that of the Popes Universal Bishoprick That is not only that he is Bishop of Bishops superiour to all and every one but that his Bishoprick is a Plenitude of Power and as for other Bishops of his fulness they all receive a part of the Ministery and sollicitude and not only so but that he only is a Bishop by immediate Divine Dispensation and others receive from him whatsoever they have For to this height many of them are come at last Which Doctrine although as it is in sins where the carnal are most full of reproach but the spiritual are of greatest malignity so it happens in this Article For though it be not so scandalous as their Idolatry so ridiculous as their Superstitions so unreasonable as their Doctrine of Transubstantiation so easily reprov'd as their Half Communion and Service in an unknown Tongue yet it is of as dangerous and evil effect and as false and as certainly an Innovation as any thing in their whole Conjugation of Errours WHEN Christ founded his Church he left it in the hands of his Apostles without any prerogative given to one or eminency above the rest save only of priority and orderly precedency which of it self was natural necessary and incident The Apostles govern'd all their Authority was the sanction and their Decrees and Writings were the Laws of the Church They exercis'd a common jurisdiction and divided it according to the needs and emergencies and circumstances of the Church In the Council of Jerusalem S. Peter gave not the decisive sentence but S. James who was the Bishop of that See Christ sent all his Apostles as his Father sent him and therefore he gave to every one of them the whole power which he left behind and to the Bishops congregated at Miletum S. Paul gave them caution to take care of the whole flock of God and affirms to them all that the Holy Ghost had made them Bishops and in the whole New Testament there is no act or sign of superiority or that one Apostle exercised power over another but to them whom Christ sent he in common intrusted the Church of God according to that excellent saying of S. Cyprian The other Apostles are the same that S. Peter was endowed with an equal fellowship of honour and power and they are all shepherds and the slock is one and therefore it ought to be fed by all the Apostles with unanimous consent THIS unity and identity of power without question and interruption did continue and descend to Bishops in the primitive Church in which it was a known doctrine that the Bishops were successors of the Apostles and what was not in the beginning could not be in the descent unless it were innovated and introduc'd by a new authority Christ gave ordinary power to none but the Apostles and the power being to continue for ever in the Church it was to be succeeded to and by the same authority even of Christ it descended to them who were their successors that is to the Bishops as all antiquity does consent and teach Not S. Peter alone but every Apostle and therefore every one who succeeds them in their ordinary power may and must remember the words of S. Paul We are Embassadors or Legates for Christ Christ's Vicars not the Pope's Delegates and so all the Apostles are called in the Preface of the Mass Quos operis tui Vicarios cidem contulisti praeesse Pastores they are Pastors of the Flock and Vicars of Christ and so also they are in express terms called by S. Ambrose and therefore it is a strange usurpation that the Pope arrogates that to himself by Impropriation which is common to him with all the Bishops of Christendom THE consequent of this is that by the law of Christ one Bishop is not superior to another Christ gave the power to all alike he made no Head of the Bishops he gave to none a supremacy of power or universality of jurisdiction But this the Pope hath long challenged and to bring his purposes to pass hath for these Six hundred years by-gone invaded the rights of Bishops and delegated matters of order and jurisdiction to Monks and Friers insomuch that the power of Bishops was greatly diminished at the erecting of the Cluniac and Cistercian Monks about the year ML but about the year MCC it was almost swallowed up by privileges granted to the Begging Friers and there kept by the power of the Pope which power got one 〈◊〉 step more above the Bishops when they got it declared that the Pope is above a Council of Bishops and at last it was 〈◊〉 into a new doctrine by Cajetane who for his prosperous invention was made a Cardinal that all the whole Apostolick or Episcopal power is radical and inherent in the Pope in whom is the fulness of the Ecclesiastical authority and that Bishops receive their portion of it from him and this was first boldly maintain'd in the Council of Trent by the Jesuits and it is now the opinion of their Order but it is also that which the Pope challenges in practice when he pretends to a power over all Bishops and that this power is deriv'd to him from Christ when he calls himself the Universal Bishop and the Vicarial Head of the Church the Churches Monarch he from whom all Ecclesiastical Authority is derived to whose sentence in things Divine every Christian under pain of damnation is bound to be subject NOW this is it which as it is productive of infinite mischiefs so it is an Innovation and an