heretike So Baronius who to free Vigilius from heresie acquits all that deale either pro or contra in this cause neither one side nor the other are heretikes 3. See how heresie makes a man to dote That this question about the three Chapters is a cause of faith wee have cleerly and unanswerably confirmed and Baronius himselfe hath confessed That the defenders of them and condemners were in a manifest contradiction in this cause the former by an evident consequent and cunningly defending the other condemning the heresies of Nestorius is most evident and yet both of them in the Cardinals judgement are good Catholikes neither the one who with the Nestorians deny Christ to be God nor the other who affirme him to be God may be called heretikes This truly is either the same heresie which the Rhetorians maintained who as Philastrius saith praised all sects and opinions and said they all went the right way or else it is an heresie peculiar to Baronius such as none before him ever dreamed of That two contradictories in a cause of faith may be held and yet neither of them be an heresie nor the pertinacious defenders of either of them both be heretikes Baronius would be famous for a peece of new found learning and an hereticall quirke above all that ever went before him such as by which he hath ex condigno merited an applause of all heretiks which either have beene or shall arise hereafter For seeing in this cause of faith two contradictories may be held without heresie the like may be in every other point of faith and so with Vigilius the Arians Eutycheans and all heretikes shall have their quietus est say what they will in any cause of faith none may call them heretikes I commend the Cardinall for his wit This makes all cocke sure it is an unexpugnable bulwarke to defend the Constitution of Pope Vigilius 4. Say you neither the defenders nor the condemners of these Chapters may for that cause bee called heretikes For the condemners of them trouble not your wit they are and shall be ever acknowledged for Catholikes But for the defenders of them who are the onely men that the Cardinall would gratifie by this assertion I may boldly say with the Prophet Though thou wash them with nitre and much sope yet is their iniquity marked out All the water in Tyber and Euphrates cannot wash away their heresie for as we have before fully declared the defending of any one much more of all these three Chapters is the defending of Nestorianisme and all the blasphemies thereof the condemning of the holy Councels of Ephesus and Chalcedon and of all that approve them that is of the whole catholike Church and of the whole Catholike Faith All these must be hereticall if the defenders of those three Chapters be not heretikes 5. Now against this assertion of Baronius whereby he would acquit Vigilius and all that defend him from heresie I will oppose another and true assertion ensuing of that which wee have clearly proved and this it is That one or moe either men or Churches may dissent from the Popes Cathedrall and definitive sentence in a cause of faith made knowne unto them and yet be no heretikes For to omit other instances no lesse effectuall this one concerning Vigilius doth make this most evident The cause was a cause of faith as Baronius himselfe often professeth The Popes definitive and Apostolicall sentence in that cause of faith made for defence of those three Chapters was published and made knowne to the fift generall Councell and to the whole Church this also Baronius confesseth and yet they who contradicted the Popes Apostolicall sentence in this cause of faith made knowne unto them were not heretikes this also is the confession of Baronius whose assertion as you have seene is that neither the condemners of these Chapters nor the defenders of them were heretiks So by the Cardinalls owne assertions one may contradict and oppugne the Popes knowne Cathedral and Apostolicall sentēce in cause of faith and yet bee no heretike But what speake I of Baronius the evidence and force of reason doth unresistably confirme this For the whole fift generall Councell contradicted yea condemned and accursed the Popes Cathedrall and definitive sentence in this cause of faith made knowne unto them The whole Catholike Church ever since hath approved the fift Councell and the decree thereof and therefore hath contradicted condemned and accursed the Popes sentence as the Councell had done And none I hope will be so impudently hereticall as to call not onely the fift generall and holy Councell but the whole Catholike Church of God heretikes who yet must all be heretikes or else the dissenting from yea the detesting and accursing the Popes Cathedrall sentence in a cause of faith cannot make one an heretike 6. I say more and adde this as a further consequent on that which hath been declared That none can now assent to their Popes or to their Cathedrall definitions and doctrines maintained by the present Romane Church but eo nomine even for that very cause they are convicted condemned and accursed heretikes For the manifesting of which conclusion I will begin with that their fundamentall position of the Popes Cathedrall infallibility in defining causes of faith whereof before I have so often made mention And to prove the present Romane Church to bee hereticall herein two things are to be declared the one that this is indeed the position or doctrine of their Church the other that this doctrine is hereticall and for such condemned by the Catholike Church 7. For the former that the assertion of Popes infallibility in defining causes of faith is the doctrine of the present Romane Church I thinke none conversant in their writings will make doubt Give mee leave to propose some testimonies of their owne The Pope saith Bellarmine when hee teacheth the whole Church those things which belong to faith nullo casu errare potest hee can by no possible meanes then erre And this as he saith is certissimum a most certaine truth and in the end hee addeth this is a signe Ecclesiam totam sentire that the whole Church doth beleeve the Pope to be in such causes infallible So he testifying this to be the judgement and doctrine of their whole Church The Iesuite Coster for himselfe and their whole Church saith We doe constantly deny the Popes vel haeresim docere posse vel errorem proponere to be able either to teach an heresie or to propose an errour to be beleeved When the Pope saith Bozius teacheth the Church or sets forth a decree of faith Divinitùs illi praeclusa est omnis via God then stoppeth every way unto him which might bring him into errour Againe in making such decrees nunquam valuit aut valebit facere contra fidem he never was he never shall be able to doe ought against the faith We beleeve saith Gretzer
this it owne selfe note this especially and all other Articles of faith doe depend upon this all Articles of faith doe hang hoc unum praesupponunt they all praesuppose this and take it for granted This and much more hath Stapleton 16. But what speake I of Bellarmine or Stapleton though the latter hath most diligently sifted this cause This position that the Church is the last Iudge and so the lowest foundation of their faith is the decreed doctrine of their Trent Councell and therefore the consenting voyce of their whole Church and of every member thereof For in that Councell the Church is defined to bee the Iudge of the sense and interpretation of the Scriptures and by the like reason it is to iudge of traditions and of the sense of them Now because all doubts and controversies of faith depend on the one of these it clearly followeth upon that decree that the very last stay in all doubts of faith is the Churches judgement but that upon no other nor higher stay doth or can relie for whatsoever you take besides this the truth the waight and validity of all must be tried in the Church at her judgement it must stand or fall yea if you make a doubt of the Churches judgement it selfe even that as all other must be ended by the judgement of the Church it is the last Iudge of all This to bee the true meaning of the Trent Councel Bellarmine both saw and professeth when hee saith The Church that is the Pope with a Councell is Iudge of the sense of the Scripture omnium controversiarum and of all controversies of faith and in this all Catholikes do agree and it is expresly set downe in the Trent Councell So Bellarmine testifying this to be both the decreed doctrine of their generall and approved Councell and the consenting judgment of all that are Romane Catholikes 17. Now all this which they have said of the Church if you will have it in plaine termes and without circumloquution belongs onely to the Pope who is vertually both Church and Councell As the Church or Councell is called infallible no otherwise but by a Synechdoche because the Pope who is the head both of Church and Councell is infallible So is the Church or Councell called the foundation of faith or last principle on which their faith must relie by the same figure Synechdoche because the Pope who is the head of them both is the foundation of faith And whosoever is a true Romane Catholike or member of their present Church hee beleeveth all other doctrines because the Church that is the Pope doth teach them and the Pope to teach them infallibly he beleeveth for it selfe because the Pope saith hee is in such teaching infallible This infallibility of the Pope is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the very corner stone the foundation stone the rocke and fundamentall position of their whole faith and religion which was the point that I purposed to declare 18. I have hitherto declared and I feare too abundantly that the assertion of the Popes Cathedrall infallibilitie in causes of faith is not onely a position but the very fundamentall position of all the doctrines of the present Romane Church In the next place we are to prove that this position is hereticall and that for such it was adjudged and condemned by the Catholike Church In the proofe whereof I shall not need to stay long This whole treatise and even that which hath already beene declared touching the Constitution of Pope Vigilius doth evidently confirme the same For seeing the defending of the Three Chapters hath been proved to be hereticall the Constitution of Vigilius made in defence of those Chapters must of necessity be confessed to be hereticall Nay if you well consider you shall see that this very position of the Popes Cathedrall infallibilitie is adjudged to bee hereticall For the fift generall Councell knew this cause of the Three Chapters to bee a cause of faith They knew further that Pope Vigilius by his Apostolicall decree and Cathedrall Constitution had defined that those Three Chapters ought to bee defended Now seeing they knew both these and yet judicially defined the defence of those Three Chapters to be hereticall and for such accursed it even in doing this they define the Cathedrall judgement of Vigilius in this cause of Faith to be hereticall and therefore most certainly and à fortiori define this position That the Popes Cathedrall sentence in a cause of faith is infallible to bee hereticall and for such they anathematize both it and all that defend it And because the judgement and definitive sentence of the fift Councell is consonant to all former and confirmed by all subsequent Councels till the Laterane Synod under Leo the tenth it unavoydably hence ensueth that the same position of the Popes Cathedrall infallibility in causes of faith is by the judgement of all generall Councells untill that time that is by the constant and uniforme consent of the whole Catholike Church adjudged condemned and accursed for hereticall and all who defend it for heretikes And seeing we have cleerly proved the whole present Romane Church and all that are members therof to defend this position yea to defend it as the maine foundation of their whole faith the evidence of that assertion which I proposed doth now manifestly appeare That none can now assent to the Pope or to the doctrines of the present Church of Rome but he is eo nomine even for that very cause adjudged and condemned for hereticall and that even in the very ground and foundation of his faith 19. From the foundation let us proceed to the walls and roofe of their religion Thinke you the foundation thereof is onely hereticall and the doctrines which they build thereon orthodoxall Nothing lesse They are both sutable both hereticall That one fundamentall position is like the Trojan horse in the wombe of it are hid many troopes of heresies If Liberius confirme Arianisme Honorius Monothelitisme Vigilius Nestorianisme these all by vertue of that one assertion must passe currant for Catholike truths Nay who can comprehend I say not in words or writing but in his thought and imagination all the blasphemous and hereticall doctrines which by all their Popes have beene or if as yet they have not which hereafter may be by succeeding Popes defined to bee doctrines of faith Seeing Stapleton assures us That the Church of this or any succeeding age may put into the Canon and number of sacred and undoubtedly Canonicall bookes the booke of Hermas called Pastor and the Constitutions of Clement the former being as their owne notes censure it haeresibus fabulis opplet us full of heresies and fables rejected by Pope Gelasius with his Romane Synod the later being stuffed also with many impious doctrines condemning lawfull mariage as fornication and allowing fornication as lawfull with many the like impieties which in Possevine are to
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon manifestation that the Scriptures taught this certainely his professiō of Arianisme with such a professiō to hold the Scriptures could not make him an hereticke no more then Cyprians profession of Rebaptization or Irenees of the millenarie heresie did make them heretikes Erre hee should as they did but being not pertinacious in error hereticke hee could not be as they were not But it falls out otherwise with all heretickes They professe to hold the Scripture yet so that they resolve not to forsake that private doctrine which they have chosen to maintaine That they will hold and they will have that to be the doctrine of the Scripture notwithstanding all manifestation to the contrarie even of the Scriptures themselves They resolve of this that whosoever Bishops Councells or Church teach the contrarie to that or say judge that the Scripture so teacheth they all erre or mistake the meaning of the Scriptures Thus did not Cyprian nor Irenee And this wilfull and pertinacious resolution it is which evidently sheweth that in truth they beleeve not the Scriptures but beleeve their own fancies though they say a thousand times that they beleeve and embrace whatsoever the Scriptures teach for did they beleeve any doctrine say Arianisme eo nomine because the Scripture teacheth it they would presently beleeve the contrarie thereunto when it were manifested unto them as is was to the Arians by the Nicen Coūcell that the Scripture taught the contrarie to their error Seeing this they will not doe It is certaine that they hold their private opiniō eo nomine because they will hold it and they hold it to bee the doctrine of scripture not because it is so but because they will have it to bee so say what any will or can to the contrarie So their owne will and not Scripture is the reason why they beleeve it nay why they hold it with such a stiffe opinion for beleife it is not it cannot be This pertinacie to have beene in the Nestorians Eutycheans and the rest is evident Had they beleeved as they professed the faith decreed at Nice and Ephesus then upon manifestation of their errors out of those Councels they would have renounced their heresies but seeing the Nestorians persisted to hold two persons in Christ notwithstanding that the whole Councell of Ephesus manifested unto them that the Nicene Councel held but one person and seeing the Eutycheans persisted to hold but one nature after the union notwithstanding that the whole Councell at Chalcedon manifested unto them that the holy Ephesine Synod held two natures to abide in him after the union they did hereby make it evident unto all that they so professed to hold those Councels as that they resolved not to forsake their Nestorian and Eutichean heresies for any manifestation of the truth or conviction of their error out of those Councels and their profession of them was in effect as if they had said we hold those Councels and will have them to teach what wee affirme whatsoever any man or Councell saith or can say to the contrarie The like must be said of Pope Vigilius in this cause Had he so professed to hold the Councell of Chalcedon as that upon manifestion that the Three Chapters were condemned by it he would have forsaken the defence of them then certainely his defending of these 3. Chapters had not bin pertinacious nor should have made him an hereticke but his profession to hold the faith decreed at Chalcedon notwithstanding his error about the 3. Chapters should have made him a catholike But seeing Vig. persisted to defend the 3. Chapt. though it was made evidēt unto him by the Synodall judgement of the fift Councell that the definition of faith decreed at Chalcedon condemned them all he by this persisting in heresie did demonstrate to all that he professed to hold the Councell at Chalcedon no otherwise then with a pertinacious resolution not to forsake the defence of those Three hereticall Chapters although the whole Church of God should manifest unto him that the Councell of Chalcedon condemned the same and for this cause his defending of those three Chapters with this pertinacie and wilfull resolution declareth him to bee indeed an hereticke notwithstanding his profession to hold the Councell of Chalcedon and faith thereof whereby all those Chapters are condemned which profession being joyned with the former pertinacie could not now either make or declare him to be a Catholike 18. The very fame must bee said of the present Romane Church and members thereof Did they in such sort professe to hold the fift Councel and faith thereof as that upon manifestation that this Councell beleeved taught and decreed that the Popes Cathedrall sentence in a cause of faith is fallible and de facto hath beene hereticall they would condemne that their fundamentall heresie of the Popes Cathedrall infallibilitie decreed in their Laterane and Trent assemblies then should they much rather for their profession of the fift Councell and faith thereof bee orthodoxall then for professing together with this the Popes Cathedrall infallibilitie bee hereticall But seeing they know by the very Acts and judiciall sentence of that fift Councell by which the Cathedrall Constitution of Vigilius is condemned and accursed for hereticall in this cause of faith touching the Three Chapters that the fift Councell beleeved this and decreed under the censure of an Anathema that all others should beleeve it and that all who beleeve the contrary are heretikes seeing I say notwithstanding this manifestation of the faith of that Councell they persist to defend the Popes Cathedrall infallibility in those causes yea defend it as the very foundation of their faith this makes it evident to all that they do no otherwise professe to hold this fift Councell or the other whether precedent or following for they all are consonant to this but with this pertinacious resolution not to forsake that their fundamentall heresie and therefore their expresse profession of this fift and other generall Councels yea of the Scriptures themselves cannot be so effectuall to make them Catholikes as the profession of the Popes infallibility which is joyned with this pertinacy is to make and demonstrate them to be heretikes 19. There is yet a further point to be observed touching the pertinacy of Vigilius For one may be and often is pertinacious in his errour not onely after but even before conviction or manifestation of the truth made unto him and this happeneth whensoever hee is not paratus corrigi prepared or ready to be informed of the truth and corrected thereby or when he doth not or will not tanta solicitudine quaerere veritatem with care and diligence seeke to know the truth as after S. Austen and out of him Occham Gerson Navar Alphonsus à Castro and many others doe truly teach See now I pray you how farre Vigilius was from this care of seeking and preparation to embrace the truth He by his
