A SHORT VIEW OF THE Chief Points IN CONTROVERSY Between the REFORMED CHURCHES And the CHURCH of ROME IN Two LETTERS to the Duke of Bouillon upon his turning PAPIST Written by the Reverend PETER DV MOVLIN Professor of Divinity in the University of Sedan Newly translated out of the FRENCH Copy which was never Printed LONDON Printed for Benjamin Tooke at the Ship in St. Pauls Church-Yard 1680. To the Honourable Sir NORTON KNATCHBVL Knight and Baronet Honourable Sir THese Letters written fifty years ago to reduce the Duke of Bouillon to the Protestant Religion which he had forsaken never were put to the Press for Fear of provoking that great Lord to confute them with Arguments of Power against which those of Truth and Learning too often cannot stand That they now come out in English the Church of England is obliged Sir to you who having by your diligent Search made your self Owner of a fair Manuscript of the same were pleased to bestow it upon me the Authors Son adding your Request which to me is a Command that I would translate it into English and give it to the Publick I have now obeyed your Order which I could not have done in a more seasonable Conjuncture and I cannot in Duty but return this Translation to the bountiful Giver of the Original Sir you have by your excellent Labours already publisht shewn to the World how well you can match hearty Piety with eminent Learning Now you are pleased to give another Instance of your Affection to both by procuring the setting forth these following Treatises Short indeed they are but as compact with the Sinews of Reason and Learning as any that ever came from the Study of that strong Champion of Gods Cause May God be glorified by it his Truth asserted his Opposers converted and your Zeal for Gods Truth and Glory be rewarded by God and imitated by men So prayeth SIR Your true Honourer and most humble Servant PETER DU MOULIN THE FIRST EPISTLE MY LORD UPON hearing the Report that you purpose to change your Religion I continued a long time doubtful whether I should write to Your Grace about it For being hardly perswaded that such a thought could come into your mind I was afraid to be offensive to Your Grace by my Mistrust But now seeing that Report to continue and increase I could hold no longer from imparting my thoughts to Your Grace upon that Subject being inferiour to none in Fidelity and Affection to your Service You were instructed My Lord from your Infancy by an Excellent Father and a Virtuous Mother in a Religion of which you have learned to fear God and serve him according to his Word In that Religion if you had met with some Scruple you ought at the least to have heard both the Parties and not have taken counsel onely of the Adversaries This is plain tempting of God who being thereby justly provoked blindeth the Spirit of those that seek occasions to turn from his Service Had Your Grace done me that Honour to acquaint me with your Doubts I might have easily shewed you that the Roman Religion is altogether contrary to the Word of God That they celebrate every day a propitiatory Sacrifice for the Redemption of Souls other than the Death of our Lord Jesus Christ That the Communion of the Cup expresly commanded in Scripture is denied to the Laity That the People say Prayers to God which they do not understand and the Publick Service is performed in a Language unknown to them contrary to the express Prohibition of the Apostle 1 Cor. 14.16 That the Trinity is represented in carved Stone and Picture and the Adoration of Images is enjoyned by many Popes and new Councels contrary to Gods express Prohibition in the Second Commandment Which was taken away from the Law of God in the Offices and Breviaries that the People might not see it That Bones and Relicks of Saints are adored That by the Doctrine of their Purgatory God is made to burn the Souls of his Children for Sins fully pardoned and for which Jesus Christ hath wholly satisfied and that not to mend the Sinners but to satisfie his Justice That the Pope without any Authority from the Word of God taketh upon him to be Successor to St. Peter in the Apostleship and in the Primacy over the Universal Church To defend which Primacy Epistles and Decretals of the Antient Bishops of Rome were forged and many Books and supposititious Passages the falshood whereof we shew by invincible Proofs In Decrees Councels Canons and Principal Authors of the Roman Church the Pope is called God and the Divine Majesty having all Power in Heaven and Earth By which Power he fetcheth Souls out of Purgatory puts such as he pleaseth in the List of the Saints by Canonizing them giveth Pardons of Sins of two or three thousand years giveth and taketh away Kingdoms dispenseth with Oaths made unto God dissolveth Marriages lawfully contracted boasting that he cannot err in the Faith and that he hath Power to add new Articles to the Creed to be Judge above Scripture and to alter that which God hath instituted in his Word Of these I could bring to Your Grace a thousand Proofs drawn from the Decrees and Councels of Popes and from Publick Experience The Pope boasteth that he hath a Treasure in which he layeth up all the Overplus of the Penitential Works of the Saints and distributeth