the thing is evident. For the question is, which is the orthodox doctrine in the fundamentals of Christianity? And the wise plan here suggested for determining it would then be, that we must abide by the decision of the orthodox. Which leaves us just as much at a loss as ever. For how are we to know who the orthodox are, if we do not know what the orthodox doctrine is? And nothing is gained by taking for granted what involves the very thing to be proved, viz. which are the orthodox.

And we cannot but observe that there is one striking difference between his Treatise and the observations of the earlier Fathers upon the same subject; and that is, the want of any reference to Spiritual teaching. In a Treatise written to instruct men how to preserve themselves from the contagion of heresy, not a hint is to be found directing men to seek that Spiritual teaching, which alone will lead them into any saving knowledge of the truth, and the necessity of which is so strongly insisted on by the earlier Fathers, as we shall abundantly show presently.

Amid all his protestations of regard for the Fathers, he seems wholly to have forgotten their observations respecting the expectation we are encouraged to entertain that God will accompany the reading of his own word with a blessing, which he has not promised to the writings of men, and that the Holy Spirit is promised to lead the earnest and sincere inquirer to the knowl edge of the meaning of his own word.

And however inconvenient it may be that men should support the vagaries of their own brains under the idea that the Spirit of God has taught them that such is the meaning of the word of God, will the Tractators guarantee us that none of those who conduct their inquiry upon their principles, shall weary us with the vagaries of other men's brains? Men are at least as likely, I, think, to take up unfounded notions from a reliance upon patristical tradition, as from a reliance upon the promised aid of God's Holy Spirit in the humble and sincere perusal of Scripture.

Lastly, it should not be forgotten that there is strong reason to suppose that this Treatise of Vincentius was written for the purpose of supporting Semipelagianism. That Vincentius was a Semipelagian is tolerably clear, and that he wrote a Semipelagian work against Augustine; and these views were apparently held in common with him by the monks of his monastery." Now the Semipelagians defended themselves on the ground that they had antiquity on their side, and brought against Augustine the charge of novelty; and, consequently, in all probability, this

1 Cave, Hist. Lit. vol. i. p. 425.

* Cave, ibid.

3 See Prosp. ad August. Ep. and Cave.

work, written professedly to show that antiquity was to be followed, and novelty avoided, was written merely to aid his party in this controversy.

It appears to me, that there is much truth in the following observations of the learned Dr. Rainoldes on this subject, in his Conference with Hart, whom I quote, not as an authority, but as a witness worthy for his learning to be heard on such a point.

"I liked," he says, "his [i. e. Vincentius's] judgment in the general point touching the sufficiency and perfectness of Scriptures, which I know you like not, though you make greater semblance of liking him than I. If in the particulars I mislike somewhat, let the blame be laid upon the blameworthy; not me who stand to that which he hath spoken well, but him who falleth from it. For laying his foundation as it were on a rock, he buildeth up his house beside it on the sand. That Scripture is sufficient alone against heretics, so that it be taken in the right sense expounded by the rules of the catholic faith; this hath he well avouched as on the rock of God's word. But that the rules of faith and sense of the Scripture must be tried and judged by the consent, antiquity, and universality of the Church, this hath he added not so well as on the sand of men's opinions. The difference of the points may be perceived by St. Austin, who, joining in the former of them with Vincentius, doth leave him in the latter. For Austin, as he setteth the ground of religion in the right sense and catholic meaning of the Scripture; so teacheth he that this must be known and tried by the Scripture itself, the infallible rule of truth, not by the fickle minds of men. (De Doctr. Christ. ch. 2. div. 2.) And to have taught hereof as Austin doth, it had agreed best with the foundation of Vincentius; which maketh the rule of Scriptures alone sufficient for all things. But because the weaker and ruder sort of Christians have not skill to know the right exposition of Scripture from the wrong, therefore he, tempering himself to their infirmity, doth give them outward sensible marks to know it by. Wherein he dealeth with them as if a philosopher, having said that a man is a reasonable creature, should, because his scholars cannot discern of reason, (whereof the show is such in many brute beasts that some have thought them reasonable) describe him more plainly by outward marks and accidents, as namely, that he hath two feet and no feathers. They report that Plato defined a man so: a man is a living creature, two-footed, unfeathered. For which definition, when he was commended, Diogenes took a capon, and having plucked his feathers off, did bring him into the school of Plato, saying, This is Plato's man. The holy word of God is the same in the Church that reason is