absolute deflexion from the primitive Catholick Doctrine and yet is the great ground-work and foundation of their Church This we shall represent in these following testimonies Pope Eleutherius in an Epistle to the Bishops of France says that Christ committed the Universal Church to the Bishops and S. Ambrose says that the Bishop holdeth the place of Christ and is his substitute But famous are the words of S. Cyprian The Church of Christ is one through the whole world divided by him into many members and the Bishoprick is but one diffused in the agreeing plurality of many Bishops And again To every Pastor a portion of the flock is given which let every one of them rule and govern By which words it is evident that the primitive Church understood no Prelation of one and Subordination of another commanded by Christ or by virtue of their Ordination but only what was for orders sake introduc'd by Princes and consent of Prelates And it was to this purpose very full which was said by Pope Symmachus As it is in the holy Trinity whose power is one and undivided or to use the expression in the Athanasian Creed none is before or after other none is greater or less than another so there is one Bishoprick amongst divers Bishops and therefore why should the Canons of the ancient Bishops be violated by their Successors Now these words being spoken
against the invasion of the rights of the Church of Arles by Anastasius and the question being in the exercise of Jurisdiction and about the institution of Bishops does fully declare that the Bishops of Rome had no superiority by the laws of Christ over any Bishop in the Catholick Church and that his Bishoprick gave no more power to him than Christ gave to the Bishop of the smallest Diocese AND therefore all the Church of God whenever they reckoned the several orders and degrees of Ministery in the Catholick Church reckon the Bishop as the last and supreme beyond whom there is no spiritual power but in Christ. For as the whole Hierarchy ends in Jesus so does every particular one in its own Bishop Beyond the Bishop there is no step till you rest in the great Shepherd and Bishop of souls Under him every Bishop is supreme in spirituals and in all power which to any Bishop is given by Christ. S. Ignatius therefore exhorts that all should obey their Bishop and the Bishop obey Christ as Christ obeyed his Father There are no other intermedial degrees of Divine institution But as Origen teaches The Apostles and they who after them are ordain'd by God that is the Bishops have the supreme place in the Church and the Prophets have the second place The same also is taught by P. Gelasius by S. Hierom and Fulgentius and indeed by all the Fathers who spake any thing in this matter Insomuch that when Bellarmine is in this question press'd out of the book of Nilus by the Authority of the Fathers standing against him he answers Papam Patres non habere in Ecclesiâ sed Filios omnes The Pope acknowledges no Fathers in the Church for they are all his Sons NOW although we suppose this to be greatly sufficient to declare the Doctrine of the primitive Catholick Church concerning the equality of power in all Bishops by Divine right yet the Fathers have also expresly declared themselves that one Bishop is not superiour to another and ought not to judge another or force another to obedience They are the words of S. Cyprian to a Council of Bishops None of us makes himself a Bishop of Bishops or by tyramical power drives his collegues to a necessity of obedience since every Bishop according to the licence of his own liberty and power hath his own choice and cannot be judged by another nor yet himself judge another but let us all expect the judgment of our Lord Jesus Christ who only and alone hath the power of setting us in the Government of his Church and judging of what we do This was spoken and intended against Pope Stephen who did then begin dominari in clero to lord it over God's heritage and to excommunicate his brethren as Demetrius did in the time of the Apostles themselves but they both found their reprovers Demetrius was chastised by Saint John for this usurpation and Stephen by S. Cyprian and this also was approv'd by S. Austin We conclude this particular with the words of S. Gregory Bishop of Rome who because the Patriarch of Constantinople called himself Universal Bishop said It was a proud title prophane sacrilegious and Antichristian and therefore he little thought that his successors in the same See should so fiercely challenge that Antichristian title much less did the then Bishop of Rome in those Ages challenge it as their own peculiar for they had no mind to be or to be esteemed Antichristian Romano pontisici oblatum est sed nullus unquam eorum hoc singularitatis nomen assumpsit His predecessors it seems had been tempted with an offer of that title but none of them ever assumed that name of singularity as being against the law of the Gospel and the Canons of the Church NOW this being a matter of which Christ spake not one word to S. Peter if it be a matter of Faith and Salvation as it is now pretended it is not imaginable he would have been so perfectly silent But though he was silent of any intention to do this yet S. Paul was not silent that Christ did otherwise