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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	bishop_n	church_n	primitive_a	2,286	5	9.3719	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56388	A discourse sent to the late King James, to persuade him to embrace the Protestant religion by Dr. Samuel Parker, Late Lord Bishop of Oxford ; to which are prefixed two letters ; the first, from Sir Leolyn Jenkins, on the same subject, the second, from the said bishop, with the discourse ; printed from the original manuscript papers, without observation or reflection.	Parker, Samuel, 1640-1688.; Jenkins, Leoline, Sir, 1623-1685.	1690 (1690)	Wing P461; ESTC R5913	25,687	36

Rome as to Ecclesiastical Constitution But now if this one Point of the Supremacy of the Bishop of Rome were the great Foundation of the Christian Faith as it must be if his pretences to it by divine Right are true it is a very strange thing that there should not be so much as the shadow of any such Authority in all the Records of the Primitive Church Is it not very odd that when so many Controversies were started in the Christian Church both in the Apostles own time and in the Ages next and immediately following and that when Almighty God had appointed S. Peter and his Successors in the See of Rome the certain and undoubted Judges for ending all Controversies that yet none of the Apostles or Primitive Doctors of the Christian Church that labor'd so much against Schisms Heresies and Divisions should ever so much as think of or mention such an effectual nay infallible Remedy against them all One Appeal to the Bishop of Rome had put an End to all further Trouble and certainly had God vested him with that Power over the whole Christian Church they could never have been so stupid as never to have taken any notice of it And yet we find not the least mention of it for many hundred years after the settlement of Christianity in the World And perhaps the Bishops of Rome themselves had never thought of it had it not been first put into their Heads by the Bishop of Constantinople by whom it was as I shall shew in the sequel of this Discourse first claimed Some small glimmerings indeed we meet with of some honorary Preeminence or Dignity allowed to the Church of Rome upon the score of its being the Imperial City and by reason of the great resort to it of its being one of the most competent Witnesses of the true Tradition of Christianity But that it should have any Jurisdiction over any other Churches out of its own Province much more such an universal power over all Churches in the World as is now challeng'd is a Notion so utterly strange and unknown to all Antiquity that the bare silence of it alone is an irrefragable demonstration of the Novelty of the Pretence But for the greater Evidence of this thing which indeed is the first point of Controversie between us I shall make bold as briefly as I can to give Your Royal Highness a true and impartial account of the State of the Christian Church from the beginning and then of the several and gradual Alterations that were by Ecclesiastical Constitutions made in it in after times and lastly how and how late the Popes of Rome climb'd up to that infinite Authority that they have for some Ages exercised and still claim over the Christian Church And when I have done all this I may safely leave it to Your Royal Highnesses Princely Wisdom to judge what Obligation You can have in Conscience to leave the Communion of the Britannick Church for that of Rome And in the first place there is nothing more evident in all the Records of the Primitive Church than that the Apostles and first Doctors of the Christian Faith modell'd the first Settlement of Churches according to the then present State and Division of the Roman Empire For though our blessed Saviour settled the Supreme Government of his Church upon his holy Apostles and their Successors yet he no where prescribed the bounds and limits of every Man's Jurisdiction but left it as indeed the Nature of the thing required to Humane Prudence ot divide the Provinces among themselves as they should judge most convenient for the Advantage of their common Christianity And accordingly we find from the very beginning that they formed the Jurisdiction of Churches according to the Civil Judicatures of the Empire common Prudence directing them so to do not only for the more speedy Propagation of Christianity by the resort of all People to the Metropolis of the Province which they therefore constituted the Mother Church of it but that whenever the Powers of the World should come in to own Christianity the better Correspondence might be maintain'd between the States Civil and Ecclesiastical And beside this by making the Head City of every Province the Metropolis of the Church within that Province upon which the inferior Cities depended as the Centre of Communion they thereby admirably secur'd the Unity of the whole Body while every Episcopal Church exercised ordinary Jurisdiction within it self but was bound either in cases of great Difficulty or such as concerned the common Christianity to have recourse to the Mother-Church And this