PKOTESTANT DOCTRINE ON UNITY OF FAITH. 271
need of arguments and witnesses to confirm them : the word of God is witness to itself; for whatever the truth incorrupted speaks, must of necessity be an incorrupted testimony of truth." And aUhough some of them allowed the testimony of the church as a motive unto believ- ing the gosi:»el, or things preached from it, yet as to the belief of the Scripture, with faith divine and supernatural, to be the word of God, they required but these two things: — 1. That self-evidence in the Scripture itself which is needful for an indemonstrable principle, from which and by which all other things are to be demonstrated. And that self-evidence Clemens puts in the place of all demonstra- tions. 2. The efficacy of the Spirit in the heart, to enable it to give a saving assent unto the truth proposed unto it. Thus Austin, in his Confessions, lib. vi. cap. 5, " Persuasisti mihi, o Domine Deus, non qui crederent libiis tuis, quos tanta in omnibus fere gentibus authoritate fundasti, sed qui non crederent esse culpandos; nee audiendos esse, siqui mihi forte dicerent, ' Undo scis illos libros unius [veri et] veracissimi Dei Spiritu esse, humane generi minis- tratos?' id ipsum enim maxime credendum erat;" — "O Lord God, thou hast persuaded me, that not they who believe thy books, which with so great authority thou hast settled almost in all nations, were to be blamed, but those who believe them not; and that I should not hearken unto any of them who might chance say unto me, ' Whence dost thou know those books to be given out unto mankind froin the Spirit of the true God ?' for that is the thing which principally was to be believed." In which words the holy man hath given us full direction what to say, when you come upon us with that question, which some used, it seems, in his days; — a great testimony of the antiquity of your principles. Add hereunto what he writes in the 11 til book and 3d chapter of the same treatise, and we have the sum of the resolution and principle of his faith. " Audiam," saith he, " et intelligam quomodo fecisti ccclum et teiram. Scripsit hoc Moses; scripsit et abiit, transivit hinc ad te; neque enim nunc ante me est. Nam si esset, tenerem eum, et rogarem eum, et per te obsecrarem ut mihi ista panderet; et ijrffiberem aures corporis mei sonis erumpentibus ex ore ejus. At si Hebroea voce loqueretur, frustra pulsaret sensum meum, nee inde mentem meam quidquam tangeret : si autem Latiue, scirem quid diceret. Sed unde scirem an verum diceret ? quod si et hoc scirem, num et ab illo scirem ? Intus utique mihi, intus in domicilio cogitationis, nee Hebrasa, nee Gra3ca, necLatina, nee barbara, Veritas, sine oris et linguas organis, sine strepitu sjdlabarum, diceret, 'Verum dicit;' et ego statim certus confidenter illi homini tuo dicerem, ' Verum dicis.' Cum ergo ilium interrogare non possim, te, quo plenus vera dixit, Veritas, rogo te, Deus mens, rogo parce peccatis meis; et qui illi servo tuo dedisti hsec dicere, da et mihi
272 A VINDICATION OF THE ANIMADVERSIONS ON FIAT LUX.
hgec intelligere ; " — " I would hear and understand, O Lord, how thou hast made the heavens and the earth. Moses wrote this ; he wrote it and is gone, and he is gone to thee ; for now he is not present with me. If he were, I would lay hold on him, and ask him, and beseech him, for thy sake, that he would unfold these things unto me; and I would cause the ears of my body to attend unto the words of his mouth. But if he should speak in the Hebrew tongue, he would only in vain strike upon my outward sense, and my mind within would not be affected with it. If he speak in Latin, I should know what he said. But whence should I know that he spake the truth? should I know this also from him ? The truth, that is neither He- brew, Greek, Latin, nor expressed in any barbarous language, would say unto me inwardly, in the dwelling-place of my thoughts, without the organs of mouth or tongue, or noise of syUables, ' He speaks the truth;' and I with confidence should say unto him, thy servant, 'Thou speakest the truth.' Seeing, therefore, I cannot inquire of him, I beseech thee, that art truth, with whom he being filled spake the truth, I beseech thee, O my God, pardon my sins; and thou who gavest unto him, thy servant, to speak these things, grant unto me to understand them." Thus this holy man ascribes his assent unto the unquestionable principle of the Scripture, as to the effecting of it in himself, to the work of God's Spirit in his heart. As Basil also doth on Ps. exv. : Hiang tj uTsp rag Xoyixag [jjidohovg t'/jv -^^/vy^^v iig duyxaraZaSiv sXxou(Jaj 7] iridTig ohy^ 55 yic>i[J'iTpixa7g avdyxaig, dXX' jj ra7g rou Tivixjuiarog svspysiatg syyivo/j.ivi^' — "Faith, which draws the soul unto consent above the efficacy of all ways or methods of persuasion ; faith, that is wrought and begotten in us, not by geometrical enforcements or demonstra- tions, but by the effectual operations of the Spirit." And both these principles are excellently expressed by one amongst yourselves, even Baptista Mantuanus, Lib. de Patientia, cap. 32, 33. " Ssepenumero," saith he, " mecum cogitavi, undo tam suadibilis esset ista ScrijDtura, ut tam potenter influat in animos auditorum; unde tantum habeat energise, ut non ad opinandum, sed ad solide credendum, omnes in- flectat;" — " I have often thought with myself, whence the Scripture is so persuasive ; whence it doth so powerfully influence the minds of the hearers; whence it hath so much efiicacy, that it should incline and bow all men, not to think as probable, but solidly to believe, the things it proposeth." " Non," saith he, " est hoc imputandum rationum evidentise quas non adducit; non artis industrias et verbis suavibus et ad persuadendum accommodatis, quibus non utitur;" — "It is not to be ascribed unto the evidence of reasons, which it bringeth not ; neither to the excellency of art, sweet words, and accommodated unto persuasion, which it makes no use of" " Sed vide an id in causa sit, quod persuasi sumus eam a Prima Veritate fluxisse ; " — " But