Elaborate manner That the Bishop of Rome had a secret hand in the contrivance and publication of them is probable if not clear from divers Reasons 1. Before they were published Hadrian 1. maketh use of the Tale of Constantines Leprosie Vision and Baptism by Pope Sylvester things till then never heard of in the world but afterwards contained in the Donation of Constantine a Forgery which in all probability lay by this Hadrian but of his own preparing when he wrote his Letter to Constantine and Irene which Letter was read and is recorded in the 2. Nicene Council on the behalf of Images being sent abroad like a Scout as it were to try what success it would find in the world before he would adventure the whole Body of his Players to publick view For if that were swallowed down without being detected the rest might hope for the same good Fortune if not the first might pass for a mistake and its Companions be safely suppressed without any mischief following 2. The Emperour and the Council having digested the first Legend exposed by the Pope so crastily to publick view the other Forgeries were a little after boldly published in this Book of Isidore together with the Legend and Donation of Constantine which when Hincmarus Archbishop of Rhemes upon its first publication set himself to write against he was taken up so roundly for the same by the Authority of Rome that he was fain gladly to acquit the Attempt for ever And their tenderness over it is I think a sufficient Indication of their Relation to it every Creature being naturally affectionate to its own Brood and prone to study its preservation The Church of Rome was so tender of Isidores Edition that as some say Hinemarus was forced to recant his Opinion and to declare that he believed and received the Book with Veneration 3. It is recorded by Justellus that the forementioned Hadrian was careful to give Charles the Great a Copy of the Councils and Decretal Epistles drawn up as he affirmed by Dionysius Exiguus Daillè accuses the Book of many faults but whether Hadrian or Dionysius were guilty of them is little material only 't was done as a Pledge of Reconciliation after several Bickerings between the Giver and Receiver Charles the Great having several times invaded Rome and now departing thence with Friendship which makes me a little the more prone to suspect Dionysius too for one of those Danaum Dona which are given like Nessus his Shirt when wounded by Hercules to his Enemies Wife for the destruction of her Husband Be it how it will it shews that Hadrian I. was a busie man that he understood the influence and power of Records what force they would have upon the minds of Lay-men and that his eyes and hands were sometimes busied in such Affairs But that which above all other Arguments discovers the Popes to have a hand if not in the Publication yet in the Reception of the Forgeries is this that the Roman Canonists Ivo Gratian c. have digested them into the Popes Laws and they are so far countenanced by the Popes themselves that almost from the time of their publication throughout all Ages since they have been received for Authentick in the apal Jurisdiction and are used as such in all the Ecclesiastical Courts under the Popes Dominion as the chief of their Rules for the deciding of Causes So that they are not only fostered but exalted by the Authority of Rome The Glory which they acquired in the Throne of Judgment advancing them for a long time above the reach of Suspition The Veneration which is due to the Chair of Holiness was their best security By the influence of the Popes Authority they were received into the Codes of Princes being as we shall shew out of Baronius in the next Chapter introduced into the Capitular Books of the Kings of the Franks by Benedictus Levita and at his instant request confirmed and approved by the 〈◊〉 Chair The Forgeries in Isidore being scattered abroad it is difficult to conceive to what a vast Height the Roman See by degrees 〈◊〉 The Splendour of so many Ancient Martyrs 〈◊〉 together with so many Canons and Decrees in her behalf so far wrought that her Bishop came at last to Claim all Power over all persons Spiritual and Temporal to have the sole power of forgiving sins to be alone Infallible to be Cods Vicar upon Earth the only Oracle in the world nay the sole Supreme and Absolute Monarch disposing of Empires and Kingdoms according to the Tenour of the Doctrines contained in those Forgeries wherein he is made the sole Independent Lord without Controul able to do what ever he lifted Some few Ages after this first Publication of Isidore there were other Records put forth though lately seen yet bearing the countenance of 〈◊〉 Antiquitie which so ordered the matter that according to them the Evangelists brought their Gospels to S. Peter to confirm them and several books of S. Clement S. Peter's Successor were put into the Canon of the Holy Bible the whole number of Canonical books being setled and defined by his sole Authority In token doubtless of the Power Inherent in all S. Peter's Successors at Rome to dispose of the Apostles and their Writings as they please S. 〈◊〉 own Canon for that purpose being numbered among those of the Aposiles That the Pope was uncapable of being judged by any that no Clergy-man was to be Subject to Kings but all to depend immediately upon the Bishop of Rome that he was the Rock and Head of the Church was the constant Doctrine of all those Forgeries when put together with many other Popish Points of less concernment sprinkled up and down in them at every turning Cui bono Among the Civilians 't is a notable mark of Detection in a blind Cause whose Good whose Exaltation whose Benefit is the drift and scope of things and 't is very considerable for the sure finding out of the first Authors That they are Forgeries is manifest Now whose they are is the Question in hand and if Agents naturally intend themselves in their own Operations it is easily solved How excessively the World was addicted to Fables about the time of Isidore's Appearance we may see by the Contents of the 2. Nicene Council Dreams Visions and Miracles being very rife in their best demonstrations and among other Legends a counterfeit Basil a counterfeit Athanasius a counterfeit Emperour maintaining and promoting the Adoration of Images As may perhaps in another Volume be more fully discovered when we descend from these first to succeeding Ages The Counterfeits in Isidore being mingled with the Records of the Church like Tares among Wheat or false Coyns among heaps of Cold lay undistinguished from true Antiquities and after Hincmarus his ill success were little examined by the space of 500 or 600 years Some small opposition there was made in particular by the Bishops in France and
into the Book and that Hadrian had a finger in it which reached perhaps farther than the beginning If the Book was as new as the Acrostick Dionysius was far enough from being its Author What Faith we are to have in the Papists when they tell us who were the Ancient Compilers of the Councils you may see by Baronius who giving us an Account of their Order reckons Isidore a known Counterfeit for one Dionysius Exiguus for the first Ferdinandus Diaconus for the second Martinus Bracarensis for the third Cresconius for the fourth and after all these Isidore for the fift As certain as Isidore was a Collector of the Councils so certain is it that Dionysius was one but further certainty yet I can see none Charles the Great perhaps having never seen the like before was pleased with the Acrostick and the putting of his Name in Capital Letters before the Councils was delightful to him Syrens sing sweetly while they deceive bloodily Hadrian I. knew well what was a Gift fit for a Scholar and a Pope of Rome If I should produce but one passage which I found in it the matter would be more effectual For after he has done with the Councils he lays down the Decretal Epistles of 13 Roman Bishops beginning with Syricius who lived in the year 385. In his Epistle to Himerius there is this passage Such is our Office saith he that it is not lawful for us to be silent for us to dissemble upon whom a Zeal greater than that of all others of the Christian Religion is incumbent We bear the burdens of all that are oppressed nay rather the blessed Apostle Peter beareth them in us who as we trust protecteth and defendeth us his Heirs in all the things of his Administration Of GOD he saith nothing here but his confidence is all in Peter There is not a word like it in all Antiquity and those words protecteth and defendeth us seem to relate to those Jars that had been before between Hadrian and Charles the King or Emperour These observations carry me to believe what I met with in Daille since Dionysius is gone from under my hands and having searched into the Book since I am further confirmed About 74 years after the Council of Chalcedon Dionysius Exiguus whom we before-mentioned made his collection at Rome which is since Printed at Paris cum Privilegio Regis out of very Ancient Manuscripts Whosoever shall but look diligently into his collection shall find divers alterations in it one whereof I shall instance in only to shew how Ancient this Artifice hath been among Christians The last Canon of the Council of Laodicea which is the 163 of the Greek Code of the Church Universal forbidding to read in Churches any other Books than those which are Canonical gives us withal a long Catalogue of them Dionysius Exiguus although he hath indeed inserted in his collection Num. 162. the beginning of the said Canon which forbiddeth to read any other Books in the Churches besides the sacred Volumes of the Old and New Testament yet hath he wholly omitted the Catalogue or List of the said Books fearing as I conceive lest the Tail of this Catalogue might scandalize the Church of Rome c. A little after he saith the Greek Code represents unto us VII Canons of the first Council of Constantinople which are in like manner found both in Balsamon and in Zonoras and also in the Greek and Latine Edition of the General Councils Printed at Rome The three last of these do not appear at all in the Latine Code of Dionysius though they are very considerable ones as to the business they relate to which is the order of proceeding in passing judgment upon Bishops accused and in receiving such persons who forsaking their communion with Hereticks desire to be admitted into the Church It is very hard to say what should move the Collector to Gueld this Council thus But this I am very well assured of that in the sixth Canon which is one of those he hath omitted and which treateth of judging of Bishops accused there is not the least mention made of Appealing to Rome nor of any Reserved Cases wherein it is not permitted to any save only to the Pope to judge a Bishop The power of hearing and determining all such matters being here wholly and absolutely referred to the Provincial Synods and to their Dio cesans Another instance which he hath is this After the Canons of Constantinople there follow in the Greek Code VIII Canons of the General Council of Ephesus set down also both by Balsamon and Zonoras and Printed with the Acts of the said Council of Ephesus in the first Tome of the Roman Edition but Dionysius Exiguus hath discarded them all c. Daille in his Treatise of the Right 〈◊〉 of the Fathers Cap. 4. pag. 45 46 47. This being true the Authority of Dionysius is very small relating to the matter of the Council of Sardica If any man hath any thing to say against it let him when he answereth this Charge of ours produce what he is able in Defence of Dionysius as to the points whereof he stands accused by Daille but we proceed to Nicolinus CAP. XII Nicolinus his Epistle to Pope Sixtus His contempt of the Fathers He beginneth to confess the Epistle of Melchiades to be dubious if not altogether Spurious He overthrows the Legend about Constantines Donation THat you may know the Genius of the Man a little better how much he was devoted to the service of the Pope and how little he valued the Authority of Councils and Fathers I have thought it meet to give you his Epistle and his Admonition to the Reader recorded by him in the words following To our Most Soveraign Lord Sixtus V. High-Priest It fell out conveniently for me Most Blessed Father in the Universal Joy of the Christian World for your Elevation to the Sublimity of the Apostleship that in so great a multitude flowing from every place to honour you I also among the Oldest Servants of your Holiness had something near at hand which is unworthy neither of the Masty of your Name or Authority and yet very fit for my Occasions to offer at your feet as suitable to the Office of my Gratitude and Veneration It is a new Edition of the Councils for the remarkable addition of two Councils especially the Nicene and the Ephesine never published so entire and full as now For to whom may the Councils of the Church aided by the Inspiration of the H. Ghost according to the seasonableness of various times for the repairing of her Ship more fitly be Dedicated than to her Chief Master to whom it is given from Heaven to call and confirm them especially him who is so well versed in all Scholastical Disciplines and Ecclesiastical History I have used all diligence according to my weak ability sparing no cost omitting no labour the most Catholick and Learned Divines of our Age being
very next line he is at it again THE LIFE EPISTLES AND DECREES OF CLEMENT EX LIBRO PONTIFICALI DAMASI P. The Pontifical is afresh ascribed to Damasus For Friends may quarrel without falling out eternally But if they are so angry what make they together What have Scholars to do in so scandalous a Fellows Company Why of all Books in the World do they take this to follow All of them from Peter Crab to the Collectio Regia Why not the Grave Sincere and Learned Why not a true Record Why do they chuse a Counterfeit so full of lyes and contradictions It is the highest Symptom of a deadly cause that they take such a Fellow to be their Copy to write after their Text to gloss on their Guide to follow For all these gross mistakes are committed within the compass of some 30 or 40 lines in four Lives of one hundred and six And in every Life almost throughout they are exercised in the same manner If this be the best Record they can find for the purpose and all their Antiquities be like this they are as mouldy and rotten as can well be desired CAP. XVI Of the Decretal Epistles forged in the Names of the first holy Martyrs and Bishops of Rome The first was sent as they pretend from S Clement by S. Peter's order to S. James the Bishop of Jerusalem seven years after he was dead and by the best Account 27. S. Clement's Recognitions a corsessed Forgery TO stumble in the Threshold is Ominous If the first of all the Decretals be a Forgery it is a leading Card to the residue Binius his Title and the Text of the Pontifical is represented thus THE LIFE EPISTLES AND DECREES OF POPE CLEMENT I. Out of the Pontifical of Pope DAMASVS He made two Epistles that are called Canonical This man by the Precept of S. Peter undertook the Government of the Church as by Jesus Christ our Lord the Chair was committed to him In the Epistle which he wrote to S. James you shall find after what manner the Church was committed from S. Peter Linus and Cletus are therefore recorded to be before him because they were made Bishops by the Prince of the Apostles himself and ordained to the 〈◊〉 Office before him NOTES After the Method of Binius He made two Epistles called Canonical These words are adapted to the 84th Canon of the Apostles where two Epistles of Clement and his eight Books of Ordinations are made parts of the Canonical Scripture In the Epistle which he wrote to S. James Here the Pontifical openly voucheth his Epistle to S. James which Binius afterwards tells you was written to Simeon If the Pontifical be right Binius was overseen in saying the name of S. James crept by corruption into the Title of the Epistle for that of Simeon The Tales do not hang together They were made Bishops by the Prince of the Apostles c. You understand here that S. Peter out of his superabundant care for the Church made three Bishops of Rome in his own life time So that Rome had four Popes at once S. Peter S. Clement S. Linus and S. Cletus Some think that Linus and Cletus were S. Clement's Adjutants in External Affairs Some that they succeeded each other in order Some that they presided over the Church together Some say that Clement out of modesty refused the Chair till he was grown older belike It is a world to see what a variety and puzzle they are at in this matter The confusion springeth from two causes The first is the obscurity of the State of Rome in the beginning The second is the ignorance of the Forger that made S. Clement's Letter to S. James For happening so heedlesly to Father it on S. Clement he has made all the Story inconvenient S. Clement saith not one word of refusing the Chair in his Epistle nor of Linus and 〈◊〉 coming between him and it but 〈◊〉 a 〈◊〉 fair Hypocritical shew 〈◊〉 in his 〈◊〉 to S. James that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by S. Peter and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whereupon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will have this Epistle to be a good and true Record are forced of necessity to say that S. Peter did himself ordain Clement though they very well know that Linus and Cletus or Anacletus were both in their Order Bishops before him For a sure Token either that the Church of Rome was little considered in the dawning of the Gospel or that their ignorance marred her Officious Impostors nothing is more obscure and doubtful than the order and manner of her first Bishops The Pontifical undertakes to reconcile all and does it luckily were it not that it contradicts it self For he saith of Clement that he undertook the Government of the Church by the precept of Peter And yet of Linus and Cletus it saith they are recorded to be before him because by the Prince of the Apostles they were made Bishops before him Be that a contradiction or no it was neither Linus nor Cletus it seems but Clement who writ the Epistle to S. James about the death of Peter He made many books Binius upon those words observes that before his Epistles he wrote the Constitutions of the Apostles c. He did not make but write the Apostles Canous in Greek c. It is much he did not make them for the Coronis of them as Nicolinus calleth it hath by me Clement in it and for ought I know a Pope that hath the fulness of power Apostolical may make Apostles Canons at any time It is an odd observation He did not make but write the Apostles Canons Among his other Monuments saith Binius there are ten books of the circuits of Peter which by some are called The Itinerary of Clement by others his Recognitions Which since they are stuffed with Loathsome Fables and the Fathers abstained from the use of them as Gelasius also in a Roman Council rejected them for Apocryphal all wise men will advisedly abstain from reading them It is a Tradition that Clement left the Rite of offering Sacrifice to the Church of Rome in writing It is reported also that many pieces are falsly published under the Name of Clement Forgeries are you see thick and threefold in the Church of Rome but this of Clement's Itinerary which Binius disswadeth all men from reading even ten Books Cum insulsis fabulis reserti 〈◊〉 since they are stust with loathsome Fables I desire you to take special notice of because this Confession of his will discover him to be either a false man or a Fool. It is a delicate Snare and will detect S. Clement and S. Binius together As for Binius who defendeth the first Epistle of Clement to S. James for a good Record if he did read the Epistle and note what he read he was a false man for defending it against his Judgment and Conscience He that so mortally hated the Itinerary of Clement could not but know the Epistle to be Forged if he read it with
mentioneth the foresaid business at Carthage but so briefly that it is clear he did not like it And to close up all in the Life of this Boniface he endeavours to strengthen the Title of the Roman Bishop against the Patriarch of Constantinople by the Donation of Constantine another Forgery of which hereafter The two counterfeit Canons contained in the Commonitorium which the Roman Bishop sent to the sixth Council of Carthage are these as Faustinus the Italian Bishop delivered them in Greek to be read by Daniel the Pronotary in the Council 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. We are pleased that if a Bishop be accused and the Bishops of his Country being assembled together have judged him and deposed him from his Degree and he thinks fit to Appeal and shall fly to the most blessed Bishop of the Roman Church and shall desire to be heard and he shall think it just that the Tryal be renewed then he the Roman Bishop shall vouchsafe to write to the B. shops of the adjoyning and bordering Province that they should diligently examine all and define according to the Truth But if any one thinks fit that his Cause be heard again and by his own Supplication moves the Bishop of Rome that he should send a Legate or Priest from his side it shall be in his power to do as he listeth and as he thinketh fit And if he shall decree that some ought to be sent that being present themselves might judge with the Bishops having his Authority by whom they were sent it shall be according to his judgment but if he think the Bishops sufficient to end the business he shall do what in his most wise counsel he judgeth meet Here the Roman Bishop nay the meanest Priest he shall please to send as his Legate is exalted above all Councils Bishops and Patriarchs in the world he may do and undo act add rescind diminish alter whatsoever he pleaseth in any Council when the Causes of the most Eminent Rank in the Church do depend in the same All Bishops are by this Canon made more to fear the Roman Bishop than their own Patriarch and are ingaged if need be to side with him against their Patriarch the Gate is open for all the Wealth in the World to flow into his Ecclesiastical Court which is as much above the Court of any other Patriarch by this Right of Appeals as the Archbishops Court above any inferiour Bishops while we may Appeal to that from these at our pleasure Thus Bishops and Patriarchs are made to buckle under the Popes Cirdle and the Decrees of Councils are put under his foot And all this is no more but half a Step to the Popes Chair The other part of the Step in this Commonitorium was the following Canon concerning Priests 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. I ought not to pass that over in silence that does yet move me If any Bishop happen to be angry as he ought not and be suddenly or sharply moved against his Priest or Deacon and would cast him out of his Church Provision must be made that he be not condemned being Innocent or lose the Communion Let him that is cast out have power to Appeal to the Borderers that his Cause might be heard and handled more carefully for a Hearing ought not to be denied him when he asks it And the Bishop which hath either justly or unjustly ejected him shall patiently suffer that the business be lookt into and his Sentence either confirmed or rectified c. What is the meaning of this c. in Binius Labbè Cossartius and the Collectio Regia I cannot tell but doubtless the Canon intends the same in the close with the former that the last Appeal is reserved to the Roman Chair which made the Fathers in the sixth Council of Carthage so angry as we find them to see things so false and presumptuous fastned upon the first most Glorious Oecumenical Council which decreed the clean contrary in the 4 and 5 Canons The substance and force of which as we gave you before so shall we now the words of the Canons themselves Can. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. It is fit that a Bishop chiefly be ordained by all the Bishops that are in the Province but if this be found difficult either because of any urgent necessity or for the length of the journey then the Ordination ought to be made by Three certainly meeting together the absent Bishops agreeing and consenting by their Writs but let the confirmation of the Acts be given throughout every Province to the Metropolitan Can. 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Concerning those that are Excommunicated whether in the Order of the Clergy or the Laity by the Bishops in every several Province let the Sentence prevail according to the Canon that they who are cast out by some be not received by others but let it be required that no man be excluded the Congregation by the pusillanimity or contention or by any such vice of the Bishop That this therefore might more decently be inquired into we think it fit that Councils should every year throughout every Province twice be celebrated That such Questions may be discussed by the common Authority of all the Bishops assembled together And so they that have evidently offended against their Bishop shall be accounted Excommunicated according to to reason by all till it pleaseth the community of Bishops to pronounce a milder Sentence upon such But let the Councils be held the one before the Quadragesima before Easter that all Dissention being taken away we might offer a most pure Gift unto God and the second about the middle of Autumn The last Appeal you see is ordered by the Canon to Councils and as they please the Controversie is to be ended without flying from one to another Bishop These are the true and Authentick Canons of the Nicene Council overthrown by the Forgery CAP. III. A multitude of Forgeries secretly mingled among the Records of the Church and put forth under the Name of Isidore Bishop of Hispalis Which Book is owned defended and followed by the Papists THe Roman Chair being thus lifted up to the utmost Height it could well desire care must be taken to secure its Exaltation After many secret Councils therefore and powerful Methods used for its Establishment for the increase of its Power and Glory furthered by the Luxury and Idleness of the Western Churches of which Salvian largely complains in his Book De Providentiâ written to justifie the Dispensation of GOD in all the Calamities they suffered by the Goths who sacked Rome in the days of the forenamed Zozimus there came out a collection of Councils and Decretal Fpistles in the Name of Isidore Bishop of Hispalis about the year 790. In which Book there are neatly interwoven a great company of forged Evidences or feigned Records tending all to the advancement of the Popes Chair in a very various copious and
