Theologians From England

"If a permission be given of disputing the particulars, the questions become next to infinite. A Mirror when it is broken represents the object multiplied and divided: but if it be entire and through one center transmits the species to the eye, the Vision is one and natural. Laws are the Mirror in which men are to dress and compose their actions, and therefore must not be broken with such clauses of exception which may without remedy be abused to the prejudice of authority, and peace, and all human sanctions."

"Force in matters of opinion can do no good, but is very apt to do hurt."

"The peace of the Church and the unity of her doctrine is best conserved when it is judged by the proportion it hath to that rule of unity which the Apostles gave, that is the Creed for Articles of mere belief, and the precepts of Jesus Christ, and the practical rules of piety, which are most plain and easy, and without controversy, set down in the Gospels, and Writings of the Apostles. But to multiply articles, and adopt them into the family of the faith, and to require assent to such articles which (as S. Paul's phrase is) are of doubtful disputation, equal to that assent we give to matters of faith, is to build a Tower upon the top of a Bulrush, and the further the effect of such proceedings does extend, the worse they are; the very making such a Law is unreasonable, the inflicting spiritual censures upon them that cannot do so much violence to their understanding as to obey it, is unjust and ineffectual; but to punish the person with death, or with corporal infliction, indeed it is effectual, but it is therefore tyrannical."

"It is not only lawful to tolerate disagreeing persuasions, but the authority of God only is competent to take notice of it, and infallible to determine it, and fit to judge, and therefore no human authority is sufficient to do all those things which can justify the inflicting temporal punishments upon such as do not conform in their persuasions to a rule or authority which is not only fallible, but supposed by the disagreeing person to be actually deceived."

"Whoever persecutes a disagreeing person, arms all the world against himself, and all pious people of his own persuasion. When the scales of authority return to his adversary, and attest his contradictory; and then, what can he urge for mercy for himself, or his party that sheweth none to others? If he says, that he is to be spared because he believes true, but the other was justly persecuted because he was in error, he is ridiculous. For he is as confidently believed to be a heretic, as he believes his adversary such, and whether he be or no, being the thing in question, of this he is not to be his own judge, but he that hath authority on his side, will be sure to judge against him."

"Although every man is bound to follow his guide, unless he believes his guide to mislead him; yet when he sees reason against his guide, it is best to follow his reason: for though in this he may fall into error, yet he will escape the sin; he may doe violence to truth, but never to his own conscience; and an honest error is better than an hypocritical profession of truth, or a violent luxation of the understanding, since if he retains his honesty and simplicity, he cannot err in a matter of faith or absolute necessity: God's goodness hath secured all honest and careful persons from that; for other things, he must follow the best guides he can, and he cannot be obliged to follow better then God hath given him."

"Either the disagreeing person is in error, or not, but a true believer; in either of the cases to persecute him is extremely imprudent. For if he be a true believer, then it is a clear case that we do open violence to God, and his servants, and his truth. If he be in error, what greater folly and stupidity then to give to error the glory of Martyrdom, and the advantages which are accidentally consequent to a persecution?"

"I consider, that although no man may be trusted to judge for all others, unless this person were infallible and authorized so to doe, which no man nor no company of men is, yet every man may be trusted to judge for himself, I say every man that can judge at all, (as for others they are to be saved as it pleaseth God) but others that can judge at all must either choose their guides who shall judge for them, (and then they oftentimes do the wisest, and always save themselves a labour, but then they choose too) or if they be persons of greater understanding, then they are to choose for themselves in particular, what the others doe in general, and by choosing their guide; and for this any man may be better trusted for himself then any man can be for another"

"Now although men's understandings be not equal, and that it is fit the best understandings should prevail, yet that will not satisfy the weaker understandings, because all men will not think that another understanding is better than his own, at least not in such a particular, in which with fancy he hath pleased himself. But commonly they that are least able, are most bold, and the more ignorant is the more confident, therefore it is but reason if he would have another bear with him, he also should bear with another, and if he will not be prescribed to, neither let him prescribe to others."

