Chapter III. How the Ministers Have Despised and Violated the Authority of Councils

Now, will you remain asleep during this shock which your masters have given to the Church? Consider with yourselves, I pray you. Luther in the book which he has composed on the Councils is not content with tearing down the stones that are visible, but goes so far as to sap the very foundations of the Church. Who would credit this of Luther, that great and glorious reformer, as Beza calls him? How does he treat the great Council of Nice? Because the Council forbids those who have mutilated themselves to be received into the clerical ministry, and presently again forbids ecclesiastics to keep in their houses other women besides their mothers or their sisters: — " Pressed on this point/' says Luther, " I do not allow [the presence of] the Holy Spirit in this Council. And * Eccles. xii. ii, I2.

why? An debebit episcopus aut concionator ilium intolerabilem ardorem et sestum amoris illiciti sustinere, et neque conjugio neque castratione se ab his periculis liberare? Is there no other work for the Holy Spirit to do in Councils than to bind and burden his ministers by making impossible, dangerous, unnecessary laws? " He makes exception for no Council, but seriously holds that the GuH alone can do as much as a Council. Such is the opinion of this great reformer.

But what need have I to go far? Beza says in the Epistle to the King of France, that your reform will refuse the authority of no Council; so far he speaks well, but what follows spoils all: " provided/' says he, " that the Word of God test it."

But, for God's sake, when will they cease darkening the question! The Councils, after the fullest consultation, when the test has been made by the holy touchstone of the Word of God, decide and define some article. If after all this another test has to be tried before their determination is received, will not another also be wanted? Who will not want to apply his test, and whenever will the matter be settled? After the test has been applied by the Council, Beza and his disciples want to try again? And who shall stop another from asking as much, in order to see if the Council's test has been properly tried? And why not a third to know if the second is faithful? — and then a fourth, to test the third? Everything must be done over again, and posterity will never trust antiquity but will go ever turning upside down the holiest articles of the faith in the wheel of their understandings.

We are not hesitating as to whether we should

ABT. IV. c. III.] The Rule of Faith. 229 receive a doctrine at haphazard, or should test it by the application of God's A¥ord. But what we say is that when a Council has applied this test, our brains have not now to revise but to believe. Once let the canons of Councils be submitted to the test of private individuals, — as many persons, so many tastes, so many opinions.

The article of the real presence of Our Lord in the most Holy Sacrament had been received under the test of many Councils. Luther wished to make another trial, Zwingle another trial on that of Luther, Brentius another on these, Calvin another, — as many tests so many opinions. But, I beseech you, if the test aS' applied by a General Council be not enough to settle the minds of men, how shall the authority of some nobody be able to do it? That is too great an ambition.

Some of the most learned ministers of Lausanne, these late years. Scripture and analogy of faith in hand, oppose the doctrine of Calvin concerning justification. To bear the attack of their arguments no new reasons appear, though some wretched little tracts, insipid and void of doctrine, are set a-going. How are these men treated? They are persecuted, driven away, threatened. Why is this? " Because they teach a doctrine contrary to the profession of faith of our Church." Gracious heavens! the doctrine of the Council of Mce, after an approbation of thirteen hundred years, is to be submitted to the tests of Luther, Calvin, and Beza, and there shall be no trial made of the Calvinistic doctrine, quite new, entirely doubtful, patched up and inconsistent! Why, at least, may not each one try it for himself? If that of Nice has not been able to quiet your brains, why would you, by your statements impose quiet on the brains of your companions, who are as good as you, as wise and as consistent? Behold the iniquitousness of these judges; to give liberty to their own opinions they lower the ancient Councils, while with their own opinions they would bridle those of others. They seek their own glory, be sure of that; and just as much as they take away from the Ancients do they attribute to themselves.

Beza in the Epistle to the King of France and in the fore-mentioned Treatise, says that the Council of Nice was a true Council if ever there was one. He says the truth, never did good Christian doubt about it, nor about the other first three; but if it be such, why does Calvin call that sentence in the Symbol of the Council — Deum de Deo lumen de lumine — hard? And how is it that that word o/noovacov (consuhstantialem) was so offensive to Luther — " My soul hates this word homoousion; " a word, however, which so entirely approved itself to that great Council? How is it you do not maintain the reality of the body of Our Lord in the holy Sacrament, that you call superstition the most holy sacrifice of the same precious body of Our Saviour which is offered by the priests, and that you will make no difference between the bishop and the priest, — since all this is so expressly not defined but presupposed, there, as perfectly well known in the Church? Never would Luther, or Peter Martyr, or Ochin have been ministers of yours, if they had remembered the acts of the great Council of Chalcedon; for it is most expressly forbidden there for religious men and women to marry.

