith, the want of which regularly does damn, 
 then it is sottish to say the same incapacity of reason 
 and faith shall not excuse from the actual suscep- 
 tion of baptism, which is less necessary, and to 
 which faith and many other acts are necessary pre- 
 dispositions, when it is reasonably and humanly 
 received. The conclusion is, that baptism is also 
 to be deferred till the time of faith : and whether 
 infants have faith or no is a cjuestion to be dis- 
 puted by persons that care not how much they say, 
 nor how little they prove. 
 
 1. Personal and actual faith they have none; 
 for they have no acts of understanding ; and be- 
 sides, how can any man know that they have, since 
 he never saw any sign of it, neither was he told so 
 by any one that could tell ? 2. Some say they 
 have imputative faith ; but then so let the sacra- 
 ment be too; that is, if they have the parents' 
 faith or the church's, then so let baptism be im- 
 puted also by derivation from them, that as in 
 their mothers' womb and while they hang on their 
 breasts they live upon their mothers' nourishment, 
 so they may upon the baptism of their parents or 
 their mother the church. For since faith is neces- 
 sary to the susception of baptism, (and they them- 
 selves confess it by striving to find out new kinds 
 of faith to daub the matter up,) such as the faith is 
 such must be the sacrament; for there is no pro- 
 portion between an actual sacrament and an im- 
 putative faith, this being in immediate and neces- 
 sary order to that ; and whatsoever can be said to 
 take off from the necessity of actual faith, all that 
 and much more may be said to excuse from the 
 actual susception of baptism. 3. The first of these 
 
342 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 devices was that of Luther and his scholars, the 
 second of Calvin and his ; and yet there is a third 
 device which the church of Rome teaches, and that 
 is that infants have habitual faith : but who told 
 them so ? how can they prove it ? what revelation 
 or reason teaches any such thing ? Are they by 
 this habit so much as disposed to an actual belief, 
 without a new master ? Can an infant sent into a 
 Mahometan province be more confident for Chris- 
 tianity when he comes to be a man, than if he had 
 not been baptized ? Are there any acts precedent, 
 concomitant, or consequent to this pretended habit? 
 This strange invention is absolutely without art, 
 without Scripture, reason, or authority: but the 
 men are to be excused unless there were a better. 
 But for all these stratagems the argument now 
 alleged against the bajDtism of infants is demon- 
 strative and unanswerable. 
 
 To which also this consideration may be added, 
 that if baptism be necessary to the salvation of 
 infants, upon whom is the imposition laid ? To 
 whom is the command given ? to the parents or to 
 the children ? Not to the children, for they are 
 not capable of a law ; nor to the parents, for then 
 God hath put the salvation of innocent babes into 
 the power of others, and infants may be damned 
 for their fathers' carelessness or malice. It follows, 
 that it is not necessary at all to be done to them 
 to whom it cannot be prescribed as a law, and in 
 whose behalf it cannot be reasonably intrusted to 
 others with the appendant necessity ; and if it be 
 not necessary it is certain it is not reasonable ; and 
 most certain it is no where in terms prescribed, and 
 therefore it is to be presumed, that it ought to be 
 understood and administered according as other 
 
CASE OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 343 
 
 precepts are, with reference to the capacity of the 
 subject and the reasonableness of the thing. 
 
 For I consider that the baptizing of infants does 
 rush us upon such inconveniences which in other 
 questions we avoid like rocks, which will appear if 
 we discourse thus. 
 
 Either baptism produces spiritual effects or it 
 produces them not : if it produces not any, why is 
 such contention about it ? what are we the nearer 
 heaven if we are baptized ? and if it be neglected, 
 what are we the farther off? But if (as without 
 all perad venture all the psedobaptists will say) 
 baptism does do a work upon the soul, producing 
 spiritual benefits and advantages, these advantages 
 are produced by the external work of the sacrament 
 alone, or by that as it is helped by the co-operation 
 and predispositions of the suscipient. 
 
 If by the external work of the sacrament alone, 
 how does this differ from the opus operatum of the 
 papists, save that it is worse ? For they say the 
 sacrament does not produce its effect but in a sus- 
 cipient, disposed by all requisites and due prepara- 
 tives of piety, faith, and repentance; though in a 
 subject so disposed, they say the sacrament by its 
 own virtue does it, but this opinion says, it does it 
 of itself without the help or so much as the co- 
 existence of any condition but the mere recep- 
 tion. 
 
 But if the sacrament does not do its work alone, 
 but per modum recipientis, (according to the predis- 
 positions of the suscipient,) then because infants 
 can neither hinder it nor do any thing to further it, 
 it does them no benefit at all. And if any man runs 
 for succour to that exploded refuge, that infants 
 have faith, or any other inspired habit of I know 
 
344 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 not what or how, we desire no more advantage in 
 the world than that they are constrained to an 
 answer without revelation, against reason, com- 
 mon sense, and all the experience in the world. 
 
 The sum of the argument in short is this, though 
 under another representment : — 
 
 Either baptism is a mere ceremony, or it implies 
 a duty on our part. If it be a ceremony only, how 
 does it sanctify us, or make the comers thereunto 
 perfect? If it implies a duty on our part, how 
 then can children receive it, who cannot do duty 
 at all ? 
 
 And indeed this way of ministration makes bap- 
 tism to be wholly an outward duty, a w ork of the 
 law, a carnal ordinance ; it makes us adhere to the 
 letter without regard of the spirit, to be satisfied 
 with shadows, to return to bondage, to relinquish 
 the mysteriousness, the substance, and spirituality 
 of the gospel. Which argument is of so much the 
 more consideration because, under the spiritual 
 covenant, or the gospel of grace, if the mystery 
 goes not before the symbol, (which it does when 
 the symbols are seals and consignations of the 
 grace, as it is said the sacraments are,) yet it al- 
 ways accompanies it, but never follows in order 
 of time ; and this is clear in the perpetual analogy 
 of Holy Scripture. 
 
 For baptism is never propounded, mentioned, or 
 enjoined, as a means of remission of sins, or of 
 eternal life, but something of duty, choice, and 
 sanctity is joined with it, in order to production of 
 the end so mentioned : ' Know^ ye not that as many 
 as are baptized into Christ Jesus are baptized into 
 his death ?' * There is the mystery and the symbol 
 * Rom. vi. 3. 
 
CASE OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 345 
 
 together, and declared to be perpetually united, 
 oaroL l£a7rTi(r9i]ixev, " SO many of us as were baptized." 
 All of us who were baptized into one were bap- 
 tized into the other. Not only into the name of 
 Christ, but into his death also. But the meaning 
 of this, as it is explained in the following words of 
 St. Paul, makes much for our purpose ; for to be 
 baptized into his death, signifies ' to be buried with 
 him in baptism, that as Christ rose from the dead 
 we also should walk in newness of life.'* That is 
 the full mystery of baptism ; for being baptized 
 into his death, or which is all one in the next words, 
 kv ofioiMfiari Tov Bavdrov avTov, ' into the likeness of 
 his death,' cannot go alone; ' if we be so planted 
 into Christ, we shall be partakers of his resurrec- 
 tion,' f and that is not here instanced in precise 
 reward, but in exact duty ; for all this is nothing 
 but ' crucifixion of the old man, a destroying the 
 body of sin, that we no longer serve sin.' % 
 
 This indeed is truly to be baptized, both in the 
 symbol and the mystery ; whatsoever is less than 
 this is but the symbol only, a mere ceremony, an opus 
 operatum, a dead letter, an empty shadow, an in- 
 strument without an agent to manage, or force to 
 actuate it. 
 