Bellarmine and Baronius though they still carry on the Design of the first Inventers by some other Methods which they hope will succeed better Nor is it any wonder that a Secular Kingdom should make men more active than the love of Heaven since we daily see how the Kings of the world expend vast Treasures of Gold and Silver and run through all dangers of Death and Battel for their own preservation and the Conquest of their Neighbours The same care which they take in building Forts and Cittadels being taken by the Bishop of Rome in maintaining Seminaries Universities Printing-Houses c. which depend absolutely on him for the securing of all that Wealth and Empire which he hath by his Wit and Policy acquired It standeth him upon for if his Religion falls his Glory vanisheth and his Kingdom is abolished What men will do for Secular Ends beyond all the belief and expectation of the Vulgar we see in Hamor and Shechem the first and most Ancient Myrrour of that kind in the world who for the accomplishment of their desires introduced a new Religion troubling themselves and their Citizens unto Blood meerly to get possession of Dinah Jacob's Daughter 〈◊〉 's Policy is about 2500 years old though much more late When the ten Tribes revolted from the House of David for fear lest they should return to their Allegiance if they went up yearly to Jerusalem according to the Law he set up two Calves for the people to worship and underwent a great expence besides the Gold in the Calves in erecting a new Order of Friests that the people might be kept at home in their perverse Obedience He very well knew those Calves were no Deities yet for secular ends he promoted their worship and was followed therein by all the Line of the Kings of Israel several hundred of years together What Demetrius the Silver-Smith did for Diana of the Ephesians and what an uproar he made purely for Gain in making her Shrines all the Christian World understandeth But the High-Priests Scribes and Elders of the Jews in acting against all the Miracles of Christ and against their Conscience especially in giving Money to the Souldiers to hold their peace when they brought the news of his Resurrection their resisting of the Holy Ghost at his Miraculous Descent these are a sufficient instance of the incredible obdurateness of mans heart and his obstinate 〈◊〉 allures his hopes as the immediate Crown of his Labours The Diana of the Romans is much more prosicuous than the Diana of the Ephesians The fattest places of the Provinces and the greatest Empire in the World are the Game they Play This Dinah animateth all their Strength to impose on the people And for the easing of their own Charge it is a usual thing with Popes to permit their Priests and Fryers for their better support to deceive the people which Dr. Stillingfleet in his Book of Popish Counterfeit Miracles does excellently open in which and in all other Arts and Tricks they have a special connivance provided they keep the poor simple Sheep within the bounds of their Jurisdiction and contribute to the continuance of their Secular Kingdom This is the truth of the Story and these are the circumstances of the whole procedure which remains now to be proved CAP. IV. James Merlin's Editions of the Councils who lately published Isidore Hispalensis for a good Record which is now detected and proved to be a Forgery JAmes Merlin's pains was to publish Isidore with some Collections and Additions of his own He positively affirmeth him to be that Famous Isidore of Hispalis a Saint a Bishop and a Father of the Church though as Blondel and Dr. Reynolds accurately observe S. Isidore of Hispalis was dead 40 50 60 years before some things came to pass that are mentioned in that Book of the Councils Blondel in a Book of his called Pseudo-Isidorus or Turrianus Vapulans Cap 2. observes how the lowest that write of Isidores death fix it on the year 647. as Vasaeus in his Chronicle Others on the year 643. as Rodericus Toletanus Hist. lib. 2. cap. 18. Or on the year 635. as the proper Office of the Saints of Spain or on the year 636. when Sinthalus entered his Kingdom as Redemptus Diaconus an eye-witness De Obitu Isidori Brauleo Bishop of Caesar-Augustana Lucas Tudensts Baronius the great Annalist Mariana Grialus and others agree with the last which is eleven years sooner than Vasaeus So that the general prevailing Opinion is that Isidore of Hispalis died in the year 636. However that we may deal most fairly with them we will allow them all they can desire and calculate our affair by the last Account which is most for their advantage Admit Vasaeus in the right that Isidore lived till the year 647. yet the Book which is Fathered upon him can be none of his for it mentions things which came to pass long after It is observed by Blondel that Honoratus who succeeded Isidore in the See of Hispalis is found in the sixth Council of Toledo whereas this pretended Isidore makes mention of the eleventh Council in the same place He talks of the sixth Oecumenical Council in the year 681. no less than 46 years after his own death by the lowest account He writes of Boniface of Mentz slain as Baronius observes in the year 755. which was threescore and sixteen years after Isidores death Yet Possevin upon the word Isidorus Hisp. and Hart in his Conference with Reynolds contend the Author of this Book to be the true Isidore Bishop of Hispalis as Merlin who first published Isidore in print and others did before them Among his Witnesses produced against this Counterfeit the first which Blondel useth is the Code of the Roman Church in which onely the Epistles of 13 Roman Bishops are contained beginning with Siricius Whereas there are in Isidore above 60. whereof five or six and thirty lived before Siricius and were all unknown until the time of Isidore His next Testimony is that of the Bishops of France about the year 865. who concluded that Isidore's Wares then newly beginning to be sold could not have the force of Canons because they were not contained in the Authentick Code or Book of Canons formerly known He next citeth the Council of Aquisgranum An. 816. the Bishops of Paris An. 829. Henricus Caltheisensis Erasmus Greg. Cassander Anton. Contius the famous Lawyer Bellarmine and Baronius the Learned Cardinals The Testimony of Baronius being more largely cited than the residue I thought it meet to search the Author and there I found these following passages Writing upon the Contest between Pope Nicholas and the French Bishops concerning Appeals he beginneth to shew how they complained that the Causes of Bishops which ought to be tryed in Councils by their Fellow Bishops were removed to the Apostolick Chair And they questioned in their Letters whether those Epistles of the more Ancient Bishops which were not inserted into the Body
of the Canons but were written in the Collection of Isidore Mercator were of equal Authority with the residue For the making of which Controversie the more plain and to shew what they mean by the Body of the Canons he tells us It is certain that the more Ancient Collection of the Decretal Epistles of the Roman Bishops and the Canons of divers Councils acquired such a name that the Volum was called The Book or Code or BODY of CANONS increased by the addition of other Councils which were afterwards celebrated But the more ancient and full collection of the Epistles of Roman Bishops and Canons of Councils was that of Cresconius of which I have spoken before saith he Which being increased by the addition of many Canons and Epistles went under the name of the Book or BODY of CANONS and whereas there were many other Collections of Canons compiled that which is the richest of all made by Isidore sirnamed Mercator containing the Epistles of the Ancient Roman Bishops beginning from Clement was Longè recentior far younger than they all as Hincmarus Archbishop of Rhemes does testifie Forasmuch as it was not brought out of Spain into France before the times of Charles the Great by Riculphus Archbishop of Mentz For so he testifies in a Letter of his to Hincmarus Laudunensis beginning Sicut de Libro c. But he who first collected Canons out of the foresaid Epistles published at first by Isidore and inserted them into the books of the Kings of the Franks was Benedictus Levita as he testifieth of himself in his preface before the fifth book of those Canons who writ in the times of the Sons of Ludovicus Pins the Emperour Ludovicus Lotharius and Charles as me shewed where he saith I have inserted these Canons c. to wit those WARES of Isidore Mercator which were brought as thou hast heard of Hincmarus into France out of Spain by Riculphus Nè quis calumniari possit ab Ecclesiâ Romanâ aliquid hujusmodi commentum esse Lest any one should slander us and say the Church of Rome invented such a business as this I think here is enough He looks upon it as a Commenium a meer Fiction and is 〈◊〉 left any one should have the advantage of Fathering such a dreadful Bastard on the Church of Rome He calls them Isidore the Merchants Wares he does not refel the Bishops of France he dares not affirm they were in the Ancient Code of Epistles and Councils he acknowledgeth them far younger than the BODY of CANONS and subscribes to Hincmarus Archbishop of Rhemes citing him who writ against Isidore as a good and Authentick Author He confesseth that they were never known in France till the times of Charles the Great that is 700 years after they first began to be written and that they were introduced into the books of the Kings of the Franks by Benedictus Levita in the times of Ludovicus Lotharius which was about the year 850. So that the Church was governed well enough without them and about 800 years after our Saviours Birth they were first hateht as meer Innovations This is too large a Chink for an Enemy to open but he proceedeth further That the same Riculphus Bishop of Mentz did live in the times of Charles the Great many Monuments of that Age do make it certain especially the Testament of the same Charles the Great to which this Riculphus is found to have subscribed among divers others We find that he was President also in a Council at Mentz held in the year of our Redemption 813. c. Since therefore the French Regions which are nearest to Spain knew not the Collection of Isidore before the times of Riculphus much less Italy it is a conjecture that this Isidore did live and write not long before and so it was first published by Riculphus who brought it thither then by Benedictus who put it into the Capitular books and lastly by Hincmarus Junior Bishop of Laon the last Collector unto this our Age which Hincmarus of Rhemes a man of a keener smell reprehendeth in many things defaming that collection of Isidore which the other used for which cause he was accused For Frodoardus in his History of Rhemes Cap. 16. near the end saith of him that being accused because he had condemned the Decretal Epistles of the Roman Bishops he professed and protested otherwise that he admitted held and approved them with the greatest honour Vpon this occasion to wit it appears he was branded with a mark because he had signified himself not to have approved that Collection of Isidore in all things Baronius you see who is one of the greatest Friends to the See of Rome endeavours to remove the matter of Isidore as far as he can from the Roman Chair being sore afraid lest the guilt of so many Forgeries should too apparently be charged upon 〈◊〉 For which cause he will not have the book so much as known in Italy nay not in France which is nearer unto Spain for 800 years time but that it came out of Spain first being brought by Riculphus Perhaps Riculphus was never there He doth not tell us that he went into Spain for ought I can find nor upon what occasion nor in what City nor of whom he received Isidore which putteth me in mind of Cacus his device who being a strong Thief and robbing Hercules of his Oxen drew them all backward by the Tail into his Den that the print of their heels being found backwards they might not be tracked but seem to be gone another way But he fails in his design for as it is strange that Italy should not know the Decretal Epistles of its own Popes for 800 years till Riculphus brought them out of Spain so is it more strange that being such Forgeries as he would have them Hincmarus Archbishop of Rhemes should be accused for condemning them and ratled up and Branded in such a manner and compelled to recant by so powerful an Enemy for it seems he had no way to save himself but by renouncing his Opinion The jealousie of the Roman Church and its tenderness over Isidore appeareth most exceeding great in the hard dealing which Hincmarus met with who though he did recant was still noted with infamy as if to speak against Isidore were a Crime not to be washed off by the Tears of Repentance in the Church of Rome Perhaps the poor Bishop was an Hypocrite in that forced Confession and for this was branded because he confessed a lye as men upon the Rack are wont to do for his own deliverance for that he knew still that Isidore was a Counterfeit and must therefore be reputed a rotten Member of the Church of Rome This Baronius observes while he ascribeth Hincmarus his reprehending Isidore's Collection to his keener scent whereby he was able more readily than others to smell a Rat and discover the Cheat. Baronius proceedeth further in condemning the collection of Isidore thus But
foolishly for in the beginning of the Book he hath a Preliminary Tract called An Annotation of Synods the Acts where of are contained in this book In which he giveth us this account in the Aquitan Council 18 Fathers made 24 Canons in that of Neocaesarea 16 Fathers made 14 Canons in that of Gangra 16 Fathers made 21 Canons in that of Sardica 60 Fathers made 21 Canons in that of Antioch 30 Fathers made 25 Canons in that of Laodicea 22 Fathers made 59 Canons in the Council of Car thage 217 Fathers made 33 Canons I had a long time coveted a sight of these Canons and finding them numbred in such an Annotation of Synods the Acts whereof are contained in this book I was much comforted with hope of seeing them But when I turned to the place I found them not Surely to slip out 33 Canons at a time made by more Fathers than were in all the other Councils put together is a lusty Deleatur There was never Deed of more importance imbezelled in the World The Nicene Council had 318 Fathers that made 20 Canons for what secret cause therefore he skippeth over the account which he ought especially to give of this is worth the enquiry He mentions it by the by and shuffles it off without an account perhaps because he was loath to say or unsay the story of 70 Canons in the Nicene Council However he dealeth fairly with us in this that having noted Aurelius to have been President in the sixth Council of Carthage he confesseth that S. Augustine Bishop of Hipyo is recorded to have been in that Council in the Reign of Honorius Ibid. Binius and all the Popish Compilers I could ever meet with before clipped off that Council in the midst without so much as signifying the number of its Canons I was glad I had a sight of their number here though I mist of themselves and was confident that however cruelly the Pope dealt with Aurelius Archbishop of Carthage S. Aug. Bishop of Hippo and other holy Fathers in cutting out their Tongues I should at last meet with them And the Learned Justellus with much honesty and honour has made us satisfaction We acknowledge some true Records among these Spurious Abominations but a little poyson spoileth the greatest Mess of the most wholesom Meat much more doth a Bundle of Forgeries that over-poyseth the true Records in size and number The method which he useth in the mixture of the Records and Forgeries is remarkable For beginning with the Counterfeit Epistles of Clement Anacletus c. he first seasoneth the Readers spirit with Artificial Charms and prepossesseth him with the high Authority of the Roman Patriarchs and after he has given him those strong Spells and Philtres composed of Roman Drugs permits him boldly to see some true Antiquities his eyes being dazled in the very Entry with Apparitions of Popes and such other Spectres Lest the Tincture should decay he reserves some of the Forgeries till afterwards that the true Records might be compassed in with an Enchanted Circle and the last Relish of Antiquity go off as strong as the first and be as successful as the prepossession Thus he cometh down with Forgeries to Melchiades and then he breaketh off the Decretal Epistles to make room for the Councils beginning with the Nicene under pretence of its Excellency and putting the Councils before it in time after it in order that he might get a fit occasion to introduce them here so running down in a disorderly manner from Ancyra to Neocaesarea Gangra Sardica Antioch Laodicea Constantinople Ephesus Chalcedon among the Greeks and then up again to the Latine Councils many of which preceded divers of the other as the first second third fourth fifth sixth Council of Carthage all which were before the Council of Constantinople Ephesus and Chalcedon From the seventh Council of Carthage he runneth down to the thirteenth Council of Toledo which happened long after Melchiades Silvester Pope Mark Liberius Felix c. were dead Then he cometh in the second part of his Work up again to Sylvester and so downwards with more Decretals that he might Husband his Forgeries well and not glut us with them altogether And remarkable it is also that he doth not give us the least syllable of notice of any Fraud among them Nay even Constantine's Donation set in the Front before the Nicene and in the midst between the first Order of Counterfeits and the Councils passeth with him silently and gravely for a true and sacred Instrument which is of all other the most impudent Imposture Let Baronius say what he will it was impossible to debauch all Antiquity and Learning with so much Labour and Art without some deep Counsel and Design What use Merlin puts all these things to and how much he was Approved in the Church of Rome you shall see in the next Chapter and how highly also he extolleth this Book ofF orgeries How plainly he fathereth it upon S. Isidore Bishop of Hispalis is manifest by the Coronis of the first Part where with it endeth Give thanks to industrious and learned men studious Reader that now thou hast at hand the Acts of the Councils as well as of the Popes which Isidore the Bishop of Hispalis collected into one Volume c. What shall we believe The first Edition of the Book it self or Baronius his Testimony Old Merlin fathers it upon Isidore before Baronius was born and all the World was made to believe the Bishop of Hispalis was the Author of it though now for shame and for a shift they fly to another Author Now if Isidore were dead before the Booke was made it must needs be a Cheat which as Merlin saith honest Francis Regnault the cunning Printer ended at Paris in the year of our Lord 1535 which unusual form of Concluding instead of allaying increaseth the suspicion CAP. VI. What use Merlin makes of Isidore and the Forgeries therein How much he was approved in the Church of Rome How some would have Isidore the Bishop to be a Merchant others a Sinner HOw false and fraudulent soever the Collection of Isidore be yet its Title is very Splendid and its Authority Sacred in the Church of Rome JAMES MERLIN'S COLLECTION OF THE Four General Councils The NICENE the CONSTANTINOPOLITAN the EPHESINE and the CHALCEDONIAN Which S. Gregory the Great does Worship and Reverence as the Four Gospels TOM I. Of 47 Provincial Councils also and the Decrees of 69 POPES From the APOSILES and their CANONS to ZACHARIAS ISIDORE being the Author ALSO The GOLDEN BULL of CHARLES IV. Emperour concerning the Election of the KING of the ROMANS PARIS At Francis Regnault 1535. All we shall observe upon this Title is this If Gregory the Great did Worship and Reverence the Four General Councils as the Four Gospels they were the more to blame that added 50 Canons to one of them and they much more that stain them all with the Neighbourhood and Mixture of such