was apparently the Original of the Privilege and Preeminence of some Churches above others from the beginning not that they ever pretended to any Sovereignty over them in their particular Jurisdictions but only as the Centre of Ecclesiastical Unity so as to decide Controversies whenever any inferior Church appealed to them for their Advice or to summon Councils and preside over them in all Debates that concerned common Christianity And that this Distribution of Provinces and Bishopricks was setled by the Apostles seems evident from their own Writings who every where describe the bounds of Churches according to the Constitution of the Empire Thus St. Peter directs his Epistle to the several Churches of the Christian Iews with respect to so many several Provinces Pontus Galatia Cappadocia Asia and Bythinia which as they were distinct Provinces in the Civil Division of the Empire so were they from that time forward so many distinct Provincial Sees in the Communion of the Church And nothing is more obvious in the Epistles of St. Paul than that whenever he makes mention of any Church he either calls it by the name of the Province it self or the Metropolis or Head City of it And as this design of conforming the Ecclesiastical State to the Civil was first set on foot by the Apostles so was it carefully prosecuted by their Successors of which we have an eminent Instance in the Apostolical Canons which though they were not compiled by the Apostles themselves yet they were by Apostolical Men and such as immediately succeeded them where it is decreed in the 34 Canon That the Bishops of every Nation should acknowledge their Primate or Metropolitan and honor him as their Head and do nothing of moment in the Christian Church wthout his consent nor he without theirs Now that this was prescribed by the Apostles themselves is evident in that as this Canon was made a very short time after their Decease so it is not a new Law but a Ratification of an old Custom as indeed most of the Apostolical Canons seem to be This was apparently the Constitution of the Christian Churches in all places of the Empire for the first three hundred years or the whole interval of time from our Saviour to Constantine that as every City was governed by its own Bishop so was every Province by its own Metropolitan in his Synod of Bishops of which

only a Member of it and in that Station it is as large a Church as any were in the Primitive Times Neither then did the Communion of the Catholick Church consist in an Union of all Churches under one Head but in brotherly Love and Correspondence with one another and for that the Church of England is ready to offer it to the Church of Rome or any other upon the old Condition that they will give her leave to admonish them of their Faults and Miscarriages as Churches did one another of old But this is a Civility that the Church of Rome is too proud to accept of it must be all Churches or it will be none at all It allows no Equals in Communion and condescends to no Treaty but upon Terms of absolute Subjection neither is it content to enslave all its Neighbors to its own imperious Decrees unless they be submitted to as the infallible Dictates of God himself Now this seems too much for Men to swallow that have any sense or care of their Salvation for by this means the whole Faith of Christendom shall be left entirely at the Disposal of one single Person and the Pope alone shall be the whole Catholick Church This I say seems too much to venture upon one single Security especially unless it were confirmed by some clearer Commission than those remote and obscure Texts of Scripture that are alledg'd for the Papal Supremacy But to return from the Pope to the Church As the first Constitution of Churches was conform'd to the civil Government so indeed no other is practicable For upon that Supposition that Christianity makes no Abatement as to the civil Rights of Men especially of Princes provincial Churches cannot be justly extended beyond the Dominion of the State because in that case if Metropolitans or Patriarchs have power to call their Subject-Bishops to Councils the King's Subjects may be summoned out of his Dominions without his leave which is not only to diminish but to destroy his Power over his own Subjects for when they are out of his Dominions they are none of his So that the very State of Christianity naturally implies as it would not be inconsistent with it self the Conformity of the Church to the State in its bounds of Jurisdiction And this is the true meaning of that known Saying of one of the Fathers That the Church is in the Commonwealth and not the Commonwealth in the Church for the Civil Government being first constituted and the Church being afterwards taken into it it must for that Reason keep it self within it otherwise it breaks down its old Bounds of Settlement But beside that the Nature of Government confines every Church within the Prince's Dominions in which it is so it is highly convenient if not absolutely necessary to the due and effectual Exercise of Discipline that the Society of the Church be confined within some moderate Circuit of Government for great