"It is unnatural and unreasonable to persecute disagreeing opinions. Unnatural; for Understanding being a thing wholly spiritual, cannot be restrained, and therefore neither punished by corporal afflictions. It is in alienâ republicâ, a matter of another world; you may as well cure the colic by brushing a man's clothes, or fill a man's belly with a syllogism: these things do not communicate in matter, and therefore neither in action nor passion; and since all punishments in a prudent government punish the offender to prevent a future crime, and so it proves more medicinal than vindictive, the punitive act being in order to the cure and prevention: and since no punishment of the body can cure a disease in the soul, it is disproportionable in nature, and in all civil government, to punish where the punishment can do no good. It may be an act of tyranny, but never of justice. For is an opinion ever the more true or false for being persecuted?"

"No man speaks more unreasonably, then he that denies to men the use of their Reason in choice of their Religion."

"I will not be so severe and dogmatical against them [as Gregory of Nazianzus]: For I believe many Councils to have been called with sufficient Authority, to have been managed with singular piety and prudence, and to have been finished with admirable success and truth. And where we find such Councils, he that will not with all veneration believe their Decrees, and receive their sanctions, understands not that great duty he owes to them who have the care of our souls, whose faith we are bound to follow (saith S. Paul) that is so long as they fol∣low Christ, and certainly many Councils have done so: But this was then when the public interest of Christendom was better conserved in determining a true Article, then in finding a discreet temper, or a wise expedient to satisfy disagreeing persons; (As the Fathers at Trent did, and the Lutherans and Calvinists did at Sendomir in Polonia; and the Sublapsarians and Supralapsarians did at Dort:) It was in Ages when the sum of Religion did not consist in maintaining the Grandezza of the Papacy; where there was no order of men with a fourth Vow upon them to advance S. Peters Chair; when there was no man, nor any company of men, that esteemed themselves infallible, and therefore they searched for truth as if they meant to find it, and would believe it if they could see it proved, not resolved to prove it because they had upon chance or interest believed it; then they had rather have spoken a truth, then upheld their reputation, but only in order to truth. This was done sometimes, and when it was done, God's Spirit never failed them, but gave them such assistances as were sufficient to that good end for which they were Assembled, and did implore his aid."

"For [the passage] pasce oves [feed my sheep] there is little in that Allegation, besides the boldness of the Objectors; for were not all the Apostles bound to feed Christ's sheep? had they not all the Commission from Christ, and Christ's Spirit immediately? S. Paul had certainly; did not S. Peter himself say to all the Bishops of Pon∣tus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithinia, that they should feed the flock of God, and the great Bishop and Shepherd should give them an immarcescible Crown; plainly implying, that from whence they derived their Authority, from him they were sure of a reward."

"But I am too long in this impertinency: If I were bound to call any man Master upon earth, and to believe him upon his own affirmative and authority; I would of all men least follow him that pretends he is infallible and cannot prove it. For that he cannot prove it, makes me as uncertain as ever, and that he pretends to infallibility makes him careless of using such means which will morally secure those wise persons, who knowing their own aptness to be deceived, use what endeavours they can to secure themselves from error, and so be∣come the better and more probable guides."

"There is no General Council that hath determined that a General Council is infallible: No Scripture hath recorded it; no Tradition universal hath transmitted to us any such proposition; So that we must receive the Authority at a lower rate, and upon a less probability then the things consigned by that Authority. And it is strange that the Decrees of Councils should be esteemed authentic and infallible, and yet it is not infallibly certain, that the Councils themselves are infallible, because the belief of the Council’s infallibi∣lity is not proved to us by any medium, but such as may deceive us."

"The Authority of a Council is not greater then the Authority of the Apostles, nor their dictates more sacred or authentic."

"Is it possible for any man to contrive a way to make the Decree of the Council of Trent, commanding the public Offices of the Church to be in Latin, friends with the fourteenth chapter of the Corinthians?"

"[A Papal approval] cannot make [a council] divine, and necessary to be heartily believed. It may make it lawful, not make it true, that is, it may possibly by such means become a Law but not a truth. I speak now upon supposition the Popes confirmation were necessary, and required to the making of conciliary and necessary sanctions. But if it were, the case were very hard: For suppose a heresy should invade, and possess the Chair of Rome, what remedy can the Church have in that case, if a General Council be of no Authority without the Pope confirm it? will the Pope confirm a Council against himself; will he condemn his own heresy? That the Pope may be a Heretic appears in the Canon Law, which says he may for heresy be deposed, and therefore by a Council which in this case hath plenary Authority without the Pope."

