TRACTS FOR THE TIMES.
RECORDS OF THE CHURCH.
No. XXIV.
THE HOLY CHURCH THROUGHOUT ALL THE WORLD DOTH ACKNOWLEDGE THEE.
Vincentius of Lerins on the Tests of Heresy and Error.
Vincentius was a member of the Monastery of Lerins, a small island off the south coast of France. He is famous for the treatise, parts of which it is here proposed to translate for the English reader, as a fit companion to the extracts from Tertullian's account of the Rule of Faith, which formed the xvii. and xviii. Numbers of the Records. Vincentius wrote in the year 434.
1. (c. 1. 2.)
I have made frequent and earnest inquiries of a great number of holy and learned men, how I might discriminate, that is, what certain and universal rule there was for discriminating, between Catholic truth and heretical pravity; and I have ever received something like the following answer, that whether I myself, or any other private person, wished to detect the corruptions, and avoid the snares of heretics who were springing up, and to remain sound and whole in the sound faith, there were two ways, by God's blessing, of preserving himself,—first, by the authority of Scripture, next by the teaching of the Church Catholic.
Here some one perhaps will demand, why I need make mention of the Church's understanding of Scripture at all, considering that the Canon of the Scriptures is perfect and self-sufficient, nay more than sufficient for all things? To which I answer, that the very depth of Holy Scripture prevents its being taken by all men in one and the same sensC; one man interpreting it in one way, one in another; so that it seems almost possible to draw from it as many opinions as there are readers. Novatian,
