all now consent, and consequently make it catholic doctrine, That it is not unlawful to make the usual pictures of the Trinity, and to set them in churches to be adored. But had I lived in St. Augustine's time, I should then have been taught another lesson; to wit, that this doctrine and practice was impious, and the contrary doctrine catholic.

I should have told him, that now I was taught that the doctrine of indulgences was an apostolic tradition: but had I lived six hundred years since, and found that in all antiquity there was no use of them; I should either have thought the primitive church no faithful steward in defrauding men's souls of this treasure intended by God to them, and so necessary for them, or rather that the doctrine of indulgences, now practised in the church of Rome, was not then catholic.

I should have told him, that the general practice of Roman catholics now taught me, that it was a pious thing to offer incense and tapers to the saints and to their pictures: but had I lived in the primitive church, I should, with the church, have condemned it in the Collyridians as heretical.

I should have represented to him Erasmus's complaint against the protestants, whose departing from the Roman church occasioned the determining and exacting the belief of many points as necessary, wherein, before Luther, men enjoyed the liberties of their judgments, and tongues, and pens. "Antea, (says he) licebat varias agitare quæstiones, de potestate pontificis, de condonationibus, de restituendo, de purgatorio; nunc tutum non est hiscere, ne de his quidem, quæ pie

vereque dicuntur. Et credere cogimur, quod homo gignit ex se opera meritoria, quod benefactis meretur vitam æternam, etiam de condigno, quod B. Virgo potest imperare Filio cum Patre regnanti, ut exaudiat hujus aut illius preces, aliaque permulta, ad quæ piæ mentes inhorrescunt." And from hence I should have collected, as I think very probably, that it was not then such a known and certain thing, what was the catholic faith in many points, which now are determined; but that divers men who held external communion with that church, which now holds these as matters of faith, conceived themselves no ways bound to do so, but at liberty to hold as they saw

reason.

I should have shewed him, by the confession of another learned catholic, that through the negligence of the bishops in former ages, and the indiscreet devotion of the people, many opinions and practices were brought into the church, which at first perhaps were but winked at, after tolerated, then approved, and at length, after they had spread themselves into a seeming generality, confirmed for good and catholic; and that therefore there was no certainty that they came from the beginning, whose beginning was not known.

I should have remembered him, that even by the acknowledgment of the council of Trent, many corruptions and superstitions had by insensible degrees insinuated themselves into the very mass and offices of the church, which they thought fit to cast out; and, therefore, seeing that some abuses have come in, God knows how, and have been cast out again, who can ascertain me, that some errors have not got in, and while men slept

(for it is apparent they did sleep) gathered such strength, got such deep root, and so incorporated themselves, like ivy in a wall, in the state and policy of the Roman church, that to pull them up had been to pull them down, by razing the foundation on which it stands, to wit, the church's infallibility? Besides, as much water passes under the mill, which the miller sees not; so who can warrant me, that some old corruptions might not escape from them, and pass for original and apostolical traditions? I say, might not, though they had been as studious to reduce all to the primitive state, as they were to preserve them in the present state; as diligent to cast out all postnate and introduced opinions, as they were to persuade men that there were none such, but all as truly catholic and apostolic, as they were Roman.

I should have declared unto him, that many things reckoned up in the roll of traditions, are now grown out of fashion, and out of use, in the church of Rome; and therefore, that either they believe them not, whatever they pretend, or were not so obedient to the apostle's command, as they themselves interpret it, "Keep the traditions which ye have received, whether by word, or by our epistle."

And seeing there have been so many vicissitudes and changes in the Roman church; catholic doctrines growing exsolete, and being degraded from their catholicism, and perhaps depressed into the number of heresies; points of indifference, or at least aliens from the faith, getting first to be inmates, after procuring to be made denizens, and in process of time necessary members of the body of the faith; nay old heresies, sometimes,

like old snakes, casting their skin and their poison together, and becoming wholesome and catholic doctrines; I must have desired pardon of my uncle, if I were not so undoubtedly certain, what was not catholic doctrine in the days of my fathers.

Nay, perhaps I should have gone farther, and told him, that I was not fully assured, what was the catholic doctrine in some points, no not at this present time. For instance (to lay the axe to the root of the tree) the infallibility of the present church of Rome, in determining controversies of faith, is esteemed indeed by divers that I have met with, not only an article of faith, but a foundation of all other articles. But how do I know there are not, nay, why should I think there are not, in the world divers good catholics, of the same mind touching this matter, which Mirandula, Panormitan, Cusanus, Florentinus, Clemangis, Waldensis, Occham, and divers others were of; who were so far from holding this doctrine the foundation of faith, that they would not allow it any place in the fabric?

Now Bellarmine hath taught us, that no doctrine is catholic, nor the contrary heretical, that is denied to be so by some good catholics. From hence I collect, that in the time of the forenamed authors this was not catholic doctrine, nor the contrary heretical; and, being then not so, how it could since become so, I cannot well understand. If it be said, that it has since been defined by a general council; I say, first, this is false: no council has been so foolish as to define, that a council is infallible; for unless it were presumed to be infallible before, who or what could assure

us of the truth of this definition? Secondly, if it were true, it were ridiculous: for he that would question the infallibility of all councils in all their decrees, would as well question the infallibility of this council in this decree. This therefore was not, is not, nor ever can be, an article of faith, unless God himself would be pleased (which is not very likely) to make some new revelation of it from heaven.

The πρότον ψεῦδος, the fountain of the error in this matter is this, that the whole religion of the Roman church, and every point of it, is conceived or pretended to have issued originally out of the fountain of apostolic tradition, either in themselves or in the principles, from which they are evidently deducible; whereas it is evident, that many of their doctrines may be originally derived from the decrees of councils, many from papal definitions, many from the authority of some great man; to which purpose it is very remarkable what Gregory Nazianzen says of Athanasius : * What pleased him was a law to men; what did not please him, was a thing prohibited by law his decrees were to them like Moses' tables, and he had a greater veneration paid him, than seems to be due from men to saints."

And as memorable, that in the late great controversy about predetermination and free-will, disputed before Pope Clement VII, by the Jesuits and Dominicans, the Pope's resolution was, if he had determined the matter, to define for that opi

* Τοῦτο ἦν νόμος αὐτοῖς ὅ τι ἐκείνω ἐδόκει, καὶ τοῦτο ἀπώματον πόλιν, ὃ μὴ ἐδόκει· καὶ πλάκες Μωϋσέως αὐτοῖς τὰ ἐκείνου δόγματα, καὶ πλεῖον τὸ σέβας ἢ παρὰ ἀνφρώπων τοῖς ἁγίοις ὀφειλέται. Orat. xxi. in laudem Athan.