by the People that it was granted to the Church of Rome by a singular priviledge to open and shut the Kingdom of Heaven to whom she would that none may Appeal from her to any other that the Apostolical See may without any Synod unbind those whom a Synod or Council hath unjustly condemned Of which Sentence she is to be the Judge whether it be just for she may judge all but none her that the Church of Rome is the Foundation and Form of all the Churches so that no Church hath its Essence without that of Rome that from her all the Churches received their beginning Doctrines as true as the Authorities by which they are confirmed and to say no more as true as the last For the Christian Churches received their beginning from Jerusalem before the Church of Rome had any Being Consider it well and you shall find this the removing of a meer stone of highest importance an Encroachment upon the Territories of other Patriarchs an 〈◊〉 of all Spiritual and Secular Power to the subversion of Emperours Kings and Councils For if all are to obey her as Jesus Christ did his Eternal Father if it be granted to the Roman Church by a singular Priviledge to open and shut the Kingdom of Heaven to whom she will if no King Emperour or Council hath power to judge the Pope while he hath power to judge all Kings Emperours and Councils are made Subject to him and nothing can escape the Sublimity of his Cognizance Besides this Treatise of the Primacy Peter Crab has 34 new Canons of the Apostles more than Isidore and Merlin So that Antiquities are daily increasing in the Church of Rome and Records are like Figs new ones come up instead of the old ones The last of these Canons is that of Clement about the Canon of the Bible a Forgery of more Scriptures added to the former in the names of the Apostles defended by honest Turrian zealously and magnified by Nicolinus as the Coronis of the Apostles Canons He has the Roman Pontifical a Treatise of the Lives of Popes fitted exactly to the Decretal Epistles and accordingly most richly stored with all kind of Forgeries and Lyes It is a new Book Fathered upon Pope Damasus which Isidore and Merlin I think were ignorant of for it is not in them and I admire where he had it It is the Text on which he commenteth as a Great Record he useth it as a great proof in doubtful matters and according to it the Method of his Tomes is ordered You will see more of it hereafter He has the counterfeit Council of Sinuessa a new Piece which I find not in Merlin But I verily believe he scraped it up some where else and 't is not his own 't is so full of nonsense A Council sitting in the year 303. and defining from that Text Ex ore tuo justificaberis ex ore tuo condemnaberis that no Council can condemn a Pope nor any other Power but his own mouth For because our Saviour has said Out of thine own mouth thou shalt be justified and out of thine own mouth thou shalt be condemned therefore no body can condemn the Pope but himself alone for which purpose they repeat the Text over and over again very 〈◊〉 and childishly even unto nauseating And the example of Marcellinus is made an instance in the case who being called to an Account for offering Incense to an Idol could not be condemned by this Council and was therefore because he was Pope humbly implored to condemn himself It is a Council of great value because of the President we have in it how Scriptures may be applied to the Bishop of Rome and how places that belong to all the World must peculiarly be ascribed to him alone Howbeit Crab makes a sowre face on 't and is fain to premise this Premonition to the Reader By reason of the intollerable difference and corruption of the Copies whereof the one was old and faulty though written in the best Parchment and Character the other more old but equally depraved as the Beholders might discern with their eyes so far that what they mean sometimes cannot be understood we have set both the Copies without changing a syllable of them in two Columns setting the Letter A over the first and C over the other but the middle Column over which B is placed for its capaeity or rather conjecture endeavours as much as it is able to reconcile the other two so very divers and bring them to some sense He does not tell you plainly that he made the middle Copy but 't is easie to conceive it since he found but two and they were so full of nonsense that he added one which is the third to reconcile them Yet Crabbe's Invention is now recorded by the Collectio Regia and the two old ones for their horrid Barbarismes are thrown out of the Councils and for very shame are cast away for proceeding in his Apology Crab a little after saith Nemo ergo caput subsannando moveat c. Let no man therefore wag his Head in derision who having either gotten more correct Exemplars or being of a more Noble and clear apprehension is able to mend these but rather let him patiently bear with what is done and reduce it himself into better form This is a sufficient Light wherein to see the dissimilitude between Forgeries and true Records For whereas the undoubted were made in great Councils of Holy Men and are all of them clear and pure and well-advised full of Uniformity Sense Gravity Majesty Smoothness Order Perspicuity Brevity Eloquence and Verity it is the common Fare of these Instruments which we accuse as Forgeries being made in a Dark Age by men not so Learned as the Church of Rome could desire and sometimes in a Corner by some silly Monk to swarm with Absurdities Errours Tautologies Barbarismes to be rude and tedious empty and incoherent weak and impertinent yet some of them we confess to be more pure in Language and better in sense than others This Council of Sinuessa is more ridiculous than it is possible well to imagine before you read and consider it He has the Counterfeit Edict of the Emperour Constantine for a good Record It is more warily made than the other and better Latine but of Swinging Importance ' I is but a Deed of Gift wherein the first most Christian Emperour is made to give all the Glory of the Western Empire with its Territories and Regalities to the Bishop of Rome We shall meet with it in others for the Collectors of the Decretal Epistles all of them harp upon this String most strangely As Pope Paul V. so Peter Crab has but 20 Canons of the Nicene Council wherein he agrees with Isidore and Merlin and differs much from some that follow him Nay he agrees and disagrees with Isidore at once in this very thing He agrees with Isidore in his Book it self on the Nicene Council but disagrees
so many did 〈◊〉 use in 〈◊〉 the Apocryphal from Cennine Books and this Sentence was Desinitive by a Pope in his Council So that 2. A Pope in his Council is not 〈◊〉 3. If Einius be right Gelasius and fourscore Bishops did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in condemning the Code 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Canons which S. Clement wrote from the mouth of the Apostles 4. The Church of Rome is divided the New and the Old Church of Rome are against each other The New is all for Additions and the very Apostles Canons allowed in Gelasius his time which was 1260 years ago are not sufficient unless more be added But let us now consider Binius his reasons Quia tamen ex his posterioribus ferè omnes praeter praedictos duos c. But because all these latter almost besides the two forementioned are either by the Authority of the Roman Bishops or by the Decrees of other Councils or by the Sentences of some Fathers confirmed and approved as is manifest by these our Marginals and Annotations So that it may not lightly or rashly he doubted whether they were taken hence by the Bishops Councils and Fathers or rather translated hither and put here out of their Writings Hereupon they may and ought rightly and deservedly all except the two excepted to be taken for Authentick How perplexed his discourse is I suppose you see His courage fails in the midst and it becomes thereupon so rough and difficult that it is scarce intelligible The occasion of its Incoherence is that Parenthesis thrust into the middle For Binius foreseeing a strong Obiection to the Discourse he was going to make claps it Sophistically into the midst of his Argument hoping thereupon that it would never more be retorted upon him Which you may easily see both by the Nature of his Argument and by the resolution of his words For his Argument is this which if you lay aside the Answer to it runs smoothly Almost all these latter Canons besides the two forementioned are either by the Authority of Roman Bishops or the Decrees of other Councils or the Sentences of some Fathers confirmed and approved hereupon they may and ought rightly and deservedly all except the two excepted to be taken for Authentick Now the Answer is the Parenthesis in the midst Certain Sentences like to these Canons are in the Fathers writings but so contained there that it may not lightly or rashly be doubted whether they were taken hence by the Bishops Councils and Fathers or rather translated hither and put here out of their Writings To doubt a thing rashly is nonsense but it may justly be feared that these Canons are Sentences pickt out of other Books and packt into a Body bearing the name of the Apostles Canons His Conscience did convict him and he replieth not a word though it be an important consideration in the case But there is a worse fault in his Logick he argues from Particulars to Vniversals for having said Fere omnes praeter praedictos duos he comes to conclude Omnes praeter praedictos duos Almost all except two are approved therefore all except two are Authentick Such Tricks as these he hath often And sometimes affects an obscure kind of speaking on purpose to blind the Reader especially when he is intangled with some difficult Argument He then Clouds himself like the Cuttle in his own Ink that he might vomit up the Hook in the dark and scape away He might have produced a General Council if he pleased to confirm all the 84 Canons and that under the Name of the Apostles too which had been more to the purpose but then he must have confessed the last Canon of Clement to be true and consequently that his eight Books of Constitutions and his two Epistles are part of the Bible or else that the Decree of the Council confirming these was Spurious or else of necessity that the Pope and Council did err But he had more kindness for the Pope than so and therefore perhaps let the Council alone He would inure you by his words to believe that Popes are equal to Councils Because they are saith he either by the Authority of Roman Bishops or other Councils or some Fathers confirmed they may and ought to be taken for Authentick Some Fathers is a dwindling expression He very well knows that 217 were rejected together in the sixth Council of Carthage Roman Bishops and other Councils are words of some weight But what can other Councils do if the Roman Bishops please to reject them The Roman Bishops and other Councils are so put in contradistinction that the Authority of Roman Bishops is set before that of other Councils And perhaps the proportion being observed the Roman Bishops must be thought as far above other Councils as other Councils above some Fathers In other places they affirm a Pope with his Council to be Infallible Here that the Roman Bishop is a Council Otherwise it is nonsense to say The Roman Bishops or other Councils The Roman Bishop hath a Council in himself And indeed it is requisite that he of all other should be the greatest Council when standing alone he is to judge of a Council and to determine even whether an 〈◊〉 Council shall be approved or disapproved This is a Tast of Binius an Elephants Clee a Scrap of five large Volumes full of the same integrity and perverseness The swelling words which they talk of approved and disapproved Councils are all to be understood of Councils approved or disapproved by the Roman Bishop From his Canons we proceed to his Council for Binius hath a Council of Apostles too on a Prodigious Theme the setting up of Images It is but a short one and hath but one Canon and that is the eighth It is set forth in this form ANTIOCHENA SYNODUS 〈◊〉 Canon 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Salvati ob Idola sed pingant 〈◊〉 Opposite Divinam Humanamque manufactam 〈◊〉 Effigiem Dei veri ac Salvatoris nosire Jesu Christi ipsiusque Servorum contra Idola 〈◊〉 Neque errent in Idolis neque similes siant Judaeis This is all and sure it is old for the Latine is very bare If you construe it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thus but hath no Greek Copy A COUNCIL of the APOSTLES at ANTIOCH Canon 3. Let not the Saved be deceived for Idols but let them paint on the Opposite the Divine and Humane unmingled Image of the true God and of our Saviour Jesus Christ made with hands and of his Servants Neither let them err in Idols nor be made like the Jews The first Authority he hath to prove it is the 2 Nicene Council 800 years almost after the Apostles And he collecteth it thence by a blind conjecture not by any evident Assertion of theirs Besides this he citeth one Pamphilus who testifieth that he found it in Origen's Study as Turrian saith against the Writers of Magdenburg So that all this resteth upon Turrian an impudent Corrupter as the World hath any Where we first observe that Origen
had no Images himself neither adored any 2. That Images were forbidden in the H. Scripture especially in the Old Testament 3. The Apostles were wont to allure the Jews and not to offend them To the Jews saith S. Paul I became as a Jew that I might gain the Jews Whereas to set up Images was the only way to drive them out of the Temple 4. That all other Councils Nice Constantinople Ephesus Chalcedon Arles Eleberis Antioch Laodicea Sardis Jerusalem Alexandria Rome c. during all the time of 800 years were silent of this Apostolical Canon Concerning which I beseech you to consider further 1. That admitting it were in the 2 Nicene Council that was an Idolatrons Council addicted to Fables and full of Forgeries for which it is rejected by all the knowing and sounder part of the World 2. The Apostles were not obeyed in this Commandment neither in their own Age nor in divers Ages after 3. Binius himself seemeth conscious of its unsoundness for he putteth it not among the Councils of the Apostles which are before their Canons altogether but in another place stragling by it self in his own Notes and after the Apostles Canons 4. Since the Apostles wrote in Greek this is rendered suspitious by wanting a Greek Copy 5. No Collector produceth one word besides himself in the whole Circuit of the first 400 years on the behalf of Images 6. The Fathers unanimously write against Images in the Church of GOD. 7. You may perceive by the dulness of the Sense out of what Storehouse this Fragment came and by the horrid incongruity of making a Divine and Humane Image unmingled with hands The Divinity and and Humanity being Natures infinitely distant cannot be painted in the same Picture But for want of a better this Musty Evidence must serve the turn CAP. XV. Of the Pontisical Falsety Fathered upon Damasus Bishop of Rome An. 397. How the Popish Collectors use it as their Text yet confess it to be a Forgery full of Lyes and contradictions THe Liber Pontifiealis is a Legend so stuffed with Lyes that the very Title of it is notorious The very first Inscription of the Book miscarries not so as to need like the former Counterfeits either those of the Apostles Canons or their Council or the Preface of Isidore a long Circuit of Deductions to prove the Forgery Binius Labbe and the Collectio Regia immediately confess it It beginneth thus THE BOOK OF POPES From Pope Peter down to Pope Nicholas of that Name the First in which their Acts are described The Acts of the first Popes by Pope Damasus The rest by other * Ancient Men and * worthy of credit Upon this Title Binius noteth Hujus libri Pontificalis Damasus Auctor non est c. Damasus is not the Author of this Pontifical but rather it is patched up of two divers Authors as may be proved by this that almost in every Popes Life it contains things fighting with themselves And so no account can be given of Things and Writings clashing with one another And for this he cites Baronius An. Christ. 69. nu 35. Au. 348. nu 16. 17. Anton. Possevin Apparat. Sac. on the word Damasus Now a man would expect he should lay aside the Book and refuse to make use of such an odious Pamphlet But for want of a better he takes it in as his most Learned Companions do and so they labour all under the miserable Fate of making a Forgery the Text upon which their Notes and Volumes are the Commentary It is meet before I pass to make some use of what is given us for Observation is the Life of History Reflexions digesting the Objects that are before us and turning them into nourishment What is here said concerneth not a Page but a whole Book stuffed with Legends and Lives of Popes It was set forth as a Book made by Damasus a Learned Grave and Ancient Bishop of Rome that his name might give colour and Authority to the same Because it could not be believed that 〈◊〉 should write of Popes that followed after he was dead part of it is ascribed to other ancient men and worthy of credit naming no body for the greater Reverence and shew of Antiquity and the more pious estimation of unknown persons How ancient and how worthy of credit they are that 〈◊〉 such Cheats and what a Mystery of Iniquity they make of Antiquity you may easily conjecture Sometimes 〈◊〉 are thrown upon 〈◊〉 Greeks and 〈◊〉 but here is one made and compiled by the more Famous Romans Binius knew it to be a Forgery by the baseness of the Stile Consarcinatus est It was patched up That is his word a Metaphor implying the Taylors were but Botchers that made it Secondly By the contradictions that are in it he knew they were divers Authors because they jangle and cannot agree The parts of it are so irreconcileable that the Story will by no means hang together It is a Vein of Lyes reaching from S. Peter to Damasus and from Damasus to Nicholas 1. containing the Lives of above 100 Popes from S. Peter to the year 860. About the time of this Nicholas 1. the Popedom was exalted above the Clouds and was of necessity to be secured by as evil means as it was gotten When loe the Witch of Endor raises up Samuel in the good old Damasus to tell the World that Peter was a Prince and all his Successors Vniversal Heads of the Catholick Church Nicholas 1. began to sit about 50 years after the death of Hadrian 1. the Pope that is suspected by us to be the Father of the 〈◊〉 So great an Impression therefore being made by the Publication of Isidore a little before it was thought good to follow the Blow by this Pontifical and a more ancient Father than Isidore must be awakened out of his dust to justifie him For as Light answered Light in Solomons Buildings so do the Lives and Letters of the Popes their Lives in the Pontifical and their Letters in the Decretal The Artifice shews contrivance and the design of it a deep and hidden Correspondence The World has been cheated for so long a time by the attempt of wicked and deceitful men Peter Crab Carranza surius Nicolinus the Elder Compilers of the Councils use it boldly and freely without warning their Readers to suspect it or confessing it to be a Forgery though Binius and the last Compilers upon necessary Conviction are forced to do it 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 have it not at all we may justly wonder therefore where these latter 〈◊〉 got it The Forgery is not about mean matters but things most Sacred the Rights of the Church and the Souls of men Here the 〈◊〉 are detected by their own confession and he that is once 〈◊〉 is still suspected The Works of Darkness are seldom 〈◊〉 so that more are committed than 〈◊〉 known All these Forgeries that are now acknowledged did pass about 200 years ago for good
the Nineth Who in an Epistle to Michael of Constantinople and Leo of Acridanum Bishops in the year of our Redemption 1054. makes mention of the Donation of this Constantinian Edict made to Sylvester From whence I believe it was that much Faith and Authority being hereby added unto it very many of the Gravest and most Learned Doctors without any suspition of Fraud or Imposture with good Faith did read and receive it He makes a large Confession here wherein three things are fit to be noted The first that ever used this Edict was a Pope Pope Leo 9. 2. He used it immediately after it came forth For Sylvesters Acts came forth about the year 1060. being afterwards increased with the Addition of this Edict of Constantine and some 54 years after the Pope made use of the Donation in it Wherein he is followed by many very many of the Gravest and most Learned Popish Doctors which is the third thing to be noted This fault of the Popish Doctors who did read and receive this Donation of Constantine without any suspition of Fraud and Imposture being by Binius charged upon the Pope The Shepherd went out of the way and the Sheep followed him The Captain and the Herd did all stray and miscarry Leo 9. being somewhat like the Dragon in the Revelation that threw down the third part of the Stars with his Tail Binius his Cure is but the shift of a Mountebank to save his Credit There are Errours and Heresies in the Donation of Constantine which whosoever receiveth the Donation he receiveth them in like manner And to say that the Head and its Members in the Church of Rome were deceived by the Evil Art and sorry Faith of the Grecians while they licked up this Vomit of Balsamon for the Popes advantage is but a sorry shift a Corrosive that eats like a Canker For it shews how the Holy Catholick Roman Church may be deceived Head and Members Pope and Doctors Priests and People They were imposed on by an Evil Art it seems and swallowed down Heresie in Constantine's Donation But that Binius lyes in his prevarication about the Greeks and that the Greeks were not the Authors of the Donation and that it did not intend to hurt the Popes Chair is evident by this The Donation was made not to overthrow but confirm the Divine Right of the Popes Supremacy point blank against what Binius pretends He that made it had an eye both to the Temporal and Spiritual Priviledges of the Roman Chair For the Donation applieth those Scriptures on which the Popes build their Right to S. Peter's Successors and makes the Empercur to note that the Will of our Saviour was the Root of all his Kindness to the Chair nay it expresly throws all on our Saviours Institution For it is just that the Holy Law should retain the Head of the Principality there where our Saviour the Instituter of H. Laws commanded the blessed Peter to undertake the Chair of the Apostleship Where you may note another fetch of the Papists Lest what our Saviour did to S. Peter should seem too remote to concern Rome that they might make the Channel of Conveyance clear these old Counterfeits record that S. Peter did not come to Rome by chance but being invested in so great an Hereditary power our Saviour chose the place where it should rest and that Peter came to Rome and there undertook the Chair of his Apostleship by our Saviours Commandment Which if they could make the World believe their work would be half done So that it utterly destroys the Interest of the Greeks and the Donation is Root and Branch altogether Roman Neither did the Greeks ever use it to disgrace the Roman Church for ought I can find though the Romans used it to magnifie their Church above all other Churches CAP. XXIII Melchiades counterfeited Isidore Mercator confessed to be a Forgery The Council of Laodicea corrupted both by a Fraud in the Text and by the False Glosses of the Papists THe Forgery put out at first in the name of Melchiades concerning the Primitive Church and the Munificence of the Emperour Constantine hath now gotten a clause added to the Title viz. Falsly ascribed to Melchiades In Binius Labbé and the Collectio Regia Upon those words Falsly ascribed to Melchiades Binius speaketh thus That this Epistle was ascribed to Melchiades appeareth Can. Futuram 12. q. 1. Can. Decrevit Dist. 88. which bearing the name of Melchiades contain for the most part the things which are written here It appeareth from hence also that hitherto it was commonly put in the former Edition of the Councils just after the Decrees of Melchiades the Pope Thus was this counterfeit Epistle placed among their Laws and Councils But that it was noted with the false Title and name of Melchiades appeareth from hence saith he because it maketh mention of the Nicene Council which by the consent of all men happened after the death of Melchiades and after the Baptism of the Emperour not under Melchiades but under Sylvester in the year of Christ 325. being the 20 year of Constantine as almost all Historians unanimously do testifie Perhaps therefore it is more true that Isidore himself being a Compiler rather than a Collector was the Author of this Epistle Which it is certain was made out of the third Canon of the Council of Chalcedon and a certain fragment of the 24 Epistle in the 1. Book of Pope Gregory and the History of the Nicene Council Baron An. 312. Nu. 80. Here we come to know the manner how Decretal Epistles were made Good passages stoln out of the Fathers are clapt Artificially together and a Grain or two of Interest thrust neatly in makes up an Epistle This of Binius is plain dealing Isidore is confessed to be a Compiler that is a Forger rather than a Collector or Recorder of the Councils * Note this well because Isidore is the Fountain a muddy dirty one out of which they drink their waters This acknowledgment is the more considerable because Baronius Labbè and Cossartius and the Collectio Regia herein do keep Binius Company Confessing it to be stoln out of S. Gregory he acknowledgeth it to be made almost 300 years after it was pretended Which draws near to the time of Hadrian the First and sheds another Ray of Light on the Original of these Impostures In the time of Sylvester there happened many Councils One Feather is finely thrust in into that at Arles to adorn the Papacy The Pope is set before the Emperour In that of Ancyra the Marriage of Deacons is permitted Can. 〈◊〉 Priests also were not compelled to leave their Wives unless they were taken in Adultery Can. 8. The Cup and the Bread were both given to the People Can. 13. In the Council of Laodicea it is determined that the Scriptures should be read on the Sabbath days Can. 16. And that we ought not to leave the
