force than Scripture singly can be; and that is reason sufficient for superadding antiquity. Two witnesses are better than one, though one be superior; and two proofs of the same thing (though one be as primary, and the other secondary) amount to more than either of them singly can do. Every additional light contributes some lustre, and every accessional weight helps to turn the scale. A man may be able to evade Scripture alone, who may not be able to evade both Scripture and antiquity; or if he can evade both, yet perhaps not so easily: therefore, if the taking in antiquity is of service, as it reinforces truth, and bears the harder upon errore, it is worth the urging, for the same reason as all kinds of arguments or dissuasives against sin and wickedness are to be urged in due place.

4. Lastly, I must observe, that there is no such great difficulty as some persons may fancy, in distinguishing false claims from true, or in pointing out among the several claimants, where the right lies. Men of ready wit and invention may draw up a catalogue of innumerable difficulties, taking in all such as might possibly happen in any case, and throwing them together, so as to make up one large and floating idea of difficulty, for the reader to apply to every case: but if one looks a little closer into any particular instance, he will be surprised to find how easy it is, after all, to form a judgment of it, and that not a hundredth part perhaps of that general confuse idea of difficulty does really belong to it. If a man were inclined to hear what fine harangues might be made upon the uncertainty of the reports of sense, how often, and how many several ways his eyes or ears, or other senses might deceive him, (which may be illustrated with great variety of instances from history, embellished with all the orna

e

Quis vero non fateatur, præscriptione ejusmodi multum firmari animos nostros in genuina Scripturæ interpretatione, validius quoque munitiusque hæreses refelli? Quare hoc armorum genere semper pugnatum fuit a sanctis patribus: qui præcipue quidem se tuentur Scripturæ auctoritate, nec tamen prætereunt priorum temporum consensum. Gerard. Voss. Epist. ad Forbes.

ments of wit and fancy,) he might be apt, for some time, almost to mistrust his senses, and to take life itself for a dream. But notwithstanding all, when he comes to consider use and experience, he will soon find that his senses may, for the most part, be securely trusted to, without danger of deception, and that it is scarce once in a thousand trials that they lead him into error. The like may be said, with regard to the studied harangues drawn up by some writers, about the uncertainty of all tradition, and the obscurity of the Fathers, and the danger of deception: they amount only to loose, general discourse, which may seem, at first, to have something in it, but is soon confuted by use and experience, the safest criterion to judge by. The truth of what I say may best appear by an induction of particulars; and therefore I shall next briefly run over the most observable pretences to tradition, ancient and modern, (such as at present occur to me,) that we may judge from the particular instances how that case stands.

Basilides, of the first or second century, and his partizans, pleaded antiquity, and put in their claim to tradition, deriving it by one Glaucias, from St. Peter himselfs. But the vanity and folly of the plea was apparent at first sight: and no sensible man could ever think it at all reasonable to give credit to a wandering tale, or to that obscure Glaucias, rather than to certain fact, (appearing in Scripture, and in the churches founded by St. Peter,) that St. Peter's doctrine was quite another thing from what Basilides had fathered upon him.

Valentinus, of the second century, and his disciples, pleaded antiquity also, as well as Scripture, and fetched their doctrine by one Theodades, as they said, from the Apostle Paul h. A likely matter! that Theodades, who

f Legi libros de abusu patrum, et quidem sæpius: sed, nescio quomodo, dum lego, assentior; cum posui libros, et mecum ipse de nervis argumentorum cœpi cogitare, assensio omnis illa elabatur. Zornius, p. 665.

* Clemens Alexandrin. Strom. vii. p. 898. ed. Oxon.

Clemens Alexandrin. ibid.

ever he was, should know more of St. Paul's mind, than all the churches founded by that blessed Apostle. The silliness of such a plea betrayed itself at once; and but to name it, was to expose it.

The Marcionites, along with the Basilidians and Valentinians, pretended also to derive their common doctrines down by tradition from the Apostle Matthiasi. But their plea was mere artifice and pretence, and was effectually confuted by the standing doctrine of all the apostolical churches. By their common doctrines, I mean such as they all agreed in, as about the origin of evil, and the denial of Christ's real humanity, or the like.

The Artemonians, of the third century, pretended tradition for their heresy, from the Apostles themselves, and by the apostolical churches k. Which was saying something, had they been able to make out the fact: but the falsity of the report was palpable, and a child might see it. For they had contrived their story so oddly, and brought it down so low, that besides ancient records in great numbers, there might be thousands of living witnesses, who could contradict it, and expose it as a shameful imposture.

