Until you shall have proved your affirmative, therefore, we persist in our negative. And we venture to make it our boast at the tribunal of our judge (even if that judge were the whole band of holy men you vaunt as having on your side; or if it were the whole world); that we do not, and should not admit a dogma which is really nothing, and of which it cannot be shown with certainty, what it is. We will moreover charge you with an incredible degree of presumption, or insanity, in demanding that this dogma be admitted by us without any reason, except that it pleases your High Mightinesses — who are so many, so great, and so ancient — and that we assert the existence of a thing which you yourselves confess to be a mere nothing.
Is it really a conduct worthy of Christian teachers, to delude the poor wretched common people, in the matter of piety, with a mere nothing, as though it were something of great moment to their salvation? Where now is that sharpness of Grecian wit, which previously invented lies that at least had some show of beauty? But on this subject, it utters only naked and undisguised falsehoods. Where now is that Latin industry, not inferior to the Grecian, which in this instance so beguiles, and is beguiled, with the vainest of words? 211 But thus it happens to unwary or designing readers of books: they make all those dogmas of the Fathers and of the Saints, which are the offspring of their infirmity, to be of the highest authority — the fault not being of the authors, but the readers. Just as if, leaning on the sanctity and authority of St. Peter, someone contended that all which Peter ever said is true — including Mat 16.22, when through infirmity of the flesh, he exhorted Christ not to suffer; or when he commanded Christ to depart from him, out of the ship (Luk 5.8); and many others for which he was reproved by Christ himself.
SECT. 7. Injustice done to the Fathers, by choosing their bad sayings and leaving their good.
Men of this sort are like those who, by way of sneering at the Gospel, chatter that all is not true which is in the Gospel; and they lay hold of that word where the Jews say to Christ, “Do we not say rightly that you are a Samaritan, and have a devil?” (Joh 8.48) or that, “He is guilty of death;” or “We have found this fellow subverting our nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar.”
The assertors of Freewill sayings, do exactly the same thing (with a different design, it is true; and not willingly, but through blindness and ignorance), when they lay hold on what the Fathers, having fallen through infirmity of the flesh, say in support of Freewill. And they oppose it to what the same Fathers have, in the strength of the Spirit, said elsewhere against it. After this, they presently go on to make the better give way to the worse. Thus it comes to pass that they give authority to the worse sayings, because they make for the judgment of their flesh; and they withdraw it from the better, because they make against that judgment [of the Spirit].
Why do we not rather choose the better? Many such sayings are in the works of the Fathers. To give you an instance: what saying can be more carnal — indeed, what saying can be more impious, more sacrilegious, and more blasphemous — than that usual one of Jerome’s? ‘Virginity fills heaven, and marriage fills earth,’ — as if earth, and not heaven, were the due of those patriarchs, apostles, and private Christians who have married wives; or as if heaven were the due of vestal virgins among the heathens, without Christ! Yet the Sophists collect these and similar sayings from the Fathers, maintaining a contest of numbers, rather than of judgment, to get themselves the sanction of their authority. Just like that stupid fellow, Faber of Constance, 212 who recently presented his Margaritum (more properly called his stable of Augeas) to the public, so that the pious and learned might have their nauseating and vomiting draught.
SECT. 8. Objection that God should have disguised the error of his Church, answered.
You say,
‘It is incredible that God should have disguised 213 the error of his Church for so many ages, and not have revealed to any of his saints what we maintain to be the very head of evangelical doctrine.’
I reply, first, that we do not say that this error has been tolerated by God in his Church, or in any of His saints. For the Church is governed by the Spirit of God; the saints are led by the Spirit of God (Rom 8.14); Christ remains with his Church even to the end of the world (Mat 28.20); and the Church of God is the pillar and ground of the truth. 214 (1Tim 3.15) I say, we know these things. For thus says even our common creed; ‘I believe in the holy Catholic Church;’ so that it is impossible for her to err in the least article. 215
And even if we were to grant that some elect persons are held in error all their lifetime, they must still, before death, return into the way; because Christ says (Joh 10.28), “No one shall pluck them out of my hand.” But this must be your labour and your achievement — even to make it appear with certainty, that those whom you call the Church, are the Church; or rather, that those who were wanderers all their lifetime, have not at length been brought back to the fold before they died. For it does not directly follow, if God has allowed all those whom you adduce, to abide in error (scattered through as long a series of ages as you please, and men of the greatest erudition, if you please), that therefore he has allowed his Church to abide in error.
Look at Israel, the people of God: of all their kings, so many in number, and reigning during so long a period, not even one is mentioned who did not err. And under Isaiah the Prophet, all men, and all who were public 216 of that people, had departed into idolatry to such a degree that he thought himself left alone. Yet, in the meantime, while God was going to destroy kings, princes, priests, prophets, and whatever could be called the people or church of God, He reserved to himself seven thousand men. 1Kng 19.18 But who saw or knew these to be the people of God? So then, who will dare to deny that God has even now preserved for himself a Church among the common people, concealed under those principal men (for you mention none but men of public office and name) and has left all those to perish, as he did in the kingdom of Israel? After all, it is God’s peculiar right and act, to entangle the choice men of Israel, and to slay their fat ones (Psa 78.31), but to preserve the dregs and remnant of Israel alive; as Isaiah says. 217
What happened under Christ himself, when all the Apostles were offended, and he was denied, and condemned by the whole people? Scarcely one or two, Nicodemus and Joseph, and afterwards the thief upon the cross, were preserved to him. But were these, at that time, called ‘the people of God’? There was, indeed, a people of God remaining, but it was not called so. What was called so, was not that people. Who knows whether such may not have been the state of the Church of God always, during the whole course of the world from its beginning: that some have been called the people and saints of God, who were not really so; while others, abiding as a remnant in the midst of them, have been his people or saints, but have not been called so? This is shown by the history of Cain and Abel, of Ishmael and Isaac, of Esau and Jacob.
Look at the Arian period. 218 This is when scarcely five Catholic 219 bishops were preserved in all the world, and those were driven from their sees — the Arians reigned everywhere under the public name, and filled the office 220 of the Church. Nevertheless, under the dominion of those heretics, Christ preserved his Church; but it was in such a form that by no means was it supposed to be, or regarded as, the Church.
Under the reign of the Pope, show me a single bishop discharging his duty; show me a single Council in which matters of piety were treated — and not robes, dignity, revenues, and other profane trifles, which none but a madman can attribute to the Holy Spirit. Yet they are called the Church, when all who live as they did — whatever may be said of others — are in a lost state, and anything rather than the Church. However, Christ preserved his Church under these; yet not so as to have it called the Church. How many saints, do you think, have these sole and special inquisitors 221 of heretical depravity, burnt and slain in the course of some ages for which they have now reigned? Such saints were John Huss and the like, 222 in whose time, no doubt many holy men lived, who were of the same spirit.
Why do