Governments are slow and unweildy in their Motions the very distance of Place makes all Proceedings uneasie and Determinations difficult and of this our Nation was sufficiently sensible when all Ecclesiastical Appeals were carried to Rome the Journey was tedious and chargable and by reason of the distance of Witnesses and other Inconveniences Proceedings infinitely dilatory I might say endless Causes depending there from Age to Age this is too notorious from the sad and open Complaints of those Times and I my self enjoy a small Office in this Church wherein my Predecessors had a Suit for a Privilege belonging to it hanging in the Court of Rome for some hundreds of Years till the very time of the Dissolution of the Pope's Power These are intolerable Grievances to Mankind and heavier Burthens than were ever imposed upon them by the most barbarous civil Government If therefore his Holiness will challenge a Supremacy over all Christian Churches let him not exercise his Jurisdiction in ordinary Causes that is contrary to all the Canons of the Church and Quiet of the World We will not contend with him about his Patriarchical Preheminence if that would give him Satisfaction tho we know he hath not the least pretence of any claim to it over us But when under that Pretext he takes to himself the Office of Universal Bishop that is to be all the Bishops of Christendom 't is that exorbitant Usurpation that is not our Complaint alone but the universal Complaint of Christendom it self And therefore if he would keep within his Patriarchical Bounds and Privileges which yet he enjoys not by divine Right but humane Institution we would give him all that Respect and Reverence that is due to the Primacy of his See But if instead of Brotherly Communion with us nothing less will serve his Turn than absolute Dominion over us and if Submission to that must be made our only Title to the Catholick Church as if we had no Right to Christianity but by Subjection to the Bishop of Rome these cannot but seem too hard Terms of Communion or if they are not it is enough that they are unwarrantable or if they are not so it is enough that they are not necessary And that they are not is evident from the Premises where I have demonstrated that the first Duty of every Christian as a Member of the Christian Church is to joyn Communion with his own Bishop as the first Political Society of a Church And that the next is a Combination of all the Bishops within one civil Government under one Metropolitan That this Polity was set on foot by the Apostles themselves and every where put in practice in the Primitive Church that the Ecclesiastical Province cannot extend beyond the Precincts of the Civil without infringing the Authority of Sovereign Princes and therefore that no foreign Prelate can have or exercise any Ecclesiastical Power over his Majesty's Subjects because that would give them Power to command them out of his Dominions So plainly doth the Nature of Civil Government set Bounds to Ecclesiastical Societies which one thing if duely consider'd must cut off all Claims of Papal Supremacy over this Church because by virtue of it he would have such a kind of Power over His Majesty's Subjects as the Christian Religion doth by no means allow any its Officers And as this was the Settlement of National Churches from the beginning of Christianity so is it the present Constitution of the Church of England that is or would be govern'd by its Metropolitan in his Synod of Bishops subject to one Civil Government And as this is all the Political Society that a Christian Church is capable of so all the Communion that it can have with other Churches consists in brotherly Love and mutual Correspondence And this way was the Christian Church in the first Ages of it preserv'd in competent Peace and Unity And whatever other Power was afterward erected in the Church was founded upon humane Institution and therefore is alterable in it self at least not necessary to the

without but against our Savior's Commission who hath appropriated that Power to another Order of Men and if the Priest challenge any temporal Jurisdiction as deriv'd from our Savior he in effect disclaims him in that he becomes our Savior purely by Virtue of his spiritual Power and Supremacy over his Church and therefore to pretend to any other Power deriv'd from him as Head of it is another way of turning Christ into Mahomet But tho the Civil Magistrate have no share of spiritual Authority yet hath he a Sovereign Supremacy over the Ecclesiastical State otherwise he would abate of his Power by the coming of Christianity into the World which contradicts the first Principle of a Christian Church that it makes no Alteration as to Civil Rights but then this Power over the Church is purely civil too and relates only to the Ends of Peace and Government in this Life and is the same that every Prince would have had tho our Savior had never come into the World but as for that which he hath peculiarly granted as he hath granted no part of it to the Civil Magistrate so it is plain that he hath designedly setled it upon another Order of Men and it is they alone that have any