§1
We approach nearer to peace—which would that we might attain. We must treat of peacemakers, for we see that in civil contentions, or in regard to foreign wars, authors of peace who are devoted to neither party are interposed. And certainly a negotiation for peace is better completed through outsiders. For, since they are free from the passions of anger and hatred, which losses and injuries have exasperated among those who have waged mutual wars, they estimate the matter by reason and equity alone and are inclined toward concord because they hold the causes of discord far away. Indeed, the outcome has taught all too often that peaceful conversations and conferences instituted for the sake of contracting treaties have made the beginnings of a more atrocious war, and that disappointed hope of peace has sharpened hatreds. This is especially accustomed to occur when those who still bear hostile dispositions come to mutual conferences to make peace. For there everything is suspect: a slight word, an easy gesture, the order of sitting disturbs peace. Man, a suspicious animal, snatches everything toward the worse when he presumes that the disposition is hostile; the very sight and conversation of an enemy strike the distressed spirit and rouse fires not yet lulled. Therefore political writers instruct men to negotiate peace through intermediaries,
or to commit the business to arbiters with full power. But in a cause of religion Catholics have perpetually appealed to arbiters against heretics. Unless this is done, I see no end of controversies. Those who refuse either arbiters or judgment distrust their own cause. He who admits no judge is indeed victor when he himself is judge; but to conquer thus and to be judge in one’s own cause is, in the judgment of all men, to lose the cause.
§2
But what arbiters, what judges do you name? Those whom you will not be able to reject without shame. If you reject them, your conscience will accuse you of being conquered: judges who are ἀδεκάστους [incorruptible], who neither possess nor hope for favors from either party; judges whom God has placed above fear and human passions; judges acquainted with the cause and most tenacious of equity,
Brave men and tenacious of purpose,
Whom neither the ardor of citizens commanding wicked things,
Nor the countenance of a threatening tyrant
Shakes from their firm mind.
Such men, I say, eager to die for justice and for religion, against whom, if you make an exception, you will have betrayed your cause.
Who, therefore, are arbiters or judges so great and of such a kind?
§3
They are the assemblies of the holy Fathers, the councils of confessors, and the councils of the ancient martyrs. I bring forward men who deserved excellently of religion, who died in their piety, who either suffered the supreme punishments for truth or were prepared to suffer them. Their sincerity in teaching was so divine that they were unwilling either to conceal truth for the price of the whole world or to dissemble their faith; their constancy was free from fear to such a degree that no threats, no loss of possessions, and no proposed atrocity of torments could induce them to cease from assailing and expelling falsehood. Whoever refuses witnesses so holy and judges so incorruptible now professes himself condemned by his own judgment. This, therefore, I establish: that those judges ought to be refused neither by plaintiff nor defendant.
§4
The adversaries themselves will also grant me the second point: that they cannot name anyone by whose judgment they are willing to stand. Or certainly, if they so will, come now—let that which they assert themselves to will be done. Let them name the man by whose judgment they dare to stand; let them name one, but someone other than each man himself.
In Holy Scripture we read: “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him unto righteousness,” Genesis 15:6, Romans 4:3, Galatians 3:6. The interpretation of this is various. A certain man interprets it thus: the work, or τὸ believing, was imputed to him unto righteousness, because God accepted it as though he had fulfilled the whole law. Thus Bertius and others. Certain men say: Christ’s merit was imputed to him unto righteousness; others: God’s essential righteousness was imputed to him unto righteousness; others: the habit of faith was imputed to him unto righteousness; others: faith alone was imputed to him unto righteousness, so that no merits of works came into justification; others: faith was imputed to him unto righteousness, so that not even works were a condition without which it could not occur. And these interpreters so dissent among themselves that they attack one another as heretics, atheists, Socinians, and Antichristians.
They all assert that Scripture, the sense and words of Scripture, and the analogy of faith stand on their own side, and that the others either do not understand the meaning of the Holy Spirit or corrupt it. No beginning has yet been given to peace. No one admits a judge except a man whom he knows to be bound to his own sect and hired for his own errors. Therefore, unless they wish to consume their lifetime in quarrels, let them seek arbiters who will judge sincerely without passions.