in a man. Whereupon we give it for an essential mark, as I may term it, of the Church, by which the Church is surely known and discerned. But the show of God's word is such in many heretics, as of reason in brute beasts, that some who have no skill to discern that mark, do think it impossible to know the Church by it. Your fellows hereupon describe the Church by outward and accidental marks, as namely, by antiquity, succession, consent. These are very plausible, and many do commend them highly. But he that hath half an eye of a philosopher, I mean a wise Christian, need not play Diogenes in plucking feathers off to show that these marks may agree to a capon." (Ed. 1584. pp. 191-3.)

1

These are the observations of a man pre-eminently learned, and one therefore whose testimony on such a point, i. e. as to the uncertainty of the evidence afforded by what passes under the name of antiquity, succession, and consent, is entitled to great regard. And the mistakes and misrepresentations of Vincent in the application of his own rule, in his observations for instance as to Agrippinus and Nestorius, to which we have already referred in former parts of this work, are alone sufficient to make us cautious in the matter.

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SALVIAN (fl. a. 440.)

If," says Salvian, "you wish to know what is to be held, you have the Sacred Scriptures to refer to."1

"Condemn me, if I shall not show that the Holy Scriptures also have affirmed that which I assert."2

"The teaching of the evangelical volumes is full of every kind of perfection.""

PROSPER (fl. a. 444.)

Prosper giving a figurative interpretation to those words, "who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain," (Ps. civ. 2.) or skin, as he translates it, says, "that the holy Scripture is called heaven, the authority of which God at the beginning placed as a firmament in his Church, and which by the ministry of preachers he extended as a skin over the whole world." An interpretation

1 Si scire vis quid tenendum sit, habes literas sacras. SALVIAN. De Gubern. Dei, lib. iii. (Ed. Par. 1669. p. 42.)

2 Condemna, si id quod assero non etiam Scripturas sacras dixisse monstravero. Ib. Lib. iv. p. 85.

3 Evangelicorum voluminum plenam omni perfectionis genere doctrinam. Ib. Lib. iii. p. 45.

4 Extendens cœlum sicut pellem'. . . . Si figuratam significationem adnitamur

G G*

whimsical enough doubtless, but showing nevertheless the view he took of the exclusive claims of Scripture.

And in another work passing under his name, it is said, "What, therefore, may be the causes of these differences under the same dispensation of grace, or what the reasons, who shall say, since the Holy Scriptures do not say

COSMAS INDICOPLEUSTES (fl. a. 535.)

"It behoveth not a perfect Christian," saith Cosmas, "to attempt to confirm anything from those [writings] that are doubted of, the canonical and commonly received Scriptures explaining all things sufficiently, both concerning the heavens and the earth and the elements, and every doctrine received by Christians."2 And surely such a man, who had travelled far and wide, was likely, if any, to take a catholic view of the matter.

ANASTASIUS OF ANTIOCH (fl. a. 561.)

We cannot well have a clearer testimony upon the whole of the first four points than what is contained in few words in the followi ng remark of Anastasius.

"It is clear," he says, "that those things which the divine Scripture has passed over are not to be inquired into; for all things which tend to our profit the Holy Spirit has dispensed and administered to us."3 This brief sentence will be found, upon consideration, to include everything for which we contend.

GREGORY (fl. a. 590.)

We close our list with the celebrated Gregory.

inspicere, invenimus extendere Deum cœlum sicut pellem, cum intelligimus Sanctam Scripturam cœlum appellatum, cujus auctoritatem primo quasi firmamentum in Ecclesia sua posuit, et quam super omnem orbem terrarum per ministeria prædicantium quasi pellem extendit. PROSPER. In Psalm ciii. [al. civ.] Op. ed. Par. 1711. col. 382.

1 Quæ itaque causæ sint harum sub eadem gratia dissimilitudinum, quæve rationes, sanctis Scripturis non loquentibus quis loquetur? De vocat. gent. lib. ii. c. 9. Op. col. 895. This work, however, is supposed by Vossius to have been written by Prosper Aurelianensis, who lived at the beginning of the next century. (See Cave.) The reader may, therefore, if he please, refer it to that period.