Right to exercise it But notwithstanding this new Power they are never the less Subjects than they were before and therefore all Christian Princes have the same Supremacy over all the Powers of the Church as to the Ends of Civil Government and as far as concerns the Affairs of this Life as they could have had if there were no such Powers at all The grand Difficulty in this Case is the Danger of Competition between these two Powers for if they happen to contradict each other as they too often do Which shall over-rule If a Man obey his Prince contrary to the Prescription of his spiritual Guide he may endanger his Soul if he obey the Bishop he disobeys his Prince and so deservedly forfeits his Neck to Justice But this Difficulty as big as it may appear is clearly remov'd by this one Consideration That the Christian Church and all the Authority in it is founded upon the Cross of Christ and that not only claims no Power in this World but obliges to an entire Submission to all the Powers of it so that no Opposition can lawfully be made even to the most unlawful Commands of Sovereign Princes but all Christians are still bound to do as they did in the Primitive Times to lay down their Lives with all manner of Meekness if their Governors whether right or wrong require it This is the true and honest State of the Christian Church That every Christian Man be faithful to the Laws of his Religion and if he suffer for it he shall be compensated for it with those Rewards that his Religion promises So that in all Cases of Competition both Powers so prevail as to attain their respective Ends. The Civil Power over-rules as to all Effects of this Life and being thus gently submitted to secures the Peace and Quiet of this World and that is the End for which it was instituted And the spiritual Power attains its Effect as to the World to come the Salvation of the Souls of Men by their conscientious Loyalty to their Religion and that is all that it aims at or pretends to and every Man that professeth Christianity takes it up upon this Condition So that all Resistance to secular Powers upon pretence of Religion is a direct Contradiction to the nature of the Christian Faith and another open Apostacy from Christianity to Mahumetanism And that I am afraid will prove a gross Blemish upon the Church of Rome that it pretends to a Power not only equal but superior to Princes so that the Popes as the Vicars of Christ may not only contend with them by force of Arms but may in some Cases depose them from their Thrones which if truly consider'd is no less than rank Blasphemy against our blessed Savior by turning his pure Religion into an Artifice of secular Interest But beside this this Point of Competition is to be chiefly determin'd by the Matter about which it is employ'd If the Contest be about an Article of Faith or any Fundamental Rule of Religion and the Prince will interpose his Power tho no Man is oblig'd to obey him because it is certain he never was entrusted with any such Power by our Saviour yet is he to be submitted to with all Meekness by virtue of the former Principle that requires peaceable Submission to Government from Christians in all Cases for the quiet of the World But if the Contest be about a Ritual of Worship or an emergent Rule of Discipline about which the Governors of the Church have a Power in themselves to make Canons and new Provisions yet are they indispensibly bound to submit the Exercise of it to their Prince because that 's the first Principle of Christianity as far as they can without Violence to the Laws of their Religion to comport with Civil Government so that tho this Power be seated properly in the Church yet out of that great Respect and Duty that the Christian Law requires to Princes they are bound to make use of it with all Deference to Sovereign Authority especially because the Church is accountable to it for its peaceable Behavior in the Commonwealth and therefore ought to give Security that it will neither disturb the State nor invade the Sovereign Prerogative upon this Pretence which because it is possible for them to do and some have done they are concern'd both in Duty and Modesty to submit all their Proceedings to his Judgment And this as far as I understand is the true State of the Church of England in the Act commonly called the Submission of the Clergy in which they do not alienate ar grant away their Power of making Canons but only for preventing all future Jealousies in the State against them they give all the Assurance they can that they will not presume to publish their Decrees without their Sovereign Lord's Consent and Approbation This short Account is the true State of the Bounds of Civil and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and that being setled the next thing to be considered is to find out what was the true and original Settlement of the Christian Church and by that we shall be able to inform our selves of the good or bad state of any present Church as it agrees or disagrees with it First then there is no one thing more clear and evident in the Christian Religion than that our Saviour vested the whole Apostolical Order with a Supremacy of Power over his Church and that they in pursuance of this his Divine Institution ordained Bishops to succeed them in their Supremacy of Power through all following Ages That the Apostles were superior to all other Officers in the Church is out of question and granted on all hands and that the Bishops succeeded them is as