§5
Let the Bishop of Hippo come forward and expound Paul and reconcile the dissenters: “What faith, unless that which the Apostle defined most fully in another place, saying: Neither circumcision avails anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith which works through love?” Let him come and teach that faith alone is not righteousness but the foundation and beginning of justification. “Man begins from faith,” he says, “but because the demons too believe, it is necessary to add hope and charity,” Sermon 16 on the Words of the Apostle; and Sermon 22 on the Words of the Apostle: “The house of God is founded by believing, raised up by hoping, and perfected by loving.” Let Ambrose, Augustine’s teacher, come, Sermon 29 on Psalm 118: “Faith is the beginning of the Christian; the fullness is righteousness.” Let Cyril come from Egypt, Book 4 on John, chapter 9: “Faith will be the gate and the way into life.”
The Calvinists teach that faith cannot perish and that righteousness is not destroyed by any crimes; the Lutherans deny it. Why do they fight hand to hand concerning Scriptures which the former deny, the latter overthrow, and neither believe? Let them hear the ancients; let them hear the judgment from the holy martyrs; let them learn truth from the ancient Church. Let the Calvinists see that they err and depart far from the sense of the word; let them read against themselves The Orthodox Consensus of the Church in This Doctrine, produced by Peter Bertius, the most eloquent of the Calvinists, Book On the Perseverance of the Saints, etc., page 89. There let them read Ignatius, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Tertullian, Theodoret, Cyprian, Athanasius, Basil, Gregory Nazianzen, Ambrose, Chrysostom, Jerome, Augustine, Prosper of Aquitaine, Gregory, Bernard, and the Acts of the School of Paris in the year 1354. He adds to these even heretical witnesses. Bertius, a milder Calvinist, wrote these things against his own rigid Hollanders and Bremeners. If he examines the other heads of doctrine by the same reasoning, and tests novel interpretations by the judgments of the ancients, he will proceed by a straight road to the orthodox faith.
§6
If they consider these things, they will easily rescind what was wrongly judged and hold their own interpretations suspect. For if they understand that this was the perpetual doctrine of the Church of Christ, and that it was never dealt with so unhappily that these doctrines did not always possess a place in it—the words are Bertius’s—what arrogance could be so obstinate as to judge that the whole Church until now read Scripture without a true understanding, while they alone were endowed with that knowledge which until now had been unknown to the world?
§7
Therefore we direct this prescription: if Jesus Christ sent the Apostles to preach, no other preachers ought to be received than those whom Christ appointed, because no other knows the Father except the Son and he to whom the Son has revealed Him; nor does He seem to have revealed to others the interpretation of Scripture which He revealed to the Apostles whom He sent to preach. But what they preached—that is, what Christ revealed to them—I will here also prescribe ought to be proved in no other way than through those same churches which the Apostles themselves founded by themselves preaching to them, both, as men say, by living voice and afterward through epistles. If these things are so, it follows that every doctrine which conspires with those apostolic churches, the matrices and originals of the faith, must be accounted truth, as without doubt holding that which the churches received from the Apostles, the Apostles from Christ, and Christ from God; but that every remaining doctrine which savors against the truth of the churches, the Apostles, Christ, and God must be prejudged as falsehood. These are the words of Tertullian, On the Prescription Against Heretics, chapter 21. Therefore, he who superinduces another meaning of the Lord’s words and of apostolic preaching, contrary to the interpretation of the matrix and original churches,
introduces a doctrine prejudged as falsehood. He who refuses those churches as arbiters of his interpretation rejects the truth of the Apostles, Christ, and God.
§8
“But we appeal to God’s judgment,” they say. “We do not regard human arbitrations. The truth contained in the canonical Scriptures is unmoved; we embrace it. The judgments of men are often those of persons who favor unjustly, often of those who envy maliciously, often of those who are deceived; they are always mutable, never infallible. We appeal to God’s tribunal; we follow God’s word. It is wicked, after the deity’s judgment has been abandoned as though doubtful, to seek truth from a creature; after the declaration of God, who is infallibly true and immutably good, to transfer the arbitration to a human tribunal is sacrilege. For there either passion or ignorance frequently oppresses truth, and imperious wickedness condemns innocence when it has been deprived of assistance. To summon God into court is more than sacrilege. Therefore the Church ought not to judge concerning our interpretations.”
These things are said with the best right; but a great injury is done when they are twisted back against us, as though anyone were of so barbarous an insanity as not to know that God is immutably good and true, while the judgments of men are either fallacious through ignorance or injurious through wickedness. And even if this matter could have been doubtful, their most atrocious calumny would have removed the doubt.