them unto others by his Indulgences and makes multitudes to travel two or three hundred Leagues to get the Remission of their Sins which is offered to them at home gratis by the Doctrine of the Gospel If a Rich man dieth who hath given any thing to the Church he hath many private Masses Obits and Suffrages for his Money But never any private Mass is sung for a Beggar or one that hath given nothing In the Roman Church departed Saints are prayed to of whom Holy Scripture saith that they know not the Hearts of men and whose Invocation hath neither Command nor Example nor Promise in the Word of God I am told that Your Grace hath given ear to Capucins who have for their Patron and Author of their Order St. Francis whose Life if you had read as our Adversaries themselves have publish'd it you might think that it was purposely written to defame him There you may find how he preach'd unto Birds that being stark naked he embraced a Woman made of Snow to repress his Heats that he took up again the Lice that fell down from his Garments and many the like Feats These Capucins as other Monks boast that they doe Works of Supererogation that is better and more perfect Works than God hath commanded in his Law For which therefore they look for a degree of Glory in Paradise above other Saints who had attained to no greater Perfection than to fulfil the Law of God perfectly who thereby have not got any greater Reward than Eternal Life If by the Doctrine of the
alledged to your Grace the Pride of the Bishop of Rome who began then to lift up himself is censured And though you had proved that the Western have always acknowledged the Pope as Head of the Church it availeth nothing unless it be proved also that his Primacy then consisted in doing those things which he doth now Did he then boast that he could not err Did he vaunt himself as Sovereign Judge of the Sense and Interpretation of Scripture Did he give Indulgences Did he draw Souls out of Purgatory Did he give and take away Kingdom Did he call himself God Did he boast that he hath Power to add unto the Creed For in vain do we dispute about Titles when the things are different I would also beseech you Grace to see whether you be not abused for indeed many Passages in the Fathers are found which say that the Bishop of Rome is Successor to St. Peter But they speak of the Succession in the Charge of Bishop of the City of Rome not in the Apostleship or in the Primacy over the Universal Church And it is very remarkable that all the Examples of the Popes Authority brought out of Antiquity are within the Limits of the Roman Empire And that it cannot be found for above a thousand years after our Saviours time that the Bishops of Rome did intermeddle with the Affairs of Churches without the Roman Empire as of the Persian Armenian and Indian Churches In all that time he never gave them any Laws he never received any Appeal from them And that you may see what was the Face of the ancient Church in that Point I will lay down before your Grace some Examples according to the Order of the Ages For the first Age we find that St. Peter writ his last Epistle being near his Death as he saith himself in the first Chapter and then or never it was time for him to say now my Death is at Hand but I leave you for my Successor the Bishop of Rome to whom I will have the Universal Church be subject but of that he saith nothing nor takes any of those Titles upon him which the Pope now attributes unto himself St. Peter being dead if there had been any Question about choosing a Head for the Universal Church in his Room no Doubt but that some Apostle as St. James or St. John must have succeeded him for St. John outlived St. Peter about thirty years but no such thing was done In the same Age lived Dionysius Areopagite to whom are ascribed by them of the Roman Church the Books of Ecclesiastical Hierarchy Reason required that he should speak of the Sovereign Hierarch who now is called the Pope Yet he speaks never a word of him he describeth all the Ecclesiastical Offices and Degrees making no Mention of the Head of the Church for he did not acknowledge any We find by the Ecclesiastical History that in that Age and long after the Bishop of Rome was elected by the Suffrages of the Clegy of that Diocesan Church with the Consent of their People An evident Proof that they believed not in those days that the Bishop of Rome was Head of the Universal Church For had he been so the Universal Church must have contributed to his Election the People of Rome having no right to give a Head to the Church of all the World That Age did swarm with Heresies which the Bishop of Rome did not condemn nor had any Cognisance of them None that we read of were condemned by any Council for not obeying the Bishop of Rome and refusing to be judged by him Our Adversaries themselves do not alledge any thing from the Roman Church of that Age but only some false decretal Epistles of the Popes which Baronius and Bellarmine and Binnius and many others acknowledge to be forged In the second Century our Adversaries find nothing for the Popes Primacy Only towards the end of that Age upon the Question about the Day of the Celebration of Easter Victor Bishop of Rome separated