Instruct the People in the Principles and Duties of Religion to Administer the Sacraments to confer Orders by the Imposition of Hands to constitute and appoint Guides and Officers who should Bind and Loose Sinners by Ecclesiastical Censures and finally to exercise the Discipline and Government of the Church And in these they are Succeeded by the ordinary Rulers and Ecclesiastick Guides who are to super-intend and discharge the Affairs and Offices of the Church to the end of the World It is not my Business at present to defend the different Orders of the Church from the Cavils of those whose Interest or Malice would bury it in Confusion Neither am I concerned to prove the Succession of Pastors against them who by pretence of an immediate and extraordinary Call leap into and invade the Offices of the Church These are not the men with whom I now intend I shall prove That the Pope as St. Peter's Successor hath none of those Extraordinary Gifts which will qualifie him for the Oecumenical Pastorship For granting not only that St. Peter was at Rome but that he was Bishop there that for Five Twenty years together tho the Antients attribute the founding the Episcopacy and Government of that Church equally to Peter and Paul making the one as much concerned in it as the other yet what would this make for the unlimited soveraignty and universality of that Church unless a better Evidence could be produced than this Succession to St. Peter for its uncontroulable Supremacy and Dominion over the whole Christian World For had not the same Peter a Successor at Antioch and the other Apostles in their several Sees and yet none of these pretended tho they seem to have equal Right to this Power But here we are told That immediate Vocation the seeing Christ in the Flesh power to write Canonical Books of Scripture and other priviledges extraordinarily conferred on the Apostles were fitting to the first beginnings of Christianity and so not of Perpetual use and Necessity But that Universality of Jurisdiction and a kind of Infallibility of Judgment are perpetually necessary and therefore these were to pass from Peter to Others tho the rest of the Apostolick Pre-eminencies were not Which I shall examine and then conclude That the Roman is a Patriarchal Church and the Bishop of it hath Prime Place amongst other Bishops of the World would never be denyed him would he rest contented with that But it must by no means be granted that he is an Universal Bishop having Jurisdiction over the whole Church that is such a Bishop in whom all Episcopal Jurisdiction Power and Authority is Originally Invested from whom it is derived to Others and who may Limit and Restrain the Use of it in Others as seemeth good unto Himself For every Bishop hath in his place and keeping in his proper Station the Episcopal Power and Authority immediately from Christ which is not to be Limited and Restrained by any but by the Company and Suffrages of Bishops Wherein tho one be Chief for Order sake and to preserve Unity in the Church yet he can do nothing without the Concurrence of the Rest When the Constantinopolitan Patriarch affected this Title as I before hinted Gregory then Pope compares him to Lucifer who despising the Angels his Companions sought to climb up to that Heighth that he neither might seem to be Under any nor any be found Over whom he was not As for Infallibility of Judgement pretended to as perpetual and necessary in the Church and as they would have it derived down from St. Peter to his Successours at Rome If it be granted to them that there is a kind of Infallibility or Non-deficiency rather in the Universal Church they presently confound the Notion and apply it to whom they please Accordingly there is this Distinction of a Church 1. A Church Essential which is the whole Multitude of Believers 2. The Representative The Assembly of Bishops in a General Council representing the whole Body of the Church from the several Parts whence they come 3. The Virtual Church by which they understand the Bishop of Rome who being by Christ's Appointment as they suppose Chief Pastor of the whole Church hath in himself Eminently and Virtually as great Certainty of Truth and infallibility of Judgement as is in the whole Church upon whom dependeth all that Certainty of Truth that is found in it Of these we affirm That the Church in the first Notion cannot erre or fall away In the Second That it may Erre In the Third tho we also deny the Notion That it doth Erre And against Matter of Fact as I take it there can be no Proof Of which I could give many Instances were it not Loss of Time to do so The Supremacy of the Pope so much contended for and so meanly supported is the greatest Intrenchment in the Exercise of it that was ever made upon the Prerogative of Princes and the Authority of Bishops The Crown and Mitre being swallowed up in this Plenitude of Power So that it is the Interest as well as Duty of Church and State of Prince and People of Pastors and their Flocks to oppose what is so much against the Wellfare of all Civil and Christian Societies I shall not urge the Inconveniencies only but the Injustice of such a Subjection whereby all Bonds Natural Civil and Christian are broken if it please him who usurps such a Supreme Power over Mens Consciences It is the Prerogative of God alone to set up his Throne in the Conscience of Man and by the Laws of right Reason to lay such a Restraint upon it as all Humane Powers cannot be able to gain say or resist to cancel or disanul Nothing but an express Dispensation from God himself