§1
Thus far I have produced the aids of peace and those things without which peace cannot be composed, referring all of them to honorable, firm, and salutary concord. Now I come to that which alone suffices for peace, which has frequently
brought peace to a world in tumult, and which has left none in quarrels and destruction except the ignorant and extremely unskilled, or the inflexibly contumacious who obstinately reject it: namely, a General Council of the whole Christian world. Thus Holy Scripture teaches us when it signifies that such a council cannot err and that the voice of the council is the voice of the Holy Spirit. For in Acts 15 the Fathers of the first council say, “It has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us.” Nor was the Holy Spirit so present to their constitutions that He deserted the churches of later men; nor did subsequent times require the aid of the Holy Spirit less than the earliest. Therefore, if infallible truth is in councils legitimately congregated, provided that they are general, just as it is in the Scriptures, certainly it is necessary that he who believes the Scriptures also place faith in the canons of a council, since the Scriptures commend in councils the authority of truth and the truth of authority.
They are accustomed to object that this was a synod of the Apostles and therefore was directed, under the leadership of the Holy Spirit, according to the norm of truth and without suspicion of error, but that in their successors certainty and constancy in governing the Church were weakened. Men of this kind are malicious appraisers of divine goodness, which remains with its Church even to the consummation of the age and which would in vain command that doctors and pastors be heard if they can all err simultaneously at some time. When they extend the grace of God to forty or fifty years, they confine it within a very short space. They dream that the Church ceased long ago. For if the firmness of those who teach is removed, if it can define nothing, there is therefore no authority which can either condemn heresy or confirm the orthodox. Wickedness seeks an exception against every judgment so that, when it has rendered every sentence of the judge uncertain, it may fly about without fear of condemnation and ravage with impunity.
§2
Next, “He Himself gave some indeed as Apostles, some as prophets, others as evangelists, and others as pastors and doctors, for the consummation of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edification of the body of Christ,” etc., “so that we may no longer be children, wavering and carried about by every wind of doctrine, in the wickedness of men, in cunning for the circumvention of error. But doing the truth in charity, let us grow in all things in Him who is the head, Christ, from whom the whole body, compacted and joined together through every joint of supply according to operation in the measure of each member, makes increase of the body unto its own edification in charity.” Ephesians 4:11 ff.
Those words of the Holy Spirit assert the Church’s authority in deciding controversies so clearly and forcefully that, to one considering them, it appears more manifest than the noonday light that they were spoken against heresies.
For He describes God’s charity, rich toward all, and His most persuasive providence in the government and defense of the Church. He gave Apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and doctors, not for the use of a few years, so as to withdraw them from the other ages, but for the stability of perpetual time; for the consummation of the saints—not only those who served the Lord in apostolic times, but also those whom the temptations and dangers of the final ages were to await. And He expressly adds the time: “for the work of the ministry,” which certainly will not cease while the world stands. “For the edification of the body of Christ”: the body of Christ is the Church; it is built in all ages. God will place the finishing hand upon it when the burning heavens are dissolved and the earth and the works that are in it are burned. Therefore power and authority must persevere until that day because the work of the ministry is performed without cessation; without authority it would come to rest. Edification still continues. Therefore the knowledge and industry of an architect are required. Thus the labor and power of the builders did not cease in the Apostles, since the building in their successors is tested by the same rule.
But they build toward this end: “that we may all meet in the unity of faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ.” That, namely, we may καταντήσωμεν, arrive, at the unity of faith—which cannot occur if there is now no authority to protect unity; if those ancients possessed certain authors of their religion, while our faith rests upon uncertain conjectures. How shall we meet “unto a perfect man”—that is, grow in the knowledge of God and charity so that we attain the perfect and stable age of faith and are constant and immutable in the manner of men—if there is no certainty in the Church’s judgment upon which our confidence may rest? How shall we come “unto the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ” if Christ’s fullness is taken away from us? For the Apostle speaks of Christ as He grows to maturity in us and attains fullness in the Church. Therefore the measure of Christ’s age or stature (ἡλικίας) is twofold: the first is that by which He Himself as an adult attained the fullness of a body assuming its increases in the human manner; the other is the measure of fullness by which the Church grows until that mystical body is full and perfect. We must grow unto that measure, and, as we grow, the body of Christ must be increased until it puts on πλήρωμα, fullness, consummation, and perfection complete in every respect.