"Well! Thus far we are come: Although we are secured in fundamental points [of doctrine] from involuntary error, by the plain, express, and dogmatical places of Scripture, yet in other things we are not but may be invincibly mistaken, because of the obscurity and difficulty in the controverted parts of Scripture, by reason of the incertainty of the means of its Interpretation, since Tradition is of an uncertain reputation, and sometimes evidently false, Councils are contradictory to each other, and therefore certainly are equally deceived many of them, and therefore all may; and then the Popes of Rome are very likely to mislead us, but cannot ascertain us of truth in matter of Question; and in this world we believe in part, and prophecy in part, and this imperfection shall never be done away till we be translated to a more glorious state; either we must throw our chances, and get truth by accident or predestination, or else we must lie safe in a mutual toleration, and private liberty of persuasion, unless some other Anchor can be thought upon where we may fasten our floating Vessels, and ride safely."

"The sum is this: Since holy Scripture is the repository of divine truths, and the great rule of Faith, to which all Sects of Christians do appeal for probation of their several opi∣nions, and since all agree in the Articles of the Creed as things clearly and plainly set down, and as containing all that which is of simple and prime necessity; and since on the other side there are in Scripture many other mysteries, and matters of Question upon which there is a veil; since there are so many Copies with infinite varieties of reading; since a various Interpunction, a parenthesis, a letter, an accent may much alter the sense; since some places have diverse literal senses, many have spiritual, mystical and Allegorical meanings; since there are so many tropes, metonymies, ironies, hyperboles, proprieties and improprieties of language, whose understanding depends upon such circumstances that it is almost impossible to know its proper Interpretation; now that the knowledge of such circumstances and particular stories is irrevocably lost: since there are some mysteries which at the best advantage of expression, are not easy to be apprehended, and whose explication, by reason of our imperfections, must needs be dark, sometimes weak, sometimes unintelligle: and lastly, since those ordinary meanes of expoun∣ding Scripture, as searching the Originals, conference of places, parity of reason, and analogy of Faith, are all dubious, uncertain, and very fallible, he that is the wisest and by consequence the likeliest to expound truest in all probability of reason, will be very far from confidence, because every one of these and many more are like so many degrees of improbability and incertainty, all depressing our certainty of finding out truth in such mysteries and amidst so many difficulties. And therefore a wise man that considers this, would not willingly be prescribed to by others; and therefore if he also be a just man, he will not impose upon others; for it is best every man should be left in that liberty from which no man can justly take him, unless he could secure him from error: So that here also there is a necessity to conserve the liberty of Prophesying, and Interpreting Scripture; a necessity derived from the consideration of the difficulty of Scripture in Questions controverted, and the uncertainty of any internal medium, of Interpretation."

"If Scripture be the repository of all Divine Truths sufficient for us, Tradition must be considered as its instrument, to convey its great mysteriousness to our understandings."

"Now the Question is not whether General Councils have a promise that the Holy Ghost will assist them; For every private man hath that promise, that if he does his duty he shall be assisted sufficiently in order to that end to which he needs assistance; and therefore much more shall General Councils in order to that end for which they convene, and to which they need assistance, that is, in order to the conservation of the Faith, for the doctrinal rules of good life, and all that concerns the essential duty of a Christian, but not in deciding Questions to satisfy contentious or curious or presumptuous spirits. But now can the Bishops so convened be factious, can they be abused with prejudice, or transported with interests, can they resist the Holy Ghost, can they extinguish the Spirit, can they stop their ears, and serve themselves upon the Holy Spirit and the pretence of his assistances, and cease to serve him upon themselves, by captivating their understandings to his dictates, and their wills to his precepts? Is it necessary they should perform any condition? is there any one duty for them to perform in these Assemblies, a duty which they have power to do or not do? If so, then they may fail of it, and not do their duty: And if the assistance of the Holy Spirit be conditional, then we have no more assurance that they are assisted, then that they do their duty and do not sin."

"We are bound to follow because we judge it true, not because the Church hath said it, and this is to judge of the Church by her Doctrine, not of the Doctrine by the Church. And indeed it is the best and only way."

"Nothing is more dishonourable to God, then to offer a sin in sacrifice to Him, and nothing more incongruous in the nature of the thing, then that truth and falsehood should support each other, or that true doctrine should live at the charges of a lie."

