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they have taught holily and wisely? and if you were before hand instructed in the truth, what need have you then to hear them, and to desire to be instructed in it by them? You may, indeed, make use of them for the illustration and confirmation of that which you knew before, but you cannot learn any truth from them which you knew not before. And if you understand the maxim, before alleged, in another sense, and take this wisdom and holiness, this faith and communion of the Catholic Church, therein mentioned, for a shadow only, and the superficies and outward appearance of these things, and for a common and empty opinion, grounded merely upon the public voice of the people, and not upon an exact knowledge of the thing itself, it will then prove to be manifestly false: those persons who have but the outward appearance only, and not the reality of these qualities, being no way fit to be admitted as witnesses, much less to be received as the supreme judges in the point of the Christian faith. So that this proposition is either impossible, if you understand it as the words seem to sound, or else it is false, if you take it in any larger sense. The like exceptions may be made against those other conditions which he there further requires, touching the number and the words of these witnesses. For he alloweth not the force of a law to any thing, but what hath been delivered either by all or else by the greatest part of them. If he here, by all, mean all the fathers that ever have been, or but the greatest part of them only, he then puts us upon an impossibility. For taking the whole number of fathers that ever have been, the greatest, and perhaps too the best, part of them have not written any thing at all: and among those that have written, how many hath time devoured? and how many hath the false dealings of men either wholly suppressed, or else corrupted and altered? It is, therefore, evidently impossible to know what the opinions have been, either of all, or of the greatest part of the fathers, in this sense. And if he restrains this all and this greatest

part to those who appear at this day, either in their own books or in historians', and the writings of other men: it will concern us then to inquire whether or no, by all, he means all, promiscuously, without distinguishing them by their several ages wherein they lived: or else, whether he would have us distinguish them into several classes, putting together, in the same rank, all those that lived in one and the same age; and receiving for truth whatsoever we find to have been held and confirmed by the greatest part of them. Now both these ways agree in this one thing; namely, that they render the judgment of the Christian faith wholly casual and make it depend upon divers and sundry accidents, which have been the cause of the writings of the fathers being either preserved or lost. For, put the case that Vincentius should have cleared, by this excellent course of his, some point or other, which had been controverted; he must have thanked the fire, the water, the moths, or the worms, for having spared those authors which he made use of, and for having consumed all those other that wrote in favour of the adverse party, for otherwise he should have been an heretic. And if we should decide our differences in matters of faith after this manner, we should do, in a manner, as he did who gave judgment upon the suits of law that came before him, by the chances he threw with three dice. Do but imagine now what an endless labour it would be for a man either to go and heap up together, and run over all the authors that ever have written, one with another: or else to distinguish them into their several ages they wrote in, and to examine them by companies. And do but imagine, again, what satisfaction a man should be able to get from hence, and where we should be in case we should find (as it is possible it may sometimes so fall out, as we shall shew hereafter) that the sense and judgment of this greatest part should prove to be either contrary to, or perhaps besides the sense and meaning either of the Scriptures, or of the Church. And again, how sense

less a thing were it to make the suffrages of equal authority of persons that are so unequal themselves, either in respect of their merits, learning, holy life, and soundness of faith: and that a Rheticius, whom St. Jerome censured so hardly a little before, should be reckoned equal with St. Augustine: or a Philastrius be as good a man as St. Jerome? There is, perhaps, among the fathers such a one whose judgment is of more weight than a hundred others; and yet, forsooth, will this man have us to make our doubles and our sous to go forth as much as our crowns and pistoles. And lastly, what reason in the world is there, that although, perhaps, the persons themselves were equal in all things, we should yet make their words also of equal force, which are oftentimes of very different and unequal authority; some of them having been uttered, as it were, before the bar, the books having been produced, both parties heard, and the whole cause thoroughly examined: and the other, perhaps, having been cast forth by their authors at all adventure as it were; either in their chamber, or else in discourse walking abroad, or else, perhaps, by the bye, while they were treating of some other matter? But our friend here, to prevent, in some sort, this latter inconvenience, requires that the words of this greatest part, which he will allow to be fit to be authorised, must have been uttered by them clearly, often, and constantly; and then, and not till then, doth he allow them for certain and undoubted truth. And now you