can acquit the Subject or Child from the Obedience he ows his Prince or Parent Nature which is God's Law being herein so plain and positive must never upon the Interposition of any Humane Power be transgrest So that we must be very earnest to assert our own Liberty and our Superiours Authority against that Forreign Prelate who by his Emissaries doth dayly disturb the Peace of this our Syon and draw off many from their Duty and Obedience to God the Church their Country and their Prince Our own Nation is at present the Theatre wherein most Hideous Villanies are Plotted and Designed and it is much to be feared that the Actors are not yet gone off the Stage And all this not without a manifest Respect to and in direct Pursuance of this most Pernitious Doctrine Which is a strong Argument to us how far blind Zeal can transport and what a wicked Principle can inspire into their Breasts who thus obstinately adhere to it For if by such a pretended Power a King be declared an Heretick upon that Declaration be Excommunicated upon that Excommunication be deprived of his Dominions and Condemned to Death And if his Subjects at the same time be not only absolved from all Allegiance to him but bound in Conscience to Depose and Destroy him and Execute that direful Sentence against his Life What Security can any Prince or People expect from those that maintain such Principles as tend in so direct a Consequence to the Confusion and Subversion of Church and State when-ever it shall please this Supreme Power to pronounce such a Sentence But some have gone farther and absolved all Subjects from their Allegiance if they are resolved in Conscience that their Prince is Heretical The other is bad enough I need not trace this any farther This Doctrine which by them that maintain it hath been sometimes accounted Scandalous is not confined to Theory but hath been often reduced to Practice It hath not only been Disputed of in Schools but Preach't in Pulpits maintained in Press and confirmed by Actions From hence is apprehended all our Danger and from hence springs all our Mischief That the Subjects of any Prince or whoever else shall come under the Protection of his Laws and Government who for the time are to be reckoned Subjects shall presume to own any Power under Heaven Superior to him and by vertue of Commission from that Forreign Power shall endeavour to disturb and subvert the Laws and Government Establisht This is the First Mover in the Roman Sphear that hurryes all Inferior Orbs The Spring that gives Motion to the Papal Machin When this is swallowed down there is nothing can oppose or hinder any of the Designs of Rome Wherefore tho other Doctrines are pitcht upon as more Absurd yet in my Judgement and I think I have the Experience of this Nation to confirm the Truth of it this is of most fatal and pernitious Consequence And with its Infallibility annext throws down all that can oppose it self against the Holy Chair The latter makes Men stick at no Absurdities The former encourages and commands them to commit all Villanies Let us therefore fortify our Reason against the One and strengthen our Arms against the Other Let us put on the whole Armor of God and with them joyn our Prince's too that we may be able to stand against these Adversaries of both And then we shall not only fight with Honour and Praise but come off with Success and Glory FINIS
of the Christian People having all the same Authority over them but were not Equal amongst themselves St. Peter being Superior to the rest Out of these Answers and other their Writings concerning this Matter we may gather these three Differences betwixt St. Peter and the rest of the Apostles 1. In the Apostleship all the Apostles were Equal But Peter received this Plenary Power not as Apostle but as Ordinary Pastor and Bishop of the Church which was to continue to his Successours 2. The Apostles were Equal in respect of the Nations to be Converted by them but not in respect of Themselves All the Apostles had Supreme Authority over the Christian VVorld But Peter was so Supreme Head of all Christians that he was also Superior to the Apostles 3. All the Apostles had Equal Power of Executing what Christ commanded them But St. Peter only had Power of making New Orders and prescribing by his Successors what is alwayes to be done in the Church Which Pretences we shall now Examine and Confute First It is pretended that the Amplitude of Power which all the Apostles had in common the rest had only for themselves and as a Priviledge meerly Personal was to end with them But Peter had the same in such sort that he might leave it to his Successours So that that Power which in the rest was Apostolical and Temporary was Ordinary Pastoral and Perpetual in Peter Which were it True then every Pope is immediately Chosen by God not by the Cardinals Then they are all Consecrated and Ordained Immediately by Christ not by Bishops Then have they all Power to write Books of Canonical Scripture and are free from Danger of Erring whensoever they either Preach or Write Then can they confirm their Doctrine by Miracles and give the Holy Ghost by the Imposition of their Hands But since no Pope can pretend without great Impiety to any of these Preheminencies it is vain for them to urge That some part of that Dignity and Power that was in Peter is in Peter's Successours for so there is in the meanest Priest in the VVorld Secondly As for that other Shift That the Apostles were Equal towards the People but not amongst themselves inasmuch as they had no Superiour in respect of their