"For heresy is not an error of the understanding, but an error of the will. And this is clearly insinuated in Scripture, in the style whereof Faith and a good life are made one duty, and vice is called opposite to Faith, and heresy opposed to holiness and sanctity."

"For to believe what God hath commanded, is in order to a good life; and to live well is the product of that believing, and as proper emanation from it, as from its proper principle, and as heat is from the fire. And therefore, in Scripture, they are used promiscuously in sense, and in expression, as not only being subjected in the same person, but also in the same faculty; faith is as truly seated in the will as in the understanding, and a good life as merely derives from the understanding as the will. Both of them are matters of choice and of election, neither of them an effect natural and invincible or necessary antecedently (necessaria ut fiant, non necessario facta.)"

"The Church hath power to intend our Faith, but not to extend it; to make our belief more evident, but not more large and comprehensive. For Christ and his Apostles concealed nothing that was necessary to the integrity of Christian Faith, or salvation of our souls; Christ declared all the will of his Father, and the Apostles were Stewards and Dispensers of the same Mysteries, and were faithful in all the house, and therefore concealed nothing, but taught the whole Doctrine of Christ; so they said themselves."

"He that submits his understanding to all that he knows God hath said, and is ready to submit to all that he hath said if he but know it, denying his own affections and ends, and interests and humane persuasions, laying them all down at the foot of his great Master Jesus Christ, that man hath brought his understanding into subjection, and every proud thought unto the obedience of Christ, and this is εἰς ὑπακοὴν πίστεως, the obedience of Faith, which is the duty of a Christian."

"My trust is in God."

"A wicked person in his error becomes heretic, when the good man in the same error shall have all the rewards of Faith. For whatever an ill man believes, if he therefore believe it because it serves his own ends, be his belief true or false, the man hath an heretical mind, for to serve his own ends, his mind is prepared to believe a lie. But a good man that believes what according to his light, and upon the use of his moral industry he thinks true, whether he hits upon the right or no, because he hath a mind desirous of truth, and prepared to believe every truth is therefore acceptable to God, because nothing hindered him from it, but what he could not help, his misery and his weakness, which being imperfections merely natural, which God never punishes, he stands fair for a blessing of his morality, which God always accepts."

"Honorius was condemned for a Monothelite; yet in one of the Epistles which the sixth Synod alleged against him, (viz. the second) he gave them counsel that would have done the Church as much service as the determination of the Article did; for he advised them not to be curious in their disputings, nor dogmatical in their determinations about that Question; and because the Church was not used to dispute in that Question, it were better to preserve the simplicity of Faith, then to ensnare mens consciences by a new Article."

"When men think every thing to be their Faith and their Religion, commonly they are so busy in trifles and such impertinencies in which the scene of their mistake lies, that they neglect the greater things of the Law, charity, and compliances, and the gentleness of Christian Communion; for this is the great principle of mischief, and yet is not more pernicious then unreasonable."

"The truth is, all these ways of Interpreting of Scripture which of themselves are good helps, are made either by design, or by our infirmities ways of intricating and involving Scriptures in greater difficulty, because men do not learn their doctrines from Scripture, but come to the understanding of Scripture with preconceptions and ideas of doctrines of their own, and then no wonder that Scriptures look like Pictures, wherein every man in the room believes they look on him only, and that wheresoever he stands, or how often soever he changes his station. So that now what was intended for a remedy, becomes the promoter of our disease, and our meat becomes the matter of sicknesses: And the mischief is, the wit of man cannot find a remedy for it; for there is no rule, no limit, no certain principle, by which all men may be guided to a certain and so infallible an Interpretation, that he can with any equity prescribe to others to believe his Interpretations in places of controversy or ambiguity."

"Ambition breaks the ties of blood, and forgets the obligations of gratitude."

"The elegant simplicity of the three per cents."

"A dinner lubricates business."

"In the first place, it is not improper to observe, that the law of cases of necessity is not likely to be well furnished with precise rules; necessity creates the law, it supersedes rules; and whatever is reasonable and just in such cases, is likewise legal; it is not to be considered as matter of surprise, therefore, if much instituted rule is not to be found on such subjects."

"Praise God, from whom all blessings flow! Praise Him, all creatures here below! Praise Him above, ye heavenly host! Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!"