himself from the Communion of diverse of the Oriental Churches because they precisely observed the 14th day of the Moon of March for the day of Easter For which Action Victor was sharply taken up by other Bishops and particularly by Irenaeus as Eusebius witnesseth in the V Book and 25 Chapter of his History The third Age affords us many Examples to the contrary In the year of our Lord 217 Agrippinus Bishop of Carthage assembled a Council in Africa in which it was resolved and defined that the Baptism of Hereticks was no Baptism This was against the Doctrine of the Church of Rome and whether of the two was in the Right it is not material It is enough that thereby it appeareth that the Church of Africa was not then subject to that of Rome In the year of our Lord 256 Cyprian Successor of Agrippinus began to defend his Predecessors Doctrine There being then a Discord between Cornelius Bishop of Rome and one Novatianus whereby the Church of Rome was in Trouble Cyprian sent two Legats to Rome to compose the Difference thereby taking as much Authority over the Church of Rome as the Church of Rome use to exercise in the like Cases In all his Epistles to Cornelius he giveth him no other Title but that of Brother and acknowledgeth him not for his Superiour The Contention about rebaptizing of Hereticks grew hot between him and Stephen Bishop of Rome even to down-right ill Words In the Epistle to Pompeius which is the 74 Cyprian calls Stephen the Champion of Hereticks proud ignorant imprudent an Enemy to Christians preferring Falshood before Truth and Anti-Christ before Christ Moreover he assembled a Council of 87 African Bishops who condemned Stephen Bishop of Rome and his Doctrine and that in Terms worse than Cyprian had given him About the same time St. Firmilianus Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia a man of great Authority also bitterly reviled Stephen From these things it sufficiently appears that these Bishops were far from thinking themselves subject to the Bishop of Rome In that Age our Adversaries find nothing for the Pope's Primacy no Appeals to him from Churches either far or near no Laws given to the Universal Church onely some forged Decretal Epistles of the Bishops of Rome of those times are produced whose falshood is acknowledged by the most Learned of the Roman Writers In those Epistles the Pope is made to speak as a Master having power over all the Emperours and Bishops of the World Whereas the Bishops of Rome then confined the exercise of their Power to their own Diocess not presuming to give Laws to any other Churches much less to their Temporal Governours Of those three first Ages Pope Pius the Second in his Epistle to Martin Mayer which is the 188. speaks thus Every one then lived for himself and little Reverence was deferred to the Roman Church In the year of our Lord 312. the Emperour Constantine being converted to the
Agobio whether at Constantinople or Regio they have the same Dignity and Authority Power and Wealth or Meanness and Poverty do not make one greater or lower than another By their Place they are all Successors of the Apostles And because some alledged the Example of the Roman Church for preferring the Deacon before the Priest he answereth Why doest thou alledge to me the Custom of one City shewing that that was not to be a Rule to the Universal Church His Custom is to call Rome Babylon and the Harlot and to exhort devout Persons to come out of her And in his Preface upon the Book of Didymus of the Holy Ghost he speaks thus When I was in Babylon and was an Inhabitant of the Harlot clad in Purple and lived after the Laws of the Roman Citizens I would prate somewhat about the Holy Ghost and dedicate my Work to the Bishop of the City But behold that Pot which is seen in Jeremiah after the Staff on the North-side begins to boyl and the Senate of the Pharisees begins to cry out meaning by the Senate of the Pharisees the Ecclesiastical Roman Senate And in the Epistle to Marcella under the name of Paula and Eustochium exhorting Marcella to come out of Rome and to retire to Bethlehem I esteem saith he that this place of Bethlehem is holier than the Tarpeian Rock meaning the Roman Capitol which having so often been struck with Lightning from Heaven sheweth that it is displeasing unto God Read St. Johns Revelation and see what is foretold of the Hatlot clad with Purple and of the Blasphemy written on her forehead and of the seven Mountains and of the many Waters fly from her my People and be not Partaker of her Sins least you receive of her Plagues It is fallen it is fallen c. But being gone from Rome into Syria and living there in perpetual Quarrels with the Clergy of that Country he was constrained to have Recourse unto his old Master Damasus for he had been his Secretary and to write to him those kind Letters which you alledge After Hierom you bring St. Austin in these words Shall we doubt whether we must rest in the Churches Lap which by Succession hath always had Sovereign Authority in the Apostolick Chair That Passage is found in the Book de utilitate credendi in the 17 Chapter but otherwise set down than Your Grace alledgeth Disputing against the Manicheans with whom Scripture had no Authority he