Roman Forgeries Or a TRVE ACCOUNT OF FALSE RECORDS Discovering the IMPOSTURES AND Counterfeit Antiquities OF THE CHURCH OF ROME By a Faithful Son of the Church of ENGLAND LONDON Printed by S. and B. Griffin for Jonathan Edwin at the three Roses in Ludgate-Street 1 Tim. 4. 2. Speaking lies in Hypocrisie having their Conscience seared with an hot iron 2 Tim. 3. 8 9. Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses so do these also resist the truth men of corrupt minds reprobate concerning the Faith But they shall proceed no further for their folly shall be manifest unto all men as theirs also was TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE S r ORLANDO BRIDGEMAN KNIGHT and BARONET One of HIS MAJESTIES Most Honourable Privy Council The AUTHOR Devoteth his best Services AND DEDICATETH The VSE and BENEFIT of his Ensuing Labors A Premonition THe Bishops of Rome in the persons of Zozimus Boniface and Celestine Successively opposed the Sixth Council of Carthage consisting of 217 Fathers among whom the great S. Augustine is acknowledged to be one in the matter of Appeals which was the first step made by that irregular Chair to the Exorbitant Supremacy which they afterward claimed In vindicating that Claim before the Council they produced two counterfeit Canons fathered upon the Oecumenical Synod at Nice which were by the Records of Carthage Alexandria and Constantinople in the presence of all those Fathers in the sixth Council of Carthage detected to be forgeries as well as by the Tenor of the undoubted Canons of the Nicene Council it self which are contrary to those by the Roman Church pretended and so they were esteemed by the Fathers in that sixth Council who were startled at the sight of those New unheard of Monsters at their first Publication above 1200 years ago Vpon this Passage I redoubled in the Book an observation to make it more remarkable which you will find cap. 2. pag. 9. to this purpose That in the first General Council of Nice it was ordered that the chief in every Province should confirm the Acts of his inferior Bishops And if any Trouble did arise which could not be decided by the Metropolitan Provision was made Can. 5. in words so clear and forcible that none more plain can be put into their places that the last Appeal should be made to Councils and that the Person condemned in any Province should not be received if he fled to others That Parenthesis In words so clear and forcible that none more plain can be put in their places relates to the CANON it self which here follows that you may see how forcible it is and how much plainer then the very Words into which I had contracted it It is worthy your Consideration as on of the most Important Records in Antiquity consented to by all the Popish Compilers of the Councils themselves Can. 5. Concerning those that are Excommunicated whether in the order of the Clergy or the Laitie by the Bishops in every several province let the Sentence prevail according to the Canon that they who are cast out by some be not received by others But let it be required that no man be excluded the Congregation by the Pusillanimitie or contention or any such vice of the Bishop That this therefore might more decently be inquired into we think it fit that Councils should every year throughout every Province twice be celebrated that such Questions may be discussed by the Common Authority of all the Bishops assembled together And so they that have evidently offended against their Bishop shall be accounted Excommunicated according to reason by all till it pleaseth the Community of Bishops to pronounce a milder Sentence on such But let the Councils be held the one before the Quaaragesima before Easter that all dissention being taken away we might offer a most pure Gift unto God and the second about the middle of Autumn Had the Canon said The last Appeal shall be made to Councils they that are accustomed to such shifts without blushing might easily have evaded the Words by affirming the Bishop of Rome to be particularly excepted without any need of expressing the exception because by the general and Tacit Consent of all he is above the Limits of such Laws and above the Authority of that and all other Councils Thus they might still render the matter doubtful by their Subterfuges and Pretences as indeed they do in evading one expression of the Canon it self For whereas the Fathers say Let the Sentence prevail according to the Canon that they who are cast out by some be not received by others Those Popish Hirelings make an exception of the Bishop of Rome where the Oecumenical Synod maketh none and might as well except him here though the Council had said in terms The last Appeal shall be made to Councils For the last Appeal to any subordinate Authority over which the Council had any Legislative Power was ordered they might say to be made to Councils But the Bishop of Rome being the Head of the Church and having the supreme Authority over all Councils was not thought of in this Canon nor was fit he should be at all mentioned because that would imply he was under their authority The Prodigious Height of their usurped Claim being their sole Defence and their incredible Boldness the amazement of ignorant People which is their chief security But the Council adding to the former expression this clause That Councils should every year throughout evry Province twice be celebrated for this very end that such Questions may be discussed by the common authority of all the Bishops assembled together it puts an end to the business especially when they add That they who have evidently offended their Bishop shall be accounted excommunicated according to reason till it pleaseth the community of Bishops to pronounce a milder Sentence But that which renders it most plain and forcible is this Let the Councils be held the one before the Quadragesima before Easter that all Dissention being taken away we might offer a most pure Gift unto GOD. And the second about the middle of Autumn All the wit in the world could not have invented a more clear and apparent provision against the Roman Bishops absurd and impudent Pretences No Evasion I think can possibly be made there from when it is once noted and understood For the Bar put in against the Pope is not here in Words but Things It implies that the Controversie must before Easter be fully determined The very end of calling such a Council and holding it then being the taking away of all dissention that we might offer up a most pure Gift or Sacrifice to God that is That Vnity being restored to the Church at that time we might receive the Sacrament in Peace and Charity Whereas if after the Sentence of the Council the business were to be carried to the Court of Rome Suits and Quarrels could not be ended against Easter but would be lengthened in many Provinces beyond
Easter both by reason of the Seas and Regions to be passed over by old and Crazy Persons such as the venerable Bishops were before they could come from their own Countries to the Roman Chair and by those Prolatory delays they might find there the matter being wholy referred to the Popes pleasure The Variation of the Letter in the Book made my Note on this place look too like the Text of the Council it self which for as much as it happened in a most weighty Place I could not with a good Conscience let it pass without acquainting the Pious Reader with the same Though the Letter of the Canon it self to prevent mistakes is faithfully translated afterwards page 26 and 27. Yet without giving this Gloss upon the Canon which was the occasion of this Pramonition because so necessary to a clear and full understanding of all the procedure This Note is the more weighty because the Nicene Council is confessed on both sides by us for its own sake and its conformity to the Scriptures by the Papists for the Popes that have ratified it to be of great Authority next to the Holy Bible the very first and most indisputable that is Yet this Canon laid in the foundation utterly overthrowes all the following Pretences and Forgeries of the Roman Bishops Which I beseech the Reader to examine more perfectly For though by many Arts and long Successes the Bishop of Rome bas ascended to an Ecclesiastical Supremacy and a subtile Train of Doctrines is laid to make him the Universal Monarch of the World as much higher then the Emperour as the Sun is greater than the Moon as they expresse it Yet the Sentence of an Eminent Divine well acquainted with these Affairs in a late Sermon preached before the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen in the City of London and now published is very true The Supremacy of the Roman Church was a meer Usurpation begun by Ambition advanced by Forgery and defended by Cruelty ERRATA THe Reader before he enters upon the Book is desired to correct these as the principal Errata's with his Pen. Page 35 line 15 dele now p. 43 l. 21 r. love of the world that p. 55 for Councits r. Statesmen p. 66l 16 aft Magdenburg r. and. p. 83 l. 21 for 1635 r. 1535. p. 104 l. 16 for fit r. fift p 107l 10 for 1618 r. 1608. p. 109 adde in the Margin 11. p. 137l 7 r Right use of the Fathers p 157 〈◊〉 r. Transeunt p 172 Cap. 15. Contents for Falsity r. Falsely AN ADVERTISEMENT TO THE READER IRenaeus one of the most Ancient Fathers Scholar to S. Polycarp S. John's Disciple in his Book against Heresies giveth us four notable marks of their Authors First he sheweth how they disguize their Opinions Errour never shews It Self saith he lest it should be taken naked but is artificially adorned in a splendid Mantle that it may appear truer than Truth it self to the more unskilful 2. That having Doctrines which the Prophets never preached nor God taught nor the Apostles delivered they pretend unwritten Traditions Ex non Scriptis legentes as he phraseth it 3. They make a Rope of Sand that they may not seem to want Witnesses passing over the Order and Series of Writings and as much as in them lies loosing the Members of the Truth and dividing them from each other for they chop and change and making one thing of another deceive many c. But that which I chiefly intend is the fourth They bring forth a vast multitude of Apocryphal and Spurious Writings which themselves have feigned to the amazement of Fools and that those may admire them that know not the Letters or Records of the Truth How far the Papists have trodden the foregoing Paths it is not my purpose to unfold only the last the Heretical pravity of Apocryphal and Spurious Books how much they have been guilty of imposing on the World by feigned Records I leave to the evidence of the ensuing Pages which I heartily desire may be answerable to the Merit of so great a Cause Vincentius Lirinensis another eminent Father praised by Gennadius died in the time of Theodosius and Valentinian He wrote a Book against Heresies in like manner wherein preparing Furniture and Instructions against their Wiles he at first telleth us that the Canon of the Scripture is alone sufficient Then that the concurrence of the Fathers is to be taken in for the more clear certainty of their sense and meaning Upon this latter point he saith afterwards But neither are all Heresies to be assaulted this way nor at all times but only such as are New and Green to wit when they first spring up before they have falsified the Rules of the Ancient Faith while they are hindered by straitness of time and before the Poyson spreading abroad they have endeavoured to corrupt the Writings of the Fathers So that Hereticks have inclination enough where they are not hindered by straitness of time to corrupt the most Ancient Writings of the Church For which cause he further saith in the same place But Heresies that are spread abroad and waxen old must not be set upon in this sort because by long continuance they have had opportunity to steal away the Truth Whatsoever 〈◊〉 nesses there be therefore either of Schismes or Heresies that are grown Ancient we 〈◊〉 in no case otherwise to deal with them then either to convince them if it be needful by the Authority of the Scriptures only or at least to avoid them as convicted of old and condemned by Vniversal Councils In this Admonition the Father informs us of two things First that it is possible for Errour to prevail and spread abroad to continue long and wax old Secondly that having gotten possession of Books and Libraries it may falsisie the Rules of the Ancient Faith and steal away the Truth by corrupting the Writings of the Fathers In which case he will not have the Controversie decided by the Fathers but by the Scriptures only or by old Vniversal Councils But if Errour proceed so far as to corrupt the Councils too then of necessity we must have recourse to some other remedy either to the Scriptures alone as he directeth or else we must detect the frauds whereby the Councils themselves are falsified For that they are liable to the same inconvenience is evident both by the paueity of Ancient Records and the many Revolutions that have been in the World especially since Nature teacheth men to strike at the Root attempts are more apt to be made upon them because Hereticks are prone to be most busie in undermining the Foundation That it is possible for men so far to act against their Consciences as to corrupt the Ancient Records of Truth you see by the premises and that it is an easie thing for them to effect it that have gotten all kind of Books and Libraries into their hands is apparent because they that keep
them order them as they please So that if Hereticks be the Lords and Masters of them for many Ages together we may not rashly adventure our Salvation upon their own Records All the World knows that the Church of Rome had all the Libraries of these Western parts for many Ages in her power that the Eastern parts are swallowed up by the Deluge of Mahumetanism All that can seem harsh is that she that pretendeth her self the Catholick Church should be guilty of Heresie But if the property of falsifying the Fathers and Councils may pass for a Badge of Heresie there will no greater Hereticks be found in the world than those who stile themselves falsly Catholicks For as the sight of the possibility of such a thing made Vincentius talk more like a Prophet than a Father the Church of Rome hath so behaved her self since his departure as if she intended eminently to fulfil his Predictions which will in the process of our Discourse be made evident to the pious and Christian Reader S. Bernard lived to see the accomplishment of that which Lirinensis feared for he flourished in the Eleventh Age of the Church when the Pope and his Chair were mounted up to the top of their Height and Grandeur and bearing an impartial Testimony he wrote many things against their Enormities The Vices of their Popes with those of all other Orders and Degrees of men in the Church of Rome he inveyeth against at large in his 33. Sermon upon the Canticles smartly touching their Vain-glory Pomp Luxury Avarice Simony Vsurpation and Incorrigibleness so that for any Piety or Conscience in them such frauds might easily be digested He distinguishes the State of the Church into four several periods or four different times to each of which he annexeth one peculiar temptation Terrour in the Night of Persecution Errour in the Morning of her Peace the heat of Lust and the glaring splendour of Riot and Excess beautified with Riches and varnished over with Hypocrisie in the Noon of her prosperity and the Guile of Deception in the Evening where with great vehemence and impatient 〈◊〉 he speaketh thrice in little room of a certain business walking in the dark Now a little before his time and not long after the second Nicene Council that Fardel of Forgeries came forth under the Name of Isidore which seduced all the late Collectors of the Decrees and Councils which have risen up among the Papists at least if they have not been wilful corrupters of the Records themselves which is much to be feared and discovered a design probably to S. Bernard also that was then on foot in the Court of Rome to alter and deface the Monuments of Antiquity For Riculphus the Archbishop of Mentz who first scattered those Forgeries abroad and Benedictus Levita who first put them into the Capitular Books of the Kings of the Franks and being conscious of their weakness got them confirmed by the Avthority of the Roman Chair Hincmarus Laudunensis also whom Baronius calleth Novissimum usque ad haec Tempora Collectorem The last Collector of the Councils till his own Age. All these lived before S. Bernards time So did Hincmarus Archbishop of Rhemes who having a more sagacious Nosiril than ordinary as Baronius observes did first attempt the detection of the fraud and was accused for the same and that so roughly that as Baronius further notes out of Frodoardus his History of Rhemes he was forced to recent and though he did it he was marked with Infamy for having attemqted to reprove them S. Bernard therefore having such a Mirrour before his eyes speaking covertly for his own preservation yet plainly enough for the Authors Conviction among other 〈◊〉 and open Abominations seemeth to 〈◊〉 at this in particular For shewing the State of the Church to be more miserable under the Pompous Hypocrisie of the Popes than either in the night of persecution under Heathen 〈◊〉 or in the conflicts of Hereticks that sprang up in the morning in the midst of the brightness of that Glaring Noon he talks of a work going on in the dark a design 〈◊〉 carried on by the instigation and procurement of the Noon-day Devil that should shortly after appear to seduce the rest if there be any in Christ saith he abiding yet in their simplicity For he hath swallowed up the Floods of the Wise and the Rivers of the Mighty and trusteth in himself that he can take Jordan into his mouth that is the simple and the lowly that are in the Church Which immediately following that business walking in the dark makes me to believe that he looked upon that business as the Engine of their Deception which gave him the Hint to speak by way of Prophesie concerning the fourth Temptation that was yet to come in the Churches Declension and which he expresly noteth to be the immediate means of opening the way for Antichrist to appear His words are very Poinant and Emphatical it was bitter at first in the Death of Martyrs more bitter in the conflict of Hereticks but now most bitter in the manners of Domesticks She cannot put them to flight she cannot fly them they are so multiplied upon her The Plague of the Church is in the Entrails and incurable therefore its bitterness is most bitter in its peace But in what peace It is peace and it is not peace peace from Pagans and peace from Hereticks but truly none from her Children The voice of weeping is in that time I have nourished children and exalted them but they have despised me They have despised and defiled me with their filthy life their filthy gain their filthy commerce and finally with that business walking in darkness It remains now that the Noon-day Devil should appear to seduce the rest if there be any in Christ abiding yet in their simplicity That S. Bernard intended this is only my conjecture because whatsoever he spake against under that Title of Darkness he chose obscure terms as it should seem on purpose for that business is Arcanum Imperii the Great Mystery of the Roman Chair the Popes Palladium not to be seen with profane eyes nay the very Ark of his Most Holy Place to be lookt into by none but his own faithful Priests It was Death to look into it with suspitious eyes or to expose it to those of the people Where we may further observe that as a Serpent hideth her head and exposeth any of her members for the preservation of that to the stroaks of her Enemy so doth the Church of Rome desire more to conceal this Grand Art of counterfeiting Ecclesiastical Antiquities than any other points less Radical and Vital All other Controversies are but superficial blinds more freely exposed to her Enemies debates that mens eyes may be turned another way from this Arcanum which is with all endeavour hidden from the people And for this cause they find it better to buy up the Editions than
answer the Discoveries which makes Dr. James his Treatise and Blondels Pseudo-Isidorus so rare among the people Matters of Fact may be manifest enough where the means of contriving them remain unknown a conjecture in a circumstance therefore destroys not the Foundation You will find other kinds of Arguments in the subsequent Epitome than bare conjectures In the mean time be pleased to remember that the Papists have had all kind of Books nay and Libraries in their hands that the Roman Clergy especially those that attend the Chair have Glory Wealth and Pleasure enough to tempt them to such endeavours that the Pope hath Power enough to reward his Creatures and that they have actually endeavoured to corrupt such Books by their Indices Expurgatorii as also to put forth Apocryphal and Spurious Pieces which Dr. Reynolds Dr. James Bishop Jewel and the Learned Crashaw as well as the Indices themselves do evidently declare It shall here appear more clearly that they have adulterated all by Counterfeit Records the very places and things corrupted being themselves produced detected and reproved I shall not descend into the latrer Ages but keep within the compass of the first 420 years and lay open so many of their frauds as disguize and cover the face of Primitive Antiquities which ought to be preserved most sacred and pure It is sufficient to prove that all the Streams are infected by the Poyson that is thrown into the Fountain-head and to expatiate downwards would over-swell the Book which is intended to be little for the use and benefit of all Neither shall I talk of the Fathers at large I will not meddle with their Amphilochius Abdias S. Denis c. but keep close to Records and publick instruments of Antiquity which have the force of Laws Such as Apostles Canons Decretal Epistles and Ancient Councils which they have either depraved by altering the Text or falsified as it were by Whole-sale in the intire Lump And I shall concern my self in the 〈◊〉 more than the former I desire the Reader to note that I do not trust other mens information but mine own eyes having my self seen the Collectors of the Councils and searched into all their Compilers for the purpose Neither do I use our own but their most affectionate and Authentick Writers the circumstances of the things themselves in their most approved Authors detecting the Forgeries Before I stir further I shall add one passage which befel me in the Schools as I was studying these things and searching the most Old and Authentick Records in pursuance of them One Evening as I came out of the Bodleian Library which is the Glory of Oxford and this Nation at the Stairs-foot I was saluted by a Person that has deserved well both of Scholars and Learning who being an intimate Friend of mine told me there was a Gentleman his Cosen pointing to a Grave Person in the Quadrangle a man that had spent many thousand pounds in promoting Popery and that he had a desire to speak with me The Gentleman came up to us of his own accord We agreed for the greater liberty and privacy to walk abroad into the New-Parks He was a notable man of an Eloquent Tongue and competent Reading bold forward talkative enough He told me that the Church of Rome had Eleven Millions of Martyrs Seventeen Oecumenical Councils above an Hundred Provincial Councils all the Doctors all the Fathers Unity Antiquity Consent c. I desired him to name me One of his Eleven Millions of Martyrs excepting those that died for Treason in Queen Elizabeths and King James his days For the Martyrs of the Primitive times were Martyrs of the Catholick but not of the Roman Church They only being Martyrs of the Roman Church that die for Transubstantiation the Popes Supremacy the Doctrine of Merits Purgatory and the like So many he told me they had but I could not get him to name one As for his Councils Antiquities and Fathers I asked him what he would say if I could clearly prove that the Church of Rome was guilty of forging them so far that they had published Canons in the Apostles names and invented Councils that never were forged Letters of Fathers and Decretal Epistles in the name of the first Bishops and Martyrs of Rome made 5 6 700 years after they were dead to the utter disguizing and defacing of Antiquity for the first 400 years next after our Saviour Tush these are nothing but lyes quoth he whereby the protestants endeavour to disgrace the Papists Sir answered I you are a Scholar and have heard of Isidore Mercator James Merlin Peter Crabbe Laurentius Surius Severinus Binius Labbè Cossartius and the Collectio Regia Books of vast Bulk and Price as well as of great Majesty and Magnificence You met me this Evening at the Library door if you please to meet me there tomorrow morning at eight of the Clock I will take you in and we will go from Class to Class from Book to Book and there I will first shew in your own Authors that you publish such Instruments for good Records and then prove that those Instruments are downright frauds and forgeries though cited by you upon all occasions He would not come but made this strange reply What if they be Forgeries what hurt is that to the Church of Rome No! cryed I amazed Is it no hurt to the Church of Rome to be found guilty of forging Canons in the Apostles names and Epistles in the Fathers names which they never made Is it nothing in Rome to be guilty of counterfeiting Decrees and Councils and Records of Antiquity I have done with you whereupon I turned from him as an obdurate person And with this I thought it meet to acquaint the Reader AN ABRIDGMENT OF THE CHAPTERS Cap. 1. OF the Nature Degrees and Kinds of Forgery Cap. 2. Of the Primitive Order and Government of the Church The first Popish Encroachment upon it backed with Forgery The Detection of the Fraud in the Sixth Council of Carthage Cap. 3. A multitude of Forgeries secretly mingled with the Records of the Church and put forth under the Name of Isidore Bishop of Hispalis Which Book is owned defended and followed by the Papists Cap. 4. James Merlins Edition of the Councils who lately published Isidore Hispalensis for a good Record which is now detected and proved to be a Forgery Cap. 5. Divers Forgeries contained in Isidores counterfeit Collection mentioned in particular Cap. 6. A further account of Merlins design How some would have Isidore to be a Bishop others a Merchant others a Sinner no man knowing well what to make of him Cap. 7. Of Francis Turrian the famous Jesuite with what Art and Soldness he defendeth the Forgeries Cap. 8. Of Peter Crabbe his Tomes of the Councils Wherein he agrees with and wherein he differs from Indore and Merlin Cap. 9. Of Carranza his Epitome He owneth and useth the Forgeries for good Records Cap. 10. Of Surius his four Tomes