there are many Instances in the Records of the Church though I shall mention but one as the most eminent of all and that is the several Synods that were called about the Paschal Controversie not long after the time of the Apostles themselves which as it was canvassed all the World over so was it debated in so many Provincial Synods in each whereof the Metropolitan presided in Palestin Theophilus Bishop of Caesarea in Pontus Palma Bishop of Armastris in the Proconsular Asia Policrates Bishop of Ephesus in Italy Victor Bishop of Rome in France Irenaeus Bishop of Lyons where every Synod judged for it self and made its own Decrees only Victor would have been meddling with the Church of Asia though as far as appears from records not from any Authority he pretended to over it but out of an intemperate Zeal for his own Opinion But in this he is quickly check'd by the other Churches especially that of France though of the same Perswasion with himself as to the matter of the Controversie as he would not break the Unity of the Christian Church which was to be maintained by no other means than keeping up the Rights of every part of it And this they admirably preserved by their communicatory Letters between Church and Church so as no Member of one Church might be admitted to Communion with another without his Letters Testimonial whereby it was so ordered that whosoever was Excommunicate out of a particular Church was shut out of the Church Catholick Neither could a Bishop exercise any part of his Office in any other Diocese than his own much less any other Province and if he did his own Metropolitan was obliged to throw him out of Communion and all other not to take him in And this was the occasion of that sixth famous Canon of the first Council of Nice under Constantine the Great that confirms to the three great Churches of Rome Alexandria and Antioch their ancient Privileges and Preeminences For though some learned Men both within and without the Church of Rome have been pleased to dispute that the Power here abetted in this Canon was Patriarchical and not merely Metropolitical yet that it was not Patriarchical is notoriously evident because there is not the least mention of any such Office in all the Records of the Christian Church before the Council of Calcedon which was above an hundred years after that of Nice and yet this Nicene Canon only confirms the old and accustomed Rights of Churches And that this power was Metropolitical is manifest because it was made purely in pursuance of the fore-mentioned 34th Apostolical Canon that requires the Subjection of all other inferior Bishops to their National or Provincial Bishops The occasion of it was this That Meletius Bishop of Nicapolis within the Province of Alexandria being deposed by his Metropolitan in a Synod of Bishops as for divers other Crimes so particularly for Sacrificing to Idols notwithstanding that takes upon him to Ordain new Bishops himself and so violates all the Preeminences of his Metropolitan both by slighting his Censure and invading his Power Now complaint hereof being brought to the Council they decree that the ancient Prerogatives of the Church of Alexandria over the inferior Churches within its Province shall be kept as inviolable as those of Rome and the same for Antiochia and not only so in those great Sees but in all other Provinces whatsoever for so the Canon expresly runs that not only at Antiochia but that in all other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Provinces their ancient Privileges should be preserved So that here is nothing peculiar to these three great Cities determined because the Jurisdictions of all other Provinces that were in force at that time were as much ratified by the same Authority and that was only this That whatever Superiority greater Churches had by long Custom enjoyed over less should stand confirmed for the time to come And accordingly we find it decreed in the second Canon of the second general Council held at Constantinople as a clear Interpretation of the sixth Canon of Nice that all Bishops should contain themselves within the known Circuit of their Jurisdiction and not thrust themselves into other Diocesses especially that the Bishop of Alexandria should be confin'd within the Diocese of Aegypt and Antiochia within that of the East and that the Churches of Asia Pontus and Thracia should enjoy the antient Power of Government within themselves as well as those that had invaded their Right this being the occasion of the Decree of the Council that Miletius Bishop of Antiochia had made Gregory Nazienzen Bishop of Constantinople and Peter Bishop of Alexandria had done the same for Maximus whereas Constantinople was in Thrace that was a Diocese by it self in the Civil Division of the Empire and therefore exempt from the Jurisdiction