Office of Teaching and Governing the VVorld but were subject to one Head in respect of their Personal Actions It is one of the strongest Paradoxes the VVorld ever heard of For who can imagine that God would trust the Apostles with the managing the weightyest Affairs of his Church and the Government of the whole VVorld without being any way accountant in respect thereof unto any one amongst them as Superiour and that he would appoint an Head and Chief and subject them to his Censure in their Personal Actions But this is not the only Absurdity this Doctrine runs them into For Thirdly They tell us That all the Apostles had Equal Power of Executing what Christ commanded them But St. Peter only had Authority to make New Constitutions and to prescribe by his Successors what is alwayes to be done in the Church But this is said without any Proof at all and indeed is a Matter of another Debate Of which I have now thus much to say That it doth not appear That Peter had Power of himself to Determine any Matter of Moment Else when he was question'd for going unto the Gentiles he needed not to have made his Defence before the Apostles and Brethren but would have strengthned his Practice by his own Authority And at the Great Council at Jerusalem he neither presided as Chief nor was his Vote more Requisite than any other Apostle's for the Confirmation of what they then Determined The Apostles were all Stars of the greatest Magnitude and had each of them a Light to guide men to Christ in the ordinary concerns of Christianity But when any momentous matter arises in debate They then are gathered together and make up a glorious Constellation which by its illustrious emanations of Light leads the Church in its darkest emergencies By whose Acts and Writings the Church is so secured from Error and directed into all Truth that it no longer needs the extraordinary ways of Guidance If men would submit to the Truths they find there is no want of any power of defining new Articles of Faith The Church cannot by her Approbation make those Assertions and Propositions to be Catholick Verities that were not so before She may indeed propose what was before not so throughly thought on But it is not the Authority of the Church but the clear deduction from the things which we are bound expressly to believe that maketh things of that Sort that they must be particularly and distinctly Known and Believed that were not necessarily so to be Believed before I conclude this part with the judgment of the magdeburgenses Cen. 2. lib. 2. cap. 7. who prove That there is no Supremacy given to St. Peter by this place because the Apostles Mat. 18. afterwards doubted who was the greatest among them And it is Reasonable to suppose that Christ would have commanded them to strive no more about it had he appointed St. Peter to be their Chief His silence herein is Argument enough II. I come now to the Ordinary Power Honour and Priviledges of St. Peter and the Apostles which were to be derived down to their Successors That it is Essential to the being and constitution of a Church not only that there should be a distinction of Clergy and Laity but that in the Clergy also there should be different Orders is demonstrable from Scripture Antiquity and the general Concurrence of the Church in all Ages Tho indeed for the Reasons before-given it is not necessary that the Ministers of the Gospel should in every Age have the same qualifications the Apostles had For as those were reserved as peculiar and proper unto the Apostles and not Communicated to any other in their time so are they not passed over to their After-comers by Succession But in place of Immediate Calling we have now Succession Instead of Infallibility of Judgment the direction of their Writings guiding us in the search of Truth There is now no general Commission but a particular Assignation to Bishops and Pastors of several Churches to rule and parts of Christ's Flock to Feed Instead of Miraculous Gifts and the Apostles Power to confer them there are planted and settled amongst us Schools and Universities fitting men for the Work of the Ministry In place of their Miracles wherewith they Appealed to the Senses of men in establishing the Christian Doctrine we are Educated and brought up in the Faith and have it by so many Generations recommended to us as confirmed at first by the Apostles Miracles So that we see how the Apostles extraordinary Gifts which were most necessary for the planting of the Church are changed in respect of their Successors But the standing and perpetual part of their Office was to Teach and
of the Church is not given but promised The Church is said to be built when it is Gathered Fed Taught and Ruled and when any Member is anew added to it or reconciled But in all this manner of building or gathering the Faithful into one Sheepfold The other Pastors are VVorkmen and wise Architects but Peter the Master of the Family the rest are Pillars Peter the Foundation on which they rely He allows Christ to be called in Scripture a Rock and therefore when he went away he left St. Peter his Successor and gave him the same Name because he was to be the Father and Prince of the Church even such a Foundation of it against which the Gates of Hell should not prevail Then he adds that by the Keys Christ gave the fulness of all Ecclesiastical Power only to St. Peter VVhich Power is to open and shut the Kingdom of Heaven whether by it is meant Life Eternal or the Communion of the Militant Church VVhich power of the Keys is greater as given to St. Peter than to