recovered or rescued from it; and no temporal advantage or disadvantage can be considerable in this case, which is the case of a soul; an error that is vincible, is all the way criminal, and must not be permitted.

2. If the error be invincible, and innocent or pitiable in the cause, and yet ends in an intolerable event, and the effect be a crime or a great danger to souls, the error must be discovered by them that can. The Novatians erred in the matter of repentance: the inducing cause of their error was an over-acting zeal, and too wary a tenderness in avoiding scandal and judging concerning it. God served the ends of his glory by the occasion of that error, for he uses to bring good out of every evil; and the Church, under a better article, grew as wary as the Novatians, as watchful against scandal, as severe against lapsed persons. Now, although in this case the error was from an innocent cause, yet because it landed them upon a course of discipline and persuasion that was not innocent, they were not to be permitted in their error, though the dissolution of the error might or would have occasioned the remission of discipline. For their doctrine of repentance was dishonourable to the mercies of God, an instrument of despair, a rendering the power of the keys and the ministry of the order ecclesiastical in a manner wholly useless, and would, if it were pursued to its just consequents, have hindered repenting sinners to revert to the folds of the Church; and, therefore, for the accidental good which God brought, or which was likely to have come, from that error or the innocence of its principle, it was not to be concealed, but reproved and destroyed because it dwelt in sin. He that believes that repentance to be sufficient, which hath in it nothing but sorrow for what is past, and a present purpose without amendment really in the future, upon no pretence is to be complied withal in the palliation of his error, because the consequence of his error is such a danger, or such a state of sin, for which nothing can make amends.

3. If the error be invincible, and the consequent of the persuasion be consistent with the state of grace, the error must be opened or not opened, according to prudent considerations relating to the person and his state of affairs. So that the error must rather be suffered than a grievous

scandal, or an intolerable, or a very great inconvenience. To this purpose Comitolus says, it was determined by a congregation of learned and prudent persons in answer to a strange and a rare case happening in Venice: a gentleman ignorantly did lie with his mother; she knew it, but intended it not, till for her curiosity and in her search whether her son intended it to her maid, she was surprised and gotten with child: she perceiving her shame and sorrow hasten, sent her son to travel for many years; and he returned not till his mother's female birth was grown to be a handsome pretty maiden. At his return he espies a sweet-faced girl in the house, likes her, loves her, and intends to marry her. His mother conjured him by all that was sacred and profane that he should not, saying, 'she was a beggar's child, whom for pity's sake she rescued from the streets and beggary, and that he should not by dishonouring his family make her to die with sorrow.' The gentleman's affections were strong, and not to be mastered, and he married his own sister and his own daughter. But now the bitings of the mother's conscience were intolerable, and to her confessor she discovered the whole business within a year or two after this prodigious marriage, and asked whether she were bound to reveal the case to her son and daughter, who now lived in love and sweetness of society, innocently, though with secret misfortune, which they felt not. It was concluded negatively, she was not to reveal it, lest she bring an intolerable misery in the place of that which to them was no sin; or lest upon notice of the error they might be tempted, by their mutual endearment and their common children, to cohabit in despite of the case, and so change that into a known sin, which before was an unknown calamity; and by this state of the answer, they were permitted to their innocence, and the children to their inheritance, and all under the protection of a harmless, though erring and mistaken conscience.

4. If it be doubtful whether more good or hurt may be consequent to the discovery, it is better to conceal it; because it is more tolerable to have a good omitted, than to have an evil done. That may sometimes be lawful, this can never; and a known evil that is not a sin, is rather to be admitted than an unknown, which no man can tell whether it will arrive. But in this, the prudence of a good and a wise

man is to be his only guide, and God's glory his only measure and the public good, and the greater concernments of the interested be chiefly regarded.

CHAPTER IV.

OF THE PROBABLE, OR THINKING CONSCIENCE.

RULE I.

A probable Conscience is an imperfect Assent to an uncertain

Proposition, in which one Part is indeed clearly and fully chosen, but with an explicit or implicit Notice that the contrary is also fairly eligible.

