you by and by upon another occafion. By all these circumftances laid together, I do not fee how it can be difputed what good this emperor Conftantine wrought to the church, but rather whether ever any, though perhaps not wittingly, fet open a door to more mifchief in Chrif tendom. There is juft caufe therefore, that when the prelates cry out, Let the church be reformed according to Conftantine, it should found to a judicious ear no otherwife, than if they should fay, Make us rich, make us lofty, make us lawless; for if any under him were not fo, thanks to those ancient remains of integrity, which were not yet quite worn out, and not to his government.

Thus finally it appears, that those purer times were not fuch as they are cried up, and not to be followed without fufpicion, doubt, and danger. The last point wherein the antiquary is to be dealt with at his own weapon, is, to make it manifeft that the ancientest and best of the fathers have difclaimed all fufficiency in themfelves that men should rely on, and fent all comers to the fcriptures, as allfufficient: that this is true, will not be unduly gathered, by fhowing what eftcem they had of antiquity themselves, and what validity they thought in it to prove doctrine or difcipline. I muft of neceffity begin from the fecond rank of fathers, because till then antiquity could have no plea. Cyprian in his 63d Epiftle: "If any," faith he, " of our ancestors, either ignorantly, or out of fimplicity, hath not obferved that which the Lord taught us by his example," fpeaking of the Lord's supper, "his fimplicity God may pardon of his mercy; but we cannot be excufed for following him, being inftructed by the Lord." And have not we the fame inftructions; and will not this holy man, with all the whole confiftory of faints and martyrs that lived of old, rife up and ftop our mouths in judgment, when we shall go about to father our errours and opinions upon their authority? In the 73d Epift. he adds, "In vain do they oppofe cuftom to us, if they be overcome by reason; as if cuftom were greater than truth, or that in fpiritual things that were not to be followed, which is revealed for the better by the Holy Ghoft." In the 74th, "Neither ought cuftom to

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hinder that truth fhould not prevail; for custom without truth is but agedness of errour."

Next Lactantius, he that was preferred to have the bringing up of Conftantine's children, in his fecond book of Inftitutions, chap. 7 and 8, disputes against the vain truft in antiquity, as being the chiefeft argument of the Heathen against the Chriftians: "They do not confider," faith he, "what religion is, but they are confident it is true, because the ancients delivered it; they count it a trespass to examine it." And in the eighth: "Not because they went before us in time, therefore in wifdom; which being given alike to all ages, cannot be prepoffeffed by the ancients: wherefore, feeing that to feek the truth is inbred to all, they bereave themselves of wifdom, the gift of God, who without judgment follow the ancients, and are led by others like brute beafts." St. Auftin writes to Fortunatian, that "he counts it lawful, in the books of whomsoever, to reject that which he finds otherwife than true; and fo he would have others deal by him." He neither accounted, as it feems, those fathers that went before, nor himself, nor others of his rank, for men of more than ordinary fpirit, that might equally deceive, and be deceived: and ofttimes fetting our servile humours afide, yea, God fo ordering, we may find truth with one man, as foon as in a council, as Cyprian agrees, 71ft Epift. "Many things," faith he," are better revealed to fingle perfons." At Nicæa, in the first and best-reputed council of all the world, there had gone out a canon to divorce married priefts, had not one old man, Paphnutius, ftood up, and reasoned against it.

Now remains it to fhow clearly that the fathers refer all decifion of controversy to the scriptures, as allfufficient to direct, to refolve, and to determine. Ignatius, taking his laft leave of the Afian churches, as he went to martyrdom, exhorted them to adhere close to the written doctrine of the apoftles, neceffarily written for pofterity: so far was he from unwritten traditions, as may be read in the 36th chap. of Eufebius, 3 b. In the 74th Epift. of Cyprian against Stefan, bishop of Rome, impofing upon him a tradition; "Whence," quoth he, "is this tradition? Is it fetched from

