29. We do not, like them, presently betake ourselves to fire and sword, but to the Scriptures; nor do we assault them with force and arms, but with the word of God. By them, as Tertullian saith, we nourish our faith; by them we erect our hope; by them we establish our confidence; for we know that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the power of God unto salvation, and that in it there is eternal life; and, as St. Paul admonisheth us, we would refuse to hear an angel of God that came from heaven, if he endeavoured to turn us away from any part of this doctrine. Yea, as that most holy man Justin Martyr said of himself, we would not believe God himself, if he should teach us another Gospel; for whereas they make the holy Scriptures, like silent masses, dumb and useless, and appeal rather to God himself speaking in the church and in council; that is, to their own (better) senses and opinions; thať is a very uncertain and dangerous way of finding out truth, and in a sort fanatical, and which was never approved by the holy fathers. St. Chrysostom saith, indeed, that many boast of the Holy Spirit; but if then they speak what is their own, they glory falsely of what they have not: for (saith he) as Christ denied that he spake from himself when he spake out of the law and the Prophets; so, now, if any thing besides the Gospel is obtruded upon us under the name of the Holy Ghost, it is not to be believed; for, as Christ is the completion of the law and the Prophets, so the Spirit is the completion of the Gospel.

CHAPTER V.

Concerning the Answers and Objections out of the Fathers and Councils.

I. Bur though they have not the Scriptures on their 'side, perhaps they will pretend they have the ancient.

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doctors and the holy fathers; for that they have ever boasted that all antiquity, and the perpetual consent of all times, is for them, and that all our pretences are novel, and were never heard of till

within the course of a very few years last past.

2. Now, certainly, there can nothing of more weight be said against religion, than that it is new. We know not how this has come to pass; but, from the beginning of the world, thus it hath ever been; for, whensoever God hath discovered and restored to mankind the light of his truth, though it is not only of the utmost antiquity, but older than time itself, and eternal, yet it ever seems to wicked men, who hate it, to be new, and of no antiquity. That impious and bloody man Haman, that he might bring the Jews into disfavour, thus accused them to Ahasuerus Thou, O king! hast here in thy dominions a certain people, scattered abroad, which observeth new laws, but is stubborn and rebellious against thy laws. St. Paul, also, when he began first to preach the Gospel to the Athenians, was said to be a setter forth of strange gods; that is, of a new religion; and, accordingly, thus they bespeak him: May we know what this new doctrine, whereof thou speakest, is? (Acts, xvii. 18.) And Celsus, when he wrote expressly against Christ and his Gospel, that he might expose it to the scorn of men, under the pretence of its novelty, writes thus: What! (saith he,) has God, after so many ages, now at last bethought himself? Eusebius, also, is our author, that, from the beginning, the Christian religion was, in derision, styled ar nai

, the new and strange religion; and so our adversaries condemn all our doctrines as new and strange; but then they desire that all their own, without exception, should be reputed most ancient ; just as the magicians and conjurers, whose business is

with the infernal spirits, that their abominable art may be thought the more sublime and divine, as being derived from great patrons and inventors, and of a very ancient original, do commonly say, that they have their books, and all their rites and secret mysteries, from Athanasius, Cyprian, Moses, Abel, and Adam, and from the archangel Raphael. So our enemies, that their religion too, which they have not long since patched up for themselves, may with the more ease be recommended to ignorant men, and those that rarely consider what themselves or others do, pretend that it came down to them (just such as now it is) from St. Augustine, St. Jerome, St. Chrysostom, and St. Ambrose, from the Apostles and Christ; for they very well know, that there is nothing more popular, and of greater esteem with men, than those venerable names, But now, what if those things they pretend are so

do indeed prove to be most ancient? and what, if, on the other side, almost all those things which they extol so very much upon the pretence of antiquity, when they are well and diligently examined, are in the end found to be new and of a very late original ?

3. In truth, the laws and ceremonies of the Jews, although accused by Haman as new, could never be thought so by any man, who did well and rightly consider the thing, for they were written on most ancient tables; and Christ, though many thought he departed from Abraham and the ancient fathers, and brought in a new religion in his own name, yet answered, truly (John, v. 46), If ye believed Moses, ye would believe me also; for my doctrine is not so new, for Moses, a very ancient author, and of great esteem with you, hath spoken of me; and St. Paul saith of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which many thought to be new, that it has the most ancient

testimony of the law and the Prophets. And our doctrine, which we may much better call the Catholic doctrine of Christ, is not so new, but that it is commended to us by the Ancient of Days, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, in most ancient monuments, the Prophets and Gospels, and the writings of the Apostles; and these cannot now seem new to any man, but to him to whom the faith of the Prophets, the Gospel, and Christ himself, seems new. But, then, as to their religion, if it be so ancient as they pretend, why do they not prove it so from the examples of the primitive church, from the old fathers and the ancient councils? Why doth so ancient a cause lie desolate, and without a patron, so very long? Indeed, they never want fire and swords; but then, as to the ancient fathers and councils, there is with them a deep silence. But it is the height of absurdity and folly to begin with those bloody and brutish reasons, if they could possibly have found out easier and milder arguments.

4. And, again, if they do indeed entirely trust to antiquities, and do not dissemble any thing, why did one John Clement, an Englishman, rend and burn some leaves of Theodoret, a most ancient father, and a Greek bishop, in the presence of several persons of good worth and credit (believing that another copy of that book was no where to be found), because this father had perspicuously and clearly taught, that the nature of the bread was not abolished in the eucharist? Why doth Albertus Pighius deny that the ancient father St. Augustine had a true notion of original sin? or of matrimony, in that he saith, that a marriage made after a vow entered, is a good marriage, and cannot be dissolved? upon which occasion Pighius saith, Augustine erred, and made use of false logic. And why did they, in a late impres

sion of "Origen upon the Gospel of St. John," omit the whole sixth chapter, in which it is probable, or rather certain, that father has delivered many things contrary to their opinions concerning the eucharist; choosing rather to deface and mutilate this ancient father, than to suffer any thing to appear in the world which might contradict their doctrine, by printing the book perfect? Is their rending, suppressing, maiming, and burning the writings of the ancient fathers, an argument of their reliance on antiquity?

5. It is worth the while to see how rarely these gentlemen agree in matters of religion with those ancient fathers, of whose concurrence they boast so unmeasurably. 1. The ancient Elibertin council decreed, that what was the object of worship, should not be painted in churches. The old father Epiphanius saith, it is à horrible wickedness, and an insufferable villany, for any man to set up the picture even of Christ in Christian churches: but they have filled all their churches, and every corner of then, with pictures and statues, as if there were no religion without them. 2. The ancient fathers Origen and St. Chrysostom have exhorted the people to the diligent reading of the Scriptures; that they would buy books, and discourse among themselves of holy things in their families, the wives with their husbands, and the parents with their children; but our adversaries condemn the Scriptures as dead elements, and drive the people from them as much as they can possibly. 3. The ancient fathers Cyprian, Epiphanius, and St. Jerome, if any person who had vowed to live a single life, did afterwards fall into impurity, and could not overcome the rages of his concupiscence, said, it was better for him to marry, and live chastely, in a state of matrimony; and such a marriage is, by St. Augustine, another ancient fa