 Plainer yet : ^Whosoever are baptized into Christ 
 have put on Christ, have put on the new man :' but 
 to put on this new man is * to be formed in right- 
 eousness, and holiness, and truth.' This whole 
 argument is the very words of St. Paul ; the major 
 proposition is dogmatically determined. Gal. in. 27; 
 the minor in Ephes. iv. 24. The conclusion then 
 is obvious, that they who are not formed new in 
 
 * Rom. iv. 4. t Verse 5. X Verse 6. 
 
346 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 righteousness, and holiness, and truth — they who, 
 remaining in the present incapacities, cannot walk 
 in newness of life — they have not been baptized 
 into Christ, and then they have but one member of 
 tlie distinction used by St. Peter, they have that 
 baptism * which is a putting away the filth of the 
 flesh,' but they have not that baptism ' which is 
 Uie answer of a good conscience towards God,'* 
 which is the only 'baptism that saves us:' and 
 this is the case of children ; and then the case is 
 thus : — 
 
 As infants by the force of nature cannot put 
 themselves into a supernatural condition, (and 
 therefore, say the paedobaptists, they need bap- 
 tism to put them into it,) so if they be baptized 
 before the use of reason, before the works of the 
 Spirit, before the operations of grace, before they 
 can throw off ' the works of darkness, and live in 
 righteousness and newness of life,' they are never 
 the nearer : from the pains of hell they shall be 
 saved by the mercies of God and their own inno- 
 cence, though they die in a state of nature, and 
 baptism will carry them no further. For that bap- 
 tism that saves us is not the only washing with 
 water of which only children are capable, but the 
 answer of a good conscience towards God ; of which 
 tliey are not capable till the use of reason, till they 
 know to choose the good and refuse the evil. 
 
 And from thence I consider anew, that all vows 
 made by persons under others' names, stipulations 
 made by minors, are not valid till they, by a super- 
 vening act, after they are of sufficient age, do ratify 
 them. Why then may not infants as well make 
 
 • 1 Peter, iii. 21 . 
 
CASE OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 347 
 
 the vow de novo, as de novo ratify that which was 
 made for them ab antiquo, when they come to years 
 of choice ? * If the infant vow be invalid till the 
 manly confirmation, why were it not as good they 
 staid to make it till that time, before which if they 
 do make it it is to no purpose ? This would be 
 considered. 
 
 And in conclusion ; our way is the surer way, 
 for not to baptize children till they can give an ac- 
 count of their faith is the most proportionable to 
 an act of reason and humanity ; and it can have no 
 danger in it; for to say that infants maybe damned 
 for want of baptism, (a thing which is not in their 
 power to acquire, they being persons not yet capa- 
 ble of a law,) is to affirm that of God which we 
 dare not say of any wise and good man. Certainly 
 it is much derogatory to God's justice, and a plain 
 defiance to the infinite reputation of his good- 
 ness. 
 
 And therefore, whoever will pertinaciously per- 
 sist in this oj^inion of the psedobaptists, and prac- 
 tise it accordingly, they pollute the blood of the 
 everlasting testament, they dishonour and make a 
 pageantry of the sacrament, they ineffectually repre- 
 sent a sepulchre into the death of Christ, and please 
 themselves in a sign without effect, making bap- 
 tism like the fig-tree in the gospel, full of leaves 
 but no fruit ; and they invocate the Holy Ghost in 
 vain, doing as if one should call upon him to illu- 
 minate a stone or a tree. 
 
 Thus far the Anabaptists may argue ; and men 
 have disputed against them with so much weak- 
 ness and confidence, that they have been encou- 
 
 • Vide Erasmum in praefat. ad Annotat. in Matth. 
 
348 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 raged in their error* more by the accidental ad- 
 vantages we have given them by our weak arguings 
 than by any truth of their cause, or excellency of 
 their wit. But the use I make of it as to our pre- 
 sent c|uestion is this : that since there is no direct 
 impiety in the opinion, nor any that is apparently 
 consequent to it, and they with so much probabi- 
 lity do, or may, pretend to true persuasion, they 
 are, with all means Christian, fair, and humane, to 
 be redargued or instructed ; but if they cannot be 
 persuaded, they must be left to God, who knows 
 every degree of every man's understanding, all his 
 weaknesses and strengths, what impress each argu- 
 ment makes upon his spirit, and how irresistible 
 every reason is ; and he alone judges his innocency 
 and sincerity. And for that cjuestion, T think there 
 is so much to be pretended against that which 
 I believe to be the truth, that there is much more 
 ti'uth than evidence on our side; and therefore we 
 may be confident as for our own particulars, but 
 not too forward peremptorily to prescribe to others, 
 much less to damn, or to kill, or to persecute them 
 that only in this particular disagree. 
 
 • Oi^K 8v toIq eavTwv doy^aai tsv taxvv exovTfg^ aXX' 
 Ev To~ic I'ji^ifTsnwv (TrtS'poTg ravTTjv ^rjpvovTeg, as Xazianzen ob- 
 serves of the case of the church in his time. 
 
349 
 
 SECTION XIX. 
 
 That there may be no Toleration of Doctrines incon- 
 consistent ivith Piety or the public good. 
 
 But then for their capital opinion, with all its 
 branches, that it is not lawful for princes to put 
 malefactors to death, nor to take up defensive arms, 
 nor to minister an oath, nor to contend in judg- 
 ment, it is not to be disputed with such liberty as 
 the former. For although it be part of that doc- 
 ti'ine which Clemens Alexandrinus says was deli- 
 vered by private tradition from the apostles, 'that 
 it is not allowable for Christians to go to law, 
 neither before the heathen nor believers ; and that a 
 righteous man ought not to take an oath ;'* and the 
 other part seems to be warranted by the eleventh 
 canon of the Nicene council, which enjoins pe- 
 nance to them that take arms after their conversion 
 to Christianity ; yet either these authorities are to 
 be slighted, or be made receptive of any interpreta- 
 tion, rather than the commonwealth be disarmed 
 of its necessary supports, and all laws made inef- 
 fectual and impertinent : for the interest of the re- 
 public and the well-being of bodies politic is not 
 to depend upon the nicety of our imaginations, or 
 the fancies of any peevish or mistaken priests; and 
 there is no reason a prince should ask John-a- 
 Brunck whether his understanding will give him 
 
 * " Non licere Christianis contendere in judicio, nee 
 coram gentibus, nee coram Sanctis, et perfeetum non debere 
 jurare." — Lib. vii. Stromat. 
 