For who has appealed from the heavenly tribunal to the censures of men? Who has examined God’s pronouncements upon the balance of a created understanding? The matter at issue is not the truth of the divine law, concerning which he who doubts is unbelieving and he who examines is sacrilegious. It is holy to us without controversy and approved without examination. We bring men’s thoughts into judgment; we inquire what they teach concerning the divine law: judges not of the law, but of deeds and sayings.
§9
The adversaries’ accusation is grave, but it possesses much insult and no reason. It is judged unbecoming even in their own conventicles, and it has been so refuted and convicted by the orthodox that it is an indication of a ruined cause to flee to the ruins of old defenses and chant worn-out trifles again. The state of our cause is this:
The question is not whether Scripture is true, but whether Scripture too has said what the innovators say. Whether Scripture says that which no one believed it to have said a hundred years ago. Whether the Holy Spirit formerly regarded no Church, so as to lead it into the truth which the innovators boast. Whether meanwhile, until Luther and Calvin apostatized, Christ willed all the churches to understand the Scriptures in one way and believe in another; whether He willed the faithful sometimes to die for one faith other than that which He Himself had preached and written through Himself and the Apostles. Whether, in the interpretation of Scripture, so many and such great churches, various in such diverse places and languages, so near to the age of the Apostles, and testifying to truth by the blood of so many martyrs, not only erred but even erred into one faith and into the same understanding of Scripture. Whether the error truly reigned for so long. Whether among the innovators an interpretation of Scripture so varying, a reading so manifold, and versions of so many chapters at variance conspire into one truth—and from what corner, amid such vast darkness, the light of truth shines forth.
Who is so ignorant of law and custom that he does not know that, when a dispute is instituted before a judge, the equity of the laws is not examined, nor is the purpose to overthrow the laws, but to decide controversies according to the prescription of the laws?
Germany labors and is worn down by many lawsuits of many years; and in the numerous mass of laws, a pretext for overthrowing justice is never lacking to inequity, while a swift outcome and an undamaged victory are rare even for a just cause. Yet amid so great difficulty, delay, and variety of judgments, who is there who accuses the laws, advises that customary law be abolished, or overturns the law itself? All defend themselves by law and contend that the whole apparatus of law supports their own case—not only private persons and those who are dragged into the city by law, but much more also the lords of affairs, who are besieged by troops of jurisconsults and counselors. They are entangled in more lawsuits the better they are furnished against lawsuits. These are prosecuted with so much anger, so much violence of contests, and so much cunning of intellects that legal disputes frequently issue into wars and civil slaughter.
At the present day an enormous lawsuit concerning the right to the dominions of Jülich is pending; books have been published on both sides. Three most noble princes each claim the entire inheritance for himself and exclude the others from the whole. No prudent man doubts what must be done in this place: war must be avoided. For the lawsuit will not be settled by it, since whoever succumbs in battle will say that he was overcome not by right but by force or stratagem. There can be no end of lawsuits unless it is determined by the authority of a lawful judge what the laws command. By explaining the mind of so many laws and constitutions, he will display his judgment and by his own decision disentangle the controversy which the multitude of laws entangled. Those who refuse his arbitration distrust their own cause, and on both sides the boast of laws is vain if the soul of the law—that is, the judge’s sentence—is fled.
The condition of our dispute is the same, but on a more complete right. We place in the midst the immutable law of God, the word of eternal truth, and the Lord’s judgment nowhere at war with itself.
We each say that it pronounces in our favor; we assert that our adversaries are condemned by it; we have persisted in the same clamor for nearly a hundred years. In individual years new competitors arise and arrogate to themselves the understanding of Scripture and the defense of truth, so that we must vindicate our possession of the faith as many times as, by a new assault and by fanatical intellects sent in, the robber of Tartarus either disturbs or invades it. Hence it is not difficult to know on whose side the true understanding of Scripture stands: on the side, certainly, of him who not only contends with an empty voice that he possesses the mind of Scripture, but also comes to join issue according to law. He not only says, “The truth is mine,” but even submits the matter to a judge. Indeed, he demonstrates that it was adjudicated long ago.