useth humane and probable Proofs to exhort men to embrace the Christian Religion He saith then We seeing such a great Assistance of God and so great Proficiency Improvement advance shall we doubt to enter into the Lap of that Church not the Roman but Catholick Church which even to the Confession of Mankind from the Apostolick See by the Successions of Bishops while the Hereticks in vain barked about her c. hath arrived at the height of Authority that is to be the establisht Religion In this Passage St. Austin neither mentioneth nor appears to have thought of the Roman Church And although the Chair of Rome had been named in it yet this would avail nothing for the Primacy of the Bishop of Rome over the Universal Church For the Primacy of the Apostolick Chairs is attributed by the Ancients no less to the Church of Alexandria of Antioch of Jerusalem c. than to the Church of Rome Sozomen speaks thus of the Council of Nice Soz. hist lib. 1. c. 16. There met among the Bishops that held Apostolick Sees Macarius Bishop of Jerusalem Eustathius Bishop of Antioch upon the River Orontes and Alexander near the Mareotid Marshes And again idem 4.24 of the Ephesine Council Cyrillus Prelate of the Apostolick See meaning Jerusalem Ruffinus in the second Book chap. 21. In Alexandria Timothy in Jerusalem John restored the Apostolick Sees Theodoret in the fifth Book of his History chap. 9. calls Antioch the most ancient Church and wholly Apostolick St. Austin in his 162 Epistle speaks of the Apostolick Sees in the plural saying that Cecilian might have reserved his Cause to the Judgment of the Apostolick Sees We have alledged Basil before saying that St. Ambrose Bishop of Milan had the Apostolick Preheminence and Hierom saying that all Bishops are Successors of the Apostles Sidonius in the first Epistle of the 6. Book saith that Lupus Bishop of Troyes had already set nine times five years in the Apostolick See They do then abuse your Grace that make you believe that Austin speaks only of the Apostolick See of the Roman Bishop seeing that the Primacy of the Apostolick See belonged to so many other Bishops And though in that place St. Austin had spoken of the Bishop of Rome only he had not thereby excluded the other Bishops from the same Dignity He that saith the King of France enjoyeth the Royal Preeminence doth not thereby deny to the Kings of England and Spain their Authority in their own Countries Here it is observable that St. Austin was never subject to the Bishop of Rome that he never took an Oath of Fidelity to him that when he was admitted Bishop he took no Letters of Investiture from him and paid him no Annates for his Entry He was one of those that made the Canons of the Milevitan Council which forbad the Appeals from Africa to Rome and one of those that made that Remonstrance to Celestin Bishop of Rome that he should for the time to come abstain from sending Legats into Africa and medling with their Businesses and using Supposititious Canons to advance his Authority The Bishops of Africa were of the same Faith with the Bishop of Rome and spake to him in respectful Terms because of the Dignity of the Imperial City and because they believed that St. Peter died at Rome and had founded that Chair among many others But if the Bishops of Rome had taken upon them the Title of God and boasted that they could not err if they had taken upon them to canonize Saints to give Indulgences to draw Souls out of Purgatory to alter the Commandments of God and to add unto the Creed those African Bishops would have bestowed their Censures upon him as freely as they did upon any other who fell into Heresie Of the Sacrifice of the Mass For the Sacrifice of the Mass Your Grace alledgeth two Passages out of St. Austin The one saith That the Catholick Faith suffers not that the Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of the Lord be offered for those that are not baptized In the other speaking of his dead Mother he saith that the Sacrifice of our Ransom was offered for her when her Body was upon the Brink of the Grave There is nothing more easie than to deceive one that will be deceived and hath no Knowledge in the Fathers St. Austin declareth his Mind upon this point very often and tells us that the Eucharist is called the Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ because it
what Sacraments Many have tryed these ways and are fallen to the Desire of curious Visions and have deserved to be deceived Tertullian in the thirtieth Chapter of his Apologetick speaks thus I cannot ask these things of any but him of whom I know that I shall obtain them For it is he only that grants them and I am he that have a Right to obtain them being his Servant that call upon him alone Likewise Origen against Celsus the eighth Book saith Above all things we must pray to none but God and his only Son Ignatius who lived near the time of the Apostles saith in the Epistle to the Philadelphians You Virgins have none but Jesus Christ and the Father of Jesus Christ in your Prayers Clemens Alexandrinus speaks thus Cl. Alexand l. 11. Strom. There being none but one only that is truly good which is God both we and the Angels pray to him alone And so Athanasius It is manifest saith he