Oh how good it would have been to see the round

AET. IV. c. III.] The Rule of Faith. 231 of this your lake if this Council of Chalcedon had been held in reverence! Oh how often would your ministers have kept silence, and most rightfully, — for there is there an express command to laymen by no means to lay hands upon the goods of Ecclesiastics, to everybody to join in no revolt against the bishop, and neither to act nor to speak contumeliously against the ministers of the Church. The Council of Constantinople attributes the primacy to the Pope of Eome, and presupposes this as a thing of universal knowledge; so does that of Chalcedon. But is there any article in which we differ from you, which has not been several times condemned either in holy General Councils, or in particular ones received generally? And yet your ministers have resuscitated them, without shame, without scruple, not otherwise than though they were certain holy deposits and treasures hidden to Antiquity, or by Antiquity most curiously locked up in order that we might have the benefit of them in this age.

I am well aware that in the Councils there are articles concerning Ecclesiastical order and discipline, which can be changed and are but temporary. But it is not for private persons to interfere with them; the same authority which drew them up is required for abrogating them; if anybody else tries to do so it is in vain, and the authority is not the same unless it is a Council, or the general Head, or the custom of the whole Church. As to decrees on doctrines of faith they are invariable; what is once true is so unto eternity; and the Councils call canons (that is, rules) what they determine in this, because they are inviolable rules for our faith.

232 The Catholic Co7itr over sy. [pabth.

But all this is to be understood of true Councils, either general or provincial, approved by General Councils or the Apostolic See. Such as was not that of the four hundred prophets assembled by Achab: * for it was neither general, since those of Juda were not called to it, nor duly assembled, for it had no priestly authority. And those prophets were not legitimate or acknowledged as such by Josaphat, King of Juda, when he said: Is there not here some prophet of the Lord that we may inquire hy him? — as if he would say that the others were not prophets of the Lord. Such, again, was not the assembly of the priests against Our Lord; which was so far from having warrant in Scripture for the assistance of the Holy Spirit, that on the contrary it had been declared a private one by the Prophets; and truly right reason required that when the King was present his lieutenants should lose authority, and that the High Priest being present the dignity of the vicar should be reduced to the condition of the rest. Besides, it had not the form of a Council; it was a tumultuous meeting, wanting in the requisite order, without authority from the supreme head of the Church, who was Our Lord, there present with a visible presence, whom they were bound to acknowledge. In truth, when the great sacrificer is visibly present, the vicar cannot be called chief; when the governor of a fortress is present, it is for him, not for his lieutenant, to give the word. Besides all this, the synagogue was to be changed and transferred at that time, and this its crime had been predicted. But the Catholic Church is never to be transferred, so long as the world shall

• 3 Kings xxii. 6.

be world; we are not waiting for any third legislator, nor any other priesthood; but she is to be eternal. And yet Our Lord did this honour to the sacrificial dignity of Aaron that in spite of all the bad intention of those who held it the High Priest prophesied and uttered a most certain judgment {that it is expedient one man should die for the people, and the whole nation perish not)*, which he spoke not of himself and by chance, but he projyhesied, says the Evangelist, heing the High Priest of that year.

Thus Our Lord would conduct the Synagogue and the priestly authority with singular honour to its tomb, when he made it give place to the Catholic Church and the Evangelic priesthood: and then when the Synagogue came to an end (which was in the resolution to put Our Lord to death), the Church was founded in that very death: / have finished the work which thou gavest me to do,f said Our Lord after the Supper. And in the Supper Our Lord had instituted the New Testament; so that the Old, with its ceremonies and its priesthood, lost its force and its privileges, though the confirmation of the New was only made by the death of the testator, as S. Paul says. J We must then no longer take account of the privileges of the Synagogue, as they were founded on a Testament which became old, and was abrogated when they said these cruel words: Crucify him, or those others, blaspheming: What further need have we of witnesses? For this was that very dashing against the stumbling-stone, according to the ancient predictions.

My intention has been to destroy the force of the two objections which are raised against the infallible

• John xi. 50, 51. + John xvii. 4. + Heb. ix.

2 34 ^-^^ authority of Councils and of the Church, the others will be answered in our treatment of particular points of Catholic doctrine. There is nothing so certain but that it can meet with opposition, but truth remains firm and is glorified by the assaults of what is contrary to it.