CHAP. XXXVI. They charge us with New Articles, for denying their new Articles of Faith, and then bid us
CHAP. XXXVI. They charge us with New Articles, for denying their new Articles of Faith, and then bid us prove the Succession of our Negatives.
D etect. 27. Another of their Deceits is this: To charge us with introducing New Articles of faith or points of Religion, because we contradict the New Articles which they introduce; and then they require us to prove our doctrines which are but the Negatives of theirs.
We receive no Doctrines of faith or worship but what was delivered by the Apostles to the Church: These men bring in abundance of New ones, and say without proof, that they received them from the Apostles. And because we refuse to receive their Novelties, they call our Rejections of them [the Doctrines of our Religion;] and feign us to be the Innovators. And by this device, it is in the Power of any Heretic to force the Church to take up such as these men call New points of faith. If a Papist shall say, that besides the Lord's Prayer Christ gave his Disciples another Form, or two, or three, or many; or that he gave them ten New Commandments not mentioned in the Bible, or that he oft descended after his Ascension and conversed with them, or that there are many more worlds of men besides this earth; or that Christ instituted twenty Sacraments, how should we deal with these men,
but hy denying their fictions as sinful Novelty, and rejecting them as corrupt additions to the Faith? And were this any Novelty in us? And should they bid us prove in the express words of Scripture or antiquity, our Negative
Propositions, [that Christ gave but one form of prayer, that he did not oft descend, that he gave no more Decalogues, Sacraments, &c.] Is it not a sufficient proof of any of these, that they are not written: and that no Tradition of them from the Apostles is proved; and that they that hold the Affirmative, and introduce the Novelty, must prove, and not we? Our
Articles of faith are the same, and not increased, nor any new ones added:
But the Papists come in with a new faith as large as all the Novelties in the Decretals and the Councils, and these innovations of theirs we reject Now our Rejections do not increase the Articles of our faith, no more than my beating a dog out of my house, or keeping out an enemy, or sweeping out the filth, doth enlarge my house, or increase my family They do not take all the Anathema and Rejections in their own Councils, to be Canons or Articles of faith.
For example, The Pope hath made it an Article of faith, that no Scripture is to be interpreted but according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers.
This we reject, and make it no Article of our faith, but an erroneous Novelty. Do we hereby make a new Article? Because we reject a new one of theirs, (yea a part of the Oath of their Church made by Pope Pius after the Council of Trent) 1. If this be an Article, prove it if you can. 2. If it be a Truth, and no Novelty, I pray you tell us which be Fathers, and which not?
And help us to know certainly when we have all, or the unanimous Consent.
And then tell us whether every man is not forsworn with you that interprets any text of Scripture before he have read all the Fathers. or any text which six of them never expounded; or any text which they do not unanimously
agree on? And yet (though it be not our necessary task) we can easily prove to you, that this is a New Article of your devising. 1. Because else no man must expound any Scripture at all before these Fathers were born. For how could the Church before them have their unanimous consent? And 2.
Because that otherwise these Fathers themselves wanted an Article of faith, unless it was an Article to them, that they must expound no Scripture but by their own Consent. 3. Because these Fathers do few of them expound all, or half, or the twentieth part of the Scripture. 4. Because they took liberty to disagree among themselves, and therefore do not unanimously consent in abundance of particular texts. 5. Because they tell us that they are fallible, and bid us not take it on their trust. 6. Because the Apostles have left us no such rule or precept, but much to the contrary. 7. Your own Doctors (for all their Oath) do commonly charge the Fathers with error and mis-expounding
Scripture, as I shown before, Cano and many others charge Cajetan (a Cardinal and pillar in your Church) with making it his practice to differ from the Fathers, and choosing expositions purposely for the Novelty; pro more suo, as his custom: And when he hath highly extolled Cajetan: (Loc.
Theol. lib. 7, p. 223.) he adds, that [yet his doctrine was defiled with a Leprosy of errors, by an affection and lust of Curiosity, or confidence on his wit, expounding Scripture as he list, happily indeed for the most part, but in some few places more acutely then happily, because he regarded not ancient
Tradition, and was not verst in the reading of the Fathers; and would not learn from them the Mysteries of the sealed book] And in another place he blames him, that he always followed the Hebrew and Greek text: And many other Papists by him and others are blamed for the same faults: Andradius, and more of the later plead for it. And yet these men are counted members of your Church, that go against an Article of your new faith and Oath.
So Transubstantiation is one of your New Articles in that Oath. Do we make a New one now if we reject it? Or need we be put to prove the Negative? And yet we can easily do it: And Edm. Albertinus (among many others) hath done it unanswerably.
Another of your Articles is, that [it belongeth to your Holy Mother the Church to judge of the true sense of Scripture] And you mean the Roman
Church; and that they must judge of it for all the Christian world. Prove this to be the Antient doctrine if you can. If we reject this Novelty, are we
Innovators? Or need we prove the Negative? And yet we can do it, and have oft done it at large. Did Athanasius, Basil, Nazianzen, Nyssen, Augustine,
Jerome, Chrysostom, Epiphanius, and the rest of the Fathers, send to Rome for the sense of the Scriptures which they expound, or did they procure the Popes Approbation before any of them published their Commentaries? You know sure that they did not.
The like may be said of all the rest of your New Articles, and Practices:
We stand our ground. Some of your Novelties we reject as trifles, some as smaller errors, and some as greater: but still we keep to our ancient faith, of which the Scripture is a full and sufficient Rule (as Vincentius Lirinens. ubi supra) though we are glad of all helps to understand it, we say with Tertullian de carne Christi, c. 6. Nihil de eo constat, quia Scriptura non exhibet.—Non probant, quia non Scriptum est—His qui insuper argumentantur nos resistemus.