for he hath set in his Church primùm Apostolos first of all Apostles not first S. Peter and secondarily Apostles but all the Apostles were first It is also evident that S. Peter did not carry himself so as to give the least overture or umbrage to make any one suspect he had any such preheminence but he was as S. Chrysostom truly says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he did all things with the common consent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nothing by special authority or principality and if he had any such it is more than probable that the Apostles who survived him had succeeded him in it rather than the Bishop of Rome and it being certain as the Bishop of Canaries confesses That there is in Scripture no revelation that the Bishop of Rome should succeed Peter in it and we being there told that S. Pet. was at Antioch but never that he was at Rome it being confessed by some of their own parties by Cardinal Cusanus Soto Driedo Canus and Segovius that this succession was not addicted to any particular Church nor that Christs institution of this does any other way appear that it cannot be proved that the Bishop of Rome is Prince of the Church it being also certain that there was no such thing known in the Primitive Church but that the holy Fathers both of Africa and the East did oppose Pope Victor and Pope Stephen when they began to interpose with a presumptive Authority in the affairs of other Churches and that the Bishops of the Church did treat with the Roman Bishop as with a brother not as their superiour and that the General Council held at Chalcedon did give to the Bishops of C. P. equal rights and preeminence with the Bishops of Rome and that the Greek Churches are at this day and have been a long time great opponents of this pretension of the Bishops of Rome and after all this since it is certain that Christ who foreknows all things did also know that there would be great disputes and challenges of this preeminence did indeed suppress it in his Apostles and said not it should be otherwise in succession and did not give any command to his Church to obey the Bishops of Rome as his Vicars more than what he commanded concerning all Bishops it must be certain that it cannot be necessary to salvation to do so but that it is more than probable that he never intended any such thing and that the Bishops of Rome have to the great prejudice of Christendom made a great schism and usurped a title which is not their due and challenged an Authority to which they have no right and have set themselves above others who are their equals and impose an Article of Faith of their own contriving and have made great preparation for
over Subjects The same also is taught by Santarel in his book of Heresie and Schism printed at Rome 1626. BUT the mischief of this Doctrine proceeds a little further CARDINAL Tolet affirms and our Countryman Father Bridgewater commends the saying That when a Prince is Excommunicate before the Denunciation the Subjects are not absolved from their Oath of Allegiance as Cajet an says well yet when it is denounced they are not only absolved from their Obedience but are bound not to obey unless the fear of death or loss of goods excuse them which was the case of the English Catholicks in the time of Henry the VIII And F. Creswel says it is the sentence of all Catholicks that Subjects are bound to expel Heretical Princes if they have strength enough and that to this they are tied by the Commandment of God the most strict tie of Conscience and the extreme danger of their souls Nay even before the sentence is declared though the Subjects are not bound to it yet lawfully they may deny obedience to an Heretical Prince said Gregory de Valentia IT were an endless labour to transcribe the horrible Doctrines which are preached in the Jesuits School to the shaking off the Regal Power of such Princes which are not of the Roman Communion The whole oeconomy of it is well describ'd by Bellarmine who affirms That it does not belong to Monks or other Ecclesiasticks to commit Murthers neither do the Popes use to proceed that way But their manner is first Fatherly to correct Princes then by Ecclesiastical Censures to deprive them of the Communion then to absolve their Subjects from the Oath of Allegeance and to deprive them of their Kingly Dignity And what then The Execution belongs to others This is the way of the Popes thus wisely and moderately to break Kings in pieces WE delight not to aggravate evil things We therefore forbear to set down those horrid things spoken by Sà Mariana Santarèl Carolus Scribanius and some others It is enough that Suarez says An Excommunicate King may with impunity be depos'd or kill'd by any one This is the case of Kings and Princes by the Sentence of the chiefest Roman Doctors And if it be objected that we are commanded to obey Kings not to speak evil of them not to curse them no not in our heart There is a way found out to answer these little things For though the Apostle commands that we should be subject to higher powers and obey Kings and all that are in Authority It is true you must and so you may well enough for all this for the Pope can make that he who is a King shall be no King and then you are disoblig'd so Bellarmine