"Now A. C. would know what is to be done for reuniting of a Church divided in doctrine of the Faith, when this remedy by a General Council cannot be had; Sure Christ our Lord, saith he, hath provided some rule, some judge, in such and such like cases, to procure unity and certainty of belief. I believe so too; for he hath left an Infallible Rule, the Scripture; and that by the manifest places in it, which need no dispute, no EXTERNAL JUDGE is able to settle unity and certainty of belief in necessaries to salvation. . . . . And therefore A. C. does not well to make that a crime, that the Protestants admit no infallible rule but the Scripture only, or, as he (I doubt, not without some scorn) terms it, beside only Scripture. For what need is there of another, since this is most infallible, and the same which the antient Church of Christ admitted? And if it were sufficient for the ancient Church to guide them, and direct their Councils, why should it be now held insufficient for us, at least till a free General Council may be had? And it hath both the conditions which Bellarmine requires to a rule, namely, that it be certain, and that it be known. For if it be not certain, it is no rule; and if it be not known, it is no rule to us.' Now the Romanists dare not deny but this rule is certain, and that it is sufficiently known in the manifest places of it, and such as are necessary to salvation, none of the antients did ever deny; so there's an infallible rule. Nor need there be such fear of a private spirit in these manifest things, WHICH "The first immediate fundamental points of faith without which there is no salvation, as they cannot be proved by reason, so neither need they be determined by any Council, nor ever were they attempted, they are so plain set down in the Scripture." 2 BEING BUT READ OR HEARD TEACH THEMSELVES." As it respects the fifth position, we have already quoted sufficient to show how totally the Archbishop was opposed to it; but it may be worth while to add one or two more Ib. § 26. n. 4, 5. pp. 129, 30. 2 Ib. § 33. n. 5. p. 165. extracts on that point, to show more fully the precise nature of his views respecting it. "I doubt," he says, "this question, How do you know Scripture to be Scripture,' hath done more harm than you will ever be able to help by Tradition? But I must follow that way which you draw me." 1 "It seems to me very necessary, that we be able to prove the books of Scripture to be the word of God by some authority that is absolutely divine. For if they be warranted unto us by any authority less than divine, then all things contained in them, which have no greater assurance than the Scripture in which they are read, are not objects of divine belief. And that once granted will enforce us to yield, that all the articles of Christian belief have no greater assurance than human or moral faith or credulity can afford. An authority, then, simply divine, must make good the Scriptures' infallibility, at least in the last resolution of our faith in that point. This authority cannot be any testimony or voice of the Church alone. For the Church consists of men subject to error; and no one of them since the Apostles' times hath been assisted with so plentiful a measure of the Blessed Spirit as to secure him from being deceived; and all the parts being all liable to mistaking, and fallible, the whole cannot possibly be infallible in and of itself, and privileged from being deceived in some things or other. And even in those fundamental things in which the whole universal Church neither doth nor can err, yet even there her authority is not divine, because she delivers those supernatural truths by promise of assistance, yet tied to means, and not by any special immediate revelation, which is necessarily required to the very least degree of divine authority." 3 "Tradition of Ib. § 16. n. 1. p. 38. 2 Here the Archbishop adds in a note,-" And this is so necessary, that Bellarmine confesses, that if Tradition, which he relies upon, be not divine, he and his can have no faith. Non habemus fidem. Fides enim verbo Dei nititur. L. 4. De Verbo Dei. c. 4. §. At si ita est." 3 Ib. § 16. n. 6. p. 42. Scripture is the word of For the present Church is the first moral motive to belief. But the belief itself, That the God, rests upon the Scripture." "Orig. 4. Teρɩ apxwv, c. 1, went this way, yet was he a great deal nearer the prime tradition than we are. being to prove that the Scriptures were inspired from God, he saith, De hoc assignabimus ex ipsis divinis Scripturis, quæ nos competenter moverint,' &c."1 "When, therefore, the Fathers say, We have the Scriptures by tradition,' or the like, either they mean the tradition of the Apostles themselves delivering it, and there when it is known to be such [the italics are the Archbishop's] we may resolve our faith; or if they speak of the present Church, then they mean that the tradition of it is that by which we first receive the Scripture, as by an according means to the prime tradition. But because it is not simply divine, we cannot resolve our faith into it, nor settle our faith upon it, till it resolve itself into the