and will give full satisfaction in that Point if he were but capable of receiving it And I presume I have given him more than he can answer in the Reflexions upon the Lateran Council I. The Authority and Infallibility of the Roman Catholick Church P. 21. This he undertakes to consider how far it may bear and appear reasonable to an impartial Reader These words are not worth the notice but that they tempt out a little suspicion that they are here set for a reserve in case of opposition for if it be said as most truly it may that there is not one plain proof either of the supreme Authority or Infallibility of the Roman Church in all this Discourse Our Authour may reply that he never undertook to give it All that he engaged for was appearances P. 23. and that he has performed by using the words oft tumbling and tossing them as Hay-makers do their mown Grass one while Authority is uppermost and soon after Infallibility Authority must lead in Infallibility and Infallibility must vindicate Authority but where either of these is to be found the Man neither proves nor knows and plainly says that he is not concerned whether there be any such thing as Infallibility or no p. 24. he says Were there no Infallibility as I believe there is I would still submit my Reason and regulate my Conscience P. 24. according to the Decrees of the supreme lawfull Ecclesiastical Authority This is my belief pray blame me not All this is nothing else but appearances for neither is the Church of England nor the Church of Rome concerned in his belief or his fancy or his opinion for these may be wise or may be foolish may be well or may be ill grounded But yet it is admirable to see what great command he has over his Reason and his Conscience that he can make them turn which way he pleases and if he does but suppose a Supreme lawfull Authority to be in Ebion or Cerinthus Nailor or Muggleton or the Church of Rome He can be a Convert to any of them to day to this and to morrow to the quite contrary and that with as much reason and as good conscience to the one as to the other For which way soever he turns he may still say this is my belief pray blame me not His last Conversion was to the Church of Rome and he intimates that he changed upon this belief that there was a Supreme lawfull Ecclesiastical Authority to be found there but he has not the least reason to prove it though it must be confest that he has some appearances which I will impartially consider in their order 1. He gives us some Citations from Protestants Pag. 22 23. from Luther one and from Melancthon another whom he calls the Phoenix of Learning a fine word I wonder from whence he borrowed it another from Somaisius or Salmasius Another he would give from Grotius but what it is he has forgot he thinks it is somewhere in his Annotations upon the New Testament And then to make weight he throws in the Names of Jacob Cartwright Huss and Beza P. 23. And from hence he argues in these words These eminent Protestants were men of great learning and they had searcht and understood Scripture and History and if my judgment concurs with theirs in this point as I profess it doth then have I found that lawfull Supreme Authority Now these are dangerous words from the mouth of a new Convert it is well for him that he is not now in Spain for if he should make such a declaration there That his judgment concurs with the judgment of Luther Melancthon Huss and Beza in the Point of the Pope's Supremacy or the Supremacy of the Church of Rome he might perhaps be in danger of the Inquisition All the World knows the judgment of those men in this point and if he were before the Fathers of the Inquisition they would not be put off with a small Citation found they know not where and perhaps inserted by they know not whom He had done much better to have mistrusted his Copy than to depend upon such an Allegation Sure I am that if he made any use of those mens judgments or laid any great stress upon the words which he cites under their Names in his search or presumed discovery of a Supreme Authority of the Church of Rome he used both his Reason and his Conscience very hardly It is certain that Luther did speak variously of the Pope's Power sometimes higher and sometimes lower as appears to any one that reads either his Works or Cassander's Citations from him And as to Melancthon the Phoenix of Learning I am not concerned to search what he wrote to the Cardinal Belay And it may be I am civil in doing it He was a Wit that once charged it as an incivility upon his Acquaintance that he should take so much pains to prove him a Lyar. It is certain that Melancthon in his Loci Communes where he treats professedly upon this Subject declares fully and roundly against all this that is cited from him And therefore I presume that his judgment does not concur with Melancthon's for if it does he is no new Convert for he has found nothing that can call for a submission of Reason and Conscience nothing like to that Authority and Infallibility of the Roman Catholick Church which a new Convert is bound to defend But because our Authour in desence of the Authority and Infallibility of the Roman Church has given such Citations from Protestants I 'll