A PROBABLE conscience dwells so between the sure and the

doubtful that it partakes something of both. For a sure conscience may begin upon a probable inducement, but is made either sure by an assent to the conclusion, stronger than the premises will infer, or by a reflex act, or some other collateral hardness and adventitious confidence, and therefore the probable is distinguished from that by the imperfection of the assent. But because in that respect it approaches to the doubtful, and in that is alike, it is differenced from this by the determination. For a doubtful conscience considers the probabilities on each side, and dares not choose, and cannot. But the probable does choose, though it considers that in the thing itself there can be no certainty. And from them both it is distinguished by the intervening of the will. For in the sure conscience the will works not at all, because it is wholly conducted by the understanding, and its proper motives. In the doubtful the will cannot interpose by reason offear and an uncertain spirit; but in the probable it can intervene, not directly, but collaterally and indirectly, because the motives of the probable conscience are not always sufficient to make the conclusion without something of the will applied to extrinsical motives, which reflect also upon the understanding; and yet in this conscience there is no fear, and therefore the will can here be obeyed, which in the first needs not, in the last it cannot. For it is remarkable

:

that a probable conscience, though it be in speculation uncertain, yet it may be practically certain,- that is, he that believes his opinion to be probable, cannot but think that it is possible he may be in an actual error, but yet he may know that it is innocent to do that for which he hath a probable reason; for though in all these cases he may choose that which is the wrong part, yet he proceeds as safely as if he had chosen right for if it were not safe to do that which is only probable, then nothing could be done till something were demonstrated; and then in moral theology we should often stand still and suspend our act, but seldom do any thing; nay, sometimes we should neither act nor suspend, it being but probable that either is to be chosen. Yea, sometimes it happens what Aristotle said, that false things are made more probable than true,' as it is to all them who are innocently and invincibly abused; and in this case, if probability were not a sufficient conviction of conscience, such persons could not honestly consent to truth. For even wise men disagree in their sentences of truth and error, and after a great search, scarcely do they discover one single truth unto just measures of confidence; and, therefore, no other law could be exacted for human actions, than an opinion honestly entered into, and a probable conscience. And it is remarkable that Cicero' saith, that the word "arbitror” is "verbum consideratissimum;" and the old Romans were reserved and cautious in the decrees of judges, and the forms of their oath began with arbitror,' although they gave testimony of things whereof they were eye-witnesses; and the words which their prætors did use in their sentences, were "fecisse videtur," or 66 non videtur." "He that observeth the winds, shall not sow; and he that watcheth the clouds, shall never reap; "m which means, that if we start at every objection, and think nothing safe but what is certain, and nothing certain but what can be demonstrated, that man is over wise and over just, and by his too curious search misses what he inquires for. Λέγοιτο δ ̓ ἂν ἱκανῶς, εἰ κατὰ τὴν ὑποκειμένην Any diacapntein, —"That is well enough proved, that is proved according to the subject-matter." For there is not the same exactness to be looked for in all disciplines, any more than

ὕλην διασαφηθείη,

1 Pro Font. c. ix.-Beck, vol. ii. p. 233.

m Eccl. xi. 4.

in all manufactures. But in those things which are honest and just, and which concern the public, τοσαύτην ἔχει διαφορὰν nai λávny," there is so much dissension and deception," that things are good or bad not by themselves, but as they are in law ; πεπαιδευμένου γάρ ἐστιν ἐπὶ τοσοῦτον τἀκριβὲς ἐπιζητεῖν καθ' ἕκαστον γένος, ἐφ ̓ ὅσον ἡ τοῦ πράγματος φύσις ἐπιδέχεται— He is well instructed who expects that manner of proof for things, which the nature of the things will bear," said Aristotle. And in moral things, it is sufficient that a thing is judged true and certain, though by an uncertain argument; and the opinion may be practically certain, when the knowledge of it is in speculation only probable.

It hath two sorts of motives, intrinsical and extrinsical. That is reason, this is authority: and both of them have great considerations in order to practice, of which I am to give account in the following rules.

RULE II.

A Conscience that is, at first, and in its own Nature, probable, may be made certain by Accumulation of many Probabilities operating the same Persuasion.

EVERY probable argument hath in it something of persuasion and proof, and although it cannot produce evidence and entire conviction to a wise and a discerning spirit, yet it can effect all that it ought; and although, if the will list, or if passions rule, the understanding shall be made stubborn against it, and reject it easily; yet if nothing be put in bar against it, it may bring a man to adhere to it beyond the evidence. But in some cases there are a whole army of little people, heaps of probable inducements which the understanding amasses together, and from every side gathers all that can give light and motion to the article in question; it draws auxiliaries from every thing, fights with every weapon, and by all means pursues the victory; it joins line to line, and precept to precept, reason to reason, and reason to n Ethic. lib. i. c. 3. Wilkinson, p. 5.

VOL. XII.

D