of those great Prelates having the same supreme and independent Power within it self as they had within their Provinces as had also the lesser Asia and Pontus which that they might not be encroach'd upon or swallowed up by their Potent Neighbors were here guarded and settled by the Decree of the Council in the Possession of their ancient Rights against all future Invasions And the same Decree we find in the next general Council held at Ephesus Canon the eighth upon the like occasion the Bishop of Antioch taking upon him to Ordain in the Isle of Cyprus that was an head Province by it self This Usurpation therefore the Council severely censures and forbids and withal orders that no Metropolitan should challenge any further extent of Jurisdiction that he could not prove by long and immemorial Prescription lest under the Pretence of their Priestly Office they should introduce a secular Sovereignty into the Church Infinite are the Instances in the Records of the Church of the Metropolitical Supremacy of Churches but these that I have already alledged are enough to shew the true Primitive and Apostolical Constitution of the Christian Church which lasted the same even as to the bounds of Jurisdiction till the time of Constantine the Great But the casting the Civil Government of the Empire into a new Model gave occasion to the Church in pursuance of its Primitive Rule of conforming to the Civil Government to add to the old Ecclesiastical Hierarchy for the whole Empire being divided into thirteen Diocesses each Diocese containing many Provinces in all to the number of 120 and every Province several inferior Cities And therefore as every City had its Judge for Civil Government so had it its Bishop for Ecclesiastical and every Province its President so its Metropolitan and every Diocese which then contained several Provinces its Lieutenant so its Primate Which indeed was nothing else but raising up a superior Order of Metropolitans in conformity to the new Model of Civil Government and therefore was at first nothing else but an honorary Title that gave them Precedency to the Metropolitans but not Jurisdiction over them For

within themselves Of which there were great Numbers in the World and some of as large Jurisdiction as the Patriarchates especially in Asia But as for the Patriarchate of Rome it never extended its Power beyond Italy and its adjacent Islands And therefore it is very observable that the Writers of the Church of Rome care not that it should be known to the Christian World So that hereafter all their Brags of Universal Pastorship when they come to make it out their Manuscripts still fail them Carolus à Sancto Paulo hath taken most Pains of any in this Argument and hath done well enough in other Parts but when he comes to the Church of Rome there his Manuscript is so worn out and defective that it was not worth publishing Now doth not this look oddly that their Books should fail them thus only in their own Cause and doth it not rather give suspicion that themselves are too well aware that they would do them no real kindness However it is a very preposterous thing for a Man to pretend to a Title to a great Estate by virtue of some antient Writings and yet when he comes to try his Title should only plead that indeed such Writings there once were but that they are now so impair'd that they are not legible And yet this is the very Case of the Church of Rome here All Christendom at least the Western Empire ought to be subject to him as their Patriarch Why so Because he ever was so How doth that appear By the ancient Notitiae of the Church Produce them So we can for all the other Patriarchates but those that concern the Church of Rome are unhappily lost Are they so Then you have lost the Evidence of your Title and for ought you do or can know never had any But instead of this shifting and prevaricating that we meet with in the Writers of the Church of Rome there is not long since publish'd by a very learned and a very honest Gentleman of our own Church and Nation an accurate Description of all the Patriarchates out of an ancient and authentic Manuscript which reckons to the Patriarchate of Rome only Italy and the adjacent Islands but not a syllable of Spain or Germany or Gaul or England or any other of the large Territories in Europe which if they had belonged to this Patriarchate at that time could never have been omitted in this exact Catalogue that hath so carefully set down every petty City in Italy In this posture stood the Government of the Church for many Years without any considerable Alteration For tho some of the Bishops of Rome would have been usurping upon the Churches of Africa by pretending to a Right of Appeals from them they were repulsed with great Shame and Dishonour And were it not that I am unwilling to trouble Your Highness with any more Disputes than what concerns our own Church with the Church of Rome there is nothing more easie than to shew that this Controversie with the African Churches is a notorious Instance of both the Frauds of the Roman Church and of other Churches abhorring his remotest aim at any Supremacy But tho he missed his design at