Nice shall be held for a generall Councell because it defendeth and commandeth the worship of Images though it be full of blasphemous absurdities and was called by an insolent woman domineering over her husband and devoted wholly to superstition The Councell of Laterane though consisting of none in a manner but the Popes creatures shall in despight of the Oecumenicall Councels of Pisa Constance and Basil bee held a holy and generall Councell because it defines that the Pope is above generall Councels and for greater reason will the Pope advance the small Conventicle of Trent to the honour of a sacred Oecumenicall Councell because it is throughly for them in all points though as a learned Bishop present at that Councell truely affirmes that matters in it came to that passe through the wickednesse of those hungry Bishops that hung upon the Popes sleeve and were created on the sudden by the Pope for the purpose that that Councell seemed to bee an assembly not of Bishops but of Hobgoblins not of men but of Images moved like the statues of Daedalus by the sinewes of others Lastly for their pretended title of Catholike Church it may be said of it as it was of Pompeius Sirname in his declining age and fame Stat magni nominis umbra 't is but the shadow of a great name for by it they meane nothing but their particular Church of Rome or the Pope himselfe Thus Bellarmine glosseth upon the words of our Saviour Matth. 16. the Pope Peters successor is bid to tell the Church that is to tell himselfe as Governour and the Church which hee governs Gretzer comes off more roundly Thou wilt say they interpret the Church the Pope I grant it what then And Greg de Valent. By the name of the Church wee understand the Head of the Church the Pope and Bozius declares this mysterie more explicitely The Pope sustaineth the person of all Bishops of all Councels of the whole Church The learned Author then of this ensuing Tractate foyling the Pope consequently foyleth the whole Romane Church though he take onely Vigilius to taske yet in overturning his Chaire hee overthroweth as hath been shewed all the Romane religion which is fundamentally in the Popes Decree and the whole Romane Church which is vertually as they teach in his person For as Pope Vigilius not as a private man but as Pope in Cathedra not sitting alone but with his Synod may erre not onely in matter of fact but in matter of faith judicially and doctrinally determining heresie and commanding it to bee received for Catholike truth and if this decision and determination of his bee reversed condemned and accursed in a lawfully called sacred and Oecumenicall Synod approved by the Christian world all which are in the following Treatise punctually and uncontroulably proved against all cavils of moderne Papists Ecquis posthac Paparum numen adoret Will any man hereafter not wholly given over to be infatuated with strong delusions adore the Popes Chaire or kisse his foote or pawne his salvation upon his Cathedrall determination By all this discourse thou maist see Christian Reader the maine scope of the Author I shall not need to inlarge upon other questions of lesser moment though now more in vogue which upon the by and occasionally this learned Writer accutely handleth both in this worke and others especially in that imposed upon him by our late Soveraigne of blessed memory in defence of our Church Chap. 35 36 37 38 78. Wherfore sith the Composer of this Treatise is most orthodoxall the argument of great importance the manner of handling very exact and accurate I doubt not but thou wilt give it such entertainment as that thereby others may bee incouraged to tread in his steps and to guide thee in the right way What though the worke be of some bulke and waight who ever found fault with gold for that it was too massie and heavy When Tully was asked which Oration of Demosthenes he liked best hee answered the longest and questionlesse in bookes of this nature caeteris paribus the largest which meete with all possible or at least probable objections and solidly refutes them give the best satisfaction Is it not a shame to see in many mens studies idle Poems Astreas Guzmans and play-books in folio but divinity books in decimo sexto or slender pāphlets stitcht up in blew coats without any cognizāce glancing at Church or State or trēching upon Controversies better buried alive than to bee revived after they are dead which are cryed up by the common adversary of purpose to foment discords betweene the professors of the Gospell that whilst Pastores odia exercent Lupus intret Ovile the shepheards are at strife the Wolfe may make havocke of the flocke which I speake not for a justitium to any errour or that I wish any way should bee given to those plausible tenents to corrupt reason which one of late fitlv compared to flat bottom'd Boates sent from our neighbouring Countries to land Popery in England But first my desire is that all that agree in the love of the same truth may seeke that truth in love and continually pray for the peace of Ierusalem next I pray that our love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment that wee may discerne things that differ and so seeke by all good and lawfull meanes to destroy the wrigling tayle of the Adder whose head was smitten off 1200. yeares agoe in a Synod at Palestine that yet our principall care bee to drive out the Romish Basiliske or rather the King of the Locusts against whose poyson I commend the ensuing Discourse as a soveraigne antidote Lambeth April 26 Anno Dom. 1631. Thine in the Lord Iesus DANIEL FEATLEY THE CONTENTS OF THE SEVERALL CHAPTERS CONTAINED IN THIS ENSVING TREATISE Cap. 1. THat Iustinian assembled the fift generall Councell at Constantinople to define the doubt of faith which arose about the Three Chapters Pag. 1. 2. That the fift Generall Councell when Pope Vigilius wilfully refused to come unto it was held without the Popes presence therin either by himselfe or by his Legates pag. 4. 3. That Pope Vigilius during the time of the fift Councell published his Apostolicall Constitution in defence of the Three Chapters p. 7. 4. That the holy Generall Councell in their Synodall judgement contradicted the Popes Apostolicall Constitution and definitive sentence in that cause of faith made knowne before unto them 14. 5. The first Exception of Baronius pretending that the cause of the Three Chapters was no cause of faith refuted 36. 6. That the first reason of Vigil touching the First Chapter why Theodorus of Mopsvestia ought not to be condemned Because none after their death ought Noviter to bee condemned concernes the faith and is hereticall 47. 7. That the second reason of Vigilius touching the First Chapter why Theodorus of Mopsvestia ought not to bee condemned
a view of the particulars and of their following Sessions how this Cathedrall sentence of the Pope was entertained by the holy generall Councill CAP. 4. That the holy generall Councill in their Synodall Iudgement contradicted the Popes Apostolicall Constitution and definitive sentence in that cause of faith made knowne unto them 1. IN the sixt which was the very next Sessions after they had knowne the Popes will and pleasure contrary to the Apostolicall authoritie and command of Vigilius the Holy Synod began to examine the Epistle of Ibas for the causes of Theodorus and of Theodoret were sufficiently discussed in their former Collations And first of all alledging a saying of the Emperour to which themselves doe assent they thus say which being well observed gives light to the whole cause and openeth both the error of Vigilius and the ground thereof Because the most holy Emperor added among those things which he writ unto us that some indevouring to defend the Epistle of Ibas presume to say that it was approved by the holy Councill of Chalcedon using the words of one or two most religious Bishops who were in that Councill as spoken for that Epistle cum alij omnes whereas all the rest were of another minde we thinke it needfull this question being proposed to recite the Epistle of Ibas Thus said the Synod even at the first calling the Popes judgement Presumption and checking him both for pretending the Councill of Chalcedon and for alledging the Interlocutions of one or two as the Iudgement of that Councill For that the whole Synod consented to that speech of the Emperor appeareth both by their owne words where they shew this to be so odious an untruth that they all cried out against it saying The Decree of the Councill at Chalcedon condemneth this Epistle hee that receiveth this Episte rejecteth the Councill at Chalcedon and by those speeches of Theodorus Bishop of Cesarea Andreas Bishop of Ephesus and others to which the whole Synod assented Quomodo praesumunt quidam dicere How do any presume to say that this impious Epistle of Ibas was approved by the Councill of Chalcedon And againe Miramur quomodo we doe even marvell that any will defend this Epistle by the name of the Councill at Chalcedon and yet more sharply reproving Vigilius with others for using so deceitfull a proofe they adde Astutia enim haeretica utentes for they who so say of the Councill at Chalcedon using the fraud and subtilitie of heretickes doe produce the Interlocutions of one or two as spoken for that Epistle whereas this is to be set downe for a certaine rule that in Councills non unius aut secundi interloquutionem attendere oportet the speeches of one or two must not be attended but what is defined by all or by the greater part of the Councill And yet further expressing their dislike of that fallacious and sophisticall reason which Vigilius herein used the whole Councill said The Holy Fathers at Chalcedon did pro nihilo habere quae ab uno vel duobils pro eadem Epistola dicta sunt did esteeme as nothing or made no reckning at all of those things which were spoken for that Epistle by one of two And those one or two were Pascasinus and Maximus on whose interlocutions the Pope as you have formerly seene grounded his decree concerning this Chapter and if the proofe be of so small account by the judgement of that most holy Councill it inevitably followeth that the Decree of Vigilius which wholly for this Chapter relyeth on this proofe is no better then the ground thereof that is in very deed worth nothing at all 2. Now that all this is purposely spoken against Vigilius and his Constitution which before this 6 Collation was made knowne unto them beside that it is evident by the Acts themselves seeing the Councill doth exactly mention and refute all the principall points on which Vigilius doth insist Baronius doth not onely professe but truly upon this reason doth prove the same for entreating of this 6. Session and mentioning the contents thereof This was done saith he as is evident against the Constitution of Pope Vigilius although for reverence they doe not name him and partly also they excuse him partly they reprove him using especially this argument Because in Councils we must not attend what one or two say but what is defined by all or the most Thus Baronius who as he truly acknowlegeth the Council herein to have dealt against Vigilius and his Decree so in the other points hee bewrayes too great partialitie towards Vigilius for the Councill is so far from excusing the pope that neither Baronius could nor any of his friends shall be ever able to shew that excuse And for their not naming of Vigilius it proceeded not from any reverence they bare unto him though in every respect they gave him all honour that was due to him or his place but the true reason thereof was this because they neither did nor thought it fit to name any one of those whom they did condemne but without mention of their names in particular condemned them all under one generall Appellation of Sequaces Nestorij et Theodori the followers of Nestorius and Theodorus their Disciples or defenders which titles they saw the Emperor to have used and given unto them before both in his Edict and in his Epistle to the Synod which common names to have as fitly and truly agreed to Pope Vigilius as to any else the Councill knew right well seeing in every point concerning these Three Chapters he wholly agreed with them all The followers of Theodorus and Nestorius pretended and presumed to say that the Councill of Chalcedon approved the Epistle of Ibas Vigilius pretended and presumed to say the same The Fathers at Chalcedon saith he pronounced the Epistle of Ibas to be Orthodoxall The followers of Theodorus and Nestorius fraudulently used the Interlocutions of one or two as the Iudgment of the whole Councill at Chalcedon Vigilius used the very same fraud and for this very cause as the Cardinall confesseth is reproved by the Councill Seeing then Vigilius did at this time and in this cause walke hand in hand and step by step with the other followers of Theodorus and Nestorius The holy Councill judged it most fit and sufficient as it was indeed to refuse and condemne both him and his Constitution by that common name which agreed to all the rest with whom in one common doctrine both for his position and proofes thereof he fully conspired 3. The holy Council hauing now fully discovered the error of the Popes position and the fallacious proofe which he used to uphold the same procedeth to refute his very definitive sentence prooving that neither the Epistle of Ibas is to be received as Catholike neither that by it Ibas was or ought to be judged a Catholike which were the two maine points of the Popes Decree touching
whom they loose se et non illa destruit he destroyeth himselfe but not those Councils and whosoever thinketh otherwise let him be accursed Thus Pope Gregory the great ratifying all the former anathemaes of the Councill and accursing all that labour to unty those bands By Agatho by Leo the second who both call this an holy Synod and not to stay in particulars All their Popes after the the time of Gregorie were accustomed at their election to make profession of this fift as of the former Councils and that in such solemne and exact manner after the time of Hadrian the second that they professed as their forme it selfe set downe by Anton. Augustinus doth witnesse to embrace the eight generall Councils whereof this was one to hold them pari honore et veneratione in equal honor and esteeme to keepe them intirely usque ad unum apicem to the least iôta to follow and teach whatsoever they decreed and whatsoever they condemned to condemne both with their mouth and heart A like forme of profession is set downe in the Councill at Constance where the Councill having first decreed the power and authoritie of the Pope to be inferiour and subject to the Councill and that he ought to be obedient to them both in matters of faith and orders of reformation by this their superior authoritie ordaineth That every Pope at the time of his election shall professe that corde et ore both in words and in his heart hee doth embrace and firmely beleeve the doctrines delivered by the holy Fathers and by the eleven generall Councils this fift being reckned for one and that he will keepe defend and teach the same faith with them usque ad unum apicem even to the least syllable To goe no further Baronius confesseth that not onely Gregory and his predecessors unto Vigilius sed successores omnes but all the successors of Gregory are knowne to have received and confirmed this fift Councill 28. Neither onely did the Popes approve it but all orthodoxal Bishops in the world it being a custome as Baronius sheweth that they did professe to embrace the seven generall Councills which forme of faith Orthodoxi omnes ex more profiteri deberent all orthodoxall Bishops by custome were bound to professe And this as it seemeth they did in those Literae Formatae or Communicatoriae or Pacificae so they were called which from ancient time they used to give and receive For by that forme of letters they testified their communion in faith and peaceable agreemēt with the whole Catholike Church Such an Vniforme consent there was in approving this fift Council in all succeeding Councills Popes and Bishops almost to these dayes 29. From whence it evidently and unavoidably ensueth that as this fift Synod so all succeeding Councils Popes and Bishops to the time of the Councill of Constance that is for more then fourteene hundred yeares together after Christ doe all with this fift Councill condemne and accurse as hereticall the judiciall and definitive sentence of Pope Vigilius delivered by his Apostolical authority for instruction of the whole Church in this cause of faith therfore they al with an uniforme consent did in heart beleeve and in words professe and teach that the Popes Cathedrall sentence in causes of faith may be and de facto hath been hereticall that is they all did beleeve and teach that doctrine which the reformed Churches maintaine to be truly ancient orthodoxall and catholike such as the whole Church of Christ for more then 14 hundred yeares beleeved and taught but the doctrine even the Fundamentall position whereon all their doctrines doe relie and which is vertually included in them all which the present Church of Rome maintaineth to be new hereticall and accursed such as the whole Church for so many hundred yeares together with one consent beleeved and taught to be accursed and hereticall It hence further ensueth that as this fift Councill did so all the fore-mentioned generall Councils Popes and Bishops doe with it condemne and accurse for heretikes not onely Vigilius but all who either have or doe hereafter defend him and his Constitution even all who either by word or writing have or shall maintaine that the Popes Cathedrall judgement in causes of faith is infallible that is all who are members of the present Romane Church and so continue till their death nay they not onely accurse all such but further also even all who doe not accurse such And because the decree of this fift Councill is approved by them to the least iôta it in the last place followeth that the condemning and accursing for hereticall that doctrine of the Popes infallibilitie in causes of faith and accursing for heretikes all who either by word or writing have or doe at any time hereafter defend the same and so presist till they dye nay not onely the accursing of all such but of all who doe not accurse them is warranted by Scriptures by Fathers by all generall Councils by all Popes and Bishops that have beene for more then 14. hundred yeares after Christ. 30. This Vniforme consent continued in the Church untill the time of Leo the 10 and his Laterane Councill Till then neither was the Popes authoritie held for supreme nor his judiciall sentence in causes of faith held for infallible nay to hold these was judged and defined to be hereticall and the maintainers of them to be heretikes For besides that they all till that time approved this fift Councill wherein these truths were decreed the same was expresly decreed by two generall Councils the one at Constance the other at Basil not long before that Laterane Synod In both which it was defined that not the Popes sentence but the Iudgement of a generall Councill is supremum in terris the highest judgement in earth for rooting out of errors and preserving the true faith unto which judgement every one even the Pope himselfe is subject and ought to obey it or if he will not is punishable by the same Consider beside many other that one testimony of the Councill of Basil and you shall see they beleeved and professed this as a Catholike truth which in all ages of the Church had beene and still ought to be embraced They having recited that Decree of the Councill at Constance for the supreme authority of a Councill to which the Pope is subject say thus Licet has esse veritates fidei catholicae satis constet although it is sufficiently evident by many declarations made both at Constance here at Basil that these are truths of the Catholike faith yet for the better confirming of all Catholikes herein This holy Synod doth define as followeth The verity of the power of a generall Councill above the Pope declared in the generall Councill at Constance and in this at Basil est veritas fidei Catholicae is a veritie of the Catholike faith and