indeavour to requite him by one from a very good Roman Catholick and that is Cassander He in his Book de Officio pii hominis speaks to this purpose That there are some who because they see yet remaining amongst them not a few things that have descended down from Antiquity or the first Christians will keep up the present state of the Church just as it is though it be corrupt and foully stained by abuses that have crept in by little and little Nor will they suffer any thing to be alter'd though it may be done agreeable enough to the Decrees or Canons of the Ancients Pontificem verò Romanum quem Papam dicimus tant um non Deum faciunt ejusque Autoritatem non modò supra totam Ecclesiam sed supra ipsam Scripturam Divinam efferunt sententiam ejus Divinis Oraculis parem imo infallibilem fidei regulam constituunt hos non video cur minus Pseudocatholicos Papistas appellare possis The Roman Bishop whom we call Pope they make little less than God They set up his Authority not onely over the whole Church but over the holy Scripture it self and make his determination equal to the Divine Oracles and no less than an infallible rule of faith I see no cause but that you may give to these the name of false Catholicks and Papists Thus said that good man concerning the
comes to the Church of England and demands it there they deny that they have any such Authority Not content with that he puts himself to the trouble to prove it p. 11. he goes to the Church of Rome they say they have it p. 12. and he presently believes them and after a few rubs removed out of his way he reviews Bellarmine's marks and signs of a true Catholick Church and by them endeavours to shew that there is such an unerring Authority and Sovereign Guide in the Church of Rome Now all this is nothing but a plain begging of the Cause or a discovery how little he knows in this Controversie for certain it is that the Church of England and all other Protestant Churches ever since the Reformation have demanded and most earnestly required one plain positive proof that ever God Almighty or our Blessed Lord did ever appoint any such Sovereign Guide and unerring Authority in the Church But they could never receive any plausible Answer to it by all the ways whereby a Negative can be proved they have shewed that there is no such order or appointment in it Nay lately some Writers have asserted with good reason that such a thing is not agreeable to the methods that God has us'd in the Government of the World and that it would not be of any considerable use to the advancement of piety or any eminent vertue amongst men and that the pretence of it serves onely to support an unreasonable Usurpation over the Church of Christ Great Volumes and strong Arguments remain unanswer'd and yet at this time of the day the dull and stale old accompts of it without any new ornaments or new force are sent abroad without any ground or hope of victory to vindicate the interests of it This deserves a sharper Censure than I will give but yet I would have our Authour know that a New Convert to his Old Friends the followers of Ebion and Cerinthus might have alledged in his behalf all that which our Authour here does and that to as much purpose he might have said that he had wished that God had left an unerring Authority in his Church and that God had not left the World without Government and given us Laws without lawfull Judges and Interpreters and that therefore he presumed that such an Authority was somewhere to be sound As for Irenaeus his Church and those in Communion with it they did not in the least pretend to it but the followers of Ebion and Cerinthus did fully and loudly challenge it and therefore his Reverend Fathers Irenaeus and the rest of the Orthodox Bishops must have him excused for he will rather put himself under an unerring Authority than trust to the Guidance of Those that confess themselves to be no more than fallible men But to let that pass P. 13. the next thing we find in our Authour is Bellarmine's Notes of a true Church I suppose he puts them down to encrease the bulk of his Book He could not but know that they are of no Authority with us And Answers are given out to each of them in their Order He might have added strength and force to them whilst they are so briskly attacked but he has no pretence to build upon them or defend himself by them But besides he of all men living has the least right to expect any advantage from them because the chiefest of these Notes are grounded on sayings of the Prophets and he that has so far depreciated the true value of the Five Books of Moses p. 6. will hardly persuade another that he gives any great credit to the writings of the Prophets He there gives us an objection against the Pentateuch P. 6. from the supposed intermedlings of Esdras but does not well reflect that he derives that objection by several Medium's from the Samaritans who were the first and are at this day the chiefest Adversaries and greatest Calumniatours of Esdras Now these very men keep close to the Five Books of Moses and for this they offer some pretences of reason but our Authour without any reason at all would make advantage by the Prophets and throw contempt upon Moses and all this by