and how the Forgeries are by him confirmed He hath the 〈◊〉 of Atticus and 〈◊〉 by which Pope Zozimus was convicted of Forgery in the sixth Council of Carthage Cap. 11. Of Nicolinus his Tomes and their Contents for the first 〈◊〉 years How full of Forgeries His Testimony concerning the sixth Council of Carthage with his way of desending the Popes Forgery therein Cap. 12. Nicolinus his Fpisile to Pope Sixtus V. His contempt of the Fathers He beginneth to confess the Epistle of Melchiadcs to be naught He overthroweth the Legend about Constantines Donation Cap. 13. The Epistle of Pope Damasus to Aurelius Archbishop of Carthage commanding the Decretals of the Roman Bishops to be preached and published and Fathering those Forgeries on the H. Ghost Cap. 14. Counterfeit Canons made in the Apostles names defended by Binius A Glympse of his Pretences Sophistries and Contradictions A forged Council of the Apostles concerning Images defended by Binius and Turrian Cap. 15. A Book called the Pontifical falsly fathered upon Damasus an Ancient Bishop of Rome How the most Learned of the Popish Collectors use it as the Text on which they Comment in their voluminous Books yet confess it to be a Forgery full of lyes and contradictions Cap. 16 Of the Decretal Epistles forged in the Names of Holy Martyrs and Bishops of Rome for many hundred years together The first was sent from S. Clement by S. Peters Order to S James as they pretend Bishop of Jerusalem seven years at least and by the truest account more than seven and twenty years after he was in his Grave S. Clements Recognitions a cónfessed Forgery which detecteth the first Epistle of S. Clement to be a real fraud Cap. 17. Of Higinus and Pius A notable Forgery in the name of Hermes Where you have the Testimony of an Angel concerning the Celebration of Easter never cited while the matter was in controversie Cap. 18 A Letter Eathered on Cornelius Bishop of Rome concerning the removal of the Apostles Bones about the year 2 4. It gives Evidence to the Antiquity of many Popish Doctrines but is it self a Forgery Cap. 9. The ridiculous Forgery of the Council of Sinuessa put into the Roman Martyrologies How the City and the Name of it was consumed no man can tell when by an Earthquake c. Cap. 20. Divers things premised in order first to the Establishment and then to the Refutation of Constantines Donation the first by Binius the latter by the Author The Forgeries of 〈◊〉 Pope Eusebius and Binius together opened Cap. 21. The counterfeit Edict of our Lord Constantine the Emperour wherein the Western Empire was given to the Bishop of Rome Cap. 22. The Donation of Constantine proved to be a Forgery by Binius himself He confesseth the Acts of Pope Sylvester which he before had cited for good to be Forged Cap. 23. Pope Melchiades Epistle counterfeited Isidore Mercator the Great Seducer of all the Roman Collectors confessed to be a Forger The Council of Laodicea corrupted by the fraud of the Papists Cap. 21. Threescore Canons put into the Nicene Council after Finis by the care and Learning of Alphonsus Fisanus Epistles counterfeited in the name of Sylvester and that Council A Roman Council under Pope Sylvester wholly counterfeited Spurious Letters Father'd on Pope Mark Athanasius and the Bishops of Egypt to defend the Forgeries that were lately added to the Nicene Council Appendix Cardinal Baronius his Grave Censure and Reproof of the Forgeries His fear that they will prove destractive and pernicious to the See of Rome A TRUE ACCOUNT OF FALSE RECORDS Discovering THE FORGERIES OR Counterfeit-Antiquities OF THE CHURCH of ROME CAP. I. Of the Nature Degrees and Kinds of Forgery THe Sin of Forgery is fitter to be ranked with Adultery Theft Perjury and Murder than to be committed by Priests and Prelates One Act of it is a Crime to be punished by the Judges what then is a whole Life spent in many various and enormous Offences of that nature If a Beggar forge but a Pass or a Petition putting the Hands and Seals of two Justices of the Peace to it he is whipt or clapt into the Pillory or marked for a Rogue though he doth it only to satisfie his Hunger If a Lease a Bond a Will or a Deed of Gift be razed or interlined by Craft it passeth for a Cheat but if the whole be counterfeited the Crime is the greater If an Instrument be forged in the Kings Name or his Seal counterfeited and put to any Patent without his privity and consent it is High Treason If any Records of Antiquity be defaced or wilfully corrupted relating to the benefit of men it is like the Crying Sin of removing thy Neighbours Land-mark which Solomon censures in the Proverbs But if those Records appertain to the Right of Nations the Peace of Mankind or the Publick Welfare of the World the Sin is of more mysterious and deeper nature If Counterfeits be shufled in among good Records to the disorder and confusion of the Authentick and a Plea maintained by them which without those Counterfeits would fall to the ground upon the deposition of False Witnesses Theft and Perjury are effectually couched together with Lying in the Cheat. If the Records so counterfeited concern the Church either in her Customs or Laws her Lands or the limits of her Jurisdiction the Order of her Priests or any other Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Affair besides other sins contained in it there is superadded the Sin of Sacriledge The highest degree of Forgery is that of altering the Holy Scriptures because the Majesty offended being Infinite as well as the Concernment the Crime is the more heincus The highest next under that is to counterfeit Rules in the Names of the Apostles Oecumenical Councils most glorious Martyrs and Primitive Fathers that is to make Canons letters Books and Decrees in their Names of which they were not the Authors If the Church of Rome be guilty of this Crime her Antiquity and Tradition the two great Pillars upon which she standeth are very rotten and will moulder into nothing If Money be spent in promoting the Forgery or any thing given directly or indirectly to its Fautors and Abettors in order to the Usurpation of any Spiritual Priviledge or Power he that doth it is guilty of Simony And in many cases Simony Lying and Sacriledge are blended together Finally If they that make the Forgeries ather them upon GOD or upon the Holy Ghost the Sin of Blasphemy is added to Forgery for it maketh God the Father of Lies and being done maliciously it draweth near to the unpardonable sin That some Popes have been guilty of Simony cannot be doubted by them that are any thing versed in Church Antiquty Hart in his Conference with Reynolds 〈◊〉 out of Dr. Genebrard that the Popes for the space of seven score years and ten almost from John VIII to Leo IX about fifty Popes did revolt wholly from the vertue of their Ancestors
and were Apostatical rather than Apostolical and that some of them came not in by the Door but were Thi ves and Robbers That it is not impossible to forge Records for the Bolstering up of Heresies those counter eit Gospels Acts Epistles Revelations c. that were put forth by Hereticks in the Names of the Apostles do sufficiently evidence which being extant a little after the Apostles decease are pointed to by Irenaeus condemned in a Roman Council by Gelasius and some of them recorded by Ivo Cartonensis in a Catalogue lib. 2. cap. 〈◊〉 The Itinerary of Clement and the Book called Pastor being two of the number I note the two last because S. Clement in his first Epistle to S. James is made to approve the one and Pope Pius in his Decretal magnifieth the other Which giveth us a little glympse of the Knavery by which those Ancient Bishops and Martyre of Rome were both abused having Spurious Writings fathered upon themselves for had those Instruments been their own they would never have owned such abominable Forgeries But of this you may expect more hereafter Cap. 16. and Cap. 17. These aggravations and degrees of Forgery we have not mentioned in vain or by accident In the process of our discourse the Church of Rome will be found guilty of them all except the first which is beneath her Grandeur and in so doing she is very strangely secured by the height of her impiety For because it does not easily enter into the heart of man to conceive that men especially Christians should voluntarily commit so transcendent a Crime the greatness of it makes it incredible to inexperienced people and renders them prone to excuse the Malefactors while they condemn the Accusers But that the Church of Rome is guilty in all these respects we shall prove not by remote Authorities that are weak and feeble but by demonstrations derived from the Root and Fountain I will not be positive in making comparisons but if my reading and judgment do not both deceive me she is guilty of more Forgeries than all the Hereticks in the world beside Their greatness and their number countenance the Charge and seem to promise that one day it shall pass into a Sentence of Condemnation against her CAP. II. Of the Primitive Order and Government of the Church The first Popish Encroachment upon it backed with Forgery The Detection of the Fraud in the Sixth Council of Carthage IT is S. Cyprian's observation that our Saviour in the first Foundation of the Church gave his Apostles equal honour and power saying unto them Whose soever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them and whose soever sins ye retain they are retained Cyprian Tract de Simpl Praelator The place has been tampered with but unsuccessfully For though they have thrust in other words into the Fathers Text in some Editions of their own yet in others they are left sincere As Dr. James in his corruption of the Fathers Part. 2. Cap. 1. does well observe But the most remarkable attempt of the Papists is that whereas they have set a Tract concerning the Primacy of the Roman Church before the Councils containing many Quotations out of the Bastard Decretals which they pretend to be extracted ex Codice antiquo out of an Old Book without naming any Author closing it with this passage of S. Cyprian they leave out these words of Scripture Whose soever sins ye remit c. as rendring the Fathers Testimony unfit for their purpose You may see it in Binius his Collection of the Councils c. When the Apostles had converted Nations they constituted Bishops Priests and Deacons for the Government of the Church and left those Orders among us when they departed from the world It was found convenient also for the better Regiment of the Church when it was much inlarged to erect the Orders of Archbishops and Patriarchs The Patriarchs being Supreme in their several Jurisdictions had each of them many Primates and Archbishops under him with many Nations and Kingdoms allotted to their several Provinces every of which was limited in it self and distinct from the residue as appeareth in that first Oecumenical Council assembled at Nice An. Dom. 327. where it was ordained Can. 6 that the ancient custom should be kept the Jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome being expresly noted to be equal to that of the other Patriarchs In the two preceding Canons they ordain 1. That in every Province Bishops should be consecrated by all the Bishops thereof might it consist with their convenience to meet together if not at least by three being present the rest consenting but the confirmation of their Acts is in every Province reserved to the Metropolitan 2. That the last Appeal should be made to Councils and that the person condemned in any Province should not be received if he fled to others Can. 4. and 5. In the first of these Canons it was ordered that the chief in every Province should confirm the Acts of his Inferiour Bishops the Patriarch of Rome in his and every other Patriarch in his own Jurisdiction In 〈◊〉 last if any trouble did arise that could not be decided by the Metropolitan provision was made in words so clear and forcible that none more plain can be put into their places that the last Appeal should be made to Councils 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But the City of Rome being in those days Queen of the World and lifted up above all other Cities as the Seat of the Empire the Bishop thereof began to wax proud in after-times and being discontented with the former Bounds invaded the Jurisdictions of his Fellow-Patriarchs For though the Foundation upon which the Government was laid was against it yet when persons were Immorigerous if any Bishop were censured by his Metropolitan or Priest excommunicated by his Bishop or Deacon offended with his Superiour who chastised him for his guilt though the Canon of the Church was trampled under foot thereby which forbad such irregular and disorderly flights the manner was for those turbulent persons to flee to Rome because it was a great and powerful City and the Roman Bishop trampling the Rule under foot as well as others did as is confessed frequently receive them Nay their ambition being kindled by the greatness of the place it tempted them so far as to favour the Delinquents and oftentimes to clear them for the incouragement of others invited by that means to fly thither for relief till at last the Cause of Malefactors was openly Espoused and while they were excommunicated in other Churches they were received to the Communion in the Church of Rome Hereupon there were great murmurings and heart-burnings at the first in the Eastern Churches because Rome became an Asylum or City of Refuge for discontented persons disturbing the Order of the Church spoiling the Discipline of other Provinces and hindering the Course of Justice while her
Nicholas the Pope seemed to abstain from it on purpose for though he was often ingaged in these Controversies concerning Appeals to the Apostolick Chair and there were in it many and those most powerful Testimonies of most holy Popes and they Martyrs too whose Authority might be of highest force in the Church yet he wholly abstained from them which that he knew to be doubtful at least is not to be doubted using only those concerning which there was never any doubt in the Church of God because the Church did not want those adventitious and late invented Evidences because it might receive them abundantly from other places but Benedictus Levita himself also though as you have heard from Hincmarus and as he himself testifies in the Preface before his books he took many things out of that same Collection of Isidore yet being conscious in himself that the Authority of those Epistles was not so sure but that it nodded exceedingly he never cited any Author of them as he did in the other Epistles of the Roman Bishops Innocent Leo Gelasius Symmachus and Gregory naming the Authors of those whose Faith was clear and certain But further yet with great caution because he knew the Evidences taken from them not to be so firm he took care as he testifies in the end to have them confirmed by the Apostolick Authority Is not here a merry passage Benedictus Levita knew the Decretal Epistles to be false and therefore he got them to be made true by the Popes Authority at least to be confirmed as true whereas they were doubtful before It is the manner of sometimes to get others to propose the matters which they themselves design to be done that the business springing from the request of others might appear more graceful in the eye of the people We may justly enquire whether Benedictus Levita were not ordered what to Petition by private instructions from his Holiness before he made his motion to the Chair for it had otherwise been an extravagant impudence to have assaulted the Chair with such a request as that is of craving a Confirmation of new-found Records so feeble and suspected Whatever the Intrigue was the event is clear Benedictus Levita got them confirmed and so they were adopted for his Holiness Children though Pope Nicholas was shy a little out of shame and modesty and blushed to acknowledge his poor Kindred It is further observable that these counterfeit Epistles were first brought in into the Records of the Franks without naming their Authors and that a little after their quiet publication some Favourite of the Chair grew more bold and added their names unto them this of Clement that of Anacletus c. And that the work was thus perfected by degrees Baronius shews us in the following passage But he who first published the Decrees extracted out of those Epistles with the Title of the Roman Bishops in whose names they are recorded was that Hincmarus we mentioned the Bishop of Laon as appears by an Epistle or book written against him by Hincmarus of Rhemes who receiving that work of the Bishop of Laon read it not without indignation and in very many things reprovedit But others have followed the Bishop of Laon as Burchardus who writ in the following Age and others after him who prefixed the names of the very Roman Bishops before all the Chapters which Gratian also did the last of all But that those Epistles are rendered suspitious by many things which we have said in the second Tome of our Annals while we mentioned each in particular is sufficiently demonstrated Where we shewed withal that the holy Roman Church did not need them so as if they should be detected of falsity to be bereaved of its Rights and Priviledges since though she wanteth them she is abundantly strengthened and confirmed by the Legitimate and Genuine Decretal Epistles of other Popes But that the Chapters taken out of them by Benedictus Levita were at first approved as agreeable to the Canons as himself testifies by the Authority of the Roman Bishops which was done also by the latter Collectors it happened rather by long use than for any strength or firmness in themselves Thus Baronius in his Annals An. 865. nu 5 6 7 8. all together In Notis Martyrol ad 4. April he saith Vasaeus is convicted to have erred who thought this Isidore Pacensis that Isidore who collected the Epistles of the Roman Bishops and the Councils c. Hincmarus Laudunensis also and Trithemius and others err who ascribe that collection to Isidore of Hispalis That Opinion is refelled first because Brauleus and Ildephonsus who lived in those times drawing up a Catalogue of his Writings make not the least mention of that work But further all doubt is taken away concerning this matter while the Author of that work speaking there concerning the manner of holding a Council recites the words of the first Canon of the eleventh Council of Toledo and mentions Agatho the Pope in his Preface since Isidore of Hispalis departed this life long before the times of that Council and Pope Agatho Had we time we might make many curious reflexions upon these passages of Baronius He afterwards talks of another Isidore called sometimes Mercator and sometimes Peccator but of what Parents what Calling what City or what Country he was he mentioneth nothing So that this Child among all those Isidores and Fathers that are found out for it must rest at last in one that is unknown All that can be gathered from this whole discourse of Baronius is this That a new Book of Councils richly fraught with Evidences for the Roman Church and Religion came abroad under the name of Isidore containing Decrees and Decretal Epistles that were never before heard of in the world that this Book was falsly Fathered upon Isidore of Hispalis and that all those ancient Epistles of the Roman Bishops from S. Peter down to Siricius are justly suspected Nay he confesses them to be insirm adventitions and lately invented or newly found and to nod exceedingly He opposeth them to those Records which are Legitimate and Genuine though they are of late magnified and followed by all the Collectors of the Decrees and Councils being though waved by some cited and approved by other Popes as well as Doctors Jesuites Cardinals c. This is the last and best Story that can be made on the behalf of that Book the Counterfeits in which as we observed before were because they extol and magnifie the Popes Chair received for good and Authentick Laws in the Church of Rome For Baronius died not long since about the year 1607. in this last Century and when he had seen the truth of those Arguments that are urged against the Forgeries endeavours so to handle this matter in his History as to clear the Church of Rome from the imputation Bellarmine that saw not into this Mystery so clearly takes another course which when we have intimated one or