350 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 leave to reign, and be a king-. Nay, suppose there 
 were clivers places of Scripture which did seem- 
 ingly restrain the political use of the sword, yet 
 since the avoiding a personal inconvenience hath 
 by all men been accounted sufficient reason to ex- 
 pound Scripture to any sense rather than the 
 literal, which infers an unreasonable inconvenience, 
 (and therefore the pulling out an eye and the 
 cutting off an hand is expounded by mortifying a 
 vice, and killing a criminal habit,) much rather 
 must the allegations against the power of the sword 
 endure any sense, rather than it should be thought 
 that Christianity should destroy that which is the 
 only instrument of justice, the restraint of vice 
 and support of bodies politic. It is certain that 
 Christ and his apostles, and Christian religion, did 
 comply with the most absolute government, and 
 the most imperial that was then in the world ; and 
 it could not have been at all endured in the world 
 if it had not; for, indeed, the world itself could not 
 last in regular and orderly communities of men, 
 but be a perpetual confusion, if princes and the 
 supreme power in bodies politic were not armed 
 with a coercive power to punish malefactors. The 
 public necessity and universal experience of all the 
 world convinces those men of being most unrea- 
 sonable that make such pretences, which destroy 
 all laws and all communities, and the bands of 
 civil societies, and leave it arbitrary to every vain or 
 vicious person, whether men shall be safe, or laws 
 be established, or a murderer hanged, or princes 
 rule. So that, in this case, men are not so much 
 to dispute with particular arguments as to consider 
 the interest and concernment of kingdoms and 
 public societies; for the religion of Jesus Christ is 
 
NO TOLERATION OF IMPIETY. 351 
 
 the best establisher of the felicity of private persons 
 and of public communities ; it is a religion that is 
 prudent and innocent, humane, and reasonable, and 
 brought infinite advantages to mankind, but no in- 
 convenience, nothing that is unnatural, or unsoci- 
 able, or unjust. And if it be certain that this world 
 cannot be governed without laws, and laws without 
 a compulsory signify nothing, then it is certain 
 that it is no good religion that teaches doctrine 
 whose consequents will destroy all government; 
 and therefore it is as much to be rooted out as 
 any thing that is the greatest pest and nuisance to 
 the public interest. And that we may guess at 
 the purjDOses of the men and the inconvenience of 
 such doctrine, these men that did first intend by 
 their doctrine to disarm all princes and bodies po- 
 litic, did themselves take up arms to establish their 
 wild and impious fancy; and, indeed, that prince 
 or commonwealth that should be persuaded by 
 them, would be exposed to all the insolences of 
 foreigners, and all mutinies of the teachers them- 
 selves ; and the governors of the people could not 
 do that duty they owe to their people of protecting 
 them from the rapine and malice which will be in 
 the world as long as the world is. And therefore 
 here they are to be restrained from preaching such 
 doctrine, if they mean to preserve their govern- 
 ment; and the necessity of the thing will justify 
 the lawfulness of the thing. If they think it to 
 themselves, that it cannot be helped so long as it 
 is innocent, as much as concerns the public ; but 
 if they preach it they may be accounted authors of 
 all the consequent inconveniences, and punished 
 accordingly. No doctrine that destroys govern- 
 ment is to be endured ; for although those doctrines 
 
352 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 axe not always good that serve the private ends of 
 princes or the secret designs of state, which, by 
 reason of some accidents or imperfections of men, 
 may be promoted by that which is false and pre- 
 tending ; yet no doctrine can be good that does 
 not comply with the formality of government itself, 
 and the well-being of bodies politic : ' Cato, when 
 an augnr, ventured to say that the omens were 
 always in favour of what was for the public good, and 
 against whatever was the reverse.'* Religion is to 
 meliorate the condition of a people, not to do it 
 disadvantage; and therefore those doctrines that 
 inconvenience the public are no parts of good reli- 
 gion. The safety of the state is a necessary consi- 
 deration in the permission of prophesyings ; for 
 according to the true, solid, and prudent ends of 
 the republic, so is the doctrine to be permitted or 
 restrained, and the men that preach it, according 
 as they are good subjects and right common- 
 wealth's men ; for religion is a thing superinduced 
 to temporal government, and the church is an ad- 
 dition of a capacity to a commonwealth, and there- 
 fore is in no sense to disserve the necessity and just 
 interests of that to which it is superadded for its 
 advantage and conservation. 
 
 And thus, by a proportion to the rules of these 
 instances, all their other doctrines are to have their 
 judgment, as concerning toleration or restraint ; 
 for all are either speculative or practical ; they are 
 consistent with the public ends or inconsistent, they 
 teach impiety or they are innocent, and they are 
 to be permitted or rejected accordingly. For in 
 
 • " Augur cum esset Cato, dicere ausus est, optimis auspiciis 
 ea geri quae pro reipublicee salute gererentur; quee contra rem- 
 publicam fierent, contra auspicia fieri." — Cicero de Senectute. 
 
CASE OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. 353 
 
 the question of toleration, the foundation of faith, 
 good life and government is to be secured : in 
 all others' cases the former considerations are 
 effectual. 
 
 SECTION XX. 
 
 How far the Religion of the Church of Rome is 
 tolerable. 
 
 But now, concerning the religion of the church of 
 Rome, (which was the other instance I promised to 
 consider,) we will proceed another way, and not 
 consider the truth or falsity of the doctrines ; for 
 that is not the best way to determine this question 
 concerning permitting their religion or assemblies; 
 because that a thing is not true, is not argument 
 sufficient to conclude that he that believes it true is 
 not to be endured ; but we are to consider what 
 inducements there are that jjossess the understand- 
 ing of those men, whether they be reasonable and 
 innocent, sufficient to abuse or persuade wise and 
 good men, or whether the doctrines be commenced 
 upon design, and managed with impiety, and then 
 have effects not be endured. 
 
 And here, first, I consider that those doctrines 
 that have had long continuance and possession in 
 the church, cannot easily be supposed in the pre- 
 sent professors to be a design, since they have re- 
 ceived it from so many ages ; and it is not likely 
 that all ages should have the same purposes, or 
 that the same doctrine should serve the several 
 
 A A 
 
354 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 ends of divers ages. But, however, long prescrip- 
 tion is a prejudice oftentimes so insupportable 
 that it cannot with many arguments be retrenched, 
 as relying upon these grounds, that truth is more 
 certain than falsehood ; that God would not for so 
 many ages forsake his church, and leave her in 
 error ; that w hatsoever is new is not only suspi- 
 cious but false ; which are suppositions pious and 
 plausible enough. And if the church of Rome had 
 communicated infants so long as she hath prayed 
 to saints or baptized infants, the communicating 
 would have been believed with as much confidence 
 as the other articles are, and the dissentients with 
 as much impatience rejected. But this considera- 
 tion is to be enlarged upon all those particulars, 
 which as they are apt to abuse the persons of the 
 men and amuse their understandings, so they are 
 instruments of their excuse ; and by making their 
 errors to be invincible, and their opinions, thougli 
 false, yet not criminal, make it also to be an effect 
 ef reason and charity to permit the men a liberty 
 of their conscience, and let them answer to God for 
 themselves and their ow'n opinions i such as are 
 the beauty and splendour of their church ; their 
 pompous service ; the stateliness and solemnity of 
 the hierarchy ; their name of Catholic, which they 
 suppose their own due, and to concern no other 
 sect of Christians ; the antiquity of many of their 
 doctrines; the continual succession of their bishops; 
 their immediate derivation from the apostles; their 
 title to succeed St. Peter; the supjDosal and pre- 
 tence of his personal prerogatives ; the advantages 
 which the conjunction of the imperial seat with 
 their episcopal hath brought to that see ; the flatter- 
 ing expressions of minor bishops, which by being 
 