If you should claim a farm from your neighbor and say:
By law the farm which you possess is mine,
but he should answer: “Not at all; for the law which you produce does not award the farm to you, but confirms it to me—or certainly, if it seems so to you, let us be brought before a court. Come into court.” But you should proceed: “I alone understand the law; by law the farm is mine; I reject a judge; surrender the farm.” Who would endure you, so importunately injurious concerning farms, small fields, and rainwater-drips? Yet in the business of salvation, in the highest matter of all, you desire this to possess force: that you assume judgment over all interpreters for yourself, that your interpretation be ἀνυπεύθυνος [not answerable], and exempt from every censure. Moreover, you even slander the innocent, whom, when you see them appeal from your deliriums to the ancient Fathers and judges of the Church, you feign by an unspeakable lie to subject divine truth to human arbitrations and to summon God into court. But I conclude thus:
§10
When the interpretation of divine Scripture is disputed, it belongs to a good conscience to appeal to the ancient Fathers and councils, but to avowed wickedness to rest upon oneself alone. Since the Lutherans admit neither Calvinists as judges, and the Calvinists judge Lutherans unworthy of judgment, this cause cannot be referred except to the ancient Fathers, known from the monuments of ancient writers, and decided from the prejudgments of the Church’s councils.
For who will judge? John Francis Astaspis, against Pouchain for John Palmer, page 263, judges the Lutherans unworthy: “For even if Melanchthon was fainthearted and fearful, even if he changed his opinion, even if certain of his colleagues and disciples resisted those Ubiquitarians in the school at Wittenberg for some time, lest they make the Saxon churches infamous by this new dogma, it does not therefore follow that there are no contests and quarrels among those men. They are rendered unworthy to deliberate alone concerning the establishment of peace among the German churches, or alone to arrogate to themselves judgment and condemnation concerning the dissensions of others. For how will those who cannot repress their own contentions heal the dissensions of others? How will those who clash among themselves with such animosity and harshness of insults be fit to lead others dissenting concerning graver matters to concord, much less to condemn them? To each of them, not without cause—indeed, most opportunely—that familiar proverb can be objected: ‘Physician, heal yourself’; and, ‘Hypocrite, first take the beam out of your own eye before you attempt to pluck the mote from another’s eye.’”
But if Palmer deservedly and rightly judges the Lutherans unworthy, because of the shameful marks of ingratitude, to sit alone as a tribunal for judging all men—as Palmer himself says and Astaspis proves—for, he says, “Those who have shown themselves so ungrateful toward their parents that they have either brought an atrocious and indecent insult upon them, or arisen as slanderers against them, or finally defamed them by public judgment, are rightly pronounced infamous and unworthy of their paternal inheritance,” thus Justinian, Novels 111, § Justas; but the Lutherans, he says on page 270, “deserve to be numbered among the ungrateful and infamous who inflict those indignities upon their teachers”—Melanchthon and others. And not only the word of God, but even the philosophy of the pagans, teaches that teachers and doctors—especially theologians, who spiritually beget us in Christ—must be honored in the place of parents. If, because of contempt for Melanchthon, the Lutherans are infamous in the judgment of the Calvinists and ought not to be admitted to judgment, what will be done in general with all the innovators, who sinned not by contempt for one fainthearted and changeable little man, but who defame all antiquity, the teachers of the churches, the bishops of the world, armies of martyrs, and the teachers of all men by voice, writings, conventicles, and judgments?
But I omit these things, to which their importunity drew me away. I return and admonish again: it is a most pestilential imposture, a diabolical calumny, by which they hold the souls of the unskilled in their net, when they accuse us—because we appeal to the ancient teachers of the Church concerning the interpretation of Scripture—of fleeing from the word of God to the judgments of men and subjecting the Scriptures to be judged by human arbitration. For if anyone changes or mutilates one iota or one apex from the Lord’s words, or adds to them, we say anathema to him. We inquire only concerning the understanding. The Lord said: “This is my body.” We understand and believe what He Himself said: namely, that this is Christ’s body. The Calvinists deny that this which the Lord said was His body is the body of Christ; they assert that it is a figure or symbol of the body. We say that it is the body delivered for us and the blood poured out for us. We know that figures and symbols are not the price of our redemption. They proceed and persist in fastening figures upon the Lord’s testament.
What end is there of contending? Let us hear uncorrupted judges, pronouncing sincerely concerning a known cause and defendants not known to them: judges, I say, who do not seek to inquire and pronounce whether the Lord truly said, “This is my body,” for in this they declare that they agree with us; but let them define that which is disputed—whether we or they rightly understand the Lord’s most true words. But if they refuse to stand by the judgment of others, let them do so openly and abstain from calumny. For we do not judge the word of God, but summon their versions, interpretations, corruptions, and deliriums before the tribunals of the ancient Church. Here we plant our foot; here we conquer, because they abandon their recognizance, because through calumny they flee the encounter and reject the examination of their errors, convicted by the testimony of their own conscience.