see he is got into another hold. For I would very fain be informed how it is possible for us to know whether these fathers, which we thus have called out of their graves to give us their judgment, touching the controversies in religion, affirmed those things which we find in their writings, clearly, often, and constantly, or not? If, in this his pretended council of doctors, you will not allow the right of giving their suffrage to those of whom it may be doubted that they either expressed themselves obscurely, or gave in their testimonies but seldom, or have but

weakly maintained their own opinion; I pray you tell me whom shall we have left at last to be the judges in the decision of our present controversies? As for the Apostles' creed and the determinations of the four first general councils, (which are assented unto, and approved by all the Protestant party), I confess we may, by this way of trial, allow them as competent judges in these matters. But as for all the rest, it is evident, by what hath been delivered in the first part of this treatise, that we can never admit of them if they are thus to be qualified, and to have all the afore mentioned conditions. We may, therefore, very well conclude that the expedient here proposed by this author, is either impossible, or else not so safe to be put in practice; so that I shall rather approve of St. Augustine's judgment, touching the authority of the fathers. I should not have insisted so long upon the examination of this proposal of his, had I not seen it to have been in so high esteem with many men, and indeed with some of the learned too. For, in earnest, after St. Augustine and St. Jerome have delivered their judgments, it matters not much what this man shall have believed to the contrary. But yet, before we finish this point, let us a little examine this author, both by St. Augustine's, and by his own rule before laid down. St. Augustine thinks us not bound to believe the saying of any author, except he can prove the truth of it unto us—either by the Canonical Scriptures, or else by some probable reason. What text of Scripture or what reason hath this man alleged to prove the truth of what he hath proposed? So that whatsoever his opinion be, he must not take it amiss, if, according to the advice and practice of St. Augustine, we take leave to dissent from him: especially, considering we have so many reasons to reject that which he, without any reason given, would have us to receive. And thus you see, that according to the judgment of St. Augustine, the saying of this Vincentius Lirinensis, although you should reckon him among the most

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eminent of the fathers, doth not at all oblige us to give our assent unto it. And yet you will find that his testimony would be yet of much less force and weight, if you but examine the man by his own rule. For, according to him, we are not to hearken to the fathers except they both lived and taught holily and wisely, even unto the hour of their death. Who is there now that will pass his word for him, that he himself was one of this number? Who shall assure us that he was not either an heretic himself, or, at least, a favourer of heretics? For is it not evident enough that he favoured the Semipelagians, who at that time swarmed in France, railing against the very name and memory of St. Augustine: and who were condemned by the whole Church? Who may not easily see this by his manner of discourse in his Commonitorum tending this way, where he seems to intimate unto us under hand, that Prosper and Hilary had unjustly slandered them, and that pope Celestine, who also wrote against them, had been misinformed? And may not he also be strongly suspected to have been the author of those objections made against Prosper, which are called objectiones Vincentiane, Vincent's objections? The great commendations, also, which are given by Gennadius, very much confirm this suspicion; it being clear that this author was of the same sect, as appears plainly by the great account he makes of Ruffinus a priest of Aquileia, who was the grand patriarch of the Pelagians; saying of him, That he was not the least part of the doctors of the Church. Tacitly also taxing St. Jerome his adversary, and calling him, A malicious slanderer; as also by the judgment which he gives of St. Augustine, who was Flagellum Pelagianorum, The scourge of the Pelagians, passing this insolent censure upon him, and saying, That in speaking so much it happened to him what the Holy Ghost had said by Solomon: to wit, That in the multitude of words there wanteth not sin. So that I cannot sufficiently wonder at the boldness of Cardinal Perron, who,

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