CASE OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. 35^ 
 
 old records, have obtained credibility ; the multi- 
 tude and variety of people which are of their per- 
 suasion ; apparent consent with antiquity in many 
 ceremonials which other churches have rejected; 
 and a pretended, and sometimes an aj^parent con- 
 sent with some elder ages in many matters doctrinal; 
 the advantage which is derived to them by enter- 
 taining some personal opinions of the fathers, which 
 they with infinite clamours see to be cried up to be 
 a doctrine of the church of that time ; the great 
 consent of one part with another in that which 
 most of them affirm to be matter of faith ; the great 
 differences which are commenced amongst their ad- 
 versaries, abusing the Liberty of Prophesying unto 
 a very great licentiousness; their happiness of 
 being instruments in converting divers nations; 
 the advantages of monarchical government, the 
 benefit of which as well as the inconveniences 
 (which though they feel they consider not) they 
 daily do enjoy ; the piety and the austerity of their 
 religious orders of men and women ; the single life 
 of their priests and bishops ; the riches of their 
 church ; the severity of their fasts and their exte- 
 rior observances; the great reputation of their first 
 bishops for faith and sanctity ; the known holiness 
 of some of those persons whose institutes the reli- 
 gious persons pretend to imitate; their miracles, 
 false or true, substantial or imaginary ; the casual- 
 ties and accidents that have happened to their ad- 
 versaries, which, being chances of humanity, are 
 attributed to several causes, according as the fancies 
 of men and their interests are pleased or satisfied ; 
 the temporal felicity of their professors; the ob- 
 lique arts and indirect proceedings of some of those 
 who departed from them ; andamongst many other 
 
 A A 2 
 
356 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 things, the names of heretic and schismatic, which 
 they with infinite pertinacy fasten upon all that 
 disagree from them — these things, and divers others, 
 may very easily persuade persons of much reason 
 and more piety, to retain that which they know to 
 have been the religion of their forefathers, which 
 had actual possession and seizure of men's under- 
 standings before the opposite professions had a 
 name; and so much the rather, because religion 
 hath more advantages upon the fancy and affec- 
 tions than it hath upon philosophy and severe dis- 
 courses, and therefore is the more easily persuaded 
 upon such grounds as these, which are more apt to 
 amuse than to satisfy the understanding. 
 
 Secondly, if we consider the doctrines them- 
 selves, we shall find them to be superstructures ill 
 built and worse managed, but yet they keep the 
 foundation ; they build upon God in Jesus Christ; 
 they profess the apostles' creed ; they retain faith 
 and repentance as the supporters of all our hopes 
 of heaven, and believe many more truths than can 
 be proved to be of simple and original necessity to 
 salvation ; and therefore all the wisest personages 
 of the adverse party allowed to them possibility of 
 salvation, whilst their errors are not faults of their 
 will, but weaknesses and deceptions of the under- 
 standing. So that there is nothing in the foundation 
 of faith that can reasonably hinder them to be per- 
 mitted. The foundation of faith stands secure 
 enough for all their vain and unhandsome super- 
 structures. 
 
 But then, on the other side, if we take account 
 of their doctrines as they relate to good life, or are 
 consistent or inconsistent with civil government, 
 we shall have other considerations. 
 
CASE OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. 357 
 
 For, thirdly, I consider that many of their doc- 
 trines do accidentally teach or lead to ill life ; and 
 it will appear to any man that considers the result 
 of these propositions. Attrition (which is a low 
 and imperfect deg^ree of sorrow for sin, or, as others 
 say, a sorrow for sin commenced upon any reason 
 of temporal hope, or fear, or desire, or any thins^ 
 else) is a sufficient disposition for a man in the 
 sacrament of penance to receive absolution, and be 
 justified before God, by taking away the guilt of 
 all his sins and the obligation to eternal pains. 
 So that already the fear of hell is c^uite removed, 
 upon conditions so easy that many men take more 
 pains to get a groat, than by this doctrine we are 
 obliged to for the curing and acquitting all the 
 greatest sins of a whole life of the most vicious per- 
 son in the world ; and but that they affright their 
 people with a fear of purgatory, or with the severity 
 of penances, in case they will not venture for pur- 
 gatory, (for by their doctrine they may choose or 
 refuse either,) there would be nothing in their 
 doctrine or discipline to impede and slacken their 
 proclivity to sin. But then they have as easy a 
 cure for that too, with a little more charge some- 
 times, but most commonly with less trouble. For 
 there are so many confraternities, so many privi- 
 leged churches, altars, monasteries, coemeteries, 
 offices, festivals, and so free a concession of indul- 
 gences appendant to all these, and a thousand fine 
 devices to take away the fear of purgatory, to com- 
 mute or expiate penances, that in no sect of men 
 do they with more ease and cheapness reconcile a 
 wicked life with the hopes of heaven, than in the 
 Roman communion. 
 
358 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYI^■G. 
 
 And, indeed, if men would consider things upon 
 their true grounds, the church of Rome should 
 be more reproved upon doctrines that infer ill 
 life, than upon such as are contrariant to faith. 
 For false superstructures do not always destroy 
 faith; but many of the doctrines they teach, if 
 they were prosecuted to the utmost issue, would 
 destroy good life. And therefore my quarrel with 
 the church of Rome is greater and stronger upon 
 such points which are not usually considered, than 
 it is upon the ordinary disputes which have, to no 
 very great purpose, so much disturbed Christen- 
 dom ; and I am more scandalized at her for teach- 
 ing the sufficiency of attrition in the sacrament, for 
 indulging penances so frequently, for remitting all 
 discipline, for making so great a part of religion to 
 consist in externals and ceremonials, for putting 
 more force and energy, and exacting with more 
 severity the commandments of men than the pre- 
 cepts of justice and internal religion; lastly, be- 
 sides many other things, for promising heaven to 
 persons after a wicked life, upon their impertinent 
 cries and ceremonials, transacted by the priest and 
 the dying person : I confess, I wish the zeal of 
 Christendom were a little more active against these 
 and the like doctrines, and that men would vrrite 
 and live more earnestly against them than as yet 
 they have done. 
 