cordiall profession there neither is nor can be any truth therein it being impossible to beleeve both the Popes Cathedrall judgement in causes of faith to be hereticall as the fift Councill defined and the Popes Cathedrall sentence in such causes to be infallible as their Laterane Councill decreed So by that profession is demonstrated that their doctrine of faith is both contradictory to it selfe such as none can possibly beleeve and withall new such as is repugnant to that faith which the whole Catholike Church of Christ embraced untill that very day of their Laterane Session 35 Yea and even then was not this holy truth abolished Foure moneths did not passe after that Laterane Decree was made but it was condemned by the whole Vniversitie of Paris as being contra fidem Catholicam against the catholike Faith and the authority of holy Councils And even to these dayes the French Church doth not onely distaste that Laterane Decree and hold a Generall Councill to be superiour to the Pope but their Councill also of Trent wherein that Laterane Decree is confirmed is by them rejected And what speake I of them Behold while Leo with his Laterane Councill strives to quench this catholike truth it bursts out with farre more glorious and resplendent beauty This stone which was rejected by those builders of Babylon was laid againe in the foundations of Sion by those Ezra's Nehemiah's Zorobabel's and holy Servants of the Lord who at the voyce of the Angell came out of Babylon and repaired the ruines of Ierusalem And even as certaine rivers are said to runne under or through the salt Sea and yet to receive no salt or bitter taste from it but at length to burst out send forth their owne sweet and delightfull waters Right so it fell out with this and some other doctrines of Faith This Catholike truth that the Popes judgement and Cathedrall sentence in causes of faith is not infallible borne in the first age of the Church and springing from the Scriptures and Apostles as from the holy mountaines of God for the space of 600 yeares and more passed with a most faire and spatious current like Tygris Euphrates watering on each side the Garden of the Lord or like Pactolus with golden streames inriching and beautifying the Church of God after that time it fell into the corrupted waters of succeeding ages brackish I confesse before their second Nycene Synod but after it and the next unto it extremely salt and unpleasant more bitter then the waters of Mara And although the nearer it came to the streets of Babylon it was still more mingled with the slime or mud of their Babylonish ditches yet for all that dangerous and long mixture continuing about the space of 730. yeares this truth all that time kept her native and primitive sweetnesse by the constant and successive professions of the whole Church throughout all those ages Now after that long passage through all those salt waves like Alpheus or Arethusa it bursts out againe not as they did in Sicily nor neare the Italian shores but as the Cardinall tells us in Germanie in England in Scotland in France in Helvetia in Polonia in Bohemia in Pannonia in Sueveland in Denmarke in Norway in all the Reformed Churches and being by the power and goodnesse of God purified from all that mud and corruption wherewith it was mingled all which is now left in it owne proper that is in the Romane channels it is now preserved in the faire current of those Orthodoxall Churches wherein both it and other holy doctrines of Faith are with no lesse sinceritie professed thē they were in those ancient times before they were mingled with any bitter or brackish waters 36 You see now the whole judgement of the Fift Generall Councill how in every point it contradicteth the Apostolicall Constitution of Pope Vigilius condemning and accursing both it for hereticall and all who defend it for heretikes which their sentence you see is consonant to the Scriptures and the whole Catholike Church of all ages excepting none but such as adhere to their new Laterane decree and faith An example so ancient so authenticall and so pregnant to demonstrate the truth which wee teach and they oppugne that it may justly cause any Papist in the world to stagger and stand in doubt even of the maine ground and foundation whereon all his faith relyeth For the full clearing of which matter being of so great importance and consequence I have thought it needful to rip up every veine and sinew in this whole cause concerning these Three Chapters and the Constitution of Vigilius in defence of the same and withall examine the weight of every doubt evasion excuse which eyther Cardinall Baronius who is instar omnium or Binius or any other moveth or pretendeth herein not willingly nor with my knowledge omitting any one reason or circumstance which either they urge or which may seeme to advantage or help them to decline the inevitable force of our former Demonstration CAP. V. The first Exception of Baronius pretending that the cause of the Three Chapters was no cause of faith refuted 1 THere is not as I thinke any one cause which Card. Baronius in all the Volumes of his Annalls hath with more art or industry handled then this concerning Pope Vigilius and the Fift Generall Councill In this hee hath strained all his wits moved and removed every stone under which hee imagined any help might be found eyther wholly to excuse or any way lessen the errour of Vigilius All the Cardinalls forces may be ranked into foure severall troupes In the first do march all his Shifts and Evasions which are drawne from the Matter of the Three Chapters In the second those which are drawne from the Popes Constitution In the third those which respect a subsequent Act of Vigilius In the fourth last those which concerne the fift General Councill After all these wherin cōsisteth the whole pith of the Cause the Cardinall brings forth another band of certaine subsidiary but most disorderly souldiers nay not souldiers they never tooke the Military oath nor may they by the Law of armes nor ever were by any worthy Generall admitted into any lawfull fight or so much as to set footing in the field meere theeves and robbers they are whom the Cardinall hath set in an ambush not to fight in the cause but onely like so many Shimei's that they might raile at and revile whomsoever the Cardinall takes a spleene at or with whatsoever hee shall be moved in the heat of his choler At the Emperour Iustinian at Theodora the Empresse at the cause it selfe of the Three Chapters at the Imperiall Edict at Theodorus Bishop of Cesarea at the Synodal acts yea at Pope Vigilius himselfe we wil first encounter the just forces of the Cardinall which onely are his lawfull warriours and having discomfited them we shall with ease cleare all the coasts of this cause
from all his theevish piraticall and disordered straglers 2. The first and chiefest exception of Baronius ariseth from the matter controversie it selfe touching these Three Chapters concerning which he pretendeth that no question of faith was handled therin so one dissenting from another in this cause might not be counted or called an heretike This was a question saith he de personis non de fide of persons and not of the faith Againe Vigilius knew Non de fide esse quaestionem sed de personis that there was no question moved herein about the faith but about certaine persons And yet more clearly In these disputations saith he about the Three Chapters as we have oftē said Nulla fuit quaestio de side ut alter ab altero aliter sentiens dici posset haereticus there was no question at all about the faith so that one dissenting from another herein might be called an heretike And this hee so confidently avoucheth that he saith of it Abomnibus absque ulla controversia consentitur all men agree herein without any controversie Thus Baronius whom Binius applauding saith Sciendum est bee it knowne to all men that in these disputations and differences about the Three Chapters non fuisse quaestionem ullam de fide sed tantummodo de personis there was no quaestion at all concerning the faith but only concerning the persons So he Whereby they would insinuate that Pope Vigilius did erre onely in a personall cause or in a matter of fact which they not unwillingly confesse that the Pope may doe but he erred not in a cause of faith or in any doctrinall position of faith wherein onely they defend him to bee infallible 3. Truly the Card. was driven to an extreme exigent when this poore shift must be the first and best shelter to save the infallibility of the Apostolike Chaire For to say truth the maine controversie touching these Three Chapters which the Councell condēned and Vigilius defended was onely doctrinall and directly belonging to the faith nor did it concerne the persons any other way but with an implication of that hereticall doctrine which they and the defenders of these Chapters under that colour did cunningly maintaine A truth so evident that I doe even labour with abundance of proofes 4. Iustinian the religious Emperour who called this Councell about this matter committed it unto them as a question of saith We have saith he commanded Vigilius to come together with you all and debate these Three Chapters that a determination may be given rectae fidei conveniens consonant to the right faith Againe stirring them up to give a speedy resolution in this cause hee addes this as a reason Quoniā qui de fide recta interrogatur for when one is asked concerning the right faith and puts off his answer therein this is nothing else but a deniall of the true confession for in questions answers quae de fide sunt which are questions of faith hee that is more prompt and ready is acceptable with God Thus the Emperour 5. The Holy Councell esteemed it as did the Emperour to be no other than a cause or question of faith for thus they say Cum de fide ratio movetur when a doubt or question is moved touching the faith even he is to be condemned who may hinder impiety but is negligent so to doe and therefore Festinavimus bonum fidei semen conservare ab impietatis Zizanijs We have hastened to preserve the good seed of faith pure from the tares of impietie So cleerly doth the whole generall Councell even in their definitive sentence call the condemning of the Three Chapters which themselves did a preserving of the good seed of faith and the defending of them which Vigilius did a sowing of hereticall weeds which corrupt the faith Againe We being enlightned by the holy Scriptures and the doctrine of the holy Fathers have thought it needfull to set downe in certaine Chapters those are the particular points of their Synodall judgement Et praedicationem veritatis haereticorum eorumque impietatis condemnationem both the preaching of the truth or true faith and the condemning of Heretikes and their impietie And in the end having set downe those Chapters and among them a particular and expresse condemning of these Three w th an anathema denounced to the defenders of thē they conclude thus We have confessed these things being delivered unto us both by the sacred Scriptures by the doctrine of the holy Fathers by those things wch are defined de unâ eâdemque fide concerning one and the same faith by the foure former Councels Then which nothing can be more cleare to witnesse their decree touching these Threee Chapters most nearely to concerne the faith unlesse some of Baronius his friends can make proofe that the condemning of heretikes and their impious heresies and the maintaining of that doctrine which the Scriptures and Fathers taught and the foure first Councels defined is not a point of faith 6. Neither onely did the Catholikes which were the condemners of these Three Chapters but the heretikes also which were the defenders of them they also consent in this truth that the question concerning them was a controversie or cause of faith Pope Vigilius in his Constitution still pretendeth his Defence of Those Chapters to be consonant to the Councell at Chalcedon and the Definition thereof and of the Epistle of Ibas hee expresly saith The Councel of Chalcedon pronounced it to be orthodoxall And none I suppose will doubt but that the question whether that or any other writing be orthodoxall and agreeable to the Definition of Chalcedon as Vigilius affirmed that Epistle to be or be heretical and repugnant to that Definition as the Holy Councell adjudged that Epistle to be is a plaine question and controversie of faith Victor B. of Tunen who suffered imprisonment and banishment for defence of these Three Chapters teacheth the like saying That Epistle of Ibas was approved and judged orthodoxall by the sentence of the Councell at Chalcedon and the condemning of these Three Chapters is the condemning and banishing of that Councell Facundus B. of Hermian who writ seven bookes of these Three Chapters doth more than abundantly witnesse this of him Victor thus writeth Evidentissime declaravit Facundus hath declared most evidently that those Three Chapters were condemned in proscriptione fidei Catholicae Apostolicae for the exiling and rooting out of the Catholike and Apostolike faith Facundus himselfe doth not onely affirme this but prove it also even by the judgement of Pope Vigilius Vigilius saith he esteemed the condemning of these Three Chapters to be so hainous a crime that hee thought it fit to be reproved by those words of the Apostle Avoid prophane novelties of words and opposition of science falsely so called which some professing have erred from the faith And hereupon as if he meant
purposely to refute this Evasion of Baronius which it seemeth some did use in those dayes he addes Quid adhuc quaeritur utrum contra fidem factum fuerit why doe any as yet doubt whether the condemning of them be against the faith seeing Pope Vigilius calleth it prophane noveltie and opposition of science whereby some have erred from the faith And a little after concluding This saith he is not to be thought such a cause as may bee tolerated for the peace of the Church sed quae merito judicatur contra ipsius fidei Catholicae statum commota but it must bee judged such a cause as is moved against the state of the Catholike faith Thus Facundus testifying both his owne and the judgement of the other defenders of those Chapters and by name of Pope Vigilius that they all esteemed and judged this to bee a question and controversie of faith of which Baronius tels us that in it there was moved no question at all concerning the faith and that Pope Vigilius knew that it was no question of faith 7. Now whereas the whole Church at that time was divided into two parts the Easterne Churches with the holy Councell condemning the Westerne with Pope Vigilius defending those Three Chapters seeing both the one side and the other consent in this point that this was a cause and question of faith what truth or credit thinke you is there in Baronius who saith that All men without any doubt agree herein that this is no cause or question of faith whereas all both the one side and the other agree in the quite contrary Truly the wisdome of the Cardinall is well worthy observing He consenteth to Vigilius in defending the Three Chapters wherein Vigilius was hereticall but dissenteth from Vigilius in holding this to be a cause of faith wherein Vigilius was orthodoxal as if he had made some vow to follow the Pope when the Pope forsakes the truth but to forsake the Pope when the Pope followeth the truth 8. Nor onely was this truth by that age acknowledged but by succeeding approved By Pope Pelagius who to reclame certaine Bishops from defence of those Chapters wherin they were earnest and had writ an apologie for the same useth this as one speciall reason because all those Chapters were repugnant to the Scriptures former Councels Consider saith he if the writings of Theodorus which deny Christ the Redeemer to bee the Lord the writings of Theodoret quae contra fidem edita which being published against the faith were afterwards by himsefe condemned and the Epistle of Ibas wherein Nestorius the enemy of the Church is defended if these bee consonant to the Propheticall Euangelicall and Apostolicall authority And againe of the Epistle of Ibas he addeth If this Epistle be received as true tota sanctae Ephesinae Synodus fides dissipatur the whole faith of the holy Ephesine Councell is overthrowne Let here some of Baronius friends tell us how that question or cause doth not concerne the faith the defending whereof which Vigilius did is by the judgement of Pope Pelagius repugnant to the Euangelical and Apostolicall doctrines and even an utter totall overthrow of the faith To Pelagius accordeth Pope Gregory who approved this Epistle of Pelagius cōmended it as a direction to others in this cause And what speake I of one or two seeing the Decree of this fift Councell wherein this is declared to be a cause of faith is consonant to all former and confirmed by all succeeding generall Councels Popes and Bishops til that time of Leo the 10. his Laterane Synod as before we have shewed was not this thinke you most insolent presumption in Baronius to set himselfe as a Iohannes ad oppositum against them all and oppose his owne fancy to the constant and consenting judgement of the whole Catholike Church for more than 1500 yeares together These all with one voyce professe this to be a cause of faith Baronius against them all maintaineth that it is no cause of faith and to heape up the full measure of his shame addeth a vast untruth for which no colour of excuse can be devised Consentitur ab omnibus that all men without any controversie agree herein that this is no question nor cause of faith 9. Besides all these Card. Bellarmine setteth downe divers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and cleare tokens whereby one may certainly know when a Councell decreeth or proposeth any doctrine tanquam de fide to be received as a doctrine of the Catholike faith This saith he is easily knowne by the words of the Councell for either they use to say that they explicate the Catholike faith or else that they who thinke the contrary are to be accounted heretikes or which is most frequent they anathmeatize those who thinke the cōtrary So he Let us now by these markes examine this cause and it will be most evident not onely by some one of them which yet were sufficient but by them all that the Holy Councell both held this controversie to be of faith and also proposed their decree herein as a Decree of faith 10. For the first the Councell in plaine termes professeth even in their definitive sentence that in their Decree they explane that same doctrine which the Scriptures the Fathers and the foure former Councels had delivered in their definitions of faith Then undoubtedly by Bellarmines first note their Decree herein is a Decree of faith seeing it is an explication of the Catholike faith 11. For the second the Councel in like sort in plain termes calleth the defēders of those three Chapters heretikes For thus cried al the Synod He who doth not anathematize this Epistle is an Heretike He who receiveth it is an Heretike This we say all And in their definitive sentence they professe that they set down the preaching of the truth Haereticorum condemnationem and the condemning of Heretikes So by the second marke of Bellarmine it is undoubted that the Councels Decree herein is a Decree of faith 12. The third note is more than demonstrative For the Holy Councell denounceth not once or twice but more I thinke than an hundred times an Anathema to them that teach contrary to their sentence Anathema to Theodorus anathema to him that doth not anathematize Theodorus we all anathematize Theodorus and his writings Anathema to the impious writing of Theodoret against Cyril Anathema to all that doe not anathematize them we all anathematize the impious Epistle of Ibas If any defend this Epistle or any part of it if any doe not anathematize it and the defenders of it let him be an Anathema 13. So by all the notes of Cardinall Bellarmine it is evident not onely that this question about the Three Chapters is a question of faith but which is more that the holy generall Councell proposed their Decree herein tanquam de fide as a Decree of faith Now because
every Christian is bound to beleeve certitudine fidei cui falsum subesse non potest with certainty of faith which cannot be deceived every doctrine and position of faith then especially when it is published and declared by a Decree of the Church to bee a doctrine of faith Seeing by this Decree of faith which the Councell now made not onely the Popes Apostolicall sentence in a cause of faith is condemned to bee hereticall but all they also who defend it to be Heretikes and accursed and seeing all defend it who maintaine the Popes cathedrall sentence to be infallible that is all who are members of the present Church of Rome it hence inevitably ensueth that every Christian is bound to beleeve certitudine fidei cui falsum subesse non potest not onely the doctrine even the fundamentall doctrine of the present Church of Rome to be hereticall but all that maintaine it that is all that are members of that Church to be heretikes and accursed unlesse disclaiming that heresie they forsake all communion with that Church Baronius perceiving all those Anathemaes to fall inevitably upon himselfe and their whole Church if this cause of the Three Chapters which Vigilius defended and defined by his Apostolicall Constitution that they must be defended if this I say were admitted to be a cause of faith that hee might shuffle off those Anathemaes which like the leprosie of Gehazi doth cleave unto them thought it the safest as indeed it was the shortest way to deny this to be a cause of faith which not onely by all the precedent witnesses but by the judgement of their owne Cardinall and all the three notes set downe by him is undeniably proved to bee a cause of faith and that the Decree of the Holy Councell concerning it is proposed as a Decree of faith 14. I might further adde their owne Nicholas Sanders who though he saw not much in matters of faith yet he both saw and professed this truth and therefore in plaine termes calleth the defending of the Three Chapters an heresie Now heresie it could not be unlesse it were a cause of faith seeing every heresie is a deviation from the faith But omitting him and some others of his ranke I will now in the last place adde one other witnesse which with the favourites of Baronius is of more weight and worth than all the former and that is Baronius himselfe who as he doth often deny so doth he often and plainly professe this to be a cause of faith Speaking of the Emperours Edict concerning these Three Chapters he bitterly reproveth yea he reproacheth the Emperour for that he would arrogate to himselfe edere sanctiones de fide Catholica to make Edicts about the Catholike faith Again the whole Catholike faith saith he would be in jeopardy if such as Iustinian de fide leges sanciret should make lawes concerning the faith Againe Pelagius the Popes Legate sounded an alarum contra ejusdem Imperatoris de fide sancitū Edictū against the Emperors Edict published concerning the faith And yet againe Pope Vigilius writ letters against those qui edito ab Imperatore fidei decreto subscripsissent who had subscribed to the Emperours Edict of faith So often so expresly doth Baronius professe this to be a cause of faith which himselfe like the Aesopicall Satyr had so often and so expresly denied to be a cause of faith and that also so confidently that he shamed not to say Consentitur ab omnibus all men agree herein that this is no cause of faith whereas Baronius himselfe dissenteth herein confessing in plaine termes this to be a cause of the Catholike faith 15. The truth is the Cardinals judgement was unsetled and himselfe in a manner infatuated in handling this whole cause touching Vigilius and the fift generall Councell For having once resolved to deny this one truth that Vigilius by his Apostolicall sentence maintained and defined heresie and decreed that all other should maintaine it which one truth like a Thesean threed would easily and certainly have directed him in all the rest of his Treatise now he wandreth up and down as in a Labyrinth toiling himselfe in uncertainties and contradictions saying and gainsaying whatsoever either the present occasiō which he hath in hand or the partialitie of his corrupted judgement like a violent tempest doth drive him unto when the Emperour or his Edict to both which he beares an implacable hatred comes in his way then this question about the Three Chapters must bee a cause of faith for so the Cardinall may have a spacious field to declame against the Emperour for presuming to intermeddle and make lawes in a cause of faith But when Pope Vigilius or his Constitution with which the Cardinall is most partially blinded meet him then the case is quite altered the question about the Three Chapters must then bee no more a question or cause of faith for that is an easie way to excuse Vigilius and the infallibilitie of his Chaire he erred onely in some personall matters in such the Pope may erre he erred not in any doctrinall point nor in a cause of faith in such is hee and his Chaire infallible 16. There remaineth one doubt arising out of the words of Gregory by the wilfull mistaking whereof Baronius was misse-led He seemeth to teach the same with the Cardinall where speaking of this fift Synod hee saith In eâ de personis tantummodo non autem de fide aliquid est gestum In it was onely handled somewhat concerning those persons but nothing concerning the faith So Gregory whose words if they be taken without any limitation are not onely untrue but repugnant to the consenting judgement of Councels and Fathers above mentioned even to Gregory himselfe for speaking of all the five Councels held before his time he saith Whosoever embraceth praedictarum Synodorum fidem the faith explaned by those five Councels peace be unto them And if hee had not in such particular manner testified this yet seeing hee approveth as was before shewed this fift Councel and the Decree therof seeing that Decree clearly expresseth this to have beene a cause of faith grounded on Scriptures and the definitions of faith set downe in former Councels even thereby doth Gregory certainly imply that he accounted this cause for no other than as the Synod it selfe did for a cause of faith 17. What then is Gregory repugnant to himselfe herein I list not to censure so of him rather by his owne words I desire to explane his meaning There were divers in his time as also in his Predecessor's Pelagius who condemned this fift Councell because as they supposed it had altered and abolished the faith of the Councell at Chalcedon by condemning these Three Chapters and had established a new doctrine of faith Gregorie intreating against these whom he truly calleth malignant persons and troublers of the Church denieth and that most justly that this