And if after all this there remains any 〈◊〉 of Conscience it ought to be remembred that though even after a Prince is excommunicated it should be of it self a sin to depose or kill the Prince yet if the Pope commands you it is no sin For if the Pope should err by commanding sin or forbidding vertues yet the Church were bound to believe that the vices were good and the vertues evil unless she would sin against her Conscience They are the very words of Bellarmine BUT they add more particulars of the same Bran. The Sons of an Heretical Father are made sui juris that is free from their Fathers power A Catholick Wife is not tied to pay her duty to an Heretical Husband and the Servants are not bound to do service to such Masters These are the Doctrines of their great Azorius and as for Kings he affirms they may be depos'd for Heresie But all this is only in the case of Heretical Princes But what for others EVEN the Roman Catholick Princes are not free from this danger All the World knows what the Pope did to King Chilperick of France He depos'd him and put Pipin in his place and did what he could to have put Albert King of the Romans in the Throne of Philip sirnamed the Fair. They were the Popes of Rome who arm'd the Son against the Father the Emperour Henry IV. and the Son fought against him took him prisoner shav'd him and thrust him into a Monastery where he died with grief and hunger We will not speak of the Emperour Frederick Henry the sixth Emperour the Duke of Savoy against whom he caused Charles the V. and Francis the I. of France to take Arms nor of Francis Dandalus Duke of Venice whom he bound with chains and fed him as Dogs are fed with bones and scraps under his Table Our own Henry the II. and King John were great Instances of what Princes in their case may expect from that Religion These were the piety of the Father of Christendom But these were the product of the Doctrine which Clement the V. vented in the Council of Vienna Omne jus Regum à se pendere The rights of all Kings depend upon the Pope And therefore 〈◊〉 their Catholick Princes are at their 〈◊〉 and they would if they durst use them 〈◊〉 If they do but favour Hereticks or Schismaticks receive them or defend them if the 〈◊〉 be perjur'd if he rashly break a League made with the See Apostolick 〈◊〉 he do not keep the peace promis'd to the Church if he be sacrilegious if he dissipate the goods of the Church the Pope may depose him said Azorius And 〈◊〉 says he may do it in case the Prince or Emperour be insufficient 〈◊〉 he be wicked if he be unprofitable if he does not defend the Church This is very much but yet there is something more this may be done if he impose new Gabels or Imposts upon his Subjects without the Pope's leave for if they do not pretend to this also why does the Pope in Bulla Coenae Dominici excommunicate all Princes that do it NOW if it be inquired by what Authority the Pope does these things It is answered That the Pope hath a Supreme and Absolute Authority both the Spiritual and the Temporal Power is in the Pope as Christ's Vicar said Azorius and Santarel The Church hath the right of a superiour Lord over the rights of Princes and their Temporalties and that by her Jurisdiction she disposes of Temporals ut de suo peculio as of her own proper goods said our Countreyman Weston Rector of the College at Doway Nay the Pope hath power in omnia per omnia super omnia in all things thorough all things and over all things and the sublimity and immensity of the Supreme Bishop is so great that no mortal man can comprehend it said Cassenaeus no man can express it no man can think it So that it is no wonder what Papirius Massonus said of Pope Boniface the VIII that he owned himself not only as the Lord of France but of all the World NOW we are sure it will be said That this is but the private opinion of some Doctors not the Doctrine
a Synod of German and French Bishops at Francford who discussed the Acts pass'd at Nice and condemn'd them And the Acts of this Synod although they were diligently suppressed by the Popes arts yet Eginardus Hincmarus Aventinus Blondus Adon Aymonius and Regino famous Historians tell us That the Bishops of Francford condemn'd the Synod of Nice and commanded it should not be called a General Council and published a Book under the name of the Emperor confuting that unchristian Assembly and not long since this Book and the Acts of Francford were published by Bishop Tillius by which not only the infinite fraud of the Roman Doctors is discover'd but the worship of Images is declar'd against and condemned A while after this Ludovicus the son of Charlemain sent Claudius a famous Preacher to Taurinum in Italy where he preach'd against the worshipping of Images and wrote an excellent book to that purpose Against this book Jonas Bishop of Orleans after the death of Ludovicus and Claudius did write In which he yet durst not assert the worship of them but confuted it out of Origen whose words he thus cites Images are neither to be esteemed by inward affection nor worshipped with outward shew and out of Lactantius these Nothing is to be worshipped that is seen with mortal eyes Let us adore let us worship nothing but the name alone of our only Parent who is to be sought for in the Regions above not