that time his Successors were ever after watchful of all other Opportunities to compass it And to that purpose they happen'd to have two very lucky Advantages the first was the fatal Division of the Empire into East and West from whence S. Gregory Nazienzen a Man both wise and pious foretold a more fatal Division in the Church and accordingly in a little time it came to pass that the whole Body of it was divided into East and West as well as the Empire and the Division was quickly heightned by the mutual Jealousies of the Emperors who would not suffer the Bishops under one Government to repair to Councils conven'd under the other And that in a short time grew to alienations of Minds so that they kept their Councils apart and if any Bishop of the East repair'd to a Synod of the West and so for the contrary He was look'd upon as a Betrayer of his own Church And this was the occasion of the after-greatness of the Church of Rome in these Western Parts because that alone of all the five Patriarchates happen'd to go along with the Western Empire For having no Competitor for the Supremacy or so much as the equality of Power in the Western Church it was no hard matter to advance it self to any degree of Power that it pleased to challenge especially when the Western Churches were forward enough of themselves to advance its Dignity for the Honor of their own Patriarchate in opposition to that of Constantinople which being the Seat of the Empire and enjoying the Favor of the Emporors soon over top'd all the other Eastern Patriarchates so that all the Competition that remain'd was between Rome and Constantinople Till at last in the Sixth Century Iohn Bishop of Constantinople first obtained of Mauritius the Emperor the Title of Universal Bishop which very Title was quickly and vehemently oppos'd by Gregory Bishop of Rome as a Piece of Antichristian Pride and Insolence But Mauritius being murdered by Phocas and Cyriacus then Bishop of Constantinople being fallen under the new Tyrant's Disfavor for declaring against his execrable Murder the Bishop of Rome seizes that Opportunity to flatter and caress him in all his Wickedness for which Civility the Usurper takes the Title of Universal Bishop and settles it upon the See of Rome And when once they had obtained the Title they resolv'd to make it good by gaining the Power too Tho by what degrees they encroach'd upon other Churches it is not at all to my purpose here to represent it is enough to have shewn the late Original of the Title which was never given them till above 600 Years after our Saviour This then being the true and real state of all the Christian Church the Conclusion plainly makes it self as to any English Christian's Obligation to communicate with the Church of England or the Church of Rome For as it is the indispensible Duty of every Man to joyn in visible Communion with the Society of the Church so is the first visible Society of the Church settled in the Communion of the Bishop of the Diocess And thence evident it is that the first Duty of every Christian as to external Communion with the Church is to joyn in Communion with the Bishop of the Place where he lives For if our Saviour setled the Government of the Church in the Apostles and if the Episcopal Order succeeded them in their Office then hath every Bishop Apostolical Authority And then is every Christian Man bound to submit to his Bishop as to an Apostle from whence the Bishop derives the Succession of his Order and Authority So that the Episcopal Society is the first visible Communion of the Christian Church and a Man becomes a Member of the Church-Catholic by joyning in visible Communion

unquestionable from all the clearest Records of Antiquity their Succession especially in the most famous Churches being derived by the most ancient Writers from the Apostles themselves and was as easily and certainly known to those Men that have transmitted it to us as any learned Man may know the Succession of the Archbishops of Canterbury from the Reign of Queen Eliz. to this time But as this Power was at first given to the Apostles so was it equally divided among them so that every one exercis'd supreme Power within the Bounds of his own Jurisdiction and all together in the Catholick Church or as S. Cyprian states it that as there was but one Church founded by Christ throughout all the World but this Church was made up of several distinct Members so was there but one Episcopacy and that consists in the Agreement and unanimous care of all Christian Bishops So that the whole Body of the Church was governed by the whole Body of the Apostles and their Successors but the several parts of it were allotted to the Charge of single Bishops who governed them with particular Care but so as to have regard to the Peace and Unity of the Whole This is the only Notion that this wise and good Man than whom there is not a more eminent Example for both upon Record seems in all his Writings to have had of the Catholick Church And as for the Apostles who were the first Representatives of it I cannot find the least Footsteps in all the holy Gospels of any particular Prerogative granted to one above