his life time not onely uncondemned by the Church but in all outward pompe honour and applause of the Church either himselfe cunningly cloaking or the Church not curiously and warily observing his heresie while hee liveth yet such a man neither lives nor dyes in the intire peace and communion of the Church The Church hath such peace with none who have not peace with God nor communion with any who have not union with Christ. It condemned him not because as it teacheth others so it selfe judgeth most charitably of all It judged him to be such as hee seemed and professed himselfe to bee It was not his person but his profession with which the Church in his life time had communion and peace As soone as ever it seeth him not to bee indeed such as hee seemed to bee it renounceth all peace and communion with him whether dead or alive nay rather it forsaketh not her communion with him but declareth unto all that shee never had communion or peace with this man such as hee was indeed before though she had peace with such as he seemed to bee Shee now denounceth a double anathema against him condemning him first for beleeving or teaching heresie and then for covering his heresie under the visor of a Catholike and of the Catholike faith So justly and fully doth the Emperour and Councell refute both the personall errour of Vigilius in that hee affirmeth Theodorus to have dyed in the peace of the Church and the doctrinall also in that he affirmeth it upon this ground that in his life time hee was not condemned by the Church 5. Now whereas Baronius saith that Vigilius had just and worthy reasons to defend this first Chapter one of which is this because if this were once admitted that one dying in the communion of the Church might after his death be condemned for an heretike pateret ostium there would a gap be opened that every ecclesiasticall writer licet in communione Catholica defunctus esset although hee dyed in the communion of the Catholike Church might after death be out of his writings condemned for an heretike truly hee feareth where no feare is at all This gap nay this gate and broad street of condemning the dead hath laine wide open this sixteen hundred years Can the Cardinall or any of his friends in all these successiōs of ages wherin have dyed many thousand millions of Catholikes can he name or finde but so much as one who hath truly dyed in the peace and communion of the Church and yet hath beene after his death condemned by the Catholike Church for an heretike He cannot The Church should condemne her owne selfe if shee condemned any with whom she had peace and whom she embraceth in her holy communion which is no other but the society with God Such indeed may dye in some errour yea in an errour of faith as Papias Irenee Iustine in that of the millenaries as Cyprian as is likely and other Africane Bishops in that of Rebaptization but either dye heretikes or be after their death condemned by the Catholike Church for heretikes they cannot 6. But there is most just cause why the Cardinall and all his fellowes should feare another matter which more neerely concernes themselves and feare it even upon that Catholike position that the dead out of their writings may justly bee condemned They should feare to have such an itching humour to write in the Popes Cause for his supremacy of authority or infallibility of his Cathedrall judgement feare to stuffe their Volumes as the Cardinall hath done his Annals with heresies and oppositions against the faith feare to continue and persist in their hereticall doctrine feare to die before they have attained to that which is secunda post naufragium tabula the second and onely boord to save them after their shipwracke to dye I say before they revoked disclamed condemned or beene the first men to set fire to their hereticall doctrines and writings and at least in words if not as the custome was by oath and handwriting to testifie to the Church their desire to returne unto her bosome These are the things indeed they ought to feare knowing that howsoever they flatter themselves with the vaine name of the Church yet in very truth so long as their writings remaine testifying that they defended the Popes infallibility in defyning causes of faith or any other doctrine relying on that ground whereof in their life time they have not made a certaine and knowne recantation they neither lived nor dyed in the peace and communion of the Catholike Church but may at any time after their death and ought whēsoever occasiō is offered be declared by the Church to have dyed in their heresies and therefore dyed both out of the peace of God and of the holy Church of God This unlesse they seriously and sincerely performe it is not I nor any of our writers whom they imagine but most unjustly out of spleene and contention to speake these things who condemne them but it is the whole Catholike Church Shee by approving this fift Councell and the true decree therof condemns this Apostolicall Cathedral definition of Vigilius and all that defend it that is all the members of the present Romane Church to be hereticall and as convicted heretikes she declares them to die anathematized that is utterly separated from God and from the peace and most blessed communion with the Church of God howsoever they boast themselves to be the onely children of the Church of God 7. If any shall here reply or thinke that by the former examples of Papias Irenee Iustine Cyprian and the rest Baronius and other mēbers of the present Romane church may be excused that these also as the former though dying in their error may dye in the peace cōmunion of the Church this I confesse is a friendly but no firme excuse for although they are both alike in this that the former as well as the latter dye in an errour of faith yet is there extreme odds and many cleare dissimilitudes betwixt the state or condition of the one and the other 8. The first ariseth from the matter it selfe wherin they erre The former erred in that doctrine of faith wherein the truth was not eliquata declarata solidata per plenarium Concilium as S. Austen speaketh not fully scanned declared confirmed by a plenary Councell Had it bin we may well think the very same of all those holy men which Austen most charitably saith of S. Cyprian Sine dubio universi orbis authoritate patefacta veritate cessissent without doubt they would have yeelded to the truth being manifested unto them by the authority of the whole Church The latter erre in that which to use same Fathers words per universae Ecclesiae statut a firmatum est which hath beene strengthened by the decree of the whole Church This fift Councell consonant to all precedent and confirmed by
death may bee condemned for an heretike is doctrinall yea an heresie in the doctrine of faith That Theodorus dyed in the peace of the Church is an errour personall but that Theodorus therefore dyed in the peace of the Church because he was not in his life time condemned by the expresse sentēce of the Church or that any dying in heresie as Theodorus did doe die in the peace of the Church are errours doctrinall That Theodorus was not by the former Fathers and Councels condēned is a personall error but that Theodorus by the judgement of the Fathers Councels ought not after his death to be condemned is doctrinall even a condemning of the Councels of Ephesus and Chalcedon as guilty of beleeving and teaching an heresie So many wayes is the Popes sentence in this first Chapter erronious in faith of which Baronius most vainely pretendeth that it is no cause of faith no such cause as doth concerne the faith 41. There now remaineth nothing of Vigilius decree concerning this first Chapter but his conclusion of the same And although that must needs of it selfe fall downe when all the reasons on which it relyeth and by which onely it is supported are ruinated or overthrowne yet if you please let us take a short view of it also rather to explane than refute the same His conclusion hath two branches the former is that in regard of the foresaid reasons nostrâ eum non audemus damnare sententia wee◠dare not condemne Theodorus by our sentence wee dare not doe it saith Vigilius 42. Oh how faint-hearted pusillanimous and dastardly was the Pope in this cause Cyrill the head of the generall Councell Proclus a most holy Bishop whose Epistle as Liberatus saith the Councell of Chalcedon approved Rambulas the piller of the Church the religious Emperours Theodorus and Valentinian the Church of Mopsvestia the Councels of Ephesus of Armenia of Chalcedon the whole Catholike Church ever since the Ephesine Synod both durst and did condemne Theodorus and besides these Baronius and Binius two of the most artificiall Gnathonizing Parasites of the Pope even they durst and did even in setting downe the very Constitution of Vigilius cal Theodorus more than forty times an heretike a craftie impious madde prophane blasphemous execrable heretike onely Pope Vigilius hath not the heart nor courage hee onely with his sectators dare not call him nor cōdemne him for an heretike we dare not condemne him by our sentence 43. And yet when Vigilius saw good hee who durst not doe this durst doe a greater matter he durst doe that which not any of all the former nay which they all put together never durst doe Vigilius durst defend both an heresie and a condemned and anathematized heretike he durst commend forged and hereticall writings under the name of holy Fathers hee durst approve that Epistle wherein an heretike is called and honoured for a Saint he durst contrary to the Imperiall and godly Edict of Theodosius contrary to the judgements of the holy generall Councells defend Theodorus honor his memorie yea honor him as a teacher of truth while he lived as a Saint being dead These things none of all the former ever durst doe in these Vigilius is more bold and audacious then they are all 44. Whence thinke you proceeded this contrariety of passions in Vigilius that made him sometimes more bold then a Lyon and other times more timerous then an Hare Truely even from hence As Vigilius had no eyes to see ought but what favored Nestorianisme so hee had not the heart to doe ought which did not uphold Nestorianisme If a Catholike truth met him or the sweet influence thereof hapned to breath upon him Vigilius could not endure it the Popes heart fainted at the smell thereof but when the Nestorian heresie blew upon him when being full with Nestorius he might say agitante calescimus illo not Ajax not Poliphemus so bold nor full of courage as Pope Vigilius As the Scarobee or beetle is said to feed on dung but to dye at the sent of a Rose So the filth of Nestorianisme was meat and drinke to the Pope it was vita vitalis unto him but the fragrant and most odoriferous sent of the catholike truth was poison it was even death to this Beetle So truly was it fulfilled in him which the Prophet saith they bend their tongues for lyes but they have no courage for the truth we dare not condemne Theodorus by our sentence 45. The other branch of the Popes conclusion is Sed nec ab alio quopiam condemnari concedimus neither doe wee permit that any other shall condemne Theodorus Nay we decree that none else shall speake write or teach otherwise then we doe herein As much in effect as if the Pope had definitively decreed wee permit or suffer no man whatsoever to teach or beleeve what Cyrill what Proclus what the whole generall Councells of Ephesus and Chalcedon that is what all Catholikes and the whole Catholike Church hath done taught and beleeved we permit nay we command and by this our Apostolicall Constitution decree that they shall be heretikes and defend both an heresie that no dead man may be condemned and condemned heretikes in defending Theodorus yea defending him for a Saint and teacher of truth This we permit command and decree that they shall doe but to doe otherwise to condemne Theodorus or a dead man that by no meanes doe we permit or suffer it to bee lawfull unto them 46. And as if all this were not sufficient the Pope addes one other clause more execrable then all the former for having recited those threescore hereticall assertions which as we have declared were all collected out of the true and indubitate writings of Theodorus he adjoynes Anathematizamus omnem wee accurse and anathematize every man pertaining to orders who shall ascribe or impute any contumely to the Fathers and Doctors of the Church by those forenamed impieties and if no Father then not Theodorus for those may be condemned See now unto what height of impiety the Pope is ascended for it is as much as if hee had said We anathematize and accurse Saint Cyrill Saint Proclus Saint Rambulas Saint Acatius the Synode of Armenia the generall Councells of Ephesus of Chalcedon of Constantinople in the time of Iustinian yea even the whole catholike Church which hath approved those holy Councells all these out of those very impieties which Vigilius mentioneth have condemned Theodorus them all for wronging and condemning Theodorus for those impieties we doe anathematize and accurse saith Vigilius 47. Consider now seriously with your selves of what faith and religion they are who hold and so doe all the members of the present Romane Church this for a position or foundation of faith that whatsoever any Pope doth judicially and by his Apostolike authority define in such causes is true is infallible is with certainty of faith to bee beleeved and embraced Let
they hold the Popes judgement to be supreme and infallible and so build their faith on him as on the foundation thereof which their owne Church never did till the time of Leo the tenth It is not then the Lion of the Tribe of Iudah but the Lion of that Laterane Synod who is the first Godfather of that name unto them when hee had once laid the Pope as the foundation of faith in stead of Christ they who then builded their faith upon this new foundation were fitly christened with this name of Papists to distinguish them and their present Romane Church from all others who held the old good and sure foundation 26. You see now the great diuersity which ariseth from the divers manner of holding the same doctrines The errours maintained by all those three sorts of which I have spoken are almost the same and materially they are Popish heresies and yet the first sort did onely erre therein but were not heretikes because not pertinacious The second doe not onely erre but by adding pertinacy to errour are truly heretikes but yet not Papists because they hold those Popish heresies in another manner and on another foundation then Papists doe The third and last sort which containeth all and onely those who are members of the present Romane Church doe both erre and are heretikes and which is the worst degree of heresie are Papists that is Antichristian heretikes not onely holding and that in the highest degree of pertinacy those heresies which are contrary to the faith but holding them upon that foundation which quite overthroweth the faith 27. By this now doth the evidence of that truth appeare which before I proposed that none who hold the Popes infallibility in causes of faith for their foundation that is none of the present Romane Church either doth or can beleeve any one doctrine of faith which they professe For seeing the beleefe of all other points relyes upō this so that they beleeve thē because they first beleeve this it followeth by that true rule of the Philosopher Propter quod unumquodque illud magis that they doe more firmely and certainly beleeve this which is the foundation than they doe or can beleeve any other doctrine I say not Transubstantiation or Purgatory but more thā that Article of their Creed that Christ is God or that there is a God or any the like which is builded upon this foundatiō And seeing we have cleerly demonstrated that foundation to bee not onely untrue but hereticall and therefore such as cannot be apprehended by faith it being no true object of faith it doth evidently hence ensue that they neither doe nor can beleeve any one doctrine position or point of faith Impossible it is that the roofe should bee more firme than the foundation which supports the roof or the conclusion more certaine unto us than those premisses which cause us to assent and make us certaine of the conclusion That one fundamentall uncertainty contrariety to the faith which is vertually in all the rest breeds the like uncertainty and contrariety to faith in them all and like a Radicall poyson spreads it selfe into the whole body of their religion infecting every arme branch and twigge of their doctrine and faith whatsoever errour or heresie they maintaine and those are not a few those they neither doe nor can beleeve because they are no objects of faith whatsoever truths they maintaine and no doubt they doe many those they thinke they doe and they might doe but indeed they doe not beleeve because they hold them for that reason and upon that foundation which is contrary to faith and which overthroweth the faith For to hold or professe that Christ is God or that there is a God eo nomine because the Devill or Antichrist or a fallible man testifieth it unto us is not truly to beleeve but to overthrow the faith 28. This may be further cleared by returning to our example of Vigilius If because the Pope judicially defineth a doctrine of faith they doe therefore beleeve it then must they beleeve Nestorianisme to be the truth and Christ not to bee God because Pope Vigilius by his judiciall and Apostolicall sentence hath decreed this in decreeing that the three Chapters are to be defēded If they beleeve not this then can they beleeve nothing at all eo nomine because the Pope hath defined it and then the foundation of their faith being abolished their whole faith together with it must needs be abolished also Againe if because the Pope defineth a doctrine they doe therefore beleeve it then seeing Pope Caelestine with the Ephesine and Pope Leo with the Chalcedon Councell decreed Nestorianisme to be heresie they by the strength of their fundamental positiō of the Popes infallibility must at one and the same time beleeve both Nestorianisme to be truth as Pope Vigilius defined and Nestorianisme to be heresie as Pope Calestine and Leo defined and so they must either beleeve two contradictories to be both true yea to bee truths of the Catholike faith which to beleeve is impossible or else they must beleeve that it is impossible to beleeve either the one or the other eo nomine because the Pope hath defined it and so beleeve it to bee impossible to beleeve that which is the foundation of their whole faith Neither is this true onely in other points but even in this very foundation it selfe for the fift Councell which decreed the Cathedrall and Apostolicall sentence in the cause of the Three Chapters to be hereticall was approved by the decrees of Pope Gregory Agatho and the rest unto Leo the tenth If then they beleeve a doctrine to be true because the Pope hath defined it then must they beleeve the Popes Cathedral sentence in a cause of faith to bee not onely fallible but hereticall and so beleeve that upon this fallible and hereticall foundation they can build no doctrine of faith nor hold thereupon any thing with certainty of faith So if the Pope in defining such causes be fallible then for this cause can they have no faith nor beleeve ought with certainty of faith seeing all relies upon a fallible foundation If the Pope in defining such causes be infallible then also can they have no faith seeing by the infallble decrees of Pope Gregory Agatho and the rest unto Leo the tenth the Popes Cathedrall sentence in a cause of faith may bee hereticall as this of Pope Vigilius by their judgement was So whether the Pope in such causes be fallible or infallible it infallibly followeth upon either that none who builds his faith upon that foundation that is none who are members of their present Romane Church can beleeve or hold with certainty of faith any doctrine whatsoever which he professeth to beleeve 29. Here I cannot chuse but to the unspeakeable comfort of all true beleevers observe a wonderfull difference betwixt us and them arising from that diversitie of the foundation which they and we