that the Patriarch Jacob in his Prayer joyned none with God but him that is his Word Athan. Orat. 4. cont Arian because it is he only that manifesteth the Father unto us By a notorious Falshood among the Works of this Father was foisted a Book of the Mother of God where she is called the Queen of Heaven and Christians are commanded to adore her But Bellarmine in his Book of Ecclesiastical Writers and Banonius in the year 48. § 19 20. acknowledges the Book to be supposititious By the like Forgery in St. Austin's Book of the Spirit and the Soul there is a Prayer to the Saints inserted but in the same Book Boetius is quoted who was not born when Augustine dyed an evident Proof that the book is falsely attributed to him There is a Book of the same Father Of the Care that must be had of the Dead which is truly his but corrupted and falsified in many places For he is made to speak of Prayers to Saints departed as good and laudable yet he saith there that the departed Saints know nothing of all that the Living do and that if it were otherwise his good and holy Mother would not have forsaken him Then he addeth The Spirits of the deceased are in a place where they see nothing of all that is done or that happeneth to men in this Life And a little after It must be acknowledged that the dead know not that which is done here while it is a doing but they know it afterwards by them that dye and come to them Was St. Austin so much overseen as to teach that those must be called upon by us who understand us not nor know what is done here below unless some dye and perhaps afterwards bring them News of it This Advantage we have in this point that our Adversaries acknowledge that there is no Commandment of God for the Invocation of Saints and that the Holy Scripture saith nothing of it And that under the Old Testament that is for the space of four thousand years the Church used no Invocation of them All the Prayers in Scripture are addressed unto God alone and therefore we have no Assurance or Encouragement to call upon the Saints which we can ground upon the Word of God Is it not enough for us to have the Son of God for our Intercessor who tells us None comes to the Father but by me John 14. For how can we pray with Faith and Assurance to those who discern not the Prayers of the Heart For Scripture tells us that God alone knoweth the Hearts of men 2 Chron. 6.30 I might say that in the Roman Church many Saints are prayed to that never were in the World and others whose Holiness is very dubious and whose Lives were very bad Three hundred and seventy years past in the Christian Church without any Invocation of Saints The first that used it was Gregory Nazianzen who yet invocating the Souls of Constantius who was an Arian of Athanasius and of Basil added this Clause If thou understand me and If the Dead have any Sense But the Invocation of Saints was not received till a long time after in the Publick Service All these things considered My Lord I cannot wonder enough that Your Grace chooseth rather to be ruled by one Passage of St. Ambrose which perhaps is forged than by the Word of God and the Church of the first Ages after Christ For would you subscribe to all that St. Ambrose saith In the first book of Virgins he saith that the Angels fell by lying with Women In his Speech upon Gratian and Valentinian and upon the first Psalm he saith that some rise again sooner than others And in his Oration of the Faith of Resurrection he makes three sorts of Resurrection the first of the Patriarchs and Apostles the second of the Gentiles converted to the Faith the third of those that come from the South and the North. In his first Book of Offices chap. 50. he condemneth second Marriages In the first Book of the Holy Ghost he teacheth that the Baptism in the name of the Holy Ghost alone without naming the Father and the Son is valid In the tenth Sermon upon the 118 Psalm he saith that the Damned which are in Hell shall in the end be saved when the time of their Punishment is fulfilled The Roman Church believeth not with Ambrose that all Saints shall be burnt with the material Fire of the day of Judgment as we shall see hereafter Neither doth the Roman Church believe with Ambrose that Melchisedeck was Jesus Christ himself Many Pages might be filled with the like Errours of this Father whose Authority you value more than that of God speaking in the Holy Scriptures Of Prayer for the Dead and of Purgatory Your Grace endeth your Allegations of Fathers with Theodoret and Austin The first of which is alledged to say We believe that there is a Fire of Purgatory in which Souls are purged like Gold in the Furnace The other saith He that will not till his Field shall be chastised in this World and after his Death shall be punisht in the Fire of Hell or in that of Purgatory And addeth that he hath made a whole Book of the Prayers for the Dead and that the whole Antiquity hath so practiced it They that have helped you with these Passages have miserably abused your Grace It is true that all the ancient Church prayed for the Dead but in a manner which the Roman Church condemneth and holds to be ridiculous and erroneous Not one Passage can be found in the genuine Works of any Father by which it can appear that he prayed for the Dead to draw them out of Purgatory Could Your Grace have the Patience to read St. Austins Book of the Care to be taken of the Dead you would find that there is not one Word of Purgatory in the whole Book The Christian Church in the III and IV Ages after Christ prayed for the Saints for the Apostles and Martyrs