The Arians, after them, in the fourth century, claimed tradition, equally with the Catholics, but not with equal reason. They pretended to derive their doctrine down by the Fathers that lived before them; particularly by Origen, and Theognostus, and Dionysius Alexandrinus : but Athanasius easily detected the iniquity of their claim, and effectually confuted it1.

The Macedonians also, in their turn, pleaded tradition for their rejecting the Divinity of the Holy Ghost. But the great St. Basil laid open the falsity of their pretences that way, and demonstrated that tradition was on the contrary sidem. Afterwards, (A. D. 383.) when both they

&c.

i Clem. Alex. Strom. vii. p. 900. Conf. Dodwell. Dissert. in Iren. i. p. 48. Euseb. Eccles. Hist. lib. v. cap. 28.

1 Athanas. de Decret. Synod. Nic. p. 230, &c. de sententia Dionysii, 243,

m Basil. de Spiritu Sancto.

and the Arians were solemnly called upon, and asked if they would admit the common suffrage of the ancients, and be concluded by it; they shrunk, and would not stand the test, choosing rather to rest the issue of the cause upon logical disputation ", their usual refuge, and which they thought their safest retreat. It seldom happens, but that those who make false pretences to antiquity, do by their own conduct, (by their evading, or shifting when pressed, or some other as significant marks,) betray their own cause; insomuch that a stander by, of ordinary sagacity, may often, without entering into the heart of the dispute, give a shrewd conjecture how the case stands. Having considered some of the most noted instances of unjustifiable claims among the ancients, let us next descend to moderns, for farther illustration of what we are upon.

The Romanists are great pretenders to Catholic tradition, or primitive antiquity: and yet the fact is so full and plain against them, that we can point out to them in every age, when, and where, and how every corruption almost commenced, and every innovation crept in°: or can prove, at least, that it was not from the beginning. And it gives ground for suspicion, that they are themselves conscious. of the nullity of their claim, when they decline fair disputation. They screen themselves under modern infallibility, and take sanctuary commonly in their own authority, as sole judges of every thing, rather than rest the issue of the cause upon a strict and fair inquiry into ancient fact. I may further add, that it can scarce be thought a very difficult matter, to discern how antiquity stands, as to that controversy, when a single writer of our own (our excellent Bishop Jewel) was not afraid, though a very modest man, to challenge them publicly upon a great many arti

"Socrat. Eccles. Histor. lib. v. cap. 10. Sozom. E. Hist. lib. vii. cap. 12. See my Second Defence, Preface, vol. iii.

• See more particularly Bishop Bull's Answer to the Bishop of Meaux; and Bishop Stillingfleet's Council of Trent examined and disproved by Catholic Tradition, A. D. 1688. and Dr. Whitby's Treatise of Tradition.

cles, twenty-seven in number, and to give them six whole centuries to look out in, only to produce any one sufficient sentence out of any old Catholic Doctor or Father, or general Council, that should be found to declare clearly and plainly on their side, in any of the said articles. He made the challenge, and upon trial was sufficient to stand his ground P. The like challenges, with respect to the first three or four centuries, have been offered by others 9, and may be easily maintained by any man of competent learning or judgment'; so little difficulty is there in tracing tradition, or in distinguishing pretence from reality. Wherefore one can scarce forbear lamenting, that so able a writer as Daillé should take the pains he did to depreciate the use and value of the Fathers, only for fear the Romanists should take advantage of thems. He wanted at that time either the spirit or the penetration of Jewel: otherwise he might have considered, that the Protestant cause could not desire any fairer or greater advantage, than to join issue upon the point of genuine antiquity, and to be concluded by it. Indeed, it seems, that he did perceive it afterwards, and made very good use of it, when years and experience had more enlarged his views.

The modern Socinians, though their way has been, for the most part, to reject antiquity, or to undervalue it, (finding it run against them,) have yet many of them, and of late more especially, thought it policy to set up a claim to tradition, deducing it from the Apostles, by the Ebionites and Nazaræans, (whom they ignorantly or artfully

P Fidem fecerint vel solius Magna Britanniæ vestræ, vel etiam nostræ, tot theologi summi: ante omnes zuμńio illud hominis, Joannes Juellus, antistes Sarisburiensis. Quis enim e Conciliis vel Doctoribus, quotquot primis fuere annis sexcentis, non animosius modo, sed doctius quoque, vel felicius impugnavit adversarios? Non defuere quidem quibus hoc disputandi genus minus probaretur, sed præstantissimi etiam Whitakeri judicio, timidiores hi fuere quam necesse erat. Ger. Voss. ad Forbes.

9 See Dr. Hicks's Letters to a Popish Priest, p. 188, 189.

See his Epistle Dedicatory prefixed to his Right Use of the Fathers; as

also his Preface to the same.

Vid. Scrivener in Præfat.