"Tityre, tu patulæ ?" Indeed, if a man resolves to much more in case of heresy. Well, suppose this to | tion to any article in the creed, than they have 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, and some men do directly, and Snecanus 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 authority is intrusted to a person, and the extent of his power expressed in his commission, it will not be safety to meddle beyond his commission upon confidence of a parity of reason.-To instance once more when Christ in "pasce oves, et tu es Petrus," gave power to the pope to govern the church, (for to that sense the church of Rome expounds those authorities,) by a certain consequence of reason, say they, he gave all things necessary for exercise of this jurisdiction; and therefore in "pasce oves" 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 farther upon the parity of reason; therefore 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 power also to command the seas and the winds, that they should obey him, for this also is very necessary in some cases. And so "pasce oves" is "accipe donum linguarum," and "impera ventis, et dispone regum diademata, et laicorum prædia," and "influentias cœli" too, and whatsoever the parity of reason will judge equally necessary in order to "pasce oves."-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 arguments and deductions; and if he had, yet because it must be reason that must judge of reason, unless other men's understandings were of the same air, the same constitution and ability, they cannot be prescribed unto by another man's reason; especially because such reasonings as usually are in explication 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. Fourthly others pretend to expound Scripture by the analogy of faith, and that is the most sure and infallible way, as it is thought: but upon stricter survey it is but a chimera, a thing in " nubibus," 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 right 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 rela : 5. 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, Scripture is not much the easier to us; and a natural Greek or a Jew can with no more reason, or authority, obtrude his interpretations 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 what infinite variety of translations of the Bible were in the first ages of the church, (as St. Jerome observes,) and never a one e Rom. vi. 12. 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 number of late translations, and the infinite number of commentaries, which are too pregnant an argument, that we neither agree in the understanding of the words nor of the sense. 6. 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 doctrines of their own; and then no wonder that scriptures 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 intended for a remedy, becomes the promoter of our disease, and our meat becomes the matter of sickness; 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 interpretation, that he can with any equity prescribe to others to believe his interpretations in places of controversy 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 Nazareth; and yet for this so clear vaticination, they have no less than twentysix answers. St. Paul and St. James seem to speak a little diversely concerning 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, that there are twenty several opinions concerning justification, all drawn from the Scriptures, by the men only of the Augustine confession. There are sixteen several opinions concerning original sin; and as many definitions of the sacraments, as there are sects of men that disagree about them. 7. And now what help is there for us in the midst of these uncertainties? If we follow any one trans- | lation, 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 perfectly, or expounded infallibly? No translation challenges such a prerogative to be authentic, but the vulgar Latin; and yet see with what good success; for when it was declared authentic 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 revives 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 f In Commonit. 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 among 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 mistaken 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 infallibility. If you resolve to follow any one whithersoever he leads, we shall oftentimes come thither, where we shall see ourselves become ridiculous; as it happened 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, "Tu autem tolle cubile tuum et ambula ;" Spiridion was very angry with him, because in his book it was "tolle lectum tuum," and thought it arrogance in the preacher to speak better Latin than his translator had done: and if it be thus in translations, it is far worse in expositions: "Quia scilicet Scripturam sacram pro ipsâ sui altitudine non uno eodemque sensû omnes accipiunt, ut penè quot homines, tot illic sententiæ erui posse videantur," said Vincentius Lirinensis. In which every man knows what innumerable ways there are of being mistaken,-God having in things not simply necessary left such a difficulty upon those parts of Scripture which are the subject-matters of controversy, "ad edomandam labore superbiam, et intellectum à fastidio revocandum," as St. Austin gives a reason,s that all that err honestly, are therefore to be pitied and tolerated, because it is or may be the condition of every man, at one time or other. 