here below And to the same purpose he also alleges excellent words out of Fulgentius and S. Hierom and though he would have Images retain'd and therefore was angry at 〈◊〉 who caus'd them to be taken down yet he himself expresly affirms that they ought not to be worshipped and withall adds that though they kept the Images in their Churches for history and ornament yet that in France the worshipping of them was had in great detestation And though it is not to be denied but that in the sequel of Jonas his book he does something prevaricate in this question yet it is evident that in France this Doctrine was not accounted Catholick for almost nine hundred years after Christ and in Germany it was condemned for almost 1200 years as we find in 〈◊〉 WE are not unskill'd in the devices of the Roman Writers and with how much 〈◊〉 they would excuse this whole matter and palliate the crime imputed to them and elude the Scriptures expresly condemning this Superstition But we know also that the arts of Sophistry are not the ways of Salvation And therefore we exhort our people to follow the plain words of Scripture and the express Law of God in the second Commandment and add also the exhortation of S. John Little children keep your selves from Idols To conclude it is impossible but that it must be confessed that the worship of Images was a thing unknown to the primitive Church in the purest times of which they would not allow the making of them as amongst divers others appears in the Writings of Clemens Alexandrinus Tertullian and Origen SECT IX Picturing God the Father and the Holy Trinity a scandalous practice in the Roman Church It is against the Doctrine and practice of the Primitive Church and of the wiser Heathens who had no Images or Pictures of their gods AS an Appendage to this we greatly reprove the custom of the Church of Rome in picturing God the Father and the most holy and undivided Trinity which besides that it ministers infinite scandal to all sober-minded men and gives the new Arrians in Polonia and Anti-Trinitarians great and ridiculous entertainment exposing that sacred Mystery to derision and scandalous contempt It is also which at present we have undertaken particularly to remark against the doctrine and practice of the primitive Catholick Church S. Clemens of Alexandria says that in the Discipline of Moses God was not to be represented in the shape of a Man or of any other thing and that Christians understood themselves to be bound by the same Law we find it expresly taught by Origen Tertullian Eusebius Athanasius S. Hierom S. Austin Theodoret Damascen and the Synod of Constantinople as it is reported in the 6. Action of the second Nicene Council And certainly if there were not a strange spirit of contradiction or superstition or deflexion from the Christian Rule greatly 〈◊〉 in the Church of Rome it were impossible that this practice should be so countenanc'd by them and defended so to no purpose with so much scandal and against the natural reason of mankind and the very Law of Nature it self For the Heathens were sufficiently by the light of Nature taught to abominate all Pictures or Images of God Sed nulla effigies simulacraque nulla Deorum Majestate locum sacro implevere timore They in their earliest ages had no Pictures no Images of their Gods Their Temples were filled with majesty and a sacred fear and the reason is given by Macrobius Antiquity made no Image viz. of God because the supreme God and the mind that is born of him that is his Son the eternal Word as it is beyond the Soul so it is above Nature and therefore it is not lawful that Figments should come thither 〈◊〉 Callistus relating the heresie of the Armenians and Jacobites says they made Images of the Father Son and Holy Ghost quod perquam ab sur dum est Nothing is more absurd than to make Pictures or Images of the Persons of the holy and adorable Trinity And yet they do this in the Church of Rome For in the windows of their Churches even 〈◊〉 Countrey-villages where the danger cannot be denied to be great and the scandal insupportable nay in their books of Devotion in their very Mass-books and breviaries in their Portuises and Manuals they picture the holy Trinity with three noses and four eyes and three faces in a knot to the great dishonour of God and scandal of Christianity it self We add no more for the case is too evidently bad but reprove the error with the words of their own Polydore Virgil Since the world began never was any thing more foolish than to picture God who is present every where SECT X. Setting up the Pope as universal Bishop an Innovation Among the Apostles the first Church-Governours no Prerogative of one over the rest a remarkable testimony of S. Cyprian to prove it Bishops succeeded the Apostles without Superiority of one over another by Christs Law The Pope has invaded their rights and diminished their power many ways Primitivs Fathers make every Bishop to have a share of power not from another Bishop but from Christ and are against one Bishops judging and forcing another Bishop to obedience Popes opposed when they interposed their authority in the affairs of other Churches THE last Instance of Innovations introduc'd in Doctrine and Practice by the Church of Rome that we shall represent is