the first Collectors of the Councils among the Papists I have taken the more liberty to be somewhat copious in them that I may conveniently be more brief in perusing the residue CAP. VII Of Francis Turrian the Jesuite With what Art and Boldness he defendeth the Forgeries NOtwithstanding all the weakness and uncertainty of Isidore Francis Turrian the Famous Jesuite appears in its defence about 40 years after the first publication of it by Merlin The Centuriators of Magdenburg having met with it to his great displeasure he is so Valiant as not only to maintain all the Forgeries therein contained but the whole Body of Forgeries vented abroad by all the Collectors and Compilers following till himself appeared His Book is expresly formed against the Writers of the Centuries and is a sufficient Evidence that as soon as Isidore came abroad by Dr. Merlin's Labour and the Bishop of Paris Command it was sifted by the Protestants It is dedicated to the most Illustrious and most Reverend D. D. Stanissaus Hosius Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church and Bishop of Collein Printed by the Heirs of John Quintel and approved by Authority An. Dom. 1573. He defends all the Canons of the Apostles which are recounted by other Collectors That you may know the Mettal of the Man I will produce but two Instances The last of those Canons which he maintaineth to be the Apostles is this which followeth Qui Libri sunt Canonici c. Let these Books be Venerable and Holy to you all Of the Old Testament five Books of Moses Genesis Exodus Leviticus Numbers Deuteronomy one of Joshua the Son of Nun one of Judges one of Ruth four of Kings two of Chronicles Hester one three of the Macchabees one of Job one Book of Psalmes three of Solomon Proverbs Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs one of the 12 Prophets one of Isaiah one of Jeremiah one of Ezekiel one of Daniel And without let your young men learn the Wisdom of the Learned Syrach But of ours that is of the New Testament there are four Gospels Matthew Mark Luke and John fourteen Epistles of Paul two Epistles of Peter three of John one of James one of Jude two Epistles of Clement and the Ordinations of Me Clement set forth in Eight Books to you Bishops which are not to be published to all because of the Mysteries contained in them and the Acts of our Apostles This is the eighty fourth Canon and in some Accounts the eighty fifth where you see the Episiles of Clement and Eight Books of his Ordinations put into the Body of the Bible As for the difference of the Accounts he sheweth you the way how to reconcile them If this be one of the Apostles Canons then Clement was an Apostle or had 〈◊〉 Power But if it be a Forgery then not only the Apostles Canons but the very Text of the Holy Scriptures is interlined and forged by the same He maintains all the Decretal Epistles and among the rest S. Clement's Whose genuine Epistle to the Corinthians they leave cut as making nothing to their purpose but five Spurious ones they record the two first of them being written to S. James and the last to the Brethren dwelling with him at Jerusalem It is good sport to see how like the shot of a great Gun the Discovery of the Protestants comes in among them Their keenness in detecting the time of S James his Death shatter the 〈◊〉 and whereas before they were all united they now fly several ways every man 〈◊〉 for himself as he is best able Baronius dislikes suen Arts of upholding the Church not as impious and unlawful but as inconvenient and pernicious Bellarmine 〈◊〉 the Epistles to be Old but dares not attest them Isidore Merlin Peter Crabbe Nicolinus Carranza and Surius own them freely without any scruple For saying nothing of the Quarrel they lay them down simply as good Records Binius Labbè and the Collectio Regia confess some of them to be false and in particular that S James was dead seven years before S. Clement could write his first Epistle to him And to salve the sore they say that it was not written to James but to Simeon who was also Bishop of Jerusalem and Brother to our Lord and that the Name of James crept into the Title Mendosè by Errour and Mistake for that of Simeon But honest Turrian maintains plainly that S. Peter and S. Clement knew very well that S. James was dead before they wrote unto him yet nevertheless they did very wisely both S. Peter in ordering the Epistle and S. Clement in writing it And his Reasons as he bringeth the matter about are pretty specious For my part I protest that such a High Piece of Impudence was to me incredible But that you may see the rare Abilities of a Jesuite to argue well for the absurdest Cause turn to his Book and read his Comment on S. Clement's first Epistle and there you shall see Wit and Folly equal in their height Wit in managing but Folly in attempting so mad a business For the sake of those who are not able to read or get the Book I will give you a Glympse of his Demonstrations First he observeth how Reason it self compelleth us especially being confirmed by so many and so great Testimonies of the Ancients to confess the Epistle to be S. Clement's whose it is reported to be He sophistically pretendeth here that there were great Authorities of the Ancient Fathers extant to prove it Whence saith he it began to be had in every mans hand to be read by the Catholicks to be put among the Decretal Epistles and produced and cited in Ecclesiastical Causes and Judgments The latter part of which Clause is true For as we before observed Gratian Ivo and the rest of the Popes Ministers have brought the Decretals into the Body of the Canon-Law which maketh the matter more fatal and abominable for being really cited in their Ecclesiastical Courts and used both in matters of Controversie and in cases of Conscience they are forced either to defend them or to pluck up their Customs by the very Roots and so further expose the Church of Rome to the shame of Levity or Fraud yet for this very cause it is far more impious and wicked to retain them So that not knowing which way is best some of them retain them and some of them renounce them But you must wink at all this and believe what Turrian says for the Authority of the Roman Church which hath seated the Forgeries in the Chair of Judgment is a greater Argument to them that believe her Infallible than any one Doctor can bring against them Neither was blessed Peter ignorant when he commanded to write to the Dead nor Clement saith he when he wrote by the Commandment but that the Readers would presently see the Epistle to be written to him whom all men knew to be dead before S. Peter they being about
especially what a multitude of men have been encouraged to carry on this Design that you might see the Conspiracy of the Members with the Head and the general Guilt of that Church in so Enormous an Affair To which we might add the innumerable Armies of Learned men that have cited them in that Church and the Company of Captains that have defended them But it had been better for them that they had never medled with the Protestant Objections for they have made the matter worse than they found it and bewraid themselves in all their Answers nay they have made the Frauds more eminent and notorious by disturbing the Reader while they give him Warning by their Notes though the intent be to defend them This I speak especially upon the last from Binius downward CAP. XI Of Nicolinus his Tomes and their Contents for the first 420 years His Testimony concerning the sixth Council of Carthage NIcolinus is printed in five Volumes Sixti V. Pont. Max. faelicissimis Auspictis as himself phraseth it I think he means By the favourable Permission and Authority of Pope Sixtus V. He dedicates his Tomes to the same most Holy Lord Sextus c. which were printed at Venice An. 1585. Among other things in which I should sav he is peculiar had not Merlin in his Isidore done the same he sets a counterfeit Epistle of Aurelius Archbishop of Carthage to Damasus the Pope and the Popes Answer in the Front of his Work The Epistle requesteth a Copy of all the Decretals that were made by the Bishops of Rome from S. Peter downwards The Answer intimates a Copy commanding him to preach and publish the same In both these Collectors the Epistles are displaced above 〈◊〉 years out of their due order meerly that they might face the Forgeries with the great Authorities of Aurelius and Damasus who were both dead 300 or 400 years before the Counterfeits were made Howbeit the Pageant does well to adorn the Scene it entertains the Spectators as a fit Praeludium to make the way more fair for these disguized Masquer's In the last of these Epistles the Counterfeit Decrees are Fathered on the Holy Ghost and whosoever speaketh against them is charged with Blasphemy Yet for all 〈◊〉 though the Epistles were desired by Aurelius and sent by Damasus and commanded to be preached and published throughout the world they were never heard of by the space of 700 or 800 years after their first Authors nor for 300 or 400 years after this Damasus and Aurelius though pretended to be the Canons of the Holy Fathers so Sacred and so Divinely inspired by the Holy Ghost This is that Damasus upon whom the Famous Pontifical is Fathered He sate in the Chair An. 370. The Forgeries were unknown till about the year 800. This Aurelius is he who tasted the Decrees of Zozimus and had experience of their sincerity when he resisted the Encroachments of the Roman Chair But to return to Nicolinus he has Isidore's Preface The Treatise conceruing the Primacy of the Roman Church containing so many Testimonies out of forged Bishops Martyns and Fathers All the Apostles Canons of which he maketh S. Clement's the Top and Coronis concluding that Impious Counterfeit with this affected phrase Coronidis ipsorum Canonum Apostolorum finis The end of the Coronis of the Apostles Canons Francis Turrian is in so much esteem with him that he hath Eight Books of Clement's Constitutions with Turrian's Proem and Explanatory Defences upon them The Liber Pontificalis drawn from the beginning like a Vein of Lies through the tedious length of 800 years infecting all these Ages with Forgery It is his Text in like manner He has all the Decretal Epistles without Exception the Council of Sinuessa or condemnation of Pope Marcellinus with the same Premonition you saw in Peter Crab to the Reader The Donation of the Emperour Constantine which by this time one would think to be a sound and admirable Record having so many Hands subscribing it and so many Pens inserting it among the Councils without the least note of any dubiousness or blemish in it He has threescore and eighteen Canons of the Nicene Council and professeth himself to be the first which added them thereunto And he had them of a certain man that brought fourscore of them in Arabick to Alexandria as his Printer does witness for him to the Reader But surely had there been so many Pope Paul V. and all the Collectors before him had not omitted them Some 40 years hence we may expect fourscore more for as for those naked and vulgar Canons as he calleth the Old and Authentick Records they will not serve the turn nor yet the old Seventy mentioned by Isidore Athanasius and Pope Mark by which you may see they are always growing and may come to a Million if the continuance of the World permit it and their need require it What say you In good earnest methinks the year 1585. is very late for the finding of eight and fifty Canons of the Nicene Council That Council was assembled in the year 327. and made its Canons above one thousand and two hundred years before Nicolinus time They were written in Greek and these lay dormant in Arabick so many Ages no man can tell where But the blessed Jesuites or one of the same Society luckily found them the other day Here and there he has a true Record and among the rest a piece of the sixth Council of Carthage though mangled too where concerning the two Counterfeit Canons of Pope Zozimus he saith The African Fathers not finding any such Canons as these in the Codes which they had of the Nicene Council both in Greek and Latine promised that they would keep them only so long as the time would be that they might get the true Copies out of Greece Which when they had been sent for and were brought from Cyril of Alexandria and Atticus of Constantinople they were found imperfect as not containing but only those 20 Canons which were extant also among the Latines in which nothing is contained concerning Appeals to the Roman Bishop Nay those African Fathers from the fifth and sixth of those Canons gathering the contrary did earnestly beseech Celestine the Pope that succeeded Boniface who was the Successor of Zozimus that he should not admit Appeals which they said as it was most prudently and justly provided for by the Nicene Council so they found it in no Synod of the Fathers that any should be sent from the side of his Holiness What Boniface and Celestine answered it is not certain Acta enim illa valdè concisa sunt mutila For those Records are cut very short and maimed and therefore the matter is the more obscure Who maimed those Records is worth the Enquiry Some-Body that was concerned in them and whose influence must be exceeding great for the attempting of such a thing hath out them short that Records so offensive and pernicious to him might
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of a Greek Book 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into Latine by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 suite and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Latine out of an Arabick book brought to Alexandria by another man of the same Society I once thought a certain man had had the Book at Alexandria but now it seems a Jesuite brought it thither He does not tell you who nor from whence Jesuites are the Popes Janizaries and fit to be so imployed And the Vatican is an admirable Storehouse doubtless for the Greek too a very Pit of Witnesses for the Popes Supremacy As if Perkin Warbeck should have brought Evidences out of his own Closet to prove himself King of England If no body but he must be believed the veriest Cheat in the World must needs prevail Greek and Arabick are strange amusements else a Book out of the Vatican in its Masters own Cause or another man without a name that brought an Arabick Book to Alexandria with fourscore Canons of the Nicene Council in it would scarcely be regarded against the Evidence of the whole World especially in a matter so upheld by Forgeries Two things there are wherein he adventures to be a little cordial Licèt parcè timidè though seldom and with fear 1. Whereas Isidore and Merlin and Peter Crab and Surius c. have the Epistle of Melchiades without any Note of its dubiousness he 〈◊〉 it can be none of Melchiades because mention is made therein of the Nicene Council and of other things that were done after Melchiades Death 2. Whereas Binius lays a Dreadful Reproach upon Constantine the first most Excellent Christian Emperour as if after all his Glorious Acts done for the Church and State of Christendom he were an Apostate a Murderer a Tyrant a Perecutor a Parracide smitten with Leprosie for notorious Crimes for killing Licinius unjustly and his own Son Crispus And all that he might uphold the Counterfeit Donation Nicolinus begins the first Book of the Acts preceding the Nicene Council translated out of an Ancient Greek Book in the Vatican thus De Gestis post sublatum impium Licinium de Imperio Regis Constantini de Pace Ecclesiarum Dei Constantine when he had conquered his Enemies shewing himself an Emperour by the Wisdom given him of God took care to better the Affairs of the Christians day by day more and more And this he did several ways having a most flaming Faith and faithful Piety towards the God of all And the whole Church under Heaven lived in profound peace Now let us hear what Eusebius that most excellent Husbandman of the Churches Agriculture 〈◊〉 from the most Famous Pamphilus speaketh here In his tenth Book he saith What Licinius saw long ago to befall wicked Tyrants with his eyes he now suffered himself like to them and that deservedly for he would neither receive Discipline nor be admonished at any time to learn wisdom by the punishment of his Neighbors c. But Constantine the Conqueror being adorned with all kind of Piety together with his Son Crispus the Emporour beloved of God and in all things like his Father reduced all the East into his Power and brought the Empire of the Romans into one as it had been of old and obtained an Universal Kingdom from the rising of the Sun to the utmost borders of the West and to both the other Regions of the North and South in perfect peace Then the fear of Tyranny wherewith men were before oppressed was utterly taken away from the life of men then frequent Assemblies were held and Festivals kept then all things abounded with gladness and joy then they that were before of a dejected 〈◊〉 and sorrowful looked with a pleasant face and with joyful eyes then with Dances and Hymns throughout all Cities and Fields they proclaimed fast that God was truly God and the Highest King of all next they magnified the Emperour and his Children most dear unto God 〈◊〉 there was no remembrance of the former evils then all Impiety was forgotten then there was a sweet enjoyment of present goods and a joyful expectation of future Then 〈◊〉 not only the Decrees of the Emperour the most Illustrious Conquerour 〈◊〉 of Humanity and Clemency but his Laws also glorious in Magnificence and fraught with Tokens of true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 published in all places So the 〈◊〉 Spot of all Tyranny being 〈◊〉 away and wholly blotted out Constantine alone and his Children thenceforth possessed the Helm of the Empire which by Right pertained to them it being made secure by his Authority and Government and freed from all envy and fear Hitherto Eusebius Pamphilus of all Ecclesiastical Writers most worthy of belief Thus their own Record in the Vatican justifieth Eusebius and thus Nicolinus produceth it who also defendeth Eusebius though himself holdeth the Donation of Constantine firm not discerning how that History overthroweth the same But Binius who saw the inconsistence better crys out of Eusebius for a Lyar a Flatterer an Arrian because he stands in his way Thus all of them here and there serve the Fathers For Eusebius lived in the time of Constantine himself and was Honourable in his eyes He was Bishop of Caesarea-Cappadocia and an individual Friend of Pamphilus the Martyr a Father in the Nicene Council and one of those that disputed there in person against Phaedo the Arrian As Binius also himself recordeth in the Disputation extant in his Tomes But of such Legends as this and the Tragical Story of Constantine we have more than good store in Popish Writers As you may see at large in Dr. Stillingfleet his Book of Popish Counterfeit Miracles CAP. XIII The Epistle of Pope Damasus to Aurelius Archbishop of Carthage commanding him to take care that the Decretals of the Roman Bishops be preached and published abroad Wherein the Forgeries of the Church of Rome are Fathered on the Holy Ghost DAmasus to his mest Reverend Brother and Fellow-Bishop Aurelius We have received the Epistle of your 〈◊〉 with due Veneration Wherein we understand how your Reverence and Prudence thirsteth as is fit for the Apostolical Decrees Concerning which Affair we have sent some of those which you desired and desire to send more when you shall send unto us Yet we have past by none of our Predecessors from the Death of Blessed 〈◊〉 Prince of the Apostles of whose Decrees we have not sent somewhat to you under our certain Seal by Ammonius the Priest and Falix the Deacon Which we both desire you to keep and command to be preached and published to others that they may inviolably be kept with due Veneration of all and inviolably observed and diligently reverenced by all future Ages Because the voluntary Breakers of the Canons are heavily censured by the H. Fathers and condemned by the H. Ghost by whose Gift and Inspiration they were dictated Because they do not unfitly seem to blaspheme the H. Ghost who being not compelled by any necessity but willingly as was before said either do
any thing perversly or presume to speak against the same Holy Canons or consent to them that will for such a presumption is manifestly one kind of blaspheming the H. Ghost Because as was even now promised it acteth against him by whose grace and impulse the same Holy Canons were set forth But the wickedness of the Devil is wont to deceive many and so doth very oftentinies delude the imprudence of some by a similitude of Piety that he perswadeth them to take hurtful things for healthful Therefore the Rule of H. Canons which are made by the Spirit of God and consecrated by the Reverence of the whole World is faithfully to be known and diligently to be handled by us lest by any means the Decrees of the H. Fathers should without inevitable necessity which God forbid be transgressed but that we walking most faithfully in them may by their Merits God assisting deserve the glory of a reward and the heap of our labour These therefore being rightly considered and upon our deliberation brought to the knowledge of your Churches it most highly becometh you to obey the Rules of the same H. Canons lest the sloth of some should make them in any thing to walk contrary to them But let your wise and wholesome Doctrine which desires you in all things to please God shew them these faithful Fellow-workmen in their Thrones the coheirs and partakers of the Coelestial Kingdom Dated XVI Kal. Jun. Gratian and Cyricius being Consuls The close of the Epistle is not clear nonsense is very obscure The meaning of it is that Aurelius should shew men the Decretal Epistles of Clement Anacletus c. those faithful Fellow-workmen in their Thrones the coheirs and partakers of the Coelestial Kingdom that are now in Heaven to the intent they may obey them and come to the same Eternal Glory A goodly design doubtless But we have a cross proverb 〈◊〉 be to the Sheep while the Fox Preacheth This piety in the Close is but the Sheep-skin to cover the Fox who needs not more cunning in Preaching than concealing himself We have a more sacred saying In the Pit which he made for others is himself fallen And it is not impertinent for while he chargeth others with the unpardonable sin himself blasphemes the Holy 〈◊〉 For to make the Holy Ghost the Father of Lies is I think to blaspheme him Damasus we confess never made the Epistle but that makes the matter worse Some other in Damasus his Coat is guilty of this accursed business that while he Fathers the Frauds which himself invented on the H. Ghost has not ignorance to excuse but malice to condemn him And whether the Forgeries are not so Fathered still on the Holy Ghost may be a proper Question Binius I think was afraid of these Epistles Nicolinus in his Printer to the Reader pretendeth an exact observation of the time under what Pope things were done but for once he varies the method and sets this in the Front of the Forgeries to countenance all He knows them perhaps to be what they are yet clearly owns them There is some Errour in the date of these Epistles an usual Symptom of the Disease in such Instruments Instead of the XVI Kal. Jun. Nicolinus putteth it the XI Some hidden reason compels him or he would never be so nice for Cyricius Siricius a small mistake But the next is greater for Gratian Equitius As if Damasus the Pope could not tell who was Consul at Rome when he wrote his Letter I wonder at Damasus for one thing much he tells us of the wickedness of the Devil who deludes men with a shew of Piety and forces in that expression of the Devils perswading men to take hurtful things for healthful so affectedly that it would make one to think his Guilt put him in memory of such a saying But his design in charging all that impugn them with the dreadful and unpardonable sin of blaspheming the Holy Ghost was more clearly to deter men from writing or speaking against these pretended Canons And perhaps he declaims against the wickedness of others that delude the imprudence of some with a similitude of Piety and so loudly inveigheth against the Guilt of perswading men to take hurtful things for healthful to remove the suspition from himself Whatever t is no man is more guilty of the Fraud in the World You may note a contradiction in the Letter The Canons of the H. Fathers and Bishops of Rome were consecrated by the Reverence of the whole World and yet upon Aurelius his desire were newly brought to the knowledge of the Churches and now first ordered to be published and preached They past the deliberation of our present Damasus before they came abroad being rightly considered and upon due deliberation brought to the knowledge of the Churches Doubtless they were well weighed and what was most agreeable to the Roman Chair was pickt out and chosen for the purpose CAP. XIV Counterfeit Canons of the Apostles defended by Binius A Glympse of his Pretences Sophistries and Contradictions A Forged Council of Apostles concerning Images defended by Binius and Turrian SEverinus Binius a late Collector of the Councils is grown so famous that his Voluminous Tomes have been Printed thrice he is approved by an Epistle of Pope Paul V. inserted among other Instruments before his Work and so highly esteemed that he is exactly followed by Labbe and Cossartius in 17 Volumes and taken in word for word by the COLLECTIO REGIA lately published by the care of a King in 37 Tomes The reason why they follow Binius so exactly the Collectio Regia giveth in 〈◊〉 words set next to the Title-page of the Book for our better information We thought fit to follow the last collection of the councils put forth by Binius and illustrated with his Notes and to Print it 〈◊〉 as that which of all others is most richly stored Wherein they have done Binius as great Honour as one can well imagine for it shews his Notes to be the best and most convenient that can be gotten in the Church of Rome and that all the Collectors since which were very many have not been able to devise better Hereupon it followeth that in one Work we may the more concisely treat of Binius Labbe Cossartius and the Collectio Regia together I once intended to give you a Copy of the Popes approbation with the other Authorities by which Binius is approved but as the case 〈◊〉 it is superfluous He pretendeth in Preface and 〈◊〉 to justifie all the Canons Councils and Decretal Epistles and maketh a glorious shew setting them down afterwards with great Titles of Splendour and Majesty in such sort that a man would take them all for Authentick Records But when he cometh to his Notes he many times deserteth his design and confesseth the Imposture But his Notes are 〈◊〉 in more 〈◊〉 and inconsiderable Letters and those his acknowledgments hidden from a 〈◊〉 Eye in little