hold their foundation being not onely uncertaine but hereticall and Antichristian poysoneth all which they build thereon it being vertually in them all makes them all like it selfe uncertaine hereticall and Antichristian and so those very doctrines which in themselves are most certaine and orthodoxall by the uncertainty of that ground upon which and for which they are beleeved are overthrowne with us and all Catholikes it fals out otherwise Though such happen to erre in some one or moe doctrines of faith say in Transubstantiation Purgatory or as Cyprian did in Rebaptization yet seeing they hold those errors because they thinke them to be taught in the Scriptures and Word of God on which alone their faith relyeth most firmely and undoubtedly beleeving whatsoever is taught therein among which things are the contrary doctrines to Transubstantiatiō Purgatory Rebaptization such I say even while they doe thus erre in their Explicite profession doe truly though implicitè by consequent and in radice or fundamento beleeve and that most firmely the quite contrary to those errours which they doe outwardly professe and think they doe but indeed doe not beleeve The vertue and strength of that fundamentall truth which they indeed and truly beleeve overcommeth all their errours which in very deed they doe not though they thinke they doe beleeve whereas in very truth they beleeve the quite contrary And this golden foundation in Christ which such men though erring in some points doe constantly hold shall more prevaile to their salvation than the Hay and Stubble of those errours which ignorantly but not pertinaciously they build thereon can prevaile to their destruction and therefore if such a man happen to die without explicite notice and repentance of those errours in particular as the saying of Saint Austen that what faults Saint Cyprian had contracted by humane imbecillity the same by his glorious Martyrdome was washed away perswades mee that Cyprian did and as of Irene Nepos Iustine Martyr and others who held the errour of the Chiliasts I thinke none makes doubt it is not to be doubted but the abundance of this mans saith and love unto Christ to whom in the foundation hee most firmely adhereth shall worke the like effect in him as did the blood of martyrdome in Saint Cypran For the baptisme of martyrdome washeth away sinne not because it is a washing in blood but because it testifieth the inward washing of his heart by faith and by the purging Spirit of God This inward washing in whomsoever it is found and found it is in all who truly beleeve though in some point of faith they erre it is as forcible and effectuall to save Valentinian neither baptized with water nor with blood and Nepos baptized with water but not with blood as to save Cyprian baptized both with water and with blood Such a comfort and happinesse it is to hold the right and true foundation of faith 30. The quite contrary is to be seen in them Though they explicitè professe Christ to be God which is a most orthodoxall truth yet because they hold this as all other points upon that foundation of the Popes infallible judgement in causes of faith and in that foundation this is denyed Pope Vigilius by his Cathedrall Constitution defining Nestorianisme to be truth and so Christ not to be God it must needs be confessed that even while they doe explicitè professe Christ to bee God they doe implicitè in radice and in fundamento deny Christ to be God and because by the Philosophers rule they doe more firmely beleeve that foundation than they doe or can beleeve any doctrine depending thereon it must needs ensue hence that they doe and must by their doctrine more firmely beleeve the Negative that Christ is not God which in the foundation is decreed then they doe or can beleeve the Affirmative that Christ is God which upon that foundation is builded The truth which upon that foundation they doe explicitè professe cannot possibly be so strong to salvation as the errour of the foundation upon which they build it will be to destruction For the fundamentall errour is never amended by any truth superedified and laid thereon no more than the rotten foundation of an house is made sound by laying upon it rafters of gold or silver but all the truths that are superedified are ruinated by that fundamentall errour and uncertainty on which they all relye even as the beames and rafters of gold are ruinated by that rottennesse and unsoundnesse which resteth in the foundation Or if they say that both the assertions which are directly contradictory are from that foundation deduced Caelestine and Leo decreeing the one that Christ is God as Vigilius decreed the other that Christ is not God then doth it inevitably follow that they can truly beleeve neither the one nor the other seeing by beleeving that foundation they must equally beleeve them both which is impossible Such an unhappy and wretched thing it is to hold that erroneous hereticall and Antichristian foundation of faith 31. My conclusion of this point is this Seeing we have first declared that all who are members of the present Romane Church doe hold the Popes Cathedrall infallibility in causes of faith yea hold it as the very foundation on which all their other doctrines faith and religion doth relye and seeing wee have next demonstrated this to be a fundamentall heresie and not onely an hereticall but an Antichristian foundation condemned by Scriptures by generall Councels by ancient Fathers and by the consenting judgement of the whole Catholike Church that now hence followeth which I proposed to prove that none is or can bee a member of their present Church but the same is convicted and condemned for an heretike by Scriptures generall Councels Fathers and by the uniforme consent of the Catholike Church An heretike first in the very foundation of his faith which being Antichristian is hereticall in the highest and worst degree that may be razing the true foundation of faith in regard whereof the mystery of Antichristianisme farre surpasseth all the heresies that ever went before or shall ever follow after it An heretike secondly in many particular doctrines depending on that Foundation among which are the heresies and blasphemies of the Nestorians all which by the Cathedrall constitution of Vigilius are decreed to be truths and by all men to be defended Lastly an heretike vertually and quoad radicem in every doctrine of faith which hee holdeth or professeth and so hereticall therein that the very holding of Catholike truths becomes unto him hereticall seeing he holds them upon that Foundation which is not only contrary to faith but which overthroweth the whole faith Reward Babylon O ye servants of the Lord as she hath rewarded you give her double according to her workes and in the cup that she hath filled to you fill her the double 32. From hence there ensueth one other conclusion which being worthy observing I many
were by the Nestorians it is without question that this profession to hold the whole Scriptures much lesse to hold one or two Councells as Vigilius did cannot free one from being an heretike 14. You will perhaps say can one then beleeve the whole Scripture and be an heretike or beleeve the faith decreed at Nice Ephesus or Chalcedon and be an Arian Eutychean or Nestorian heretike No verily for as the Scripture containeth a contradiction to every heresie seeing as Saint Austen truly saith all doctrines concerning faith are set downe and that also perspicuously therein so doe every one of those three Councels containe a contradiction to every one of those three heresies and to all other which concerne the divinity or humanity of Christ. But it is one thing to professe the scriptures or those three Councells and say that he beleeves them which many heretikes may doe and another thing to beleeve them indeed which none can doe and be an heretike for whosoever truly beleeveth the scriptures cannot possibly with pertinacy hold any doctrine repugnant to scriptures but such a man upon evident declaration that this is taught in them though before he held the contrary presently submits his wit and will to the truth which out of them is manifested unto him If this he do not he manifestly declareth that he holds his error with pertinacy and with an obstinate resolution not to yeeld to the truth of the scriptures and so hee is certainly an heretike notwithstanding his profession of the scriptures which he falsly said he beleeved and held when in very truth he held and that pertinaciously the quite contrary unto them The very like must be said of those three Councells and them who either truly beleeve or falsly say that they beleeve the faith explained in them or any one of them 15. Whence two things are evidently consequent the former that all heretikes are lyars in their profession not onely because they professe that doctrine which is untrue and hereticall but because in words they professe to beleeve and hold that doctrine which they doe not but hold and that for a point of their faith the quite contrary All of them will and doe professe that they beleeve the scriptures and the doctrines therein contained and yet every one of them lye herein for they beleeve one if not moe doctrines contrary to the scriptures The Nestorians professed to hold the Nicene faith and so they professed two natures and but one person to bee in Christ for that in the Nicene faith is certainly decreed but they lyed in making this profession for they beleeved not one person but pertinaciously held two persons to be in Christ. The Eutycheans in professing the Ephesine Councell professed in effect two natures to abide in Christ after the union for this was certainly the faith of that holy Councell but they lyed in this profession for they held that after the union two natures did not abide in Christ but one onely The Church of Rome and members thereof professe to hold the faith of the fift generall Councell and so professe implicitè the Popes Cathedrall sentence in a cause of faith to be fallible and hereticall but they lye in making this profession for they beleeve not the Popes sentence in such causes to be fallible but with the Laterane and Trent Councels they hold it to be infallible It is the practice of all heretikes to make such faire though lying professions For should they say in plaine termes that which is truth indeed wee beleeve not the scriptures nor the Councells of Nice Ephesus or Chalcedon every man would spit at them and detest them cane pejus angue nor could they ever deceive any or gaine one proselyte But when they commend their faith that is their heresie to be the same doctrine with the scriptures which the Councells of Nice Ephesus and Chalcedon taught by these faire pretences and this lying profession they insinuate themselves into the hearts of the simple deceiving hereby both themselves and others 16. The other consequent is this That the profession of all heretikes is contradictory to it selfe For they professe to hold the scriptures and so to condemne every heresie and yet withal they professe one private doctrine repugnant to scripture and which is an heresie The like may be said of the Councells The Nestorians by professing to hold the faith decreed at Nice professe Christ to bee but one person and yet withall by holding Nestorianisme they professe Christ to be two persons The Eutycheans by professing to hold the Councell of Ephesus professe two natures to remaine in Christ after the union which in that Councell is certainly decreed and yet by professing the heresie of Eutyches they professe the quite contradictory that one nature onely remaines after the union The Church of Rome and members thereof by professing the faith of the fift Councell professe the Popes Cathedrall sentence in a cause of faith to be fallible and de facto to have beene hereticall and yet they professe the direct contradictory as the Councell of Laterane hath defined that the Popes sentence in such causes is infallible and neither hath beene nor can be hereticall So repugnant to it selfe and incoherent is the profession of all heretikes that it fighteth both with the truth and with it owne selfe also The very same is to be seene in Vigilius and his Constitution For in professing to defend the three Chapters and in decreeing that all shall defend them he professeth all the blasphemies of Nestorius and decreeth that all shall maintaine them and professing to hold the faith decreed at Chalcedon and decreeing that all shall hold it hee professeth that Nestorianisme is heresie and decreeth that all shall condemne it for heresie and so decreeing both these he decreeth that all men in the world shall beleeve two contradictories and beleeve them as Catholike Truths Such a worthy Apostolicall decree is this of Vigilius for defending whereof Baronius doth more then toyle himselfe 17. You will againe demand Seeing Vigilius doth so earnestly and plainely professe both these why shall not his expresse profession to hold the Councell of Chalcedon make him or shew him to bee a Catholike rather then his other expresse profession to defend the Three Chapters make or shew him to bee an hereticke Why rather shall his hereticall then his orthodoxall profession give denomination unto him I also demand of you Seeing every hereticke in expresse words professeth to beleeve the whole Scripture which is in effect a condemning of every heresie why shall not this orthodoxall profession make or shew him to be a Catholike rather then his expresse profession of some one doctrine contrarie to Scripture say for example sake of Arianisme make or shew him to bee an Arian hereticke The reason of both is one and the same Did an Arian so professe to hold the Scriptures that hee were resolved to forsake his Arianisme and confesse Christ to bee 〈◊〉
Rocke upon which you may build two contradictories in the doctrine of faith and in them both say unto him Tu es Petra Such a Rocke neither the Prophets nor Apostles nor Christ himselfe ever was So wise so exceeding wise is the Pope in all his turnings even as wise as a wethercocke for turning with the wind and weather 17. Againe when the Pope his instruments or Inquisitors to whom Phalaris Busiris and all the heathen persecutors may yeeld exercise against us for maintaining the truth of God all exquisite hellish tortures to which the old heathenish were but ludus jocus all which they doe must be extolled as due punishments and just censures of the Holy Father of the holy Church of the Holy inquisition of the Holy house all must bee covered with the mantle of holinesse On the other side when they resist the most religious lawes or Edicts of Kings or Emperors when Vigilius or any of them being by an holy generall Councell declared and condemned for an Hereticke are for their obstinate rebellion against the truth justly punished though Iustinian yea Iustice it selfe shall use rather moderate then severe correction against them they forsooth must be accoumpted catholikes Cōsessers holy Martyrs such as suffer for religion for the sacred lawes and for the Catholike faith but Iustinian the Defender of the faith must be called Iulian Iustice be termed Scelus and the Church for that cause said to bee in farre worse condition then in the times of Nero Dioclesian or any of the heathen Tyrants Such an happie thing it is to bee a Pope or Papist for then their wavering shall be Constancie their rebellion Religion and fortitude their folly greate and rare wisedome their heresie Catholike doctrine and their most condigne punishments shall be crowned with Martyrdome 18. The other thing which I observe is what a strong faith Papists had need to have who rely upon the Popes judgement which changeth out and in in and out so many times who yet are bound to beleeve al the Pope definitive sentences in causes of faith that is to speake in plaine tearmes who are bound to beleeve two contradictories to bee both true both of them the infallible oracles of God Or if any of them have so weake a faith that he can but beleeve the one I would gladly learne of some who is an Oedipus among them In this case of two Contradictorie Cathedrall decrees such as were these of Pope Vigilius whether of the Popes definitive judgements that is according to their language whether of the sayings of God is true and whether false or what strength the one hath more then the other If the Apostolicall sentence of Vigilius delivered cum omni undique cautela and by his Cathedrall authoritie in defence of the Three Chapters be repealeable by a second why may not the second which cannot possibly have more authoritie bee repealed by a third and the third by a fourth and fourth by a fift and so in Infinitum If the Pope after seaven yeares deliberation and ventilating of the cause while hee is all that time in peace and libertie may be deceived in his judiciall and Cathedrall sentence in a cause of faith how may wee be assured that when some yeares after that the tediousnesse of exile and desire of his pristine libertie and honour perswades him to make a contrary decree he may not therein also bee deceived If the Popes decrees made in libertie peace and prosperity be of force why shall not the decree of Vigilius in defence of the Three Chapters be an article of faith If those free decrees may be admitted by a stronger sentence when the Pope is in banishment how may any beleeve their Laterane and Trent decrees as doctrines of faith For why may there not once againe come some other Iustinian into the world as great pitie it is but there should who in these or future times may minister that soveraigne medicine to cleare the Popes judgement and restraine or close him up in some meaner estate and farre lower place whence as out of a darke and low pit he may discerne those coelestiall truths in the Word of God like so many Starres in heaven which now being invironed with the circumfused splendor of the Romane Court he cannot possibly behold If those Three Chapters were to bee condemned why did the Pope defend them at the time of the Councell If they were to be defended why did he condemne them after his returne from exile Nay if the Three Chapters were orthodoxall why did the Pope at any time first or last by his Apostolicall sentence condemne them If they were hereticall why did he at any time first or last by his Cathedrall and Apostolicall sentence defend them I confesse I am here in a Labyrinth if any of the Cardinals friends will winde mee out he shall for ever be Theseus unto me CAP. XVI That the Decree of Vigilius for Taciturnity touching the Three Chapters and the Councell wherein it is supposed to be made and all the Consequents upon that Decree painted out by Baronius are all fictitious and Poeticall 1. THE whole reason of Baronius drawne from Vigilius his confirming of the fift Councell being now fully dissolved we might without further stay and I gladly would according to my intended order in the Treatise proceed to his next exceptiō but there are two points in this last passage touching the chāgings of Vigilius which even against my will pull mee backe and call me to examine what Baronius sets downe and with exceeding ostentation paints out in his Annals concerning them the due consideration whereof will cause any man to admire the Cardinals most audacious and shamelesse dealing in Synodall affaires and causes of the Church The one of them concernes the second the other the fourth period in Vigilius changings The former is this 2. As soone as the defenders of the Three Chapters had notice of that Iudiciall sentence and Decree published by Vigilius against the same Chapters upon his comming to Constantinople they began to storme thereat and condemne Vigilius as a Prevaricator or revolter from the faith whereupon Vigilius as the Cardinall tels us put in practice a rare peece of wisedome and of his Pontificall pollicy sententiam emissam mox suspendit seu potius revocavit he suspends and revokes that his late judgement rursum ab eo promulgatum decretum quo decernebatur ut penitus taceretur and he published a new Decree wherein he decreed that every man should be silent and say never a word either pro or contra touching that question of the Three Chapters till the time of the generall Councel from this yeare which was the 21 of Iustinian the same wherin Vigilius came to Constantinople until the time of the generall Councell in eâ causâ ab ipso Vigilio indictū fuit Silentiū Silence was injoyned every man in that cause by Pope Vigilius