Service for their Relief yea Deut. 26.12 14. it opposeth it plainly for he that brought unto the Temple or Sanctuary his first Fruits Tithes and Offerings to give Thanks unto God for his Income and all the Crop of the Year was commanded to protest that he had not taken away ought thereof for any unclean use nor given ought thereof for the dead All these things My Lord drawn out of the Word of God any founded upon the Nature of the Gospel which the Son of God hath brought you from Heaven are they not better than some Passages of the Fathers which you alledge contrary to their Intention and which say things that the Roman Church approveth not How comes it to pass My Lord that since your Marriage you have taken another Rule for your Religion than the Word of God You will be guided by the Fathers but the Fathers send you back to the Scripture and will not have you to rest upon their Authority acknowledging that they themselves are subject to Errour And for such the Roman Church doth acknowledge them and in a thousand things find fault with them Certainly the Holy Scripture without the help of mens Glosses hath light enough of its own to lead us to Salvation O! My Lord it is dangerous to dally with God and to bow the rule of his Word to the Will of another As for My Lady Duchess your wife I wonder not that being nursed in that Persuasion that her Religion is good she doth her utmost to draw you to it thinking thereby to do Service to God Having no Instruction in the Word of God her Grace doth that which she thinks to be good and I hope that God finally will be merciful to her But you My Lord who have been carefully instructed in the Word of God in whose Family God had planted his Covenant whom God hath blest with so many effects of his Assistance cannot but have a dreadful Account to give unto God I could alledge ti Your Grace the memory of my Lord your Father whom God had endowed with an incomparable Capacity the Sorrow of your Lady Mother whose Death you hasten by your Change the Anguish of your nearest Relations and of all your Servants and Subjects whom you fill with Confusion and the Inconvenience to your Affairs which you do your self acknowledge I choose rather to exhort your Grace in the name of God and as your most humble and faithful Servant that you take pitty of your own Soul and that at least you delay the taking of that final Resolution till your Return unto this your Town and till I may endeavour to shew to those Doctors in your Presence that they abuse your Grace with those Passages of the Fathers wherewith they have armed you But I am sure they dare not appear before me to maintain those things which they infuse into your mind You have been many years harkning to them alone without asking any of our Counsel or Assistance Grant us at least that we may have some days to answer them I make no Doubt but that by speaking thus I may loose both your Graces and your Ladies Favour But having but few days to live I commit to God all that may come of it and will endeavour to discharge my duty with a good Conscience Which I will always do without any Diminution of the Respect and Obedience which I owe to your Grace and without intermitting my continual prayers to God for Your Grace and for my Lady Dutchess as being My Lord Your Graces most humble and most obedient Servant PETER DU MOULIN FINIS
Christian Religion appointed Judges in the Donatists Case Melchiades Bishop of Rome being one of them But the Donatists having complained of his Judgment the Emperour commanded that their Cause should be judged again by the Synod of Arles who had power to confirm or disannul the Judgment of Melchiades and his Fellow-Judges Under that Emperour the Christian Church being delivered from Persecutions a new Order and Constitution was made over all the Roman Empire to which Sylvester Bishop of Rome was not called His Legend saith untruly that he baptized Constantine and healed him of a Leprosie but upon that groundless Fable was built the Donation of Constantine by which the Emperour is pretended to have given unto the Pope one half of his Empire The same Emperour in the year 325. assembled a General Council out of the whole Empire in which Sylvester did not preside but Hozius Bishop of Corduba in Spain of whom our Adversaries falsly say that he presided in that Council as the Pope's Legate A thing repugnant to the Testimony of Eusebius Theodoret and Sozomen and to the Acts of the Nicene Council in which Hozius signed the first without styling himself the Pope's Legat and after him Vitus and Vincentius Deputies of the Bishop of Rome To the Emperour Constantine succeeded his Son Constantius who favouring the Arrians banished Liberius Bishop of Rome and gave him five hundred Crowns to maintain him in his Exile But Liberius to be restored to his Bishoprick joyned with the Arrians and subscribed their Confession