VIII. All things cannot be of ancient continuance, which are expedient and needful for the ordering of spiritual affairs: but the Church being a body which dieth not hath always power, as occasion requireth, no less to ordain that which never was, than to ratify what hath been before. To prescribe the order of doing in all things, is a peculiar prerogative which Wisdom hath1, as queen or sovereign commandress over other virtues. This in every several man’s actions of common life appertaineth unto Moral, in public and politic secular affairs unto Civil wisdom. In like manner, to devise any certain form for the outward administration of public duties in the service of God, or things belonging thereunto, and to find out the most convenient for that use, is a point of wisdom Ecclesiastical.
It is not for a man which doth know or should know what order is, and what peaceable government requireth, to ask, “why we should hang our judgment upon the Church’s sleeve;” and “why in matters of order, more than in matters of doctrine2.” The Church hath authority to establish that for an order at one time, which at another time it may abolish, and in both do well. But that which in doctrine the Church doth now deliver rightly as a truth, no man will say that it may hereafter recall, and as rightly avouch the contrary. Laws touching matter of order are changeable, by the power of the Church; articles concerning doctrine not so. We read often in the writings of catholic and holy men touching matters of doctrine, “this we believe, this we hold, this the Prophets and Evangelists have declared, this the Apostles have delivered, this Martyrs have sealed with their blood, and confessed in the midst of torments, to this we cleave as to the anchor of our souls, against this, though an Angel from heaven should preach unto us, we would not believe.” But did we ever in any of them read, touching matters of mere comeliness, order, and decency, neither commanded nor prohibited by any Prophet, any Evangelist, any Apostle, “Although the church wherein we live, do ordain them to be kept, although they be never so generally observed, though all the churches in the world should command them, though Angels from heaven should require our subjection thereunto, I would hold him accursed that doth obey?” Be it in matter of the one kind or of the other, what Scripture doth plainly deliver, to that the first place both of credit and obedience is due; the next whereunto is whatsoever any man can necessarily conclude by force of reason; after these the voice of the Church succeedeth. That which the Church by her ecclesiastical authority shall probably think and define to be true or good, must in congruity of reason overrule all other inferior judgments whatsoever.
To them which ask why we thus hang our judgment on the Church’s sleeve, I answer with Salomon, because “two are better than one3.” “Yea simply (saith Basil4) and universally, whether it be in works of Nature, or of voluntary choice and counsel, I see not any thing done as it should be, if it be wrought by an agent singling itself from consorts.” The Jews have a sentence of good advice, “Take not upon thee to be a judge alone; there is no sole judge but one only; say not to others, Receive my sentence, when their authority is above thine5.” The bare consent of the whole Church should itself in these things stop their mouths, who living under it, dare presume to bark against it. “There is (saith Cassianus) no place of audience left for them, by whom obedience is not yielded to that which all have agreed upon6.” Might we not think it more than wonderful, that nature should in all communities appoint a predominant judgment to sway and overrule in so many things; or that God himself should allow so much authority and power unto every poor family for the ordering of all which are in it; and the city of the living God, which is his Church, be able neither to command nor yet to forbid any thing, which the meanest shall in that respect, and for her sole authority’s sake, be bound to obey?
We cannot hide or dissemble that evil, the grievous inconvenience whereof we feel. Our dislike of them, by whom too much heretofore hath been attributed unto the Church, is grown to an error on the contrary hand; so that now from the Church of God too much is derogated. By which removal of one extremity with another, the world seeking to procure a remedy, hath purchased a mere exchange of the evil which before was felt.
Suppose we that the sacred word of God can at their hands receive due honour, by whose incitement the holy ordinances of the Church endure every where open contempt? No; it is not possible they should observe as they ought the one, who from the other withdraw unnecessarily their own or their brethren’s obedience.
Surely the Church of God in this business is neither of capacity, I trust, so weak, nor so unstrengthened, I know, with authority from above, but that her laws may exact obedience at the hands of her own children, and enjoin gainsayers silence, giving them roundly to understand, That where our duty is submission, weak oppositions betoken pride.
We therefore crave thirdly to have it granted, That where neither the evidence of any law divine, nor the strength of any invincible argument otherwise found out by the light of reason, nor any notable public inconvenience, doth make against that which our own laws ecclesiastical have although but newly instituted for the ordering of these affairs, the very authority of the Church itself, at the least in such cases, may give so much credit to her own laws, as to make their sentence touching fitness and conveniency weightier than any bare and naked conceit to the contrary; especially in them who can owe no less than child-like obedience to her that hath more than motherly power.
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Footnotes
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Ἡ μὲν ϕρόνησις περὶ τὰ ποιητέα ὅρους αὐτοι̑ς τιθει̑σα. Philo [de SS. LL. Allegor. lib. i. t. i. 52.] ↩
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T. C. lib. iii. p. 171. ↩
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Eccles. iv. 9. ↩
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Basil. Ep. 68. [al. 97. ἁπαξαπλω̑ς οὐδὲν οὔτε τω̑ν ἐκ ϕύσεως οὔτε τω̑ν ἐκ προαιρέσεως κατορθουμένων ὁρω̑, ἄνευ τη̑ς τω̑ν ὁμοϕύλων συμπνοίας ἐπιτελούμενον· ὅπου γε καὶ αὐτὴ ή προσευχὴ μὴ ἔχουσα τοὐς συμϕωνου̑ντας ἀδρανεστέρα ἐστὶ πολλῳ̑ ἑαυτη̑ς. t. iii. 191.] Decr. pars i. dist. 8. c. [2. Corp. Jur. Can. p. 5.] Quæ contra. “Turpis est omnis pars universo suo non congruens.” ↩
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R. Ismael in Cap. Patr. [fol. 54. ed. Venet. 1567. שֶׁאֵיו רָו יֽהִיִרי אֶלָּא אָהַד וְאַל האפַר קַנּלוּ דַעְתִי אַל תּֽהִי רָו יֽחידי[שָׁהֶן רֵשִׁאִין ולאׁ אַהָּה׃ ↩
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Cassian. (350-430.) de Incarn. l. i. c. 6. [in Bibl. Patr. Lat. iv. 60. “Præjudicium suum damnationis exhibuit, qui judicium universitatis impugnat: et audientiæ locum non habet qui a cunctis statuta convellit.”] ↩