in hand can that small difference of time make in the cause specially considering that the very Epistle of Leo whereof the Cardinall speaketh was not written till five moneths after the end of the Councell at Chalcedon and yet was it annexed to the acts thereof If then the Cardinalls reason bee of force to prove that hee writ not this Decree shortly after the Synod it is altogether as effectuall to prove he writ it not at all nor after his returne about a year after out of exile 3. The Cardinall gives yet another evidence hereof Pelagius saith he the successor of Vigilius did thinke it fit that the fift Synod should bee approved and the three Chapters condemned moved especially hereunto by this reason that the Easterne Church ob Vigilij constitutum schismate scissa being rent and divided from the Romane by reason of the Constitution of Vigilius might be united unto it How was the Easterne Church divided from the Romane in the time of Pelagius by reason of that decree of Vigilius in defence of the Three Chapters if Vigilius by another decree published after it had recalled and adnulled it If the Popes condemning of those Chapters and approving of the fift Councell could unite the Churches then the decree of Vigilius had there beene any such would have effected that union If the Apostolike Decree of Vigilius could not effect it in vaine it was for Pelagius to thinke by his approbation which could have no more authority then Apostolicall to effect that union If the cause of the breach and disunion of those Churches was as Baronius truly saith the Constitution of Vigilius in defence of the Three Chapters against the judgement of the fift Synod seeing it is cleare by the Cardinalls owne confession that the disunion continued till after the death of Vigilius it certainly hence followeth that the Constitution of Vigilius which was the cause of that breach was never by himselfe repealed which even in Pelagius time remained in force and was then a wall of separation of the Easterne from the Westerne Church Againe if the Popes approving the fift Councell and condemning the three Chapters was as in truth it was and as the Cardinall noteth it to have beene the cause to unite those Churches seeing by his owne confession in Vigilius time they were not united for Pelagius after Vigilius his death sought to take away that schisme it certainly hence followeth that Vigilius never by any Decree approved that Synod and their Synodall condemning of those Chapters for had he so done the union had in his time presently beene effected 4. The same may be perceived also by the Westerne Church For as that Pontificall decree of Vigilius had there beene any such would have united the Easterne so much more would it have drawne the Westerne the Italian and specially the Romane Church to consent to the fift Councell and condemning of the three Chapters but that they persisted in the defence of the three Chapters and that also to the very end of Vigilius his life may divers wayes be made evident Whē Pelagius being then but a Deacon was chosen Pope after the death of Vigilius and was to be consecrated Bishop there could no more then two Bishops be found in the Westerne Church that would consecrate or ordaine him Bishop wherefore contrary to that Canon both of the Apostles and Nicene Fathers requiring three Bishops to the consecration of a Bishop which they so often boast of in their disputes against us the Pope himselfe was faine to be ordained onely by two Bishops with a Presbyter of Ostia in stead of the third Anastasius very ignorantly if not worse sets downe the reason thereof to have beene for that Pelagius was suspected to have beene guilty by poison or some other way of the death of Vigilius A very idle fancie as is the most in Anastasius for Pelagius was in banishment long before the death of Vigilius and there continued till Vigilius was dead he had little leisure nor oportunity to thinke of poisoning or murdering his owne Bishop by whose death he could expect no gaine The true cause why the Westerne Bishops distasted Pelagius is noted by Victor who then lived Hee before hee came from Constantinople consented to the fift Synod and condemned the Three Chapters Now the Westerne Bishops so detested the fift Synod and those who with it condemned those Chapters that among them all there could be found but two Bishops who held with the Synod and so allowed of Pelagius and his act in consenting thereunto and those two with the Presbyter of Ostia were the ordainers of Pelagius whom Victor in his corrupted language calls prevaricators Let any man now consider with himselfe whether it bee credible that in all Italy and some Provinces adjoyning there should be but two Bishops who would consēt to the Apostolicall decree of Vigilius for approving the fift Councell if he had indeed published such a decree If they knew not the Popes sentence in this cause which they held and that rightly for a cause of faith to be infallible how was not the westerne or the Romane Church hereticall at this time not knowing that point of faith which is the transcendent principle and foundation of all doctrines of faith If they knew it to bee infallible seeing his judgement must then oversway their owne how could there bee no more but two bishops found among them all who approved the Popes Cathedrall sentence and consented to his infallible judgement Seeing then it is certaine that the Westerne Church did generally reject the fift Synod after the death of Vigilius and seeing it is not to bee thought that they would have persisted in such a generall dislike thereof had they knowne Vigilius to have by his Apostolicall sentence decreed that all should approve the same of which his sentence had there been any such they could not have beene ignorant for if by no other meanes which were very many Pelagius himselfe would have brought and assuredly made knowne the same unto them this their generall rejection of the fift Synod is an evident proofe that this Baronian decree which hee ascribeth to Vigilius is no better then the former of silence both untrue both fictitious and of the two this the far worse seeing for this the Cardinall hath not so much as any one no not a forged writing on which he may ground it it is wholy devised by himselfe he the onely Poet or maker of this fable 5. To this may be added that which is mentioned in Bede concerning the Councell of Aquileia in Italy That Councell was held neare about or rather as by Sigonius narration it appeareth after the death of Vigilius and in it were present Honoratus Bishop of Millan Macedonius B. of Aquileia Maximianus B. of Ravenna besides many other Bishops of Liguria Venice and Istria These being as Bede saith
a generall or a lawfull Councell 5. Say you that the fift Councell was of no authority till the Pope approved it and unlesse he should approve it See how contrary the Cardinals assertion is to the consenting judgement of the whole Church Begin we with the Church of that age Baronius tels us that both the Emperour the Pope Mennas and other Easterne Bishops agreed to referre the deciding of this doubt about the Three Chapters to a generall Councell Why did none of them reason as the Cardinall now doth against the Councell Why did the Pope delude them with that pretence of a generall Councel Why did hee not deale plainly with the Emperour and the rest who made that agreement and say to this effect unto them Why will yee referre this cause to the judgment of a Councell it cannot decide this question otherwise than my selfe shall please If they say as I say it shall be a Councell a lawfull a generall an holy Councell If they say the contrary to that which I affirme though they have ten thousand millions of voyces their Decree shall be utterly void their assembly unlawfull they shall neither bee nor bee called a generall nor a lawfull Councell no nor a Councell neither but onely a Conventicle without all authoritie in the world Had the Emperour and the Church beleeved this doctrine there had beene no fift Councell ever called or assembled nay there never had beene any other holy generall Councell The Pope had beene in stead of all and above them all This very act then of referring the judgement in this cause to a generall Councell witnesseth them all even the Pope himselfe at that time to have esteemed the sentence of the Synod to be of authority without the Popes consent and to be of more authority in case they should differ as in this question they did than the sentence of the Pope This before the Councell was assembled 6. At the time of the Councell had the Church or holy Synod which represented the whole Church beleeved their assembly without the Pope to be no Synod but a Conventicle why did they at all come together after their second Session for they were then assured by the Pope himselfe that he would neither come nor send any deputies unto them Or had they beleeved that his definitive sentence would or ought to have overswayed others so that without his assent their judgement should be of no validity why did they after the fift Session once proceed to examine or determine that cause For before the sixt day of their assembling they received from Pope Vigilius his Cathedrall and Apostolicall Constitution in that cause inhibiting them either to write or speak much more judicially to define ought contrarie to his sentence or if they did that he by his authority had beforehand refuted and condemned the same Seeing notwithstanding all this well knowne unto them they not onely continued their Synodall assemblies but judicially defined that cause and that quite contrary to the Popes judgement made knowne unto them it is an evident demonstration that the whole general Councell judged their assemblies both lawfull and Synodall and their sentence of full authority even as ample as of any generall Councell though the Pope denied his presence to the one and expressely signified not onely his dislike but contradiction and condemnation of the other 7. What can pervicacie it selfe oppose to so cleare an evidence or what thinke you will the Cardinall or his friends reply hereunto Will he or can he say that these men who thus judged were heretikes They were not The doctrine which they maintained was wholly Catholike consonant as they professe and as in truth it was to Scriptures to Fathers to the foure former generall Councells The doctrine which they oppugned and Vigilius then defended was hereticall condemned by all the former Scriptures Fathers and Councels Heretikes then doubtless they could not be that like a leprosie did cleave to Vigilius Will he or can he say that they were Schismatikes Neither is that true For they all even then remained in the communion with the Catholike Church yea they were by representation the true Catholike Church I say further they held communion even with Pope Vigilius himselfe till his owne pertinacy and wilfull obstinacie against the true faith severed him both from them from the truth In token of which communion with Vigilius they earnestly entreated his presence in the Synod they offered him the presidency therein yea they said in expresse words unto him before they knew his mind to defend the Three Chapters Nos vero communicamus uniti vobiscum sumus We all doe hold communion with you and are united unto you Schismaticall then they could not be So the judgement of these men being all Catholikes and holding the Catholike communion doth evidently prove the whole Catholike Church at that time to have beleeved a Councell to be both generall and lawfull though the Pope dissented from it and by his Apostolicall authority condemned the same and the decree thereof 8. After the end of the Councell did the Church then think otherwise Did it then judge the Councell to want authority while it wanted the Popes approbation or to receive authority by his approbation Who were they I pray you that thought thus Certainly not Catholikes and the condemners of these Chapters For they approved the Councel and Decree thereof during the time of the Councell and while the Pope so far disliked it that for his refusall to consent unto it he endured banishment Neither did the Heretikes who defended those Chapters judge thus For they as Baronius witnesseth persisted in the defence of them and in a rent from the others even after Vigilius had consented to the Synod yea among them Vigilius redditus est execrabilis was even detested and accursed by them for approving the Synod Or because Vigilius approved it not Pelagius who is knowne to have approved it was so generally disliked for that cause of the Westerne Bishops that there could not be found three who would lay hands on him at his consecration but in stead of a Bishop they were enforced against that Canon of the Apostles which they often oppose to us to take a Presbyter of Ostia at his ordination So much did they dislike both the fift Councell and all though it were the Pope who did approve it Now the whole Church being at that time divided into these two parts the defenders and condemners of those Chapters seeing neither the one nor the other judged the Synod to be generall or lawfull because the Pope approved it who possibly could there be at that time of the Cardinals fancie that the fift Councell wanted all authority till the Pope approved it and gained authority of a generall and lawfull Councell by his approving of it Catholikes and condemners of those Chapters embraced the Councell though the Pope rejected it Heretikes and defenders of
and pervert the sense by turning nobis into vobis that so they might deprive the Emperour of that supreme authority which Basilius there professed to belong unto himselfe and the Legates of the Patriarchs in the name of the whole Synod approved the Emperours saying Recte Imperatores nostri monuere the Emperours have said well To goe no further in this matter that which was cited out of the Scripture concerning Ioshua and David doth clear this point for seeing all who sit in Imperiall thrones are like Ioshua and David to feed the Israel of God and the Israel of God containes the whole flocke and all the sheepe of Christ ex hac ipsa voce Pasce difficile non est demonstrare summam potestatem ei attribut It is easie even by this very word Feed to demonstrate that supreme power doth belong to Kings seeing unto them it is said Feed my sheepe feed my people Wherefore seeing Kings are commanded by God to rule by their Pastorall authoritie all others and all others are commanded to obey and bee subject unto them and their Imperiall commands as unto their supreme Pastour here upon earth it hence unavoydably followeth that Bishops neither without that Imperiall command may in a riotous manner assemble in generall Councels nor being commanded by them may deny to assemble nor being assembled may refuse to bee ordered and governed by their Imperiall Presidency 9. After these precepts of GOD looke to the practice of the Church and you shall see that lawfull Synods or Assemblies about Ecclesiasticall affaires have beene gathered by no other than Imperiall authority as well in the old as new Testament In the time of IOSIA when the Temple was purged from those manifold Idolatries wherewith it was polluted who assembled Israel the Priests no but the King sent and gathered all the Elders of Iuda and went into the house of the LORD with the Priests and Levites The like had ASA done in the oath of Association He gathered all Iuda SALOMON in the Dedication of the Temple He assembled the Elders and the heads of the Tribes DAVID in bringing the Arke and in ordering the offices of the Temple DAVID gathered all Israel together Hee gathered together then all the Princes with the Priests and Levites HEZECHIA in clensing the house of the Lord Hee gathered the Priests and Levites called them his sonnes and they were gathered together juxta mandatum Regis according to the commandement of the King Ioshua at the renewing of the Covenant He assembled all the Tribes of Israel And to mention no more for what King is there or Iudge or Captaine who had all kingly authoritie though somewhat qualified and tempered in them more than in Kings who is not an example hereof Consider but Moses who was the first that had soveraignty in their common-wealth how often and still with a warrant from God did he assemble the people upon urgēt occasions At the first making of the covenant with God Moses called the Elders at the publishing of the law Moses brought the people out of their tents unto God after the bringing of the two Tables from God Moses assembled all the congregation of Israel at the anointing and investing of Aaron Moses assembled all the congregation at the repeating of the Covenant he commanded all the Elders of the Tribes of Israel to come unto him Yea at the very first time when God appointed him to be a Captaine and Ruler over his people even then God gave unto him that authority which afterwards he renewed in the tenth of Numbers to congregate and assemble the people of God Goe saith God and gather the Elders of Israel together thereby teaching the power of assembling Gods people to be inseparably annexed unto Imperiall regall and soveraigne authority that none hath the one who hath not the other by the very warrant of God committed unto him to the end the assemblies of Gods people might not be tumultuous and seditious as was that of Demetrius and of Corah Dathan and Abiram which the Lord severely revenged but lawfull and orderly as God is the author not of confusion but of order in all Churches and in all ages of the Church 10. Come we to the times of the Gospell The power and rightfull authority to call Synods was ever in the Emperours and Kings even in those three hundred years while the Church was in most grievous persecution under Heathen Emperours The right and power was in the Heathen as well as in Christian Emperours in Tiberius as well as Theodosius in Dioclesian as well as in Constantine or Iustinian But that power which they rightly had they did not use aright not to call Synods to maintaine the faith but to abolish Synods Bishops Christians and utterly extirpate the Christian faith Now because Christ had layd an absolute necessity upon the Apostles and their successors to feed to teach and maintaine the doctrine of faith and seeing they could not doe this with the allowance or so much as connivence of the Emperours who in duty should have protected them in so doing yea have caused them so to doe this very necessity enforced them and was a lawfull warrant unto them both to feed the flocke preach the Gospell and to hold Synods in the best and most convenient manner that they then could not onely without but against the will and command of the Emperors that higher command of Christ over-ruling theirs Whereby are warranted as lawfull to say nothing of that Acts 15. those Synods at Antioch against Paulus Samosatenus at Rome against the Novatians in Africke many in the time of Cyprian and divers the like For even the law of God to yeeld unto neccessity the example of David the doctrine of our Saviour doth demonstrate besides those many Maximes which are all grounded on this truth as that necessity hath no law nor is subject to any law but is a law of it selfe that many things are lawfull in case of necessity which otherwise are unlawfull that of Leo Inculpabile judicandum quod necessitas intulit that is blamelesse which necessity doth warrant and many the like which Pope Iohn alledgeth This and nothing else doth declare those Synods to have beene lawfull though assembled without Imperiall authority as the times were extraordinary so their extraordinary assembling was by those times of necessity made lawfull But as soone as Emperours began to professe the faith and to use their owne and Imperiall authority in assembling Bishops for consulting about causes of faith the Catholike Bishops knowing that from thence that law of Necessity was now expired and out of date attempted not then to come to Synods uncalled nor refused to come when they were called though sometimes they came with an assured expectance of the crowne of Martyrdome before they departed as in the Councels of Millane