"All praise to thee, my God, this night, For all the blessings of the light; Keep me, O keep me, King of Kings, Beneath thy own almighty wings."

"I observe there is in Mr. Hooker no affected language; but a grave, comprehensive, clear manifestation of reason, and that backed with the authority of the Scriptures, the fathers and schoolmen, and with all law both sacred and civil."

"[T]he incomparable Mr. Hooker."

"There is a wheel within a wheel; a secret sacred wheel of Providence (most visible in marriages), guided by His hand that allows not the race to the swift nor bread to the wise, nor good wives to good men: and He that can bring good out of evil (for mortals are blind to this reason) only knows why this blessing was denied to patient Job, to meek Moses, and to our as meek and patient Mr Hooker."

"Hooker made the point that Church and state together make a single society, a Christian commonwealth. This was the heart of Hooker's political philosophy and Saravia would have applauded it. Both men believed that there was no one in the Church of England who was not at the same time a citizen of the English commonwealth, or any member of the commonwealth who was not also a member of the Church of England. Citizens exercised their civic duties as members of the commonwealth and their religious duties as members of the Church. But in all things they were members of a single Christian commonwealth of England... In this realm of England...there was but one society: a true Christian commonwealth headed by only one ruler, a sovereign queen."

"In the long crowded roll of great English men of letters there is no figure of greater significance to the instructed mind than Hooker... His own life's work [The Ecclesiastical Polity] is a monument of pure and splendid prose style and lucid philosophical thought, based on unsurpassed scholarship in the vast field of his theme. The book itself is a milestone in the history of a great English institution [the Anglican Church] and of religious thought."

"Hooker insisted that all legitimate political power comes originally from the community and may return to it again under certain dire circumstances. He speaks of a social compact whereby power was first transferred from the people to a government, perhaps a monarch. Such notions were later used to justify rebellion against kings. Is this where Hooker was headed—toward a modern theory of consent and revolution, à la John Locke and Thomas Jefferson? Certainly not! Hooker meant only that, as Aristotle said, we are all political animals by nature and cannot live in isolation outside society. Since selfishness puts us at war with one another in an ungoverned society, we form civil governments to maintain peace and provide the order necessary for our general tranquillity. Only in this general and theoretical sense did Hooker speak of popular sovereignty and social compact."

"Hooker's Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity is more than a magnificent piece of prose writing, more than a full statement of the views of a philosopher defending the position of the church against its Puritan enemies. It is a document of Church history of the first importance, a manifesto to which the Church returns at every crisis to seek justification and vindication."

"[H]e himself was by temperament inclined to deference, scrupulous in his regard for authority, an enthusiast for order. Moreover, he was a shy man, loving a quiet, retired life, and even then easily abashed: and it may well be that he thought of the great world and those who shone in it with a child-like sense of remoteness and alarm which he was not self-conscious enough to disguise."

"Mr. Chetwind fell commending of "Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity," as the best book, and the only one that made him a Christian, which puts me upon the buying of it, which I will do shortly."

"[H]e was a great admirer of Calvin, whose writings he regarded as one of the three pillars of the faith and worship of the reformed English Church, along with the Thirty-nine Articles and the Book of Common Prayer. All leaders of the Church, from John Jewel to John Whitgift, were in Calvin's debt, in Hooker's opinion. His quarrel was only with the Calvinist discipline and with the biblical extremism that some Puritans were trying to impose in England. The presbyterian polity might or might not be suitable for Geneva and other principalities, but here in England, Hooker believed, there was an existing ecclesiastical polity which conformed to the traditions and laws of his country."

"What admirable height of learning and depth of judgment dwelled within the lowly mind of this true humble man, great in all wise men's eyes, except his own; with what gravity and majesty of speech his tongue and pen uttered heavenly mysteries, whose eyes in the humility of his heart were always cast down to the ground; how all things that proceeded from him were breathed, as from the spirit of love, as if he like the bird of the Holy Ghost, the dove, had wanted gall; let them that knew him not in his person judge by these living images of his soul, his writings. For out of these, even those who otherwise agree not with him in opinion, do afford him the testimony of a mild and a loving spirit; and of his learning, what greater proof can we have than this, that his writings are most admired by those who themselves do most excel in judicious learning, and by them the more often they are read, the more highly they are extolled and desired?"