virtue of the credit which he seems to give to the objections made against Esdras by the Samaritans But Most certainly in this he acts beyond his skill and talks without book for be it what it will Bellarmine's Notes are of no use to him and can do him as little service as that formidable force of Pagans and Turks and I know not how many Nations which he brings in to his assistance p. 11. where he himself says he has no Adversary It is well for him that that impertinency and this did not come together into his head at the same time for if he had thought but as much of the Pagan as he does of the Atheist and Theist perhaps his reason might have been as favourable to them as it was to those others p. 4. and then if Bellarmine's Notes had come into his way who knows but that the man might have turn'd Convert again and wrote another Book of the motives for his reconciliation to old Paganism for methinks it is very probable that our Authour might have found these amongst the Pagans Vniversality and Visibility Vninterrupted continuance and Succession till the days of Constantine lastly Vnity and Vniformity he might have seen there too that which they call a High-Priest and Holy Altar and a Holy Sacrifice Miracles and Religious Colleges and Abstinence P. 14. and vowed chastity and a great many Doctrines Authoritatively imposed and universally received throughout the World I will presume this Gentleman never read either Pausanias or Zozimus or the Epistles of Symmachus and it is happy for him that he did not I will venture the little skill that I have that any impartial Reader shall find better flourishes sairer turns of the Pen and more appearance of Argument in that Speech which Symmachus makes to the Emperour Valentinian Theodosius and Arcadius in the Name of Rome Pagan than our Authour gives us here against the Church of England to our Bishops Now if these little thoughts governed him in the change of one Religion it is well for him that he never ingaged in the consideration of the other But our Authour has Bellarmine's Notes and he will make something of them by virtue of them he says he sound what he was resolved to find before the true Catholick or one Church that may be said to be true in opposition to all others Now upon this foundation he builds apace P. 15. 1. That this being one Body must have one Head upon Earth and he after our Saviour's Death was St. Peter and after St. Peter's his Successours and they are the Bishops of Rome and those are every one of them in their several times not only Successours to St. Peter P. 16. but Christ's Vicegerents This their Authority he says has been owned
Philippi c. But now a transcriber of this I suppose more knave than fool changes the words thus In Canonicis Scripturis Ecclesiarum Catholicarum quamplurium Divinarum Scripturarum solertissimus indagator autoritatem sequatur inter quas sane illae sint quas Apostolica sedes habere ab ea alii meruerunt accipere Epistolas This speaks quite a different thing that the Epistles of the Apostolical Seat are to be accounted Canonical Scriptures This forgery or mistake came abroad I suppose at the same time with the counterfeit ware of Riculphus and to this with the false Epistles of the most early Bishops of Rome were put into Gratian and there it remained as a great Authority in the behalf of the Sacredness and Canonicalness of Papal Epistles untill the last Correctours were pleased honestly to reject it and prudently to tell the World that they dare not own such follies or knaveries But farther because our Authour thinks to advantage himself of the Name of St. Augustine I will acquaint him that this Father had no very extraordinary opinion of Rome or the Bishops of it when he was in quest of the true Religion he left Rome and went to Milan and submitted himself to the guidance of St. Ambrose and received the true Christianity from him He had all his days the highest reverence for him and would have yielded to his Authority when he would not have yielded to the Pope's Augustinus Epist 162. He tells us that when Melchiades judged the cause of the Donatists he was joyned with several other Bishops in the same Commission by Constantine Aug. Epist 163. when he names those two great men Julius Bishop of Rome and Athanasius as orthodox Persons and defenders of the right faith he puts Athanasius in the first place It is he that gives those hard words Quidam qui nomen habet Falcidii duce Stultitià Civitatis Romanae jactantià Levitas Sacerdotibus August quaesti mes ex utroque mixtim p. 108. 