the

the authority of Chrift in the gofpel, or of the apoftles in their epiftles? for God teftifies that thofe things are to be done which are written." And then thus, "What obftinacy, what prefumption is this, to prefer human tradition before divine ordinance?" And in the fame epift. if we shall return to the head, and beginning of divine tradition, (which we all know he means the Bible) human errour ceases; and the reason of heavenly mysteries unfolded, whatsoever was obscure becomes clear." And in the 14th diftinct. of the fame epift. directly against our modern fantafies of a ftill vifible church, he teaches, "that fucceffion of truth may fail; to renew which, we must have recourse to the fountains;" ufing this excellent fimilitude, " if a channel, or conduitpipe which brought in water plentifully before, fuddenly fail, do we not go to the fountain to know the cause, whether the fpring affords no more, or whether the vein be stopped, or turned afide in the midcourfe? Thus ought we to do, keeping God's precepts, that if in aught the truth fhall be changed, we may repair to the gofpel and to the apostles, that thence may arise the reafon of our doings, from whence our order and beginning arofe." In the 75th he inveighs bitterly against pope Stephanus," for that he could boaft his fucceffion from Peter, and yet foift in traditions that were not apoftolical." And in his book of the unity of the church, he compares those that, neglecting God's word, follow the doctrines of men, to Corah, Dathan, and Abiram. The very firft page of Athanafius against the gentiles, avers the fcriptures to be fufficient of themselves for the declaration of truth; and that if his friend Macarius read other religious writers, it was but Pλoxáλos come un vertuofo, (as the Italians fay,) as a lover of elegance and in his fecond tome, the 39th page, after he hath reckoned up the canonical books, "in thefe only," faith he," is the doctrine of godlinefs taught; let no man add to these, or take from these." And in his Synopfis, having again fet down all the writers of the Old and New Teftament," thefe," faith he, "be the anchors and props of our faith." Befides thefe, millions of other books have been written by great and wife men according to rule, and agreement with thefe, of which I will not now speak,

as being of infinite number, and mere dependance on the canonical books. Bafil, in his 2d tome, writing of true faith, tells his auditors, he is bound to teach them that which he hath learned out of the Bible: and in the fame treatise he faith," that feeing the commandments of the Lord are faithful, and fure for ever, it is a plain falling from the faith, and a high pride, either to make void any thing therein, or to introduce any thing not there to be found:" and he gives the reafon," for Chrift faith, My fheep hear my voice, they will not follow another, but fly from him, because they know not his voice." But not to be endless in quotations, it may chance to be objected, that there be many opinions in the fathers which have no ground in fcripture; so much the less, may I say, fhould we follow them, for their own words fhall condemn them, and acquit us that lean not on them; otherwife these their words will acquit them, and condemn us. But it will be replied, the fcriptures are difficult to be underftood, and therefore require the explanation of the fathers. It is true, there be some books, and especially fome places in those books, that remain clouded; yet ever that which is most neceffary to be known is moft eafy; and that which is most difficult, fo far expounds itself ever, as to tell us how little it imports our faving knowledge. Hence, to infer a general obfcurity over all the text, is a mere fuggeftion of the devil to diffuade men from reading it, and cafts an afperfion of dishonour both upon the mercy, truth, and wisdom of God. We count it no gentleness, or fair dealing in a man of power amongst us, to require ftrict and punctual obedience, and yet give out all his commands ambiguous and obfcure, we should think he had a plot upon us; certainly fuch commands. were no commands, but fnares. The very effence of truth is plainnefs and brightness, the darkness and crookedness is our own. The wifdom of God created understanding, fit and proportionable to truth, the object and end of it, as the eye to the thing visible. If our understanding have a film of ignorance over it, or be blear with gazing on other falfe glifterings, what is that to trath? If we will but purge with fovereign eycfalve that intellectual ray which God hath planted in us, then we would

would believe the fcriptures protesting their own plainness and perfpicuity, calling to them to be inftructed, not only the wife and learned, but the fimple, the poor, the babes, foretelling an extraordinary effufion of God's fpirit upon every age and fex, attributing to all men, and requiring from them the ability of searching, trying, examining all things, and by the fpirit difcerning that which is good; and as the fcriptures themselves pronounce their own plainnefs, fo do the fathers teftify of them.

I will not run into a paroxyfm of citations again in this point, only inftance Athanafius in his forementioned first page: "The knowledge of truth," faith he, "wants no human lore, as being evident in itself, and by the preaching of Chrift now opens brighter than the fun." If thefe doctors, who had scarce half the light that we enjoy, who all, except two or three, were ignorant of the Hebrew tongue, and many of the Greek, blundering upon the dangerous and fufpectful tranflations of the apoftate Aquila, the heretical Theodotion, the judaized Symmachus, the erroneous Origen; if thefe could yet find the Bible fo eafy, why fhould we doubt,. that have all the helps of learning, and faithful industry that man in this life can look for, and the affiftance of God as near now to us as ever? But let the fcriptures be hard; are they more hard, more crabbed, more abftrufe than the fathers? He that cannot understand the fober, plain, and unaffected ftyle of the fcriptures, will be ten times more puzzled with the knotty Africanifms, the pampered metaphors, the intricate and involved fentences of the fathers, befides the fantastic and declamatory flafhes, the crossjingling periods which cannot but difturb, and come thwart a fettled devotion, worfe than the din of bells and rattles.

Now, fir, for the love of holy Reformation, what can be faid more against thefe importunate clients of antiquity than The herself their patronefs hath faid? Whether, think ye, would the approve ftill to doat upon immeasurable, inuumerable,and therefore unneceffary and unmerciful volumes, choofing rather to err with the fpecious name of the fathers, or to take a found truth at the hand of a plain upright man, that all his days hath been diligently reading the holy fcriptures,