3. Ου χρη ουν τον τέλειον χριστιανον εκ των αμφιβαλλομένων επιστηρίζεσθαι, των ενδιάθετων και κοινως ωμολογημένων γραφων ικανώς πάντα μηνούντων, περί τε των ουρανων και της γης και των στοιχείων και παντος του δόγματος των Χριστιανων. Cosy. INDIC. De Mundo, lib. vii. in Coll. Nov. Script. Monti, vol ii. p. 292.

3 Quod quæ silentio præteriit Scriptura divina non sint scrutanda, est perspicuuni. Omnia enim quæ faciunt ad nostram utilitatem dispensavit et administravit Spiritus Sanctus. ANASTAS. ANTIOCH. Anag. Contempl. in Hexam. lib. viii. init. (Bibl. Patr, ed. Col. 1618, et seq. Tom. vi. P. 1. p. 666.)

Commenting on Job xxviii. 1. "There is a vein for the silver, and a place for gold where they fine it," he says,—" By silver eloquence, by gold celebrity of life or wisdom, is usually designated. And since the heretics so boast of the beauty of their eloquence, that they care not to strengthen themselves by the authority of the sacred books, (which books are as certain veins of silver in respect to what we say, since from them we derive what we say,) he recalls them to the pages of sacred authority, that if they wish to speak the truth, they ought to take from thence what they say. And he says, 'The silver has the sources of its veins;' as if he were clearly to say, He who would prepare himself to preach the true gospel, must take the grounds of his arguments from the sacred pages, that he may reduce everything he says to the foundation of divine authority, and upon it build the edifice of his speech."

And to Scripture he sends us as the Judge of controversies. "A man full of right faith. . . . collects together those very testimonies of Holy Scripture which the heretic produces, and thence refutes his error . . . . When we overcome the heretics, boasting and bringing against us sentences of Holy Scripture, by the same words and sentences which they adduce, we as it were behead the proud Goliath with his own sword. Therefore the just man is clothed with those garments which the unjust prepares; because the holy man uses the same passages in support of the truth by which every perverse heretic endeavours to show himself learned against the truth.""

Moreover, in his view Scripture declares the whole faith; for "by it," he says, "God speaks all he desires." In this

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1 Job xxviii. 1. Habet argentum, venarum suarum principia; et auro locus est in quo conflatur.' In argento eloquium, in auro vitæ vel sapientiæ claritas designari solet. Et quia hæretici sic de eloquii sui nitore superbiunt, ut nulla sacrorum librorum auctoritate solidentur, (qui libri ad loquendum nobis quasi quædam argenti venæ sunt, quia de ipsis locutionis nostræ originem trahimus) eos ad sacræ auctoritatis paginas revocat: ut si vere loqui desiderant, inde sumere debeant quid loquantur. Et ait, Habet argentum, vanarum suarum principia.' Ac si aperte dicat; Qui ad veræ prædicationis verba se præparat, necesse est ut causarum origines a sacris paginis sumat, ut omne quod loquitur ad divinæ auctoritatis fundamentum revocet, atque in eo ædificium locutionis suæ firmet. GREGOR. M. Moral. sive Expos. in Job. Lib. xviii. c. 26. (Op. ed. Bened. Par. 1705. Tom. i. col. 573.) 2 Vir recta fide plenus . . . . ea ipsa Scripturæ sacræ quæ hæreticus affert testimonia colligit, et erroris ejus pertinaciam inde convincit... ...... cum superbientes hæreticos et sacræ Scripturæ sententias deferentes eisdem verbis atque sententiis quas proferunt vincimus, quasi elatum Goliam suo gladio detruncamus. Justus ergo vestitur eis vestimentis quæ præparat injustus; quia vir sanctus eisdem sententiis ad veritatem utitur quibus se perversus quisque doctum ostendere contra veritatem conatur. ID. Moral. sive Exp. in Job. c. xxvii. vv. 16, 17, Lib. xviii. c. 16. Tom. i. col. 566, 7.

3 Per eam [i. e. Scriptuaram] Deus loquitur omne quod vult. ID. ibid. Lib. xvi. c. 35. Tom. i. col. 517.