109. Edit Lugdun An. 1561. Diaconos Presbyteris coaequare contendit he tells us what it was that rais'd his passion the Deacons of Rome it seems would not yield to the Presbyters of other places upon that he says Quia Romanae Ecclesiae ministri sunt idcirco honorabiliores putantur quam apud caeteras Ecclesias propter magnificentiam urbis Romanae quae caput esse videtur omnium civitatum Si itaque sic est hoc debent Sacerdotibus suis vindicare And a little after he gives a fuller accompt of it Vides quid pariat vana praesumptio immemores enim elatione mentis eo quod videant Romanae Ecclesiae se esse ministros non considerant quid illis à Deo decretum sit quid debeant custodire sed tollunt haec de memoria assiduae Stationes domesticae officialitas quae per suggestiones malas seu bonas nunc plurimum potest aut timentur enim ne malè suggerant aut emuntur ut praestent But because this Book is accompted by several not to be St. Augustine's though sent abroad by the Monks and published in his Name I will add farther that St. Augustine's thoughts of Rome and the Bishops of that See were quite different from our Authour 's for if he thought that the Soveraign Guide and the unerring Authority had been there and that God deposited those great supports and securities of the Christian Faith in the Succession of the Roman Bishops then in all likelihood when Rome was taken by the Goths he would have lamented and mourned as a Jew formerly would have done at the taking of Jerusalem and the captivity of the High-Priest But alas there was nothing like it when this news was brought to St. Augustine all that he said of it was this Ibi multos fratres non habuimus non adhuc habemus Indeed for this expression he seems to apologize in his next Sermon but that not as to the truth of his words Serm 29. de verbis Domini but as to the spirit of mind in which he spake them that it was not out of any design to insult over the miseries of others Besides he that remembers what labour he and the rest of the African Bishops took to get the concurrence of the Bishops of Rome Innocentius and Zosimus to the condemnation of the Pelagian Heresie may well think that St. Augustine could have no great reverence for them and if we read Erasmus his Censure upon Innocent's Epistles which are printed with St. Augustine's we may possibly be tempted to entertain mean thoughts of the Bishop of so great a See These are Erasmus his words before the 96 th Ep. which is Innocents Innocentius superiori respondet suo more saevus potius quà m eruditus ad damnandum quà m docendum instructior But I must leave this and follow our Authour He goes on p. the 18 th leaping and skipping from one thing to another He speaks first of Victor what he did in casting out the Asiaticks and then what Gregory and others whom he calls Christ's Vicegerents did in bringing in converts and wonders that so many Proselytes should be made to so little purpose Then he fansies he had seen glorious and wonderfull Privileges in the Church of Rome and knows not how they could be forfeited After he falls to his wonted work of whipping our Bishops for telling him that new Doctrines had been brought into the Church which were not imposed upon the faithfull till the Council of Trent Now nothing of all this deserves an answer because it hath been so often given before But it may be expected by some As to Victor he says he excommunicated the Bishops of Asia for keeping of Easter contrary to the Institutions of St. Peter and St. Paul though tolerated by St. John Now this is fit to be said by a new Convert who must venture farther than any man of skill dare do For first the matter of fact is doubted and Valesius the last Editor of Eusebius who was all his days a Roman Catholick thinks that Victor went no farther than to high words and threatning And then as to the right of the action Eusebius lib. 5 c. 24. Irenaeus who wrote to Victor himself about it fully shews that it would have been unreasonable and against all the methods of his Predecessours But then thirdly the relation of our Authour is altogether groundless that St. Peter and St. Paul did institute and St. John onely tolerate For this is a thing that Polycrates the President of the Council of the Asiaticks never knew Victor himself never knew Irenaeus never knew Anicetus Bishop of Rome nor yet St. Polycarp that contested this point with him who too was St. John's own Disciple never knew Euseb lib. 5. c. 24. Certainly our Authour has some Pidgeon that whispers to him Secrets and Mysteries that no man knows I beg his leave a little to acquaint him with the sense
to be contested and the other was thought tolerable by Honorius and Felix and the best of those that were busied in the conversion of the English It is deplorable to think that for the sake of these the English Christians should lose their Teachers who if we believe Bede's accompt were most extraordinary Persons of great piety severe vertue and most sincere goodness Bede lib 3. cap. 26. Bede says Quantae parcimoniae cujusque continentiae fuerit ipse Colmannus cum Praedecessoribus suis testabatur etiam locus ille quem regebat ubi abeuntibus eis exceptâ Ecclesiâ paucissimae domus repertae sunt c. They were Men of great self-denial they had a good Church for the service of God but very few Houses for themselves and those onely such as necessity of living did require they had no money or stock but in Beasts what money the rich gave unto them they presently distributed to the poor and they had no need of any for the great ones who came to their Church came thither for no other cause but to say their Prayers and to hear the Word of God and if the King himself came thither he said his Prayers and away he went or if he wanted a refection he and his Attendants were content to partake of the daily Provision for the fraternity of their House The whole care of these Teachers was to serve