in their Assembly at Sirmium In the year 381. the Emperour Theodosius called a General Council at Constantinople to which Damasus Bishop of Rome came not nor sent any Legate to it that Council being assembled without his consent In that Council Heresies were condemned and the Order of the Patriarchs was altered without asking the Advice of Damasus Yet that Council is one of the first four Oecumenical Councils About the same time Ambrose Bishop of Milan refused to administer the Communion to the Emperour Theodosius for a Murther committed by his Guards at Thessalonica Ambrose did this without taking the Advice of Damasus Bishop of Rome his Neighbour Such an action in our dayes would be High Treason against the Pope For it is one of the Fundamental Laws of the Roman Church that Kings cannot be bound by Censures or excommunicated but by the Pope's Order That I may not gather here a greater number of Examples I have alledged before many Councils that have condemned Popes of Heresie and have forbidden them to send Legates and receive Appeals from Foreign Churches The first Bishop of Rome that I read of who took upon him to govern the Church as Successor of St. Peter was Leo the First about the year of our Lord 450. For before him the Preeminence which was claimed by the Roman Bishops was grounded only upon some mistaken or falsified Canons of Councils and those in Consideration of the dignity of the City which was the chief City of the Empire For out of the Roman Empire the Bishops of Rome claimed no Superiority Some Passages are found true or false in which the Bishops of Rome are styled the first Bishops of the whole World and Presidents over the Universal Church But the Reason of it was that the Ancients called the Roman Emperours Governours and Masters of the World and it is frequent in their Writings to call the Empire Orbis Romanus the Roman World The Truth of this is evident because the same Titles are many times given to the other Patriarchs or chief Bishops of the Roman Empire viz. To the Bishop of Constantinople to him of Antioch and to him of Alexandria who are also called the Heads and Sovereigns of all and are said to have the Care of all the Churches Thus Gregory Nazianzen in his Oration upon Athanasius saith That the Charge of the People of Alexandria was committed unto him which is as much as if one said the Government of all the World And in the same place he saith that Athanasius gave Laws unto all the World Basil saith that Meletius Bishop of Antioch Basil Ep 50. did preside over the whole Body of the Church Theodoret in his Book of Heresies in the Chapter where he speaks of Nestorius Bishop of Constantinople calls him also the Bishop 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the whole habitable World Wherefore also the Patriarch of Constantinople is called the Oecumenical or Universal Bishop in the Councils of that Age. For this Rule was constituted among the Patriarchs of the Roman Empire that each of them was to take Care of all the Churches of the whole Roman Empire but that Power was never extended beyond the Limits of the Roman Empire Yea some Passages are found in which that general Dignity is attributed unto all Bishops that were eminent in Holiness as Basil saith to Ambrose Idem ep 55. that God had raised him to the Dignity of the Apostles And Sidonius calls Lupus Bishop of Troyes Sidon lib. 6. ep 1. the Bishop of Bishops and the first Prelate of all the World In those times all Bishops were called Popes For the Popes Primacy Your Grace alledgeth St. Hierom who writing to Damasus and acknowledging no other Preeminence than that of Jesus Christ said I am in Communion with thy Beatitude that is with St. Peter's Chair I see nothing there that favoureth the Popes Primacy over the Universal Church For as I mentioned before the Bishops of Rome were held St. Peter's Successors in his Government over the Roman Church which Government they held to have been founded by St. Peter and I would not dispute about that But they were not held Successors of St. Peter's Apostleship nor of his Primacy Saying to a man I am of thy Communion is not acknowledging him Head of the Universal Church So much many be said to any Bishop that is sound in the Faith yea to any true Believer we may say that we must be of his Communion and that he that gathereth not with him is a Scatterer There were then held to be three Chairs of St. Peter one at Rome another in Alexandria another in Antioch The Bishops of these Cities styled themselves Successors of St. Peter in the Government of those Churches not in the Apostleship And there were always Piques and Quarrels between those three Sees Gregory the First Bishop of Rome in the 37 Epistle of his VI Book saith that those three Chairs are but one See upon which three Bishops are sitting and he acknowledgeth them his Equals and that it belongs not to him to command them But they that shewed to Your Grace that Authority of St. Hierom had more Wit than to shew you other Passages of his in which he debaseth very much the Bishop of Rome and giveth no good Character of the Roman Church of his Age. In his Epistle to Euagrius he saith In what part soever a man is a Bishop whether it be at Rome or at