8. The sum is this: since Holy Scripture is the repository of Divine truths, and the great rule of faith, to which all sects of christians do appeal for probation 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 mysteries, and matters of question, 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 senses, many have spiritual, mystical, and allegorical 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 particular stories is irrevocably lost; since there are some mysteries which, at the best advantage of expression, are not easy to be apprehended, and whose explication, by reason of our imperfections, must needs be dark, sometimes weak, sometimes uning Lib. 2. de Doctr. Christian. c. 6. SECTION V. Of the Insufficiency and Uncertainty of Tradition to expound Scripture, or determine Questions. | to be an abundant rule of faith and manners, tradition 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. : Such telligible; 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 consequence the 3. For first, I find, that the fathers were infinitely likeliest to expound truest in all probability of deceived in their account and enumeration of tradireason, will be very far from confidence; because tions: sometimes they did call some traditions such, every one of these, and many more, are like so not which they knew to be so, but by arguments many degrees of improbability and uncertainty, all and presumptions they concluded them so. depressing our certainty of finding out truth in such as was that of St. Austin, “Ea quæ universalis tenet mysteries, and amidst so many difficulties. And ecclesia nec à conciliis instituta reperiuntur, creditherefore, a wise man, that considers this, would bile est ab apostolorum traditione descendisse."i not willingly be prescribed to by others; and there- Now suppose this rule probable, that is the most, fore, if he also be a just man, he will not impose yet it is not certain; it might come by custom, upon others; for it is best every man should be left whose original was not known, but yet could not in that liberty, from which no man can justly take derive from an apostolical principle. Now when him, unless he could secure him from error: so that they conclude of particular traditions by a general here also there is a necessity to conserve the liberty | rule, and that general rule not certain, but, at the of prophesying, and interpreting Scripture; a ne- most, probable in any thing, and certainly false in cessity derived from the consideration of the diffi- some things, is it wonder if the productions, that culty of Scripture in questions controverted, and the is, their judgments and pretence, fail so often. And uncertainty of any internal medium of interpretation. if I should but instance 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 tradition; and it is very notorious to every man, that will but read and observe the Recognitions or Stromata 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 thousand years upon earth, and his saints with him in temporal 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, Irenæus, Origen, Lactantius, Severus, 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, kai ɛi τινές εἰσὶ κατὰ πάντα ὀρθογνώμονες Χριστιανοὶ; and yet there was no such tradition, but a mistake in Papias: but I find it no where spoke against, till Dionysius of Alexandria confuted Nepos's book, and converted Coracian the Egyptian from the opinion. Now if a tradition, whose beginning of being called so began with a scholar of the apostles, (for so was Papias,) and then continued for some ages upon the meré authority of so famous a man, did yet deceive the church: much more fallible is the pretence, 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 tradition apostolical, Epist. 118. ad Januar. De Bapt. contr. Donat. lib. 4. c. 24. 1. In the next place, we must consider those extrinsical means of interpreting Scripture, and determining questions, 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 Scripture," (Necesse enim est propter tantos tam varii erroris anfractûs, ut propheticæ et apostolicæ interpretationis linea secundum ecclesiastici et catholici sensûs normam dirigatur,)"h 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 expressed in Scripture, but also it pretends to expound Scripture, and to determine questions with so much clarity and certainty, as there shall neither 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 pretensions, and teach us plainly, and assure us infallibly 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, because, without a crime, without some human interest or collateral design, we cannot disbelieve traditive doctrine or traditive interpretation, if it be infallibly proved to us that tradition is an infallible guide. 2. But here I first consider that tradition is no repository 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 h Vincent. Lirinens. in Commonitor. | 1 as Theodoret reports;k and yet if they had not had better arguments from Scripture 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, 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,m-having observed the advantage might be taken by any sect that would pretend tradition, because the medium was plausible, and consisting of so many particulars, that it was hard to be redargued,-pretended a tradition from the apostles, that Christ was λòç | ǎvoρwоs, and that the tradition did descend by a constant succession in the church of Rome to Pope Victor's time inclusively, and till Zephyrinus had interrupted 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 determination, either that probation was not accounted by St. Cyprian, and the bishops both of Asia and Africa, 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 tradition, 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 Carthage under Cyprian upon this very ground, because in "prædictorum præsulum locis et solum secundum. traditam eis consuetudinem servatus est;" they had a particular 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 remembered * Lib. 1. Hist. c. 8. 