Vigilius Dormitans ROMES SEER OVERSEENE OR A TREATISE OF THE FIFT Generall Councell held at Constantinople Anno 553. under Iustinian the Emperour in the time of Pope VIGILIVS The Occasion being those Tria Capitula which for many yeares troubled the whole Church WHEREIN IS PROVED THAT THE POPES Apostolicall Constitution and definitive sentence in matter of Faith was condemned as hereticall by the Synod And the exceeding frauds of Cardinall Baronius and Binius are clearely discovered BY RICH CRAKANTHORP Dr. in DIVINITIE And Chapleine in ordinary to his late Majestie KING IAMES Opus Posthumum PVBLISHED AND SET FORTH BY His Brother GEO CRAKANTHORP According to a perfect Copy found written under the Authors owne hand LONDON Printed by M. F. for ROBERT MYLBOVRNE in Pauls Churchyard at the signe of the Grey-hound M DC XXXI TO THE RIGHT HONOVRABLE EDVVARD LORD NEVVBVRGE Chancellour of the Duchie of Lancaster and one of the Lords of his Majesties most Honourable Privie Counsell RIGHT HONOVRABLE IN all duty and submission I here present unto your Lordship a Treatise concerning the fift generall Councell held at Constantinople the cause being the Controversie of the Three Chapters which for many yeares troubled the whole Church and was at length decided in this Councell held under Iustinian that religious Emperour This Treatise now printed was long agoe penned by one well known unto your Honour your sincere affection to the truth of God and Gods cause gives mee good assurance of your favourable acceptance hereof I confesse indeed that when I call to minde the manifold affaires wherein your Honour is daily imployed the very thought hereof had almost perswaded mee not to interrupt your more serious affaires by drawing your Honour to the reading or view of this Booke but when I call to minde those respects of love and duty in which the Author hereof stood bound unto your Lordship I was againe incouraged in his name to tender it to your Honour And although I my selfe can challenge no interest in your Lordships favour to offer this yet your Lordship may challenge some interest in the fruits of his labours who was so truely as I can truely speake devoted unto your Honour Among many other hee especially acknowledged two assured bonds of love and duty by which hee was obliged unto you and your friends the former arose from that unfained affection which you ever bare him from your first acquaintance in the Colledge that other by which he was further ingaged unto you and your friends was when in a loving respect had unto him in his absence without any meanes made by him or knowledge of his he was called by that much honoured Knight Sir Iohn Levison his Patron your Father in law unto the best meanes of livelihood he ever enjoyed in the Ministery where spending himselfe in his studies hee ended his dayes during which time your Honour made your affection further knowne unto him by speciall expressions of extraordinary favours In regard whereof I perswaded my selfe that I could no where better crave Patronage for this worke than of your Honour that it may bee a further testimony of his love againe who cannot now speake for himselfe And this I intreat leave to doe the rather because I doubt not but hee acquainted your Lordship with his paines and intent in this and other Tractates of the Councels for when after divers yeares study bestowed in this argument of Councels hee was desirous to make some use of his labours his intent was to reduce all those points into foure severall Bookes 1. That the right of calling generall Councels 2. That the right of highest Presidency in them 3. That the right of the last and supreme Confirmation of them is onely Imperiall and not Papall 4. That all the lawfull generall Councels which hitherto have beene held consent with ours and oppugne the doctrines of the present Church of Rome Some of these hee finished the fourth hee could not so much as hope to accomplish and therefore after the examining of some particulars therein he desisted and weaned himselfe from those studies And yet after some yeares discontinuance being by some of his learned friends sollicited to communicate to others at least some one Tract in that argument consenting to their earnest desire after long suspence he resolved on this Treatise as being for weighty and important matters most delightfull unto him That it was not then published let it not seeme strange unto your Honour for having long since finished the Tract of this whole Councell it was his purpose that it should have undergone the publike view and judgement of the Church but when he came as I can truely testifie unto them whose art and ayde is needfull in such a businesse and found an aversenesse in them for that it wholy consisted of controversall matters whereof they feared that this age had taken a satiety he rested in this answer as willing to bury it After this being upon a speciall command from his Majesty King Iames of blessed memory made known unto him by my Lord his Grace of Canterbury to addresse himselfe to another worke hee then desisted from his former intended purpose and in finishing of that last worke of his he ended his dayes Some few yeares after his death being desirous to take a view of some of his Papers I came to the view and handling of this boooke a booke fully perfected for the Presse in his life time the publishing whereof being long expected and of many earnestly desired it was my desire and theirs to whose most grave and judicious censure I willingly submitted it that it might be published for the benefit of Gods Church and the rather that it might give some light in the study of the Councels and animate some of the threescore valiant men that are about Salomons bed being of the expert and valiant men of Israel unto the attempting and undertaking of the like Now what his desire was in this and other of his labours surely none but the very enemies of God and Gods truth can take it to be any other than to testifie his unfained love unto God and Gods Church and to subdue the pride idolatries and impieties of that Man of sinne and to strive for the maintenance of the true faith Now what allowance so ever it may finde abroad among our adversaries it humbly craves your favourable acceptāce at home and as it is published with no other intent than to gaine glory to God and good to his Church so I doubt not but that God who causeth light to shine out of darknesse will effectually in time bring to passe that not onely their violent oppugning of the truth but their fraudulent dealing also against the same wil if not breed in themselves yet increase in al welwillers unto the truth a constant dislike nay detestation of their hereticall and Antichristian doctrines and for your selfe my earnest and continuall prayer to God shall bee
after a second conclusion like to this they adjoyne a third which concernes them both He who pertinaciously gainsayeth these two verities est censendus haereticus is to be accounted an heretike Thus the Councill at Basil cleerly witnessing that till this time of the Councill the defending of the Popes authority to be supreme or his judgement to be infallible was esteemed an Heresie by the Catholike Church and the maintainers of that doctrine to be heretikes which their decrees were not as some falsly pretend rejected by the Popes of those times but ratified and confirmed and that Consistorialiter judicially and cathedrally by the indubitate Popes that then were for so the Councill of Basil witnesseth who hearing that Eugenius would dissolve the Councill say thus It is not likely that Eugenius will any way thinke to dissolve this sacred Council especially seeing that it is against the decrees of the Councill at Constance per praedecessorem suum et seipsum approbata which both his predecessor Pope Martine the fift and himselfe also hath approved Besides this that Eugenius confirmed the Councill at Basil there are other evident proofes His owne Bull or embossed letters wherein he saith of this Councill purè simpliciter ac cum effectu et omni devotione prosequimur we embrace sincerely absolutely and with all affection and devotion the generall Councill at Basil The Councill often mention his adhesion his maximā adhaesionem to the Councill by which Adhesion as they teach Decreta corroborata sunt the Decrees of the Council at Basil made for the superiority of a Council above the Pope were cōfirmed Further yet the Orators which Pope Eug. sent to the council did not only promise but corporally sweare before the whole Councill that they would defend the decrees therof particularly that which was made at Constance was now renewed at Basil. Such an Harmonie there was in beleeving and professing this doctrine that the Popes judgement in causes of faith is neither supreme nor infallible that generall Councils at this time decreed it the indubitate Popes confirmed it the Popes Orators solemnly sware unto it the Vniversall and Catholike Church untill then embraced it and that with such constancy and uniforme consent that as the Council of Basil saith and their saying is worthy to be remembred nunquam aliquis peritorum dubitavit never any learned and skilfull man doubted therof It may be some illiterate Gnatho hath soothed the Pope in his Hildebrandicall pride vaunting Se quasi deus sit errare non posse I sit in the temple of God as God I cannot erre but for any that was truly judicious or learned never any such man in all the ages of the Church untill then as the Councill witnesseth so much as doubted thereof but constantly beleeved the Popes authoritie not to be supreme and his judgement not to be infallible 31. After the Councill of Basil the same truth was still embraced in the Church though with far greater opposition then before it had witnesse hereof Nich. Cusanus a Bishop a Cardinall a man scientijs pene omnibus excultus who lived 20 yeares after the end of the Councill at Basil. He earnestly maintained the decree of that Councill resolving that a generall Councill is omni respectu tam supra Papam quam supra sedem Apostolicam is in every respect superior both to the Pope and to the Apostolike see Which he proveth by the Councils of Nice of Chalcedon of the sixt and 8 generall Councils and he is so confident herein that he saith Quis dubitare potest sanae mentis what man being in his wits can doubt of this superioritie Witnesse Iohn de Turrecremata a Cardinall also who was famous at the same time He thought he was very unequall to the Councill at Basil in fauour belike of Eugenius the 4 who made him Cardinall yet that he thought the Popes judgement in defining causes of faith to be fallible and his authority not supreme but subject to a Councill Andradius will tell you in this manner Let us heare him Turrecremata affirming that the Definitions of a Council concerning doctrines of faith are to be preferred Iudicio Rom. Pontificis to the judgement of the Pope and then he citeth the words of Turrec that in case the Fathers of a generall Councill should make a definition of faith which the Pope should contradict This was the very case of the fift Councill and Pope Vigilius dicerem judicio meo quod Synodo standum esset et non personae Papae I would say according to my judgement that we must stand to the Synods and not to the Popes sentence who yet further touching that the Pope hath no superior Iudge upon earth extracasum haeresis unlesse it be in case of heresie doth plainly acknowledge that in such a case a Councill is superior unto him Superior I say not onely as he minceth the matter by authoritie of discretive judgement or amplitude of learning in which sort many meane Bishops and presbyters are far his superiors but even by power of Iurisdiction seeing in that case as he confesseth the Councill is a superior Iudge unto the Pope and if he be a Iudge of him he must have coactive authoritie and judiciall power over him Witnesse Panormitane an Archbishop and a Cardinall also a man of great note in the Church both at and after the Councill of Basil He professeth that in those things which concerne the Faith or generall state of the Church Concilium est supra Papam the Councill in those things is superior to the Pope He also writ a booke in defence of the Councill at Basill so distastfull to the present Church of Rome that they have forbid it to be read and reckned it in the number of Prohibited bookes in their Romane Index At the same time lived Antonius Rosellus a man noble in birth but more for learning who thus writeth I conclude that the Pope may be accused and deposed for no fault nisi pro haeresi but for heresie strictly taken or for some notorious crime scādalizing the whole Church and againe Though the Pope be not content or willing to be judged by a Councill yet in case of heresie the Councill may condemne and adnull senteniam Papae the Iudgement or sentence of faith pronounced by the Pope and he gives this reason thereof because in this case the Councill is supra Papam above the Pope and the superior Iudge may be sought unto to declare a nullitie in the sentence of the inferiour Iudge Thus he and much more to this purpose Now although by these the first of which was a Belgian the second a Spaniard the third a Sicilian and the last an Italian it may be perceived that the generall judgement of the Church at that time and the best learned therein was almost the same with that
Theodoretum refutatio Cyrill who in his Epistle to Eulogius faith thus You have my refutation which I set forth against Andreas and Theodoret who writ against my Chapters 6. Witnesse Theodoret himselfe who in sundrie of his Epistles testifieth his spleene and spight against Cyrill and the Catholike faith In one of them to Nestorius he professeth his most perverse and pertinacious resolution to abide in that heresie of Nestorius I wil never saith he while I live consent to those things which are done against you and against the law so hee taxeth not onely the Chapters of Cyrill but the decree of the holy Ephesine Synod no I will not consent unto them though they should cut off both my hands In another to Iohn the Bishop of Antioch We continue still saith he contradicting the twelve Chapters ut alienis à pietate as being contrary to pietie In another to Aemerius Wee ought not to consent to the condemnation of the venerable and most holy Bishop Nestorius in another to Alexander I told you before that the doctrine of my venerable and most holy Bishop Nestorius hath beene condemned nec ego cum his qui faciunt communicabo neither will I communicate with those who condemned that doctrine and yet more bitterly in his Epistle to Andreas his fellow oppugner of those Chapters Insanit iterum Aegyptus adversus Deum Aegypt is againe madde against the Lord and makes warre with Moses and Aaron the servants of God As if Nestorius and his fellow-heretikes were the onely Israel but Cyrill Bishop of Alexandria in Aegypt and the holy Ephesine Councell and all Catholikes who held with them were no other but Pharao and his Aegyptian troupes which fought against GODS people 7. Doe we yet desire more or more pregnant and ample testimonies in this matter Take this one out of the acts of Chalcedon When Theodoret being called came first into the Synod the most reverend Bishops of Aegypt Illirium and Palestine cryed out against him in this manner The Canons exclude this man thrust him out Magistrum Nestorij for as mittite thrust out the master of Nestorius the orthodoxall Councell doth not receive Theodoret Call him not a Bishop he is no Bishop hee is an oppugner of God he is a Iew thrust him out he accused he anathematized Cyrill If we receive him we reject Cyrill The Canons exclude him God doth detest him Thus cryed out the Bishops against Theodoret before they knew him to have renounced the heresie of Nestorius which he had so long and so eagerly defended nor were they pacified otherwise but that Theodoret at the appointment of the Iudges should sit onely as an accuser of Dioscorus not as one having judicatorie power or a decisive suffrage till his owne cause was fully examined and heard Seeing now there are besides many other which I willingly omit so many so evident so obvious so undeniable proofes that Theodoret writ against Cyrill and against his twelve Chapters in defence of Nestorius and his heresie what can one thinke of Vigilius but that he wilfully and wittingly resisted the truth while he not onely strives to perswade that Theodoret writ no such thing and that the Councell of Chalcedon thought so but takes this knowne and palpable untruth for one of the grounds of his Apostolicall decree touching this second Chapter 8. And yet there is a worse matter in this very passage of Vigilius and that is the reason whereby he proveth that Theodoret writ not against Cyrill or in defence of Nestorius you shall heare it in his owne words It is saith he undoubtedly repugnant to the judgement of the Councell of Chalcedon that any Nestorian doctrines should be condemned under the name of that Bishop Theodoret who together with those holy Fathers did accurse the doctrines of Nestorius Quid enim aliud est mendaces simulantes professionem rectae fidei patres in sancto Concilio Chalcedonensi residentes ostendere quam dicere aliquos ex ijs similia sapuisse Nestorio for to say that any of them who were in that Councell had thought as Nestorius did is nothing else then to shew or affirme those Fathers in the Councell of Chalcedon to be lyers and dissemblers in faith as condemning that faith which they doe allow Thus reasoneth Vigilius who hence implyeth that seeing Theodoret was one of the Bishops and Fathers at Chalcedon if he ever writ any such things in defence of Nestorius then both he and the rest admitting him should dissemble in their faith and lye professing to condemne Nestorius and yet approving him who had writ in defence of Nestorius 9. Truly I doe even admire to consider the blindnesse of Vigilius in this whole cause of the three Chapters Most certaine it is as we have shewed that Theodoret did both thinke as Nestorius and write in defence of him and his heresie and that the Councell of Chalcedon knew he did so If then to receive such an one as they knew Theodoret to have beene be as Vigilius saith a dissembling and lying in the faith the whole Councell of Chalcedon by the Popes judgement and decree were undoubtedly all lyers and dissemblers in the faith a calumnie and slander so vile and incredible that it alone should cause any Catholike minde to detest this Apostolicall Constitution of Vigilius But to say truth the Popes reason is without al reason Had the holy Coūcell admitted Theodoret before he had renounced his heresie or manifested the sincerity of his faith unto them the Pope might have had some colour to have accused them of dissembling as condemning Nestorianisme yet receiving a known Nestorian into their communion but it was quite contrary In the former actions till Theodoret had cleared himselfe of heresie hee was as we have declared no otherwise admitted than onely as a plaintiffe who accused Dioscorus for injuriously deposing him and placing another in his See And in the eight Action wherein hee came to cleare himselfe and to be reconciled to the Church he had no sooner almost set his foot in the Synod but the Bishops cryed out Theodoretus modo anathematizet Nestorium let Theodoret forthwith anathematize Nestorius let him doe it instantly and without any delay And when Theodoret to give the Councell better satisfaction offered them first a book to reade containing the sincere profession of his faith and when that being refused he purposed at large by words to have expressed the same the Synod suspecting the worst and that hee used those delayes as being loath to anathematize Nestorius cryed out He is an heretike he is a Nestorian haereticum for as mitte out with the heretike and so they had indeed thrust him out but that he leaving all circuition presently before them all cryed Anathema to Nestorius Anathema to him who doth not confesse the blessed Virgin to bee the Mother of God with which profession the Synod being fully satisfied the glorious Iudges
said omnis dubitatio now all doubt is quite taken away concerning Theodoret and then the Synod both received him into their communion as an orthodoxe and restored him to his See from which in the Ephesine latrocinie hee was deposed they all crying out Theodoret is worthy of his See let his Church receive their orthodoxall Bishop To Theodoret a Catholike Doctor let the Church be restored 10. What greater detestation of heresie could the Synod possibly shew what greater tokens of the sinceritie of his faith could either Theodoret expresse or the Synod require It was too great rashnesse if not simplicitie in Vigilius to collect that the holy Councell did dissemble in their faith because they received him who had sometimes swarved in the faith The hereticall Theodoret they exclude and reject the orthodoxall Theodoret they reverence and embrace That which Saint Austen saith in another cause that the husband who had put away his adulterous wife ought againe to receive her being purged by unfained repentance but so receive her non ut post viri divortium adultera revocetur sed ut post Christi consortium adultera non vocetur that same may bee accommodated to any other offence and not unfitly to this of heresie and the repentant hereticke whom they before for that cause had from themselves disioyned but they neither call nor count him an hereticke whom Christ hath now upon his repentance unto himselfe conjoyned So neither is the Popes reason consequent that the Councell did dissemble in their receiving of Theodoret nor his conclusion true which he would thence inferre that Theodoret writ not against Cyrill and the Catholike faith 11 The second personall matter which Vigilius taketh for another ground of his decree is that neither Theodoret himselfe did nor did the Councell of Chalcedon require him to anathematize his writings There was saith he divers in the Councell of Chalcedon who said that Theodoret had anathematized Cyrill and was an heretike yet those holy Fathers most diligently examining this cause of Theodoret nihil aliud ab eo exigisse noscuntur are knowne to have required no more of him than that hee should anathematize Nestorius and his impious doctrines hoc sibi tantummodo sufficere judicantes judging this alone to be sufficient for them to receive Theodoret. Now it is unfit saith he further nos aliquid quaerere velut omissum à patribus that we should seeke or require more than did the Councell of Chalcedon as if they had omitted any thing in this cause of Theodoret seeing then they required no anathematizing of his writings against Cyrill neither ought any others to anathematize or require of any the anathematizing of the same 12. As you saw Vigilius in the former Chapter to use haretica astutia so may any man here easily discerne that hee useth an evident and fallacious sophistication The Councell indeed required not that nor did Theodoret in explicite or expresse termes performe it saying I anathematize my owne writings against Cyrill but in implicite termes in effect and by an evident consequent both the Councell required and Theodoret performed this before them all for hee subscribed to the definition of faith decreed at Chalcedon one part of that definition is the approveing of the Synodall Epistles of Cyrill a part of one of those Epistles are the twelve Chapters of Cyrill which Theodoret refuted in every one of those chapters is an anathema denounced to the defenders of the contrarie doctrine Then certainely Theodoret by subscribing to the definition subscribed to the Epistles of Cyrill by them to the twelve chapters and by doing so he condemned and anathemized all who oppugned those twelve chapters and then undoubtedly his owne writings which were published as a confutation of those twelve chapters And it seemes strange that Vigilius professing that Theodoret did devota mente suscipere with a dovout affection receive and approve the Epistles of Cyrill and the doctrine of them could deny or be ignorant that in doing so he did anathematize his owne writings which by the twelve chapters of Cyrill are anathematized 13. Besides this how often how plainely doth the Councell of Chalcedon require and urge Theodoret to anathematize Nestorius and his doctrines how willingly did Theodoret performe this What else is this but a vertuall and implicite anathematizing of those his owne writings against Cyrill which defended Nestorius and his doctrines None can anathematize the former but eo ipso he doth most certainely though not expresly anathematize the later as on the contrary none can say as Vigilius doth and decreeth that all shall doe the like none can say that the writings of Theodoret against Cyrill and his twelve chapters ought not to be anathematized but eo ipso even by saying so he doth most certainly though but implicitè and by consequent say that Nestorius and his heresie ought not to be condemned A truth so cleare that Pope Pelagius from his anathematizing of Nestorius and his doctrine concludeth of Theodoret Constat eundem it is manifest that in doing this he condemned his owne writings against the twelve Chapters of Cyrill 14. Neither is that true which Vigilius fancied that to require men to anathematize the writings of Theodoret is to seeke and require more then the Councell of Chalcedon required It is not It is but requiring the selfe same thing to be done in actuall and expresse termes which the Councel required and Theodoret performed in vertuall and implicite termes The thing required and done is the same the manner onely of doing it or requiring it to be done is different Even as to require of men to professe Christ to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Councell of Nice and the Church ever since requireth is not to require them to professe more or ought else then the Scripture teacheth and all catholikes before professed by those words I and my Father are one but it is a requiring of an explicite profession of that truth concerning the unity of substance of the Father and the Sonne which by those words of Scripture they did before implicitè professe 15. But yet at least will some of Vigilius friends reply it was unfit to require this explicite anathematizing of Theodorets writings seeing the Councell of Chalcedon did not require it No not so neither The explicite condemning of them was not only fit but necessarie at that time in the dayes of Iustinian and Vigilius For as when the Arians denyed Christ to bee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it was enough for one to cleare himselfe of Arianisme to say that he held this text for true I and the Father are one though therein he doe implicitè professe Christ to bee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and though to have professed that alone before the question about the unity of one substance was moved had beene sufficient but now he must explicitè professe that truth which is explicitè denyed and oppugned even so