 But then, what influence this just zeal is to hare 
 upon the persons of the professors is another con- 
 sideration ; for as the Pharisees did preach well and 
 lived ill, and therefore were to be heard, not imi- 
 tated, so if these men live well though they teach 
 ill, they are to be imitated, not heard : their doc- 
 trines by all means. Christian and human, are to 
 
CASE OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. 359 
 
 be discountenanced, but their persons tolerated so far 
 {eatenus) ; their profession and decrees to be re- 
 jected and condemned, but the persons to be per- 
 mitted, because by their good lives they confute 
 their doctrines; that is, they give evidence that 
 they think no evil to be consequent to such opi- 
 nions; and if they did, that they live good lives is 
 argument sufficient that they would themselves 
 cast the first stone against their own opinions, 
 if they thought them guilty of such misclemean- 
 ours. 
 
 Fourthly : but if we consider their doctrines in 
 relation to government and public societies of 
 men, then, if they prove faulty, they are so much 
 the more intolerable by how much the consequents 
 are of greater danger and malice. Such doctrines 
 as these — the pope may dispense with all oaths 
 taken to God or man; he may absolve subjects 
 from their allegiance to their natural prince ; faith 
 is not to be kept with heretics ; heretical princes 
 may be slain by their subjects — these propositions 
 are so depressed, and do so immediately communi- 
 cate with matter and the interests of men, that they 
 are of the same consideration with matters of fact, 
 and are to be handled accordingly. To other doc- 
 trines ill life may be con^:ec[uent, but the con- 
 nexion of the antecedent and the consequent is 
 not (perad venture) perceived or acknowledged by 
 him that believes the opinion with no greater con- 
 fidence than he disavows the* effect and issue of 
 it ; but in these the ill effect is the direct profes- 
 sion and purpose of the opinion ; and therefore 
 the man and the man's opinion is to be dealt 
 withal, just as the matter of fact is to be judged ; 
 for it is an immediate, a perceived, a direct event. 
 
360 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 and the very purpose of the opinion. Now these 
 opinions are a direct overthrow to all human so- 
 ciety and mutual commerce, a destruction of go- 
 vernment, and of the laws, and duty, and subor- 
 dination which we owe to princes ; and therefore 
 those men of the church of Rome that do hold 
 them, and j^reach them, cannot pretend to the ex- 
 cuses of innocent opinions and hearty persuasion, 
 to the weakness of humanity, and the difficulty of 
 things ; for God hath not left those truths, which 
 are necessary for conservation of public societies of 
 men, so intricate and obscure but that every one 
 that is honest and desirous to understand his duty 
 will certainly know that no Christian truth destroys 
 a man's being sociable, and a member of the body 
 politic, co-operating to the conservation of the whole, 
 as well as of itself. However, if it might happen that 
 men should sincerely err in such j^lain mattei-s of 
 fact, (for there are fools enough in the world,) yet 
 if he hold his peace, no man is to persecute or 
 punish him; for then it is mere opinion, which 
 comes not under political cognizance ; that is, that 
 cognizance which only can punish corporally. But 
 if he preaches it he is actually a traitor, or sediti- 
 ous, or author of perjury, or a destroyer of human 
 society, respectively to the nature of the doctrine ; 
 and the preaching such doctrines cannot claim the 
 privilege and immunity of a mere opinion, be- 
 cause it is as much matter of fact as any the ac- 
 tions of his disciples and confidents ; and therefore 
 in such cases is not to be permitted, but judged 
 according to the nature of the effect it hath or may 
 have upon the actions of men. 
 
 Fifthly : but lastly, in matters merely specu- 
 lative, the case is wholly altered, because the body 
 
CASE OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. 361 
 
 politic, which only may lawfully use the sword, is 
 not a competent judge of such matters which have 
 not direct influence upon the body politic, or upon 
 the lives and manners of men, as they are parts of 
 a community, (not but that princes, or judges tem- 
 poral, may have as much ability as others, but by 
 reason of the incompetency of the authority;) and 
 Gallio spoke wisely when he discoursed thus to 
 the Jews : ' If it were a matter of wrong or wicked 
 lewdness, O ye Jews, reason would that I should 
 hear you ; but if it be a question of w^ords and 
 names, and of your law, look ye to it ; for I will 
 be no judge of such matters.'* The man spoke ex- 
 cellent reason, for the cognizance of these things 
 did appertain to men of the other robe ; but the 
 ecclesiastical powder, which only is competent to 
 take notice of such questions, is not of capacity to 
 use the temporal sword or corporal inflictions. 
 The mere doctrines and opinions of men are things 
 spiritual, and therefore not cognizable by a tem- 
 poral authority ; and the ecclesiastical authority, 
 which is to take cognizance, is itself so spiritual 
 that it cannot inflict any punishment corporal. 
 
 And it is not enough to say, that when the ma- 
 gistrate restrains the preaching such opinions, if 
 any man preaches them he may be punished, (and 
 then it is not for his opinion but his disobedience 
 that he is punished ;) for the temporal power ought 
 not to restrain prophecy ings, where the public 
 peace and interest is not certainly concerned. And 
 therefore it is not sufficient to excuse him whose 
 law, in that case, being by an incompetent power, 
 made a scruple where there w^as no sin. 
 
 * Acts, xviii. 14. 
 
362 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 And under this consideration come very many 
 articles of the church of Rome, which are wholly 
 speculative, which do not derive upon practice, 
 which begin in the understanding and rest there, 
 and have no influence upon life and government, 
 but very accidentally and by a great many re- 
 moves ; and therefore are to be considered only so 
 far as to guide men in their persuasions, but have 
 no effect upon the persons of men, their bodies, or 
 their temporal condition : I instance in two — prayer 
 for the dead, and the doctrine of transubstanti- 
 ation ; these two to be instead of all the rest. 
 
 For the first, this discourse is to suppose it false, 
 and we are to direct our proceedings accordingly ; 
 and therefore I shall not need to urge with how 
 many fair words and gay pretences this doctrine is 
 set off, apt either to cozen or instruct the con- 
 science of the wisest, according as it is true or false 
 respectively. But we find (says the Romanist) in 
 the history of the IVIaccabees, that the Jews did 
 pray and make offerings for the dead, (which also 
 appears by other testimonies, and by their form of 
 prayers still extant, which they used in the capti- 
 vity :) it is very considerable, that since our blessed 
 Saviour did reprove all the evil doctrines and tra- 
 ditions of the Scribes and Pharisees, and did argue 
 concerning the dead and the resurrection against 
 the Sadduces, yet he spake no word against this 
 public practice, but left it as he found it, which he 
 who came to declare to us all the will of his Father 
 would not have done if it had not been innocent, 
 pious, and full of charity. To which, by way of 
 consociation, if we add, that St. Paul did pray for 
 Onesiphorus, ' That God would show him a mercy 
 
CASE OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. 363 
 
 in that day/* that is, according to the style of the 
 New Testament, the day of judgment, the result 
 will be, that although it be probable that Onesi- 
 phorus at that time was dead, (because in his salu- 
 tations he salutes his household, without naming 
 him who was the major domo, against his custom 
 of salutations in other places,) yet, besides this, 
 the prayer was for such a blessing to him whose de- 
 monstration and reception could not be but after 
 death ; which implies clearly, that then there is a 
 need of mercy ; and by consequence the dead peo- 
 ple, even to the day of judgment inclusively, are 
 the subject of a misery, the object of God's mercy, 
 and therefore fit to be commemorated in the duties 
 of our piety and charity, and that we are to recom- 
 mend their condition to God, not only to give them 
 more glory in the reunion, but to pity them to such 
 purposes in which they need ; which because they 
 are not revealed to us in particular, it hinders us 
 not in recommending the persons in particular to 
 God's mercy, but should rather excite our charity 
 and devotion; for it being certain that they have a 
 need of mercy, and it being uncertain how great 
 their need is, it may concern the prudence of 
 charity to be the more earnest, as not knowing the 
 greatness of their necessity. 
 