God and not the World to provide for the Heart and not for the Belly from whence it came to pass that Religion was then in great veneration whereever a Clerk or a Monk came he was received by the People as the Servant of God If they saw him on the road they ran to him and rejoyced in the humblest posture to receive his blessing They attended to his Instructions and Exhortations and every Lord's Day they came in crowds either to the Church or to their Monastery to learn the Word of God If a Priest came by chance into a Village the People gathered together and took care that they might hear the Word of Life from him For upon no other accompt did the Priests or Clerks go abroad but to preach to baptize to visit the Sick and to take care of Souls and so far were they from designs of worldly greatness that they would not accept of Estates and Lands to build Monasteries upon them where they were not constrained by more than ordinary instance from the Secular Powers This accompt Bede no Friend to them but to the adverse Party gives of them and therefore it must be presumed to be true Those Scots or Irish then were most admirable Persons great Examples of Vertue and Piety a blessing of God and an honour to a Nation But such was the weakness or the humour of those times that all these were to be thrown out to make way for the reception of a few Romish Usages Wilfrid had the ascendant Bede lib. 5. cap. 20. and he would have it so And good St. Chad amongst the rest was forced to leave the Bishoprick of York that Wilfrid by virtue of the Power and Authority of that Seat might be better inabled to carry on his Reformation according to his new Designs and Projects This Story deserves some Remarks and Considerations and if the present Romanists would reflect upon it they will find cause to cease their boasts of the performances of their Predecessours in the conversion of the English Nation I will add one thing that as Augustine had no great success in his business so neither had Wilfrid in his For he was twice thrown out of his Bishoprick and twice went to Rome to make Complaints and though he was a Man of Parts and had a zeal for that which he thought good yet the effects of his tumultuousness followed him and he that gave troubles to others had troubles himself One Passage farther there is in Bede that must not be omitted that is concerning Theodore his election to be Archbishop of Canterbury and his mission hither it seems Egbert King of Kent and Oswi King of the North-Humbrians had agreed after the death of Deusdedit to send Wighart to Rome to be consecrated there and that some considerable time after the Bishoprick had been void Bede lib. 4. cap. 1. Cessante non pauco tempore Episcopatu Wighart dyed of the Plague at Rome Vitalian then Pope considers whom to send over in his stead he thought first of one Adrian who refused the Archbishoprick and commended one Andrew who likewise refused then Theodore was thought of and approved yet Theodore could not be consecrated till he had received a new Tonsure Bede says he was born at Tharsus in Cilicia and had the Tonsure of St. Paul after the manner of the Orientals Habuerat Tonsuram more Orientalium Sancti Pauli Apostoli And therefore he was stayed at Rome though the English Nation much wanted their Archbishop four months till his Hair was grown that the Crown of St. Peter might be rightly shorn on his Head quatuor expectavit menses donec illi coma cresceret quo in coronam tonderi posset It seems the same temper that Wilfrid brought into England was then regnant at Rome and a great stress was laid upon the right Cut and wonderfully accurate they were in distinguishing the Tonsure of St. Peter from that of St. Paul and of Simon Magus as Bede shews And Mr. Cressey in his Church-history Bede lib. 5. cap. 22. Cressy 's Hist lib. 16. cap. 18. n. 17. after a punctual relation of the state of this worthy Controversie expresly says That the Popes of this age took care that St. Peter 's Tonsure should onely be received in Britain This speaks how vain and trifling the Romans then were and it is amazing to compare the thoughts and designs of these with the accompt that Bede gives of those excellent Scots who were forced to leave England for their sakes But Theodore as he had been used himself so he was forced to treat others his first great business was to secure the two Points of Easter and Tonsure and he durst not but doe it for he had a Spy over him to watch his motions and to urge him to keep close to the present humour of Rome Bede tells us that Adrian came over with him ut ei Doctrinae Cooperator existens diligenter attenderet Bede lib. 4. cap. 1. ne quid ille contrarium veritati fidei Graecorum more in Ecclesiam cui praeesset introduceret Here we may observe the vast difference between the Counsels and Designments of Gregory the Great and those of Pope Vitalian Gregory encourages and exhorts his Missionary Augustine to gather and take up in every Countrey any Usage or Practice or Mode or Form that is pious and religious and to the glory of God and to have no regard for Places but Things no more for the Usages of Rome than for those of France But Vitalian ties his Missionary Theodore to keep close to