the rest of the Apostles The power of binding and loosing is a partial and inferior Power which they have but his is to Govern to Teach to Dispose and Exercise all things which belong to the Office of General Pastor For as a King in his Kingdome hath the Sword given to him alone but he commits the use of it to Inferior Magistrates so St. Peter hath the Power of the Keys commited to him properly and principally but transfers the use of them in some inferior manner to Pastors of a lower Rank that are substituted by him In the Remish Translation that we may observe how great stress they put upon these words they are decyphered in a distinct Character and are rendred remarkable by being appointed the Gospel for so many Festivals as for St. Peter's day for the Cathedra Petri Romae Jan. 18. Antiochiae Feb. 22. for the Feast of Petri ad Vincula Aug. 1. and on the day of the Creation and Coronation of the Pope and on the Anniversary thereof What is to be found in their Annotations more than what the Gentlemen already named have hinted is not much Only they are angry with the English Translators for not rendring the words thus Thou art a Rock and upon this Rock or Thou art Peter or Upon this Peter I will build my Church VVhich if it be a fault is likewise to be found in their so much adored vulgar Translation In the Exposition of the Keys they enlarge St. Peter's Power by ascribing to him the Authority and Chair of Doctrine Knowledg Judgment and Discretion between true and false Doctrine The height of Government the power of making Laws of calling Councils of the principal Voice in them of Confirming them of making Canons and wholsome Decrees of Abrogating the contrary of Ordaining Bishops and Pastors or deposing or suspending them finally the Power to dispense the Goods of the Church both Spiritual and Temporal and therefore by the Name of Keyes is given that Super-eminent Power which is called in respect of the Power granted to other Apostles Bishops and Pastors plenitudo Potestatis fulness of Power This is that Exposition on which the Advocates for the Popes Supremacy lay so great stress that they can by no means afford us any other it is the grand support of the Holy Chair the very bottom of all Papal Authority for on whatever Rock other parts of the Christian Church are founded yet this we are assured of that the Roman is built upon this and the greatness of it's Bishop must sink if we take away this only Prop of it By such meanes are the Waters of Life troubled but not by good Angels not to heal the VVounds and make up the breaches of the Church but to vex and widen them and when the Fountain is rendred so muddy we must expect nothing but putrid streams It is a great Argument of a sinking Cause when men catch at Straws for their support And we may conclude that the Scriptures are altogether silent in their Cause when upon this one Foundation they raise so many Structures as the Supremacy of the Pope the Infallibility and Visibility of their Church and the Power of Indulgences All which must of necessity fall to the Ground if the Rock on which they be Built be removed II. As it is certainly in our following Exposition the second thing propos'd whereby the Scriptures shall be so far vindicated from the sense already put on them to which they are rackt that they shall speak in their own proper Language and in it deliver Truth openly and clearly There are as you remember several Opinions concerning the Rock in the Text. The first whereof is that Peter is the Rock which because Bellarmine proves by the Authority of some Fathers I shall take off their Testimony The Authorities are St. Cyril lib. 2. cap. 12. com in Jo. That upon Peter as on a firm Rock his Church should be built The Next is St. Hilary In hunc Locum Oh happy Foundation of the Church in imposing thy new Name c. The last is St. Basil lib. de poenit Tho Peter be a Rock yet he is not a Rock as Christ is For Christ is the true and unmoveable Rock of himself Peter is unmovable by Christ the Rock Now we confess with Cyril Hilary and Basil that Peter was a Stone designed for the Foundation of the Church but so as all the Apostles are Stones upon which the Church is Builded Rev. 21.14 And though we are taught by the Apostles 1 Cor. 3.11 That other Foundation can no man lay than that is laid which is Jesus Christ Yet we do not exclude the Ministery and Laborers of his Apostles whom also we acknowledg to be Stones and Foundations of his Church not in respect of their Persons but of their Heavenly Doctrine whereby they became with the Prophets the Foundation Jesus Christ being the Corner Stone Ephes 2.20 So that we can safely allow that Peter may be stiled the Rock on which the Church is built if we take it in a qualified and Secundary sense He is that Apostle on whom in the Planting of the Church as on a chief stone in the Building there is great stress and weight laid He was already one of the most considerable Disciples of Christ sharing with James and John in many signal Favors which others enjoyed not He twice made Confession with greatest Alacrity and firmest boldness of Christ's being the Messias and the Son of God He first made known both to Jews and Gentiles the Truth of that which he here professes that Jesus is the Christ And as amongst the Hebrews all the Levites were in a common Notion of this Phrase called Stones of the Temple so he is called by way of Excellence such a Stone as relying on the Corner Stone was with the Rest of the Apostles a principal Stone in the Building of Christ yet not so as excluding