 And if there should be any uncertainty in these 
 arguments, yet its having been the universal prac- 
 tice of the church of God in all places and in all 
 ages, till within these hundred years, is a very 
 great inducement for any member of the church to 
 believe, that in the first traditions of Christianity 
 and the institutions apostolical, there was nothing 
 
 • 2 Tim. i. 18. 
 
364 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 delivered against this practice, but very much to 
 insinuate or enjoin it ; because the practice of it was 
 at the first, and was universal. And if any man 
 shall doubt of this, he shows nothing but that he is 
 ignorant of the records of the church, it being 
 plain in Tertullian * and St. Cyprian, f (who were 
 the eldest writers of the Latin church,) that in their 
 times it was of old the custom of the church to pray 
 for the souls of the faithful departed, in the dread- 
 ful mysteries; and it was an institution apostolical, 
 (says one of them,) and so transmitted to the fol- 
 lowing ages of the church ; and when once it began 
 upon slight and discontent to be contested against 
 by Aerius, the man was presently condemned for a 
 heretic, as appears in Epiphanius. 
 
 But I am not to consider the arguments for the 
 doctrine itself, although the probability and fair 
 pretence of them may help to excuse such persons 
 who upon these or the like grounds do heartily be- 
 lieve it. But I am to consider that, whether it be 
 true or false, there is no manner of malice in it, 
 and at the worst it is but a wrong error upon the 
 right side of charity, and concluded against by its 
 adversaries upon the confidence of such arguments, 
 which possibly are not so probable as the grounds 
 pretended for it. 
 
 And if the same judgment might be made of any 
 more of their doctrines, I think it were better men 
 were not furious in the condemning such cjues- 
 tions, which either they understood not upon the 
 grounds of their proper arguments, or at least con- 
 sider not, as subjected in the persons, and lessened 
 
 * De Corona Milit. c. 3. et De ]\fonogam. c. 10. 
 t Ep. 66. 
 
CASE OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. 365 
 
 by circumstances, by the innocency of the event, or 
 other prudential considerations. 
 
 But the other article is harder to be judged of, 
 and hath made greater stirs in Christendom, and 
 hath been dashed with more impetuous objections, 
 and such as do more trouble the question of tolera- 
 tion. For if the doctrine of transubstantiation be 
 false, (as upon much evidence we believe it is,) 
 then it is accused of introducing idolatry, giving 
 divine worship to a creature, adoring of bread and 
 wine, and then comes in the precept of God to the 
 Jews, that those prophets who persuaded to idolatry 
 should be slain.* 
 
 But here we must deliberate, for it is concerning 
 the lives of men ; and yet a little deliberation may 
 suffice, for idolatry is a forsaking the true God, 
 and giving divine worship to a creature or to an 
 idol ; that is to an imaginary god, who hath no 
 foundation in essence or existence ; and is that 
 kind of superstition which by divines is called the 
 superstition of an undue object. Now it is evident 
 that the object of their adoration (that which is 
 represented to them in their minds, their thoughts, 
 and purposes, and by which God principally, if 
 not solely, takes estimate of human actions) in the 
 blessed sacrament, is the only true and eternal 
 God, hypostatically joined with his holy humanity; 
 which humanity they believe actually present un- 
 der the veil of the sacramental signs. And if 
 they thought him not present, they are so far from 
 worshipping the bread in this case, that themselves 
 profess it to be idolatry to do so, which is a demon- 
 stration that their aovA hath nothing in it that is 
 
 * Deut. xiii. 
 
366 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 idololatrical. If their confidence and fanciful opi- 
 nion hath engaged them upon so great mistake, (as 
 without doubt it hathj yet the will hath nothing 
 in it, but what is a great enemy to idolatry ; " and 
 there is nothing damnable which is independent of 
 the will."* And although they have done violence 
 to all philosophy and the reason of man, and un- 
 done and cancelled the principles of two or three 
 sciences to bring in this article, yet they have a di- 
 vine revelxition whose literal and grammatical sense, 
 if that sense were intended, would warrant them to 
 do violence to all the sciences in the circle ; and, 
 indeed, that tvansubstantiation is openly and vio- 
 lently against natural reason, is an argument to 
 make them disbelieve, who believe the mystery of 
 the trinity in all those niceties of explication 
 which are in the school, (and which now-a-days 
 pass for the doctrine of the church) with as much 
 violence to the principles of natural and superna- 
 tural philosophy as can be imagined to be in the 
 point of transubstantiation. 
 
 1. But for the article itself, we all say that 
 Christ is there present some way or other extraor- 
 dinary ; and it will not be amiss to worship him at 
 that time, when he gives himself to us in so mys- 
 terious a manner, and with so great advantages ; 
 especially since the whole oftice is a consociation 
 of divers actions of religion and divine ^vorship. 
 Now, in all opinions of those men who think it an 
 act of religion to communicate and to offer, a di- 
 vine u'orship is given to Christ, and is transmitted 
 to him by mediation of that action and that sacra- 
 ment; and it is no more in the church of Rome, 
 
 '■Et nihil ardet in inferno nisi propria voluntas." 
 
CASE OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. 367 
 
 but that they differ and mistake infinitely in the 
 manner of his presence ; which error is wholly 
 seated in the understanding, and does not commu- 
 nicate with the will. For all agree that the divi- 
 nity and the humanity of the Son of God is the 
 ultimate and adequate object of divine adoration, 
 and that it is incommunicable to any creature 
 whatsoever; and before they venture to pass an act 
 of adoration, they believe the bread to be anni- 
 hilated or turned into his substance who may law- 
 fully be w^orshipped ; and they who have these 
 thoughts are as much enemies of idolatry as they 
 that understand better how to avoid that inconve- 
 nience which is supposed to be the crime, which 
 they formally hate, and we materially avoid : this 
 consideration was concerning the doctrine itself. 
 
 2. And now, for any danger to men's persons for 
 suffering such a doctrine ; this I shall say, that if 
 they wdio do it, are not formally guilty of idolatry, 
 there is no danger that they whom they persuade 
 to it should be guilty ; and what persons soever 
 believe it to be idolatry to worship the sacrament, 
 while that persuasion remains will never be brought 
 to it, there is no fear of that : and he that persuades 
 them to do it by altering their persuasions and 
 beliefs, does no hurt but altering the opinions of 
 the men, and abusing their understandings ; but 
 when they believe it to be no idolatry, then their 
 so believing it is sufficient security from that crime, 
 which hath so great a tincture and residency in the 
 will that from thence only it hath its being cri- 
 minal. 
 