room In his Letter to Paul V. he layeth all his Labours at the Popes Feet So that we are like to have good on 't when the Malefactor accused is made sole Lord and Judge of the Witnesses He hath several Prefaces to the Reader and to Persons of the Highest Rank and Splendour in which he pretends to magnifie the Decrees and Canons following as good Records He prefixeth Isidore's Counterfeit Preface before his Collection Over the Canons of the Apostles in a Splendid manner he sets this Title THE CANONS OF THE HOLY APOSTLES WITH ALL VENERATION TO BE FOLLOWED According to The Ancient Edition OF DIONYSIVS EXIGVVS A man would think now there should no more Canons be laid down than Dionysius Exiguus hath in his Ancient Edition But as if he intended to bear the Mark of the Beast in his Forehead he puts under this Title eighty four Canons of the Apostles whereas Dionysius hath but 50. Certainly 't is not well done so to Cheat his Reader with a Lye but in some blind Corner or other he will make us satisfaction Over against this he puts a Note in the Margin thus Francis Turrian of the Society of Jesus hath published a very clear Book in Defence of the Apostles Canons He approveth the Book yet rejecteth two of the Canons which Turrian defendeth but that is concealed till afterwards It is his custom in the top of his Pages Chapters and Margins eminent and conspicuous places to put Notes or Titles defending those Counterfeit Antiquities which in some little Gloss hidden in the Text he really slighteth For the Potentates of the World with their Lords and Councellors not having time enough to search into the bottom may by such means as these neatly be deceived while they think no man so impudent as in the same Leaf to contradict his pretences So that the very greatness of the Crime is their greatest security Another Artifice like this is that of putting the Preface of Dionysius Exiguus before these Tomes of his own the better to countenance the ensuing Frauds Though Dionysius were dead 1000 years before he wrote them and never intended nor thought of the greater part of them But Lyars are intangled always in the 〈◊〉 what is convenient in one respect being inconvenient in another For in that his Preface Dionysius speaking for himself saith only this In the beginning we have placed those Canons which are said to be the Apostles translated out of Greek which because the most do not easily acknowledge I thought meet to acquaint your Holiness with the same He doubts them all you see yet speaketh only of his own fifty which he hath in the Code which himself digested He does not meddle with those that make up the number of 84. no more than Isidere and 〈◊〉 do 〈◊〉 Binius when he 〈◊〉 to his Notes upon the word Canones 〈◊〉 stolorum speaketh thus after his large Copy in three Columns of all the 84. These Canons made by the 〈◊〉 of the 〈◊〉 and by Tradition from them delivered to us Clement of Rome S. Peter's Disciple wrote in Greek and Dionysius Exiguus an Abbot of Rome translated them into Latine in the time of Justinus the Emperour He does not prove that Clement wrote them unless by the last 〈◊〉 which hath Per me Clementem 〈◊〉 nor by that neither for that he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Forgery Dionysius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 before Binius does not say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wrote them but rather the contrary He suspects them all and knows Clement could not write them all since himself has but fifty and those only by Rumour not Tradition Nay Einius himself you will see presently rejected some and yet here he pretendeth the whole number to be written both by Clement in Greek and by Dionysius in Latine For of all his Catalogue he faith These Canons c. Clement of Rome S. Peter's Disciple wrote in Greek and Dionysius 〈◊〉 an Abbot in Rome translated them into Latine as if it were not sufficient to write a Lye in the Front unless he closed up the Canons with a Lye in the Tail It would be worth the Enquiry to know where they had the 34. which were unknown to the Ancient Dionysius For after all this he seems to reject them in the passage following Horum quinquaginta priores c. saith he Only the first fifty of these the last of which is of dipping thrice in Baptism containing nothing but sound Apostolical Doctrine and approved by Ancient Bishops Councils and Fathers are received as Authentick Cap. 3. Dist. 16. And according to that common Rule of the Holy Fathers because the Author of them is unknown they are rightly believed to flow unto us by Apostolical Tradition The residue by Pope Gelasius Can. Sanct. Dist. 15. are accounted Apocryphal both because their Author is unknown as also because by the 65 and the last Canon it is evident that some of them are craftily put in by the Grecians and some of them corrupted by Hereticks This passage deserves one or two remarkable Observations 1. If the Tradition of the Apostles though committed to writing be capable of corruption what security can we have of Oral Tradition which is far more loose and liable to danger 2. If the Church of Rome were unable to secure the Apostles Canons from the Leven of the Grecians and other Hereticks or so careless as not to keep one Copy or Record sincere what assurance can we have of her care and ability in the residue This shews the weakness of these inconvenient Shifts and pitiful 〈◊〉 But the reason why some are received as Authentick and others accounted 〈◊〉 is most fit to be marked The reason why it is highly to be presumed that the first 50 Canons should be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Because the Author of them is unknown And the reason why the residue are rejected is Because the Author of them is unknown So that the same reason as Fire hardens Clay and 〈◊〉 Wax will prove contrary things And by reasoning in such a Latitude it will be easie to prove the Sun black and the Sky a Molehill Howbeit for these reasons Gelasius an Ancient Pope rejecteth some of them But Binius takes the liberty to put his judgment in the other end of the Scale and outfacing us with a Counterfeit Clement and Pretended Dionysius will have all but two to be Authentick Canons All but two namely the 65. and the last Canon by which it is evident that some of them are crastily put in by the Grecians and some of them corrupted by Hereticks Some of them put in by the Grecians must at least be two and some of them corrupted by Hereticks must at least be two more yet they are all of them except two Authentick Let his reason be what it will we observe 1. That the Church of Rome is in a tottering condition when a poor Canon of Collein shall take upon him to refel the Sentence of an 〈◊〉 Pope and fourseore Bishops for
Records excepting some perhaps that were since invented And if the last two Ages brought so many to light an Age or two more may through Gods blessing accomplish Wonders The Secular state and security of the Pope with his Adherents which Binius in his Epistle to Pope Paul V. calls Honor Augmentum 〈◊〉 was the end of all And if men excogitate Titles to Crowns and patch up 〈◊〉 with some Flaws yet serviceable enough with the help of a Long Sword then a Chair so Politick is able to do it more neatly having had the strong Holds of the Church so long in their hands Now we shall note some few of those many Errours that are in the Pontifical which though it be a duty circumstance to have such a Text to gloss on is the Basis of their Discourses and the Rule of their Method both in the Popes and Councils It beginneth thus Peter the blessed Apostle and Prince of the Apostles the Son of John of the Province of Galilee of the City 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Brother of Andrew sate in the Chair of Antioch seven years In the end it 〈◊〉 us how long S. Peter Reigned just twenty five years two moneths and three days Binius tells us with the consent of Baronius it was rather twenty four years five moneths and eleven days The Pontifical saith Peter was Martyred with Paul on the same day Though Prudentius and S. Angustine say It was not the same year Binius reconcileth them They were slain the same day indeed but not the same year Therefore say we Peter was not Martyred with S. Paul The Pontifical says It was 38 years after the Passion of our Lord. More truly the 35. saith Binius in the 13 year of Nero and the 69 after the Birth of Christ. S Peter's Name is the Patron and 〈◊〉 of the Roman Church and therefore inserted like a Shield in the Front Next his Notes on S. Peter's Life Binius inserts the Treatise of the Roman Churches Primary Ex antiquo Codice out of an Old Book without any name at all Which puts me in mind of the Gibeonites old Bottles clouted Shooes and mouldy Bread and the notable Cheat which thereby they put on the Israelites All is Old and Ancient in the Church of Rome and this Old Book of the Primacy set before the Councils according to the Rules of Art because the End is to be proposed before the Means After this old Treatise of the Primacy he cometh to S. Linus Pope and Martyr He is pleased to call him Pope as well as Pope Peter not as if his Contemporaries called him so but because the Modern Title will not sit well on the present Popes unless it be given to S. Peter and the first Bishops of that See And ever and anon he begins with a known Lye in the top of the Chapter formally set by it self the more pleasingly to take the eye after the manner of a Title Ex Libro Pontificali Damasi Papae OUT OF THE PONTIFICAL OF POPE DAMASVS This course he continues from Life to Life throughout all the Popes so far as the Pontifical lasteth intermixing the Decretal Epistles first and then the Councils in the Lives of the several Popes or to use his form under the pope in whose Life they happened And all his Tomes being moulded into that form it makes every Pope seem to him that is not aware of the fetch the Supreme over all Councils from the beginning And with this Method he always goes on Ex libro Pontificali Damasi Papae hoping perhaps that in long tract of time he should be at last believed In all the Book there is scarce a Life wherein there are not as many Errours as in S. Peter's As in example Linus sate eleven years three moneths and twelve days 〈◊〉 the Pontifical Binius saith It was eleven years two moneths and twenty three days A days difference where the exactness is pretended to be so great shews all to be Counterfeit He saith 〈◊〉 sate twelve years one moneth and eleven days Binius tails on him for the mistake though he agrees with him in the 〈◊〉 that Linus and Cletus sate some twenty three years between Peter and Clement So that on this account S. James was dead above 27 years before S. Clement who wrote a 〈◊〉 Epistle to him came to the Chair For before he was Pope he might write an Epistle but not a Decretal Epistle Cletus saith Binius was by S. Irenaeus Ignatius and 〈◊〉 called 〈◊〉 which Baronius thinks was a mistake among the Greeks 〈◊〉 by the Errour of Writers and Libraries What shifts will a man be driven to by a desperate Cause Three of the best and most Ancient Fathers were cheated with the Errour of Writers and Libraries concerning a mans Name that was alive either not long before or together with themselves S. Irenaeus and Ignatius are extremely Ancient Ignatius lived before Anacletus was Bishop of Rome much more before his Name was put into Libraries and much more yet before it could be corrupted there by the mistake of Scribes and Writers But such Errours of Writers and Libraries are a good hint how capable they are of them and how much the Church of Rome is acquainted with them Binius is at last terribly provoked with the nonsense of the Pontifical for whereas it saith Cletus was in the Church from the seventh Consulship of 〈◊〉 and fifth of Domitian to the ninth of Domitian and the Consulship of Rufus that is from the 78 year of Christ to the 85. Binius speaking as if he were present takes him up 〈◊〉 Errorem igitur Errori addis quisquis 〈◊〉 Pontificalis Authores c. Whoever thou be that art the Author of this Pontifical thou addest Errour to Errour For if Cletus began to sit in the forementioned Consulship in the 78 year of Christ how did he immediately succeed Linus dying as thou saidst in the 69 year of Christ Capito and Rufus being Consuls How wilt thou excuse a 9 years Interregnum in the Chair made only by thy Authority contradicting it self How sayest thou that Cletus sate twelve years whose continuance thou doest circumscribe by two Consulships in the space of 7 years distant from themselves How which is more intollerable and absurd doest thou say that Clement sate from the Consulship of Trachilus and Italicus even to the third year of Trajan which is from the 70 year of Christ to the 102. and so to have administred the See 33 years whom in his Life thou affirmest to have continued only 9 years Thus far Binius When Cato saw the Southsayers saluting one another in the Roman Market-place he said I wonder they can forbear laughing to think how delicately they cheat the people Hence therefore saith Binius O Reader thou mayest perceive on what Rocks he shall 〈◊〉 whosoever shall suppose the writings of this Book to be taken up upon Trust without any Inquisition Yet when the fit is over in the
believed it hath hitherto been received and without all Controversy maintained in the Ancient Martyrologies and Breviaries both of the Roman and other Churches Baron In Append. Tom. 10. Ad hunc Annum Note here that as Surius and Binius and Baronius so even the Roman Church hath it self received this Council into her purest Records her Sacred Martyrologies and mass-Mass-books or Breviaries Which is a reason above all other reasons compelling Binius and his fellowes Baronius Labbe and the Collectio Regia to embrace this Council For it cannot be rejected without Prejudice to the Authority of the Roman Chair Which as it clears the Donatists from the pretended imputation discovers plainly who are the true Authors of this Council For though it be more than probable that some pitiful barren Head void of all Sence and Learning did at first compose it out of the affection he had to the See of Rome Yet as in Treason all are Principals so here the Receiver is as bad as the Thief The Roman Church by aiding and abetting this Abomination hath made it her own Be it forged in what empty Shop it will she hath magnified it to the Stars by fixing it in her Martyrologies The Chair is defiled with the Forgery it hath adopted and the Pope hath made it as much his as if it had been the Issue of his own Brain Being therefore it cannot now be deserted without discovering the shameful secrets of the Roman Church Binius like a good Son endeavours to maintain it but with such ill success that he shames her more by miscarrying in the enterprize First he saith Exceeding many among the most learned of men have endeavoured to prove those Acts to be spurious By these most learned of Men he means the Papists not the Protestants So that exceeding many of the most learned Papists have rejected that Council lest the Chair should be too much disgraced with the reproach of Marcellinus 2. He saith They have endeavoured to prove these Acts to be spurions truly by strong Arguments He confesseth the Arguments to be strong against it And here he varies a little from himself for besides the Persecution of Decius there are Arguments and strong ones to against this Council which he before concealed Nor do the English Innovators only but the Papists also and the most learned among them write against it What Arguments then doth Binius bring to defend it His Opinion Antiquity General Consent and all resolved into the Roman Martyrology As for the first his Nevertheless I conceive will not do against strong Arguments Antiquity which is the second stands upon other mens Legs and speaks by other mens Mouths She may be painted like a Woman but is of neither Sex And though Binius would perswade us that She fighteth in person very sharply for the Council you can see nothing but her Name and his Talk of her Majesty She wanted the tongue of the Learned and is a dumb Champion His General Consent is disturbed by those exceeding many most Learned men of which he had 〈◊〉 before that endeavonred to prove these Acts to be spurious They come out of their Graves with strong Arguments to disorder the common Assent of all by which it is beleived to defile the Majesty of Antiquity by which it is asserted and to reprove Binius for a Lyar who faith that it hath hitherto been received and without all Controversie maintained Nor is he a Lyar onely but contradicteth himself and foolishly bewrayeth his design while he shufles and cuts upon all occasions But perhaps you will say his meaning is It is without all Controversie maintained in the Roman Martyrologies and Breviaries That reserve be keeps for a 〈◊〉 then but it will not do He might say it was put in without all controversie because the Roman Martyrologies and Breviaries were works of Darkness made in Secret by the Popes Authority But is it maintained without all controversie when exceeding many of the most Learned Men endeavour to prove its Acts to be Spurious by strong Arguments Does veneralle Antiquity it self fight sharply for them compelling a Beverence from the unwilling by its Majesty or is it by the common Assent of all believed when exceeding many endeavour to refute it As for the Roman Martyrologies it is no wonder it should lie quiet in then None were by but the Actors only when the Council was put in and if by dissembling the fraud it be maintained there it is no great business But there it is and that is sufficient For my part I could not have believed that Binius or any other Sober man could ever reckon such 〈◊〉 piece of Barbarism for a Council 〈◊〉 I not seen it with my own eyes in the Author It is so much against all reason that a thing so absurd should be owned to the disgrace of all Martyrs Synods and Councils And were it not for the 〈◊〉 of the wonder the Roman Martyrologies whose credit must be saved it would be my lasting amazement Binius is so stiffe in defending this Council that in the next words he chargeth ignorance on S. Augustine for not understanding it Love and Hunger will eat through stone walls His Zeal for the Church of Rome and its Direful necessity makes him to defend this Council in the Roman Martyrologies against an apparent falsehood in the bottom of it against very many most learned men against all the barbarous intollerable Nonsence and Tautologies therein against the Killing Circumstance that there was no such City or Crypta at least in the World as well as against the Impossibility of calling it on his own Principles Besides all which the vanity of its Design and the Absurdity of its meeting on such an occasion is sufficient to detect it The Lye in the bottom of it is in those Words Cum 〈◊〉 in Bello Persarum This Council was convened as the Title sheweth when Dioclesian was in his War with the Persians Upon these words Binius saith Haec 〈◊〉 emendentur falsa sunt c. These Words be false unless they be mended for since Eusebius and divers others witness that Dioclesian in this 20. Years of his Reign devested himself of the Empire and which is more two years before triumphed at Rome with his Collegue Maximianus for having conquered the Persians how I pray you could 〈◊〉 this year be going forth with his Army against the Persians This is one reason more for which the Writers of Magdenburg and the English Innovators as he is pleased to stile them reject that Council Another is contained in Binius his Notes on the word Sinuessa num So called from the City Sinuessa in a certain Crypta whereof called Cleopatrensis they came together secretly to shun the Sword of the raging Gentiles For whereas men doubt whether any such City was ever in the World he proceedeth to tell us that it is not to be admired at al that there is no mention made either of this City or