For this reason doctors and bishops of our souls have been given to us. If certain truth is not in their universal body, the body of Christ has perished and the Lord could not maintain His purpose, for the body has been cut away from its head so that it could not attain its fullness. Individual members on this side and that die and are torn from the body; but the life of the universal body is perpetual from God’s promise and guardianship of the faith. Therefore the universal Church will never be separated from Christ nor fall into lethal errors; consequently, infallible authority exists in it. Those who concede this will also grant that it exists in a General Council. For where will that constant truth be found except in a legitimately congregated council, since they do not admit it in the Pontiff?
But what will occur when we have grown unto a perfect man? “That we may no longer be children, wavering and carried about by every wind of doctrine, in the wickedness of men, in cunning for the circumvention of error.” But if there is now no authority of judging in the Church which God willed to be certain, all must necessarily waver and be carried about in many matters. For even if all General Councils, together with the Roman Pontiffs, define that this or that Scripture must be understood now in this or that way, since they could err no less than individual men, their definition will bring nothing certain, but the Church will waver in perpetual ἐποχῇ [suspension of judgment].
§3
How explicitly does the Spirit of God hand down to us that perpetual life of truth in the Church, growth of faith, increase of charity, and inseparable conjunction with Christ? “But doing the truth in charity, let us grow in all things in Him who is the head, Christ, from whom the
whole body, compacted and joined together through every joint of supply, according to operation in the measure of each member, makes increase of the body unto its own edification in charity.” How do we grow in Him in all things if at some time the whole Church falls from Him, a teacher of errors and alien to truth? How shall we grow in all things if there is no certain food in any supply of the Church? If every nourishment whatsoever, even though judged salutary by the Christian universality, can be poisonous and lethal?
Finally, if the Church is a body compacted, συναρμολογούμενον ἢ συμβιβαζόμενον, fitly and articulately joined together through every joint, or διὰ πάσης ἁφῆς, through every contact—not only so that the spouse, the Church, is closely joined to the Lord its head, but expressly διὰ πάσης ἁφῆς τῆς ἐπιχορηγίας, through every joint of supply; for Christ, as though the soul, diffuses strength and grace into all the limbs and members by vital operation. For this is κατ᾽ ἐνέργειαν, from the power by which Christ operates within. If by its nature each member grows and the whole body increases from that supply of nourishment and powers; if it effects its own edification in charity, which it cannot effect unless it coheres with the rest of the body; and if the rest of the body cannot possess the contact of supply unless compacted and joined together from its own head: it is certainly concluded that the Church perpetually coheres with Christ in this manner and therefore can never depart from the faith, and consequently possesses infallible truth in decrees of faith.
Nor does a General Council now possess less authority than that council in which Peter, the pastor of the Church, presided with the Apostles. For authority is found nowhere else. But if that Church possessed certain doctrine and ours doubtful doctrine, our Church is not one body and one spirit with it. It does not live from Christ but is the Church’s corpse. For every Church whose authority is uncertain is not engrafted into Christ.
§4
I hear the heretic speaking against me, though with a lighter murmur than was his custom.
First, that he acknowledges infallible authority in the Church, but one which belongs to the Scripture which the Church employs, not to the Church. Next, that the Church of which the Apostle speaks is a certain hidden Church.
These things are not now uttered by most men with their former grandiloquence, nor do they produce them ληρωδῶς [foolishly] in their customary manner, since recently even the Calvinists of Dordrecht denied against Tectander that Scripture was sufficient, and the initiates of Durlach spontaneously confessed that they could not show their faith from Scripture. Especially because certain men, whom I have treated elsewhere, concede that the sacred writers sometimes knowingly and willingly departed from truth. If these things are true, it is necessary that nothing be clear, but that it be preferable ἐπέχειν, to withhold assent in the Academic manner, rather than rashly give assent to things unknown and uncertain.
But I omit these matters, although they suffice for refuting errors. I ask this: who can pronounce judgment with infallible authority in the explanation of the Scriptures? If there is no one, then this body is not compacted and joined together from its head, nor does Christ impart to the Church, κατ᾽ ἐνέργειαν [according to operation], as the Apostle speaks, the vegetative power of spiritual grace. Nor will anything certain be possessed in many articles of faith.