the rest It is true indeed that our Savior often addresses himself to S. Peter in particular but then it is evident that this is done upon particular Occasions and as evident too that all the great things that are occasionally spoken of him are in the Scripture ascrib'd to all the other Apostles Thus whereas Matth. xvi our Savior gives him the Keys of Heaven upon his confessing him to be the Messias He vests all the Apostles with the same Power and that with particular solemnity Iohn xx 21. And whereas he stiles S. Peter the Rock or Foundation upon which he would build his Church the same Title is given to all the Apostles in other Scriptures as Ephes. ii 20. Built upon the Foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Iesus Christ himself being the chief Corner Stone And Revel xxi 14. The Wall of the City had twelve Foundations upon which were the Names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb. And in all the Gospels unless when he applies himself particularly to S. Peter upon the Occasion of his Zeal and Forwardness in the Faith our Savior invests them all with an equal Power especially when he gave them their grand Commission to convert all Nations Matth. xxviii 19 20. So that the Men of the Church of Rome strein the Scriptures with too forc'd a Violence when out of such slight and accidental Occasions of our Savior's particular Speeches to S. Peter they would settle such great and high Privileges upon his Person so as to make him sovereign Lord of all the other Apostles and sole Monarch of the Universal Church This Foundation is too slight for the Weight of so great a Building and so big a Claim requires somewhat a clearer Evidence of Title and if our Savior had intended any such absolute Sovereignty to S. Peter and made that the Fundamental Principle of his Church certainly he would have declared it a little more expresly and not have left so weighty a Point to be merely surmis'd out of occasional Discourses of which there are such easie and obvious Reasons to be given without his ever intending any such design So that in truth to make so much Noise as the Romanists do about the personal Privileges of S. Peter upon such poor and slender Pretences is at once to impose upon the Wisdom of God as if he had laid the Foundations of his Church so slightly and to affront the Understandings of Men as if they thought them so weak as to be persuaded to any thing by such poor and precarious Arguings But yet however I will grant more than can with any decent modesty be demanded from these Texts and yield that our Savior designed some considerable Precedency to S. Peter above all the other Apostles Yet what is this to that omnipotent Sovereignty that his Holiness challenges over the whole Christian Church who takes upon himself not only the supreme but almost the sole Disposal of it whereas it is too well known that S. Peter after the Privileges granted to him was commanded by an Order of the other Apostles Acts viii 14. which could never have been done if his Power had been Monarchical over them all Neither do we find him any where exercising any such Sovereignty over them for tho by reason of his ready Faculty of Speech he was usually the first Speaker yet we do no where find that he either challeng'd or practis'd any other Precedency So that tho he was the first that delivered his Opinion in the Council of Ierusalem yet it was S. Iames that determined and pronounced the Decree in that he was Bishop of the Place as is undeniably evident from the most undoubted Records of Antiquity Which yet he ought not to have done if S. Peter had been endued with the same Superiority over all the rest of the Apostles that the Bishop of Rome challenges over all the other Bishops of the Christian Church But not to insist upon these remote and obscure Footsteps of S. Peter's Primacy in the Scriptures I will freely grant him out of the Holy Text it self some considerable Precedency tho when I have done that too what is it to the Bishop of Rome more than it is to the Bishop of Antioch or Alexandria or the Bishops of several other Places in which S. Peter first planted the Christian Faith so that the Bishops of all those Places have as fair a Title to be S. Peter's Successors as the Bishop of Rome And yet this great point I shall be so civil as to admit and grant that the peculiar Right of Succession to the Privileges of S. Peter if any such there were was appropriated to the See of Rome but still What is this to that universal Jurisdiction that is challenged by the Bishops of this to this See as the supreme and infallible Governors of the Catholick Church For after all other Disputes 't is this that is the only dividing Point between us 't is this that is the only Fundamental Article of their Church 't is this for which they load us so heavily with their honorable Titles of Hereticks and Schismaticks And so no doubt are we if his Holiness be vested by Divine Right with that universal Supremacy that he challenges over the whole Christian Church In a word if we take this one Controversie away I for my part know no other difference between the Church of England and the Church of