cited by the Pseudo-Catholicks as good Records After these an Epistle of Athanasius and the Bishops of Egypt to Liberius the oppression of the Church by the Arrians being the pretended Theme but its real design is to magnifie the Popes Chair Liberius his Answer Ejusdem 〈◊〉 A lofty Brag like the residue An Epistle of the Bishops of Egypt to Pope Felix concerning the cruel Persecutions of the Arrians An humble Address and very Supplicatory Though Felix was an Arrian himself and an Usurper of the Chair thrust in by an Arrian Emperour while Liberius the true owner of it was banished for the Faith yet the stile of the Epistle runneth thus Domino beatissimo c. To our most blessed and most honourable Lord the Holy Father Faelix Pope of the Apostolical City Athanasius and all the Bishops of Egypt Thebais and Lybia by the Grace of God assembled in the Holy Council of Alexandria A stile too too lofty for those purer times of humble simplicity The usual Compellations of those days as may be seen by S. Cyprian's Letters to the Bishops of Rome and some other good Records being far more short and samiliar such as Julio Vrbis Romae Episcopo or Stephano fratri or Cornelio Collegae Coepiscopo that is to Julius Bishop of the City of Rome or to Stephen my Brother or to Cornelius my Associate and Fellow bishop Nor can we find any other in undoubted instruments for the first 300 or 400 years But for an Vsurper to be called Most blessed and honourable Lord an Heretick Holy Father and Pope of the Apostolical City and that by a man who had rather die than be guilty of such a Flattery was little suitable to the Spirit of Athanasius that Great and Couragious Champion of the Church being as God would have it one that of all others was the most mortal hater of the Arrians Isidore and Merlin dote so exceedingly as to make this Usurper a Pope and to record his Decrees as lawful Canons After a little time Liberius was restored but on very base and dishonourable terms as Bellarmine himself testifieth out of S. Hierom and Athanasius He fainted in his Persecution and was restored by an Arrian Emperour upon his Subscription to the Heretical Pravity After this he writeth more Decretals and the Title of his Epistle is in Isidore thus Epistola Liberii Papae ut nullus pro Persecutionibus dum dur are potestatem suam relinquat Ecclesiam It is Nonsense and false Latine but Binius about a thousand and three hundred years after Liberius his death mendeth it thus Epistola XII Liberii Papae ad omnes generaliter Episcopos ut nullus pro persecutionibus dum durare potest suam relinquat Ecclesiam That no man should forsake his Church for persecution sake while he was able to bear it By the Title it should be a compassionate Letter For if any one be wearied with persecution as Liberius was by a tacit intimation it seemeth to permit him to renounce the Faith as Liberius did for Bellarmine and Platina consent to this that he subscribed to the Arrian Creed only the one saith he did it in the external act through fear and the other Sentiens that he thought or consented with them in all Platin. in vit Liberii Damasus his Epistle to Paulinus Bishop of Antioch follows I fear an Imposture Isidore and Merlin were not aware there was no such man Their Followers are fain to mend it thus Paulinus Bishop of Thessalonida As Binius Labbe c. In vitâ Damasi Next the Epistle of Damasus to Hierom and Hierom's Answer both confessed to be a Forgery there is an Epistle of Stephen the Archbishop and of three Councils in Africa to Damasus the Pope concerning the priviledge of the Roman Chair Doubtless the Bishops in Africa were very zealous for the priviledge of the Roman Chair ever since the Oppression and Cheat of Zozimus The Title is somewhat suspitious Beatissimo Damino Apostolico Culmini sublato c. Stephanus Archiepiscopus Concilii Mauritanii c. In English thus To our most blessed Lord and the Apostolical Top highly lifted up the Holy Father of Fathers and the Supreme Bishop over all Prelates Stephen Archbishop of the Council of Mauritania and all the Bishops of the three Councils in the Province of Africa Many men have stiled themselves Archbishops of Provinces but no man as I remember Archbishop of a Council There may be Archbishops in a Council but not an Archbishop of the Council Three Councils at once in the same Province were never heard of One and the same Letter sent from three Councils is a strange thing So is a Letter sent in the name of one Archbishop as President of three Councils at a time After this we have 6 Epistles of Siricius 2 of Anastasius 19 of Innocent 2 of Zozimus 3 of Boniface with feveral Answers Among which there is inserted a Constitution of Honorius the Emperour sent to Boniface That if there were two Bishops of Rome made any more they should be both driven out of the City Which shews how subject the Roman Chair is to Schismes and the Power that did of old belong to the Emperour There are other Epistles of Celestine Sixtus Leo Hilarius Simplicius Felix Gelasius Anastasias Symmachus Hormisda c. the most of which do much exceed our compass of the first 400 years and are too late for our Cognizance For since the Forgery of Zozimus much credit is not to be given to the Roman Bishops Not as if one mans fault had blasted them all but he leads up the Van of Forgets and they have all persisted in his Guilt no one of them making acknowledgment or restitution and almost all of them guilty of the like either by doing or suffering Among the rest there is an Instrument which the Collector calleth Sacra Justini Imperatoris ad Hormisdam Papam The Sacred Writing of the Emperour Justinus to Hormisda Pope But the word POPE is not in the superscription The Letter it self is To the most Holy and blessed Archbishop and Patriarch of the Venerable City of Rome Hormisda Archbishop and Fatriarch we allow him but not that Typhus wherewith the Fathers in the sixth Council of Carthage charge Zozimus that blasphemous Title which John assumed at Constantinople and S. Gregory so declaimed against at Rome This Letter of Justin the Emperour was written more than 500 years after our Saviours Birth yet I never saw true Record in all that time give a Title so high to the Bishop of Rome But Justin was a man of low Descent a Swineherd at first a Carpenter afterwards then a Souldier of Fortune and at last an Emperour He was the more solicitous therefore to complement so Mighty a Bishop with accurate expression Note well Isidore has suppressed all the Canons of the sixth Council of Carthage as too bitter and sharp for the Popes Constitution And so has Merlin though very
assembled also from every Quarter especially the most Excellent Father Dominicus Bollanus a Noble-Man of Venice of the Order of Preachers never enough commended for his excellent parts who by his Industry Care and Learning was a vast help both to me and to the Work And that I may in one word signifie my study and pains bestowed thereupon lest I should seem to draw the Saw backward and forward too often upon the same Line I have taken care to perform whatever could be done by one man and he a private person that this Edition might come forth from me and be offered to you more Copious and Illustrious than any other Publications hitherto sent abroad In which I trust that as a just and knowing Judge you will discern some Accomplishment Wherefore I suppose I may affirm that nothing is perversly or too concisely exprest but all things most rightly and clearly as far as was possible according to their Primitive Candour This my Gift therefore from which men may receive so great profit and benefit since both those things that before were wanting and those that have hitherto been dispersed may be had together in it and this Work of mine not of less cost in Printing the great expences of which may easily be proved by the magnitude of the Volume than labour to which I was not so much present as presiding earnestly desiring that it should come forth most free from Errour and Faults for the benefit of the Studious I doubt not but according to your Humanity you will accept it with a willing mind as some kind of Token of my will to serve you even as I desire with all my Soul and humbly pray that your Holiness may receive it In the mean time Holy Father I desire that all things may fall out prosperously to your Blessedness And I pray that you may long be preserved in health and more plentifully adorned with Heavenly Gifts for the good of the whole Church Venice VI. Kal. Octob. M. D. LXXXV Here you see one of the Popes Old Servants laying down all the Councils at his Holiness Feet boasting of additions to the Nicene and Ephesine Councils never before published ascribing the Councils to the Inspiration of the Holy Ghost and yet adding for the good of the Roman Church eight and fifty Canons to the most glorious of them all ascribing the power of calling and confirming Councils to the Pope sparing no cost though he draws the Saw too often upon that point which as if he were enchanted he cannot leave throughout all the Epistle assisted as himself confesseth with a confluence of the best Popish Divines permitted to come forth under the Popes Nose with all these Abominations By which you may perceive it is not the work of a private Doctor but the Disease of the Church of Rome His Typographus Lectori His contempt of the Fathers appears in his Printer to the Reader for by one of Turrian's Transfigurations he covers that Admonition with the Printers Name though too Learned for any Printer and evident enough to be his own for he there unfoldeth the matter order and use of the Work far above a Printers reach and especially notes its Corrections and Emendations to us which he reduceth to four Heads 1. To the observation of the time wherein Councils were held and under what Pope Whereupon we note the manner of ordering the Councils under such and such a Pope seemeth a new thing Nicolinus else arrogates too much to himself in ascribing this to his own Invention Certainly the custom of computing times by the Popes Lives is of no long standing but an Artisice lately taken up by his Flatterers to dazle the eyes of their Readers for it adds much to the Splendour of the Chair to see Kings and Councils marshalled under the Reign as it were of this and that and the other Pope down from S. Clement throughout all Ages But from the beginning it was not so 2. To the truth of History and Actions As when various Authors are often cited either for the confirmation of Sentences or to show the variety that is among Writers or to reprehend some falsity Quod interdam parcè tamen timidé fecimus In his Dedicatory Epistle he told the Pope that he did nothing perversty but all things most rightly and clearly as far as was possible according to their Primitive Candour As you see before But here he confesseth the business of repieving falshoods to be a tender work which he went about with great caution and trembling Some he detected but timerousiy and sparingly he durst not meddle with them all 3. To the consutation of some contumacious and rebellions persons who lay hold on the lightest occasions and oftentimes wrest the plainest matters to the disgrace of the H. Roman Church As when from a slight contention of the African Fathers about Appeals to the Church of Rome they foreibly conclude against the very truth of the Acts and the Faith of the History that those Fathers did not acknowledge but refuse its Primacy over them In the Body of his Tomes he 〈◊〉 Epistles of Boniface and Eulalius as good Records testifying the Excommunication of all the African Churches by the Pope yet here he calleth it a light contention Himself wresteth the plainest matters forcibly against the very truth of the Acts and chargeth the fault on the Protestants For in this very place he pretendeth that the African Fathers did not refuse the Primacy of Rome but acknowledge its Supremacy or its Primacy over them Yet it all this but a Copy of his countenance a common flourish in the Frontispiece of their work For if they submitted to the Popes Primacy over them why should they be Excommunicated He knows well enough when we come close to the matter that these Rebellions Protestants and those Catholick Fathers were of the same judgment and acted the same thing By way of provision therefore he addeth that this was far from the mind of those Fathers but if they had conceived so it would have redounded to their Infamy and not at all have tended to the lessening of the Supreme Authority of the Roman Church ordained and established by God Two hundred and seventeen Bishops in an ancient approved Council even the sixth Council of Carthage protested against the Popes Supreme Authority to their perpetual Infamy as Nicolinus would have it for should all the Bishops in the World joyn together they would but dash themselves against that Rock and do things to their Infamy and there 's an end This is the value which Papists have for the Councils and Fathers when they stand in their way And this Impudence comes abroad by the consent of Nicolinus and the Pope without Blushing His fourth Head is Addition His Emendations are referred lastly to Addition either by making those things perfect and entire that before were imperfect and marred 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Canons of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Acts of that
Zozimus and Boniface About 100 years after Eulabius sate in the Chair at Alexandria some call him Eulalius Between him and Boniface 2. there are two Epistles extant out of which it is gathered that after the sixth Council of Carthage the African Churches were Excommunicated by the Roman for 100 years and reconciled at last upon the Submission of Eulalius Archbishop of Carthage accursing S. Augustine and his own Predecessors Concerning these two Epistles Cardinal Bellarmine giveth his Opinion thus Valdè mihieas Epistolas esse suspectas c. I have a mighty suspition of these Epistles For first they seem to be repugnant to those things which we have spoken concerning the Union of S. Augustine Eugenius Fulgentius and other Africans with the Roman Church And again either there was no Eulabius of Alexandria to whom Boniface seemeth to write or at least there was none at that time as is evident out of the Chronology of Nicephorus of Constantinople Besides Boniface intimates in his Epistle that he wrote at the Commandment of Justinus the Emperour But Justinus was dead before Boniface began to sit as is manifest out of all Histories Moreover the Epistle which is ascribed to Boniface consists all of it almost of two fragments of which the one is taken out of the Epistle of Pope Hormisda to John the other out of the Epistle of S. Gregory to the Bishops of France even the 52 Epistle of his fourth Book Now S. Gregory was not born at that time nor is it credible that Gregory took those words out of Boniface since the Stile is altogether Gregorian In the Epistle also which is Fathered upon Eulabius the Carthaginian there is a Sentence of S. Gregories inserted out of the 36 Epistle of his fourth Book and the rest of that Epistle is nothing but a sragment of au Epistle of John the Bishop of Constantinople to Pope Hormisda Notwithstanding all these reasons Bellarmine is afraid to damn the Epistles but Cardinal Baronius is a little more bold He judges it inconvenient for the Church of Rome that any such Forgeries were ever made And upon the occasion of these two Epistles utterly disgraces Isidore Mercator for a meer Impostor Whether in so doing he salves the Sores of the Roman Church that hath been guilty of vending them the experience of Ages yet to come will hereafter evidence In the mean time let us fee what he saith In Not. Martyrol ad 16. Octobr. he layeth down these words Scias falsam adulterinam Epistolam illam quae fertur nomine Bonifacii 2. c. Know that the Epistle which is carried abroad in the name of Boniface 2. to Eulalius Bishop of Alexandria which is extant and published in the second 〈◊〉 of the Councils of the latter Edition is false and adulterate And speaking concerning the Schism Excommunication and Re-union of the African Churches he saith Sihaec vera sunt c. If these things are true certainly then all the Martyrs and Confessors which were at that very time crowned with Martyrdom in the African Church or otherwise waxed famous by the Merits of their Eminent Sanctity must be blotted out of the List of Saints which THE HOYL ROMAN CHURCH it self hath in its Martyrology numbred among the Martyrs or reckoned among the Confessors Since it is most manifest by a thousand Sentences of Cyprian Augustine and all the Fathers that out of the Church there can be no Martyrdom nor any kind of Sanctity If Lyes were always consistent Truth would be amazed God doth infatuate the Counsels of his Enemies and turn their Wisdom into Foolishness They run into inconveniences sometimes so great that they cannot be remedied Could a Lye shun all inconvenience and see to its Interest on every side it would be as wife and perfect as Truth itself Quin amplius ex Collegis Aurelii c. But yet further among other Companions of Aurelius the most holy Father S. Augustine the most glorious Beam of the Catholick Church was accused in that Epistle Who being clouded with the same 〈◊〉 of Schism must if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be true be blotted out of the Class of the Doctors of Holy Church out of the number of Saints nay out of the Martyrology nor only so but out of the Kalender of the HOLY ROMAN CHURCH For it is most certain that after the aforesaid Aurelius he departed this life within the space of the time before-mentioned What should I reckon the Fulgentiuses the Eugeniuses and others almost innumerable men most Famous for Holiness and Learning to be accounted in the same condition It is a common Artifice in the Church of Rome to propagate these Forgeries as far as they are able by them to possess the minds of men with great apprehensions of the Popes high and Infallible Power and if at at any time they are detected to cast the blame on private persons while the Church is free they pretend from such Abominations I desire you to note therefore that the HOLY ROMAN CHURCH it self is the Author of Her Martyrologies and Kalendars and that the HOLY ROMAN CHURCH her self hath Canonized her Saints and made Holy-days and put them into her Breviaries And it was this very HOLY ROMAN CHUCH that put the counterfeit Council of Sinuessa into her Martyrologies the Lying Legend of Sylvester into the Roman Breviary Authorized by three Popes and the Council of Trent and her counterfeit Decretals among her Laws in all her Consistories and Ecclesiastical Courts of Highest Judicature So that if Baronius do not 〈◊〉 the ROMAN CHURCH is liable to the Charge of these Bastard-Antiquities For which cause he might well break out into that angry 〈◊〉 Eccè in quod Diserimen Vnus isidorus Mercator illarum Epistolarum Collector res nostras adduxit ut ex 〈◊〉 parte periclitari videatur Ecclesia c. Behold into what peril one Isidore Mercator the Collector of those Epistles hath brought out Affairs So that the CHURCH seemeth on that side to be endangered if we shall say those things which he hath collected or rather 〈◊〉 be 〈◊〉 and certain If the Roman Church be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 in Baronius his judgment 〈◊〉 is utterly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Importance did he only 〈◊〉 the things to be feigned rather than 〈◊〉 which their great 〈◊〉 of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Isidore their first Author But his acknowledgment of the hazard which the Roman Church runneth is more For they have so many Subterfuges about the Roman Church that it is more difficult to find it than to vanquish it It was not the Pope in a formal Council that Excommunicated the Church of Africa or that put her Saints first into the Roman 〈◊〉 yet it was the 〈◊〉 Roman Church And indeed if the Holy Roman Church and her Authority be not to be found in her Mass books and Breviaries her Courts and Consistories her Laws and 〈◊〉 her Martyrologies and Kalenders her Popes and Doctors I know not where to meet
with Her And if nothing else be the Roman Church but a Pope and Council 〈◊〉 the Roman Church is but a blinking 〈◊〉 There is no Roman Church upon this account sometimes for two or three Ages together for she always vanishes upon the 〈◊〉 of the Council The Roman Church is in a great 〈◊〉 but she may thank herself She threw her self into this Peril by making her self a Schismatick an 〈◊〉 a 〈◊〉 She first breaks the Rule and if the Pope and his Doctors about him be the Roman Church as they certainly must needs 〈◊〉 for all that depart from 〈◊〉 shall be Schifmaticks if the Head of the Church and all the Members that cleave unto it be the Roman Church she first brake the Rule and then forged Ancient Canons in the Name of the Nicene Council to defend her Exorbitancy she cut her self off from the true Church in the sixth Council of Carthage by a perverse inveterate obstinacy and to acquit her self afterwards laid the Curse and Scandal upon others She pretends at least that the most Holy Churches were Excommunicated that 217 Bishops in a Sacred Council Alypius S. Augustine Aurelius and all his Collegues were puffed up with pride by the Instigation of the Devil and accursed by a Dreadful Excommunication for so it is in the Epistle of Bonifaee 2. to Eulalius And now she hath nothing left to support her Enormity but that Greatness alone which by these Forgeries she hath acquired and maintained These Thorns are never to be pulled out but the Veins and Sinews will follow after For in rejecting these Thorns in her sides all her Authority Infallibility Antiquity Tradition Vnity Succession Credit and Veracity is gone As for Baronius and the way he takes a man may safely throw away the Sword when he has killed the Enemy but the Church of Rome is not arrived to such an happiness Politicians pull down the Ladder by which they have gotten up to the Top of their desires But the case is altered here They are undone if the Ladder be removed To acknowledge these Helps to be Forgeries is their apparent Ruine Some Papists use these Counterfeits by vertue of which their Predecessors acquired and established their Empire as Vsurpers do Traytors by whose villanous help they are seated in the Throne But they can never wash off the Guilt they have contracted nor make the Act or the Crime committed once to be again undone After 700 years enjoyment of the Benefit they begin to slight the means of acquiring it But it is because they cannot help it The Cheat is detected and they would sain perswade the World they are Innocent of it All of them either hold these things to be Forgeries or if Forgeries to be none of their The Confession is not Genning like 〈◊〉 of S. Peter rather it is awkward 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 like that of Apiarius 〈◊〉 Confession the sixth Council of Carthage observes to be sorced For after 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 obstinately persisted as long as possible in an impudent denial reviled his Judges abused the Roman Chair disordered the Church and inflamed the World when God had brought him into so vast a strait that he could do no otherwise then the Fraudulent Dissembler as they call him fled to Confession but the Root of his Malevolence he retained in him Some Papists confess these Forgeries but deny them to be theirs They confess the things but justifie themselves The things they say are Forgeries but themselves no Forgers And whether of the two be the greater Impudence is hard to define They confess the Fraud but make no Restitution All their Drift is to save their Skin when one pretence is broken they fly to another nay they go on to quote these things even now they confess them where they are not detected they still do quote them and wish still they were as able to conceal and defend them as ever For for one that knows them they meet with a thousand that are ignorant of those devices There they dissemble their Conviction and hide their Confession with the Ignorant and before such make shew of these Frauds as of great and glorious Antiquities though like Proteus they transform themselves into other shapes before the more Learned They find it meet and necessary to fail with every Wind and to adapt themselves fitly in their discourses both to them that know them and to them that know them not with them that know them they seem to decry the Impostures These things I speak not to the poor simple seduced Papists who did they believe and know these things would abhor them to the Death but to the Seducers themselves who so delude the Ignorant and are by all Methods ever busie in carrying on the Cause of the Temporal Kingdom of the Church of Rome as by their obstinate practises is most apparent Baronius himself bewrayeth his Confession to be without any purpose of amendment even by the Defence he maketh for his good Old Friend the Bastard Isidore A Jerom of Frague or a John Huss a Latimer or a Ridley though never so holy and pure in other things were to be cursed with Bell Book and Candle if the least Errour appeared in them that reflected on the Popes Security Though never so Innocent they were with all violent fury pursued to the Fire But if a man have this one Vertue of maintaining the Popes Interest he may lye and cog and cheat and forge abuse Apostles Councils Fathers and be followed by an Army of Popes and Doctors becoming a Zealous and Venerable Saint notwithstanding Hincmarus of Rhemes could hardly escape for offering to mutter against Isidere But Isidore himself because he did the Pope Service though he be a Sacrilegious person and deserves all that can be called Bad for the incomparable height and depth of his Villany yet he is received to fair Quarters and well esteemed of by Cardinal Baronius Testimonium illi perhibeo utar verbis Apostoli saith he quod Zelum habuit sed non secundùm Scientiam c. I will give him this Testimony and here I will use the words of the Apostle He had a Zeal but not according to knowledge For because the contention of Aurelius Bishop of Carthage Augustine and other African Bishops seemed to him a little more hot than it should be with Boniface and Celestine the Roman Popes in the Cause of Apiarius the Priest he supposed it expedient in that Epistle which he feigned in the name of Boniface to patch up what was cut away But away with these things The Church of God is not founded nor does it lean upon Chaff it self being the Pillar and Ground of Truth Baron Martyrol Octob. 16. I will not note how he abuseth the Scriptures nor how he wresteth the words of the H. Apostle to cover a filthy piece of Knavery nor yet in what sense he maketh the last words which he uttereth to sound concerning the Roman Churches being her self the Pillar and Ground of Truth