 3. How ever, if it were idolatry, I think the pre- 
 cept of God to the Jews, of killing false and idola- 
 trous prophets, will be no warrant for Christians so 
 
368 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 to do. For in the case of tlie apostles and the men 
 of Samaria, when James and John would have 
 called for fire to destroy them, even as Elias did 
 under Moses's law, Christ distinguished the spirit 
 of Elias from his own spirit, and taught them a 
 lesson of greater sweetness, and consigned this 
 truth to all ages of the church, that such severity is 
 not consistent with the meekness which Christ by 
 his example and sermons hath made a precept 
 evangelical ; at most it was but a judicial law, and 
 no more of argument to make it necessary to us 
 than the Mosaical precepts of putting adulterers to 
 death, and trying the accused persons by the wa- 
 ters of jealousy. 
 
 And thus, in these two instances, I have given 
 account what is to be done in toleration of diversity 
 of opinions ; the result of which is principally this : 
 let the prince and the secular power have a care 
 the commonwealth be safe. For whether such and 
 such a sect of Christians be to be permitted, is a 
 question rather political than religious ; for as for 
 the concernments of religion, these instances have 
 furnished us with sufficient to determine us in our 
 duties as to that particular, and by one of these all 
 particulars may be judged. 
 
 And now it were a strange inhumanity to permit 
 Jews in a commonwealth, whose interest is served 
 by their inhabitation, and yet, upon ec^ual grounds 
 of state and policy, not to permit differing sects of 
 Christians ; for although possibly there is more 
 danger, men's persuasions should be altered in a 
 commixture of divers sects of Christians, yet there 
 is not so much danger when they are changed from 
 Christian to Christian, as if they be turned from 
 Christian to Jew, as many are daily in Spain and 
 Portugal. 
 
CASE OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. 369 
 
 And this is not to be excused by saying the 
 church hath no power over them qui /oris sunt, 
 " who are without," as Jews are. For it is true the 
 church in the capacity of spiritual regiments hath 
 nothing to do with them, because they are not her 
 diocess : yet the prince hath to do with them, when 
 they are subjects of his regiment; they may not 
 be excommunicate any more than a stone may be 
 killed, because they are not of the Christian com- 
 munion, but they are living j^ersons, parts of the 
 commonwealth, infinitely deceived in their religion, 
 and very dangerous if they offer to persuade men to 
 their opinions, and are the greatest enemies of 
 Christ, whose honour and the interest of whose 
 service a Christian prince is bound with all his 
 power to maintain. And when the question is of 
 punishing disagreeing persons with death, the 
 church hath equally nothing to do with them both, 
 for she hath nothing to do with the temporal sword, 
 but the prince, whose subjects equally Christians 
 and Jews are, hath equal power over their 2>ersons ; 
 for a Christian is no more a subject than a Jew is; 
 the prince hath upon them both the same power of 
 life and death, so that the Jew by being no Chris- 
 tian is not for is, or any more an exempt person for 
 his body or his life than the Christian is. And 
 yet in all churches where the secular power hath 
 temporal reason to tolerate the Jews, they are tole- 
 rated without any scruple in religion ; which thing 
 is of more consideration, because the Jews are di- 
 rect blasphemers of the Son of God, and blasphemy 
 by their own law, the law of Moses, is made 
 capital, and might with greater reason be inflicted 
 upon them who acknowledge its obligation, than 
 urged upon Christians as an authority, enabling 
 
 B B 
 
370 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 princes to put them to death who are accused of 
 accidental and consequentive blasphemy and ido- 
 latry respectively, which yet they hate and disavow 
 with much zeal and heartiness of persuasion. And 
 I cannot yet learn a reason why we shall not be 
 more complying with them who are of the house- 
 hold of faith ; for at least they are children, though 
 they be but rebellious children; (and if they were 
 not, what hath the mother to do with them any 
 more than with the Jews ?) they are in some rela- 
 tion or habitude of the family, for they are con- 
 signed with the same baptism, profess the same 
 faith delivered by the apostles, are erected in the 
 same hope, and look for the same glory to be 
 revealed to them, at the coming of their common 
 Lord and Saviour, to whose service, according to 
 their understanding, they have vowed themselves : 
 and if the disagreeing persons be to be esteemed as 
 heathens and publicans, yet not worse, ' Have no 
 company with them,' that is the worst that is to 
 be done to such a man in St. Paul's judgment: 
 * yet count him not as an enemy, but admonish 
 him as a brother.' 
 
 SECTION XXI. 
 
 Of the Duty of particular Churches in allowing 
 Communion. 
 
 From these premises we are easily instructed con- 
 cerning the lawfulness or duty respectively of 
 Christian communion, which is differently to be 
 
DUTY OF PARTICULAR CHURCHES. 371 
 
 considered in respect of particular churches to each 
 other, and of particular men to particular churches: 
 for as for particular churches, they are bound to 
 allow communion to all those that profess the same 
 faith upon which the apostles did give communion; 
 for whatsoever preserves us as members of the 
 church, gives us title to the communion of saints; 
 and whatsoever faith or belief that is to which God 
 hath promised heaven, that faith makes us members 
 of the Catholic church. Since, therefore, the judicial 
 acts of the church are then most prudent and reli- 
 gious when they nearest imitate the example and 
 piety of God, to make the way to heaven straiter 
 than God made it, or to deny to communicate with 
 those whom God will vouchsafe to be united, and 
 to refuse our charity to those who have the same 
 faith, because they have not all our opinions, and 
 believe not every thing necessary which we over- 
 value, is impious and schismatical ; it infers tyranny 
 on one part, and persuades and tempts to uncha- 
 ritableness and animosities on both ; it dissolves 
 societies, and is an enemy to peace ; it busies men 
 in impertinent wranglings, and by names of men 
 and titles of factions it consigns the interested 
 parties to act their differences to the height, and 
 makes them neglect those advantages which piety 
 and a good life bring to the reputation of Christian 
 religion and societies. 
 
 And therefore Vincentius Lirinensis, and indeed 
 the whole church, accounted the Donatists heretics 
 upon this very ground, because they did imperi- 
 ously deny their communion to all that were not of 
 their persuasion ; whereas the authors of that opi- 
 nion for which they first did separate and make a 
 sect, because they did not break the church's 
 
372 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 peace, nor magisterially prescribed to others, were 
 in that disagreeing and error accounted Catholics. 
 " Division and disunion makes you heretics, peace 
 and unity make Catholics,"* said St. Austin ; and 
 to this sense is that of St. Paul : ' If I had all faith 
 and not charity I am nothing.' He who upon con- 
 fidence of his true belief denies a charitable com- 
 munion to his brother, loses the reward of both. 
 And if j^ope Victor had been as charitable to the 
 Asiatics as pope Anicetus and St. Polycarp were to 
 each other in the same disagreeing concerning Easter, 
 
 Victor had not been TrX^/jcn/cwrfpov KaraTi^dimvoCj 
 
 so bitterly reproved and condemned as he was for 
 the uncharitable managing of his disagreeing, by 
 Polycrates and Tren^us.f True faith, which leads 
 to charity, leads on to that which unites wills and 
 affections, not opinions.! 
 