Among the primary and capital decrees of the Calvinist faith is this: that faith and righteousness remain amid all crimes. The Lutherans deny this; the mild Calvinists, Bertius, and the more learned Hollanders doubt it—indeed, they speak while doubting in such a way as to show that they think the contrary. Scripture does not decide the matter by its judgment because each side is accustomed to cite it for its own cause. Nor is Scripture an evident expositor of its own opinion; for why does the evidence of Scripture concerning this matter which I have cited not shine upon the Lutherans and mild Calvinists? Next, they say that they concede the interpretation of Scripture. Who among us ever removed the interpretation of Scripture? Certainly no one. “For we all freely confess that the Scriptures need interpretation,” thus Whitaker; indeed, he expressly adds: “Those who understand the grammatical sense of Scripture nevertheless ought to hear an explanation of Scripture so that they may understand better.”
When a dispute arises in controversial articles, by what authority will this interpretation be settled? By none except that of the Church, which taught us that the Scriptures were given to us. But the Church is accustomed to disclose their mind to us through Christ’s vicar and a General Council, which represents that sacred state. Without its testimony, although the truth of Scripture is most certain, it is nevertheless unknown to us. For whence do you know that this Scripture is divine—a fact of which the Chinese and cannibals are ignorant—unless because the Church taught you so? Even if they read the Bible in their own language, they would nevertheless not know certainly that it is the divine voice. Therefore let the hypocrisy depart by which men withdraw from the word of God while praising the word of God, and a hiding place is prepared for all heresies.
For what if the first-rank Calvinists deny that the Apocalypse is Scripture, and the Lutherans with them, while later Calvinists concede it? What Scripture says, “The Apocalypse is a divine book”? Yet this must be believed; therefore it must be proposed by a firm authority incapable of being deceived and deceiving. For that which is believed from authority becomes credible only from the truthfulness of the reporter; but whatever proceeds from an author of uncertain fidelity can deservedly seem suspect to the hearer. Therefore, if the Church, the user and commender of the Scriptures, errs in proposing them, to whom can it be certain that the documents which it exhibits are of good faith? Therefore, if the Church is deceived, the Scripture which bestows upon it the praise of perpetual infallibility is false; nor am I bound to believe a Scripture whose authority I knew only through the Church as witness.
§5
The other laborious and dark refuge, in which they labor in vain to hide themselves in opaque night: they say that the invisible Church does not err. But the Apostle instituted his discourse concerning that Church in
which Apostles, evangelists, pastors, and doctors are heard, and to which there is access, so that by adhering to it we may not waver or be carried about. Therefore this answer falls back into a refuted fallacy. For if the Church is not visible, it cannot pronounce judgment, nor can its decree be heard when it is unknown whether it exists at all.
Next, how ridiculous it is—if laughter can possess a place in so grave a matter—that the Church which hands down the sacred Bible to us, in which we possess faith and which we do not suspect of deceit, should be invisible! Whence do you recognize the donor if it was invisible when it gave? The Apostle speaks of the Church which obtained the minds of the gentiles, whose nursing fathers are kings, which, placed upon a mountain, cannot lie hidden, and which the nations admire even when they do not follow it.
“This was accomplished,” says Augustine in the book On the Usefulness of Believing, “by divine providence, through the predictions of the prophets, through the humanity and doctrine of Christ, through the journeys of the Apostles, through the insults, crosses, blood, and deaths of the martyrs, through the praiseworthy life of the saints, and, amid all these things, through miracles worthy of such great matters and virtues according to the opportunity of the times. Therefore, when we behold so great aid of God and so great progress and fruit, shall we doubt to place ourselves in the bosom of that Church which, from the Apostolic See through the successions of bishops—even while heretics bark around it in vain, condemned partly by the judgment of the people itself, partly by the gravity of councils, and partly even by the majesty of miracles—has obtained the summit of authority even to the confession of the human race? To be unwilling to grant it primacy is surely either the act of supreme impiety or of headlong arrogance. For if there is no certain way to wisdom and salvation for souls unless faith prepares them beforehand for reason, what else is it to be ungrateful to divine assistance and aid than to wish to resist authority prepared by so great a labor? And if every discipline, although cheap and easy, requires a doctor or master so that it can be perceived, what is fuller of rash pride than to be unwilling both to know the books of the divine mysteries from their interpreters and to condemn them unknown?”
Deservedly will men be unwilling to know them if all the interpreters can err simultaneously; nor is the foundation certain if the whole building can be constructed in sand outside it.