prime tradition of the Apostles or the Scripture, or both; and there we rest with it. And you cannot show an ordinary consent of Fathers, nay can you, or any of your Quarter, show any one Father of the Church, Greek or Latin, that ever said, we are to resolve our faith that Scripture is the word of God into the tradition of the present Church?" "So then the way lies thus (as far as it appears to me); The credit of Scripture to be divine resolves finally into that faith which we have touching God himself, and in the same order. For as that, so this hath three main grounds to which all other are reducible. The first is, the tradition of the Church, and this leads us to a reverent persuasion of it. The second is, the light of nature, and this shows us how necessary such a revealed learning is, and that no other way it can be had. Nay more, that all proofs brought against any point of faith neither are nor can be demonstrations, but soluble arguments. The third is, the light of the text itself, in conversing wherewith we meet with the Spirit of God inwardly inclining Ib. § 16. n. 21. p. 54. 2 Ib. § 16. n. 33. p. 66. our hearts, and sealing the full assurance of the sufficiency of all three unto us. And then, and not before, we are certain that the Scripture is the word of God, both by divine and by infallible proof. But our certainty is by faith, and so voluntary, not by knowledge of such principles as in the light of nature can enforce assent whether we will or no." 1 "Certain it is, that by human authority, consent, and proof, a man may be assured infallibly that the Scripture is the word of God, by an acquired habit of faith, cui non subest falsum, under which nor error nor falsehood is. But he cannot be assured infallibly, by divine faith, cui subesse non potest falsum, into which no falsehood can come, but by a divine testimony. This testimony is absolute in Scripture itself, delivered by the Apostles for the word of God, and so sealed to our souls by the operation of the Holy Ghost. That which makes way for this as an introduction and outward motive, is the tradition of the present Church.” 2 "Tradition doth but morally and probably confirm the authority of Scripture." 3 So also as to the accuracy of our copies of the Scriptures, the Archbishop says, "As it [i. e. tradition] is the first moral inducement to persuade that Scripture is the word of God, so is it also the first but moral still that the Bible we now have is a true copy of that which was first written. But then, as in the former, so in this latter for the true copy, the last resolution of our faith cannot possibly rest upon the naked tradition of the present Church, but must by and with it go higher to other helps and assurances. Where I hope A. C. will confess we have greater helps to discover the truth or falsehood of a copy than we have means to look into a tradition; or especially to sift out this truth, That it was a divine and infallible revelation by which the originals of Scripture were first written; that being far more the subject of this inquiry than the copy, which according to art and science may be Ib. § 16. n. 34. punct. 9. p. 74. 2 Ib. § 19. n. 1. pp. 80, 81. 3 Ib. § 16. n. 31. p. 63. examined by former preceding copies close up to the very Apostles' times." 1 "The Scripture being put in writing is a thing visibly existent, and if any error be in the print, it is easily corrigible by former copies. Tradition is not so easily observed, nor so safely kept." 2 I might add other points of disagreement between Archbishop Laud and the Tractators, not unimportant; such, for instance, as that General Councils may err against "fundamental verity," though not "easily;"3 and the jealousy of the Tractators of the term Protestant being applied to the Church of England, while the Archbishop expressly applies that appellation to her, and uniformly includes her as part of the Protestant Body. "The Church of England," he says, "is Protestant too."4 But into these points our limits forbid us to enter. The extracts given above, then, clearly show, that at least in all the main points of the system under review the Archbishop was entirely opposed to the views of the Tractators. DR. THOMAS JACKSON. The next author to whose testimony I would draw the attention of the reader, is that learned and able divine, Dr. Thomas Jackson. The extract which Mr. Keble has given us from his writings certainly cannot be said to be an unfair one, for testimony more explicit and direct than it contains against the system under review, the most decided opponent of that system could hardly desire. For instance, let the reader observe the following passages, taken from that extract: "Our Church, according to Vincentius his rule, admits a growth or proficiency in faith, in that it holds not only those propositions which are expressly contained in Scripture, but such as may by necessary consequence be deduced out of them for points of faith, and this growth is still in eodem genere, from the Other points of faith besides these our Church. same root. 1 Ib. § 16. n. 30. p. 63. 2 Ib. § 16. n. 27. pp. 59, 60. Ib. § 35. n. 6. punct. 4. p. 192. |