1 Vide Petav. in Epiph. her. 69. - Καὶ γὰρ εἰσὶ τίνες ὦ φίλοι, ἔλεγον ἀπὸ τοῦ ἡμετέρου γένους ὁμολογοῦντες αὐτὸν Χριστὸν εἶναι, ἄνθρωπων δὲ ἐξ ἀνθρώπων γενόμενον ἀποφαινόμενοι, οἷς οὐ συντίθεμαι, οὐδὲ | that a concealed tradition was like a silent thunder, or a law not promulgated; it neither was known, nor was obligatory. And I shall observe this too, that this very tradition was so obscure, and was so obscurely delivered, silently proclaimed, that St. Austin, who disputed against the Donatists upon this very question, was not able to prove 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 tradition, 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 and others might dissent without breach of charity.9 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 was then, and 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. 4. Secondly: 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 uncertainty 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 Romanus, Hegesippus, Nepos, 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 prudence 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 consisting of probabilities and particulars, which put together make up a moral demonstration, the argument which I now urge, hath been growing these fifteen hundred years; and if anciently there was so much as to evacuate the authority of tradition,-much more is there now absolutely to ἂν πλεῖστοι ταῦτα μοὶ δοξάσαντες ἔποιεν.—JUSTIN MART. Dial. ad Tryph. Jud. • Can. 2. n Euseb. 1. 5. c. ult. destroy it, when all the particulars, which time and infinite variety of human accidents have been amassing together, are now concentred, and are united by 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. : to descend from tradition apostolical, some fasting but one day before Easter, some two, some forty, and this even long before Irenæus's time, he gives this reason; "Varietas illa jejunii cœpit apud majores nostros; qui non accuratè consuetudinem eorum, qui vel simplicitate quâdam vel privatâ auctoritate in posterum aliquid statuissent, observârant;"" and there are yet some points of good concernment, which if any man should question in a high manner, they would prove indeterminable by Scripture, or sufficient reason; and yet I doubt not their confident defenders would say, they are opinions of the 5. Thirdly 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 pretended it is more than probable, that as in baptism and the eucharist the very forms of ministra-church, and quickly pretend a tradition from the tion are transmitted to us, so also in confirmation and ordination, and that there were special directions for visitation of the sick, and explicit interpretations of those difficult places 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 ἐπιλείψη ἡμέρα τὰ ἄγραφα τῆς ἐκκλησίας μυστήρια διηγούμενον ; "the day would fail him in the very simple enumeration of all traditions ecclesiastical."s 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 inculpably, 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 entertain 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. 6. Fourthly: there are some opinions, which, when they began to be publicly received, began to be accounted 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 popular 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; "Non enim existimas tu licitum esse cuicunque fideli constituere quod Deo placere illi visum fuerit, ad disciplinam et salutem ?" And again, "A quocunque traditore censetur, nec auctorem respicias sed auctoritatem." t And St. Jerome most plainly, Præcepta majorum apostolicas traditiones quisque existimat." And when Irenæus had observed that great variety in the keeping of Lent, which yet to be a forty-days' fast is pretended very apostles, and believe themselves so secure, that they could not be discovered, because the question 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 rebaptization? 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 reputation 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 question of rebaptization, 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. 7. Fifthly: there is great variety in the probation of tradition, so that whatever is proved to be tradition, is not equally and alike credible; for nothing but universal tradition is of itself credible; other traditions 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 credible testimony, St. Irenæus requires that tradition 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 pretended from the apostles. Clemens Alexandrinus says, it was a secret tradition from the apostles, that Christ preached but one year: but Irenæus 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 tradition 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, Lib. 2. c. 39. Omnes seniores testantur, qui in Asia apud Johannem, discipulum Domini, convenerunt, id ipsum tradidisse eis Johannem, &c. et qui alios apostolos viderunt, hæc eadem ab ipsis audierunt, et testantur de ejusmodi relatione. -SALMERON. disput. 51. in Rom. |