 Upon these or the like considerations the emperor 
 Zeno published his ivwTiKov, in which he made the 
 Nicene creed to be the medium of Catholic com- 
 munion ; and although he lived after the council 
 of Chalcedon, yet he made not the decrees of that 
 council an instrument of its restraint and limit, as 
 preferring the peace of Christendom and the union 
 of charity far before a forced or pretended unity of 
 persuasion, which never was or ever will be real 
 and substantial ; and although it v>ere very conve- 
 nient if it could be had, yet it is therefore not ne- 
 cessary because it is impossible ; and if men please, 
 whatever advantages to the public would be conse- 
 quent to it, may be supplied by a charitable com- 
 
 * '■' Divisio enim et disunio facit vos haereticos, pax et unitas 
 faciunt Catholicos." 
 
 + Euseb. lib. v. c. 25, 26. 
 
 X " Concordia enim quee est charitatis effectus est unio vo- 
 untatum non opinionum." — Aquin. 22 se. q. 37, a. 1. 
 
DUTY OF INDIVIDUALS. 375 
 
 But then men would do well to consider whether 
 or no such proceeding's do not derive the guilt of 
 schism upon them who least think it; and whether 
 of the two is the schismatic, he that makes unneces- 
 sary and (supposing the state of things) inconve- 
 nient impositions, or he that disobeys them because 
 he cannot, without doing violence to his conscience, 
 believe them : he that parts communion because 
 without sin he could not entertain it, or they that 
 have made it necessary for him to separate, by re- 
 quiring such conditions which to man are simply 
 necessary, and to his particular are either sinful or 
 impossible. 
 
 The sum of all is this : there is no security in any 
 thing or to any person, but in the pious and hearty 
 endeavours of a good life; and neither sin nor 
 error does impede it from producing its propor- 
 tionate and intended effect ; because it is a direct 
 deletery to sin, and an excuse to errors, by making 
 them innocent, and therefore harmless. And, in- 
 deed, this is the intendment and design of faith ; 
 for (that we may join both ends of this discourse 
 together) therefore certain articles are prescribed 
 to us, and propounded to our understanding, that 
 so we might be supplied with instructions, with 
 motives and engagements to incline and determine 
 our wills to the obedience of Christ. So that obe- 
 dience is just so consecjuent to faith, as the acts of 
 will are to the dictates of the understanding. Faith 
 therefore being in order to obedience, and so far ex- 
 cellent, as itself is a part of obedience or the pro- 
 moter of it, or an engagement to it, it is evident 
 that if obedience and a good life be secured upon 
 the most reasonable and proper grounds of Chris- 
 tianity, that is, upon the apostles' creed, then faith 
 
376 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 also is secured. Since whatsoever is beside the 
 duties, the order of a good life cannot be a part of 
 faith, because upon faith a good life is built; all 
 other articles, by not being necessary, are no other- 
 wise to be required but as they are to be obtained 
 and found out, that is, morally and fallibly, and 
 humanly: it is fit all truths be promoted fairly 
 and properly, and yet but few articles prescribed 
 magisterially, nor framed into symbols and bodies 
 of confession ; least of all, after such composures, 
 should men proceed so furiously as to say all dis- 
 agreeing, after such declarations, to be damnable 
 for the future and capital for the present. But 
 this very thing is reason enough to make men more 
 limited in their prescriptions, because it is more 
 charitable in such suppositions to do so. 
 
 But in the thing itself, because few kinds of 
 errors are damnable, it is reasonable as few should 
 be capital ; and because every thing that is damn- 
 able in itself, and before God's judgment-seat, is 
 not discernible before men, (and questions dis- 
 putable are of this condition,) it is also very rea- 
 sonable that fewer be capital than what are damn- 
 able, and that such questions should be permitted 
 to men to believe, because they must be left to 
 God to judge. It concerns all persons to see that 
 they do their best to find out truth, and if they do, 
 it is certain that let the error be never so damnable, 
 they shall escape the error or the misery of being 
 damned for it. And if God will not be angry at men 
 for being invincibly deceived, why should men be 
 angry one at another ? For he that is most displeased 
 at another man's error, may also be tempted in his 
 own will, and as much deceived in his understanding ; 
 for if he may fail in what he can choose, he may 
 
DUTY OF INDIVIDUALS. 377 
 
 also fail in what he cannot choose ; his understand- 
 ing is no more secured than his will, nor his faith 
 more than his obedience. It is his own fault if he 
 offends God in either ; but whatsoever is not to be 
 avoided, as errors which are incident oftentimes 
 even to the best and most inquisitive of men, are 
 not offences against God, and therefore not to be 
 punished or restrained by men. But all such opi- 
 nions in which the public interests of the com- 
 monwealth, and the foundation of faith, and a good 
 life are not concerned, are to be permitted freely : 
 ' Let every one be fully persuaded in his own 
 mind,' was the doctrine of St. Paul, and that is 
 argument and conclusion too ; and they were ex- 
 cellent words which St. Ambrose said in attestation 
 of this great truth : " The civil authority has no 
 right to interdict the liberty of speaking, nor the 
 sacerdotal to prevent speaking what you think."* 
 
 I end with a story which I find in the Jews' 
 books : — When Abraham sat at his tent door, ac- 
 cording to his custom, waiting to entertain strangers, 
 he espied an old man stooping and leaning on his 
 staff, weary with age and travel, coming towards 
 him, who was an hundred years of age ; he received 
 him kindly, washed his feet, provided supper, and 
 caused him to sit down ; but observing that the old 
 man eat and prayed not, nor begged for a blessing 
 on his meat, asked him, why he did not worship 
 the God of heaven ? The old man told him that 
 he worshipped the fire only, and acknowledged 
 no other God ; at which answer Abraham grew so 
 zealously angry, that he thrust the old man out of 
 his tent, and exposed him to all the evils of the 
 
 * " Nee imperiale est libertatem dicendi negare^ nee sacer- 
 dotale quod sentias non dicere.''' 
 
378 THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. 
 
 night and an unguarded condition. When the 
 old man was gone, God called to Abraham, and 
 asked him where the stranger was ? he replied, I 
 thrust him away because he did not worship thee : 
 God answered him, I have suffered him these hun- 
 dred years, although he dishonoured me, and 
 couldst thou not endure him one night, when he 
 gave thee no trouble ? Upon this, saith the story, 
 Abraham fetched him back again, and gave him 
 hospitable entertainment and wise instruction : " Go 
 thou and do likewise," and thy charity will be 
 rewarded by the God of Abraham. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 RicLerby, Printer, Sherboiun Lane. 
 
Princeton Theological Semrnary-Spe 
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