it is manifest to be a Catholike seeing hee is now converted from that understanding of Cyrills Chapters whereby hee was deceived who while hee doubted of the understanding of those Chapters did seem to speak against Cyrill for never would Iuvenalis say that Ibas were a Catholike unlesse he had proved by the words of this Epistle his confession to bee orthodoxall And that the Interloquutions of Iuvenalis and Eunomius doe agree the words of Eunomius doe shew which are these In what things Ibas seemed to blame Cyrill by speaking ill hee hath refuted all those things which he blamed by making a right confession at the last By which words of Eunomius it is evidently declared that in the confession of faith made by Ibas nothing was reproved seeing it is manifest that his faith was praised and that Ibas hath refuted that which by misunderstanding Cyrill hee had thought amisse of him 4. For the same venerable Ibas by the precedent Acts as the judgement of Photius and Eustathius doth shew is most manifestly declared to receive and embrace all things which were done in the first Ephesine Synod and judge them equall to the Nicene decrees and to put no difference betwixt those and these at Ephesus and Eustathius is shewed very much to commend the sanctity of Ibas for that he was so ready and willing to cure those who either by suspition or any other way did hurt the opinion of his learning For after that Cyrill had explaned his twelve Chapters and the meaning which Cyrill had in them was declared unto Ibas after that Ibas professed himselfe with all the Easterne Bishops to have esteemed Cyrill a Catholike and to have remained even unto his end in the communion with him whence it is cleare that Ibas both before he understood the twelve Chapters of Cyrill and when hee suspected one onely nature of Christ to be taught and maintained by them did then in an orthodoxal sense reject that which he thought to be spoken amisse in those Chapters and also after the explanation thereof did in an orthodoxall sense reverently embrace those things which he knew to be rightly spoken in those Chapters 5. Further it doth without all doubt appeare to the minds of all the faithfull that Dioscorus with Eutiches did offer more wrong in the second Ephesine Synod than Ibas to Cyrill and the first Ephesine Councell by understanding Cyrils Chapters in an hereticall sense beleeving Cyrill to teach by his twelve Chapters one onely nature in our Lord Iesus Christ and for this cause did Dioscorus condemne some of the Easterne Bishops who would not acknowledge one only nature in Christ among whom he condemned as an heretike and deposed Ibas from his Bishopricke specially for this very confession of his faith wherein hee most plainly professeth two natures one power one person which is one Sonne our Lord Iesus Christ and Dioscorus restored Eutiches as a Catholike for the confession of one onely nature in Christ condemning also Flavianus of blessed memory for the same doctrine of holding two natures And Dioscorus and Eutiches are found much more to indeavour to overthrow the first Ephesine Synod while they defēd it under the shew of an execrable sense of one nature and to slander Cyrill more while they praise him than did Ibas when by the errour and misconceiving of Cyrils meaning he dispraised him for seeing their praise and dispraise doe tend unto the same thing Dioscorus and Eutiches who condemned Cyrill are found to have commended him with an hereticall spirit or in an hereticall sense and therfore were they condemned in the Councell at Chalcedon but Ibas who at the first dispraised Cyrils Chapters thinking one onely nature to bee taught by them and who after the sense and meaning of them was declared unto him did professe himselfe with the Easterne Bishops to communicate with Cyrill was judged by the same Councell of Chalcedon to have continued in the right faith Thus farre are the words of Vigilius and so much of his Constitution as concernes this profession made by Ibas of two natures and one person in Christ. 6. Words like the Oracles of Apollo ful of thick darknes hiddē mysteries Nor must you here expect any light at al from Binius was wise enough to decline these rocks in the Epist. of Ibas both that of the union with Cyril this of his cōfessing two natures and one person at which fearing to make shipwracke of faith as Vigilius had done before he thought it to be far the safest course at one stroke to wipe away and spunge out those whole passages both out of the Popes Constitution and his owne Tomes of Councels best to have them smothered in silence or buried in eternall oblivion Add yet to say truth had Binius used all his art in this point that alas would but have helped a little he poore lambe is not able of himselfe to wade no not through shallow places it would require an Elephant to swimme through such a deepe All his light is but borrowed of others specially from Baronius where Baronius is silent he is more mute than a fish yea and when some of the Cardinals beames doe happen to collustrate his notes yet even there they lose a great part of that vigour which they have in the Cardinals Phoebean lampe 7. The only man in the world fit to make a full and just commentary on this text of Vigilius had beene Baronius himselfe He by his long acquaintance with Popes and Court of Rome by his continuall rifling of the Vaticane Manuscripts and anatomising so many Pontificall decrees had quicke sense of the Popes pulse he knew every string and straine in their breasts But so unhappily it fals out that the Cardinall himselfe durst not touch this soare he passeth it over nay rather shuffles it from him with deepe silence wote you why you may bee sure hee knew there was a padde in this straw which had the Cardinall uncovered his owne friends could not have indured the lothsome sent of the Pontificall Constitution but for very shame would have swept it out of the Church of God Now because it were great pitty that so many mysteries as lye hid in this part of the Popes decree should be unknowne to the world and because the very explication of the Popes words is a full conviction of his heresie for want of a better I will lend them my best endeavours to supply the defect of the Cardinals Commentary in this point And although all that I can say is nihil ad Parmenonis suem nothing to that which you should have applauded si ipsam belluam audissetis if the Popes commentator had beene himselfe pleased to write hereof yet truly by long contemplation of the Popes workes and industrious observing the Cardinals artificium in explaning the like decrees I well hope that I shal be able dolare and after a rude fashion to rough-hew a peece of a commentary at this time onely
very Word nec duas personas in Christo intelligimus neither doe wee understand two persons to be in Christ when wee say two natures to be in him as madde Nestorius thought Thus the Pope But no where is this more clearly and fully explained then in the Dialogue of Maxentius where the Catholike disputing with the Nestorian saith thus This is the cause of your errror you cannot discerne the difference betwixt Person and Nature But understanding Nature to be all one with Person ye confound or use for one and the same thing these two duas omnino personas sicut duas naturas unius filij Dei sine dubio praedicatis and without all doubt you teach two persons to be in the Sonne of God when yee professe two natures to be in him 20. By this which I have sayd it is now evident that the Nestorians spake like Catholikes but they thought contrarie to Catholikes their words were holy and orthodoxall but their sense and meaning was blasphemous and hereticall Neither was this any new policie of the Nestorians The Arians the Pelagians almost all heretikes have practised the like out of them all I will here alleage but one example Vitalis a Presbyter of Antioch was accused unto Damasus to maintaine in some part the heresie of Apollinaris as denying Christ to have a soule or minde At the motion of Damasus he delivered in writing a confession of his faith In that confession disertis verbis confessus est in Christo sicut carnem ita mentem hee in plaine termes professed Christ to have as well a soule as a body This his confession seeming at the first to be sound and good was approved for catholike both by Pope Damasus by Gregorie Nazianzen and other Catholikes who suspectd no hereticall fraud to lye hid under such faire and orthodoxall words for in his confession of faith Scripturae verba sine ulla depravatione collocabat nihil prorsus immutans nec orationis seriem adulterans Vitalis had placed the very words of the Scripture not depraved not any way changed neither the order nor writing of them being corrupted But when Vitalis came among his owne fellowes to whom he opened his secret meaning and his fraud as the Manichees were wont to do among their electi he then told them That by the soule and mind which hee had acknowledged in Christ he meant nothing but the very Deity it selfe which unto Christs body was as the soule mind to animate it with life sense and reason which was one part of the heresie of Apollinaris As soone as Pope Damasus and Gregory Nazianzen knew of this fraud they not onely rejected Vitalis out of their communion but condemned as hereticall and that also with an Anathema denounced against it Fidei libellum that very same profession of faith made by Vitalis which themselves before had approved which fact Gregorie defendeth as just and right both for himselfe and for Damasus 21. From this two things are specially for our present purpose to be observed The former that an hereticall profession may bee made in most orthodoxall termes yea in the very words of the holy Scripture not corrupted not altered not changed for so was this hereticall confession of Vitalis The other is that the selfe same profession of faith if wee looke onely at the words may be allowed for orthodoxall when the sense thereof is and appeareth to bee orthodoxall and when there is no evidence to the contrary but that the party who makes that profession as he speakes orthodoxally so also meaneth orthodoxally and that same profession also may justly bee condemned for hereticall when by any overt act or outward evidence it doth certainly appeare that the party who made that confession by and under those orthodoxall words meant by a fraudulent and equivocating collusion to expresse an hereticall sense for while there appeared no cause to mistrust Vitalis Pope Damasus and others approved his profession as orthodoxall but as soone as they knew hee meant heretically they condemned and anathematized the very selfe same profession as hereticall The reason of all which is that which the same Gregory and after him Iustinian expresseth quoniam eaedem voces because the very same words if they bee rightly expounded and understood are pious but if they be taken in an hereticall sense they are impious 22. That which Damasus and Gregorie did in the confession of Vitalis must bee done in the profession of the Nestorians when Catholikes say there are in Christ two natures and one person their confession is orthodoxall because they say it in an orthodoxall sense using the words as they ought to bee in their right naturall and usuall signification But when the Nestorians say the very same words their saying is hereticall because they say it in an hereticall sense abusing the words to an equivocall unnaturall and unusuall signification Nay it not onely must but it was sayd it was decreed in this very case of Nestorius and that by the whole generall Councell at Ephesus themselves being Catholikes professed in Christ two natures and one person and yet they condemned and accursed Nestorius who in words said the very same acknowledging in Christ two natures and one person Whose judgement herein being followed both by the Councell at Chalcedon this 5. Synod in a word by the whole Catholike Church is a warrant authenticall that a profession being for words one and the selfe same may and ought in some to be judged orthodoxal in others condemned as hereticall and the saying of old Ennius though spoken to another purpose is verified in this Eadem dicta eadem que oratio aqua non aeque valet 23. It is not enough then to prove either Ibas to be a Catholike or his Epistle orthodoxall because in it Ibas professeth two natures and one person in Christ for Theodorus and Nestorius professed the very same but the sense and meaning of his words set downe in that Epistle must be exactly considered whether he meant not as other Nestorians and even as Nestorius himselfe did two such natures as make two distinct persons also and whether he called them not one person in such a sense as meaning that they were one not by naturall or personall subsistence but onely by affection and cohabitation If it may appeare that this was indeed the meaning of Ibas in his Epistle then will those words of his profession be so farre from proving either him or his Epistle to be Catholike as Vigilius and Baronius doe thence inferre that it will demonstrate both Ibas in making that profession and Vigilius and Baronius in defending it to approve and maintaine Nestorianisme as the onely Catholike Faith 24. But can this thinke you be shewed indeed It may and that most clearly and most certainely The Emperour Iustinian in his religious Edict both testifieth and demonstrates this Heretickes saith he
person 29. Let us now come unto the reasons whereby our Author Vigilius proves this profession to be Catholike Those are specially three in which because they all depend on that which hath beene declared in the position we may be the more briefe The first is because Dioscorus and the Ephesine Lactrocinie did judge both this profession of Ibas and Ibas himselfe for making this profession to bee hereticall propter hanc fidei professionem for this profession of two natures and one person he condemned and deposed Ibas Now the judgement of Dioscorus to have beene unjust and hereticall there is no doubt and therefore the confession of Ibas which hee condemned must be acknowledged as orthodoxall and Catholike as being repugnant to the hereticall doctrine of Dioscorus A very poore and silly collection for a Pope and I doubt not but Vigilius would have derided it had not Nestorianisme at this time bereft him of all sound reason and judgement Dioscorus and his Ephesine conspiracie maintained the heresie of Eutiches which denieth two natures at all or any way either making one or two persons to be in Christ after the incarnation So whether one held the same two natures to make but one person as the Catholikes said or to make two distinct persons as the Nestorians affirmed it was all one to Dioscorus The very holding of two natures to bee in Christ either of those wayes made one an hereticke in the judgment of Eutiches Dioscorus and their Ephesine Synod The heresie of Eutiches did equally contradict both the Catholike truth and the Nestorian heresie because they both consented in one common truth that there are two distinct natures or essences abiding in Christ. If this judgement of Dioscorus against Ibas will prove either him or his Epistle to be Catholike the very like effect it must have in Theodorus in Nestorius in all Nestorians and in all their writings they all with Ibas professe two natures to abide in Christ they all by the judgement of Dioscorus and his Synod are hereticall So either must Vigilius approve all Nestorians for Catholikes if this reason for Ibas bee effectuall or if they bee truly heretickes whom Dioscorus yet hath condemned as well as Ibas then is this his reason ineffectuall to prove from the condemnation of Dioscorus Ibas or his profession to be Catholike 30. His second reason is drawne from the likenesse and identitie of faith in Flavianus and Ibas damnat quoque propter duarum naturarum vocem Dioscorus did also or for the same cause condemne Flavianus for which Ibas was condemned to wit for professing two natures in Christ. Seeing then it is knowne that the profession of Flavianus was Catholike the profession also of Ibas made in this Epistle being like to that of Flavianus must needes be Catholike My annotation on this reason of Vigilius is that it is inconsequent sophisticall and worth nothing at all Ibas indeede in words said the like with Flavianus but Flavianus said it in a Chatholike sense holding those two natures to make but one person or personall subsistence and Ibas said it in this Epistle in an hereticall sense holding those two natures to make two distinct persons or two personall subsistences To Dioscorus it was all one to say as Flavianus did or as Ibas in this Epistle doth for seeing they both jumpe in this that two natures or essences doe remaine after the incarnation they are both alike heretickes to Dioscorus though in truth the profession of Flavianus made him a Martyr and the profession of Ibas set down in this Epistle being in words the same make him an hereticke Or if Ibas be a Catholike for professing in words the same which Flavianus did then by this reason of our Author Vigilius Theodorus Nestorius and all the Nestorians are Catholikes because they all professe with Flavianus â—two natures and one person to be in Christ in the same manner as Ibas here doth 31. His third and last reason is drawne from the judgement of the Councell at Chalcedon they condemned Dioscorus and Eutiches but they embraced Ibas an evidence that as they judged the profession of Dioscorus to be hereticall so they esteemed the profession of Ibas to be orthodoxall yea even this which he maketh in this Epistle for after that Cyrill had once explaned his Chapters which was before this Epistle was writ after that time in Catholicae fidei rectitudine ab eâdem Chalcedonensi Synodo judicatus est Ibas permansisse Ibas was by the Synod at Chalcedon judged to have continued in the right profession of the faith The only glosse fit for this reason is that it is fallacious untrue and slanderours fallacious for the Councell of Chalcedon received Ibas indeed but not for this profession made in his Epistle which that holy Councell both knew and condemned as hereticall but as before we have declared for his consenting to the Ephesine Councell and condemning of Nestorius first before Photius Eustathius then before themselves in the Councell at Chalcedon upon this whereby Ibas did in truth condemne his own profession made in this Epistle and this whole Epistle upon this I say and not for professing in this Epistle two natures and one person was Ibas received by the Councell at Chalcedon untrue for neither did the Councell of Chalcedon judge Ibas to have beene a Catholike or hold the Catholike faith upon the declaration of Cyrils Chapters much lesse did they judge him to have continued ever after that time in the orthodoxie of faith slanderous for Vigilius by saying that the Councell of Chalcedon held Ibas for a Catholike upon or shortly after the declaration of Cyrils Chapters makes them all guilty of Nestorianisme long after that explanation did Ibas write this Epistle wherein all the blasphemies of Nestorius are maintained Had they judged him since that Explanation to be a Catholike they must approve this Epistle for Catholike and so prove themselves to be hereticall to be Nestorians Thus Vigilius to cloake his owne heresie would faine fasten it upon the holy Counsell of Chalcedon which was so farre from partaking with Vigilius herein that by their definitive sentence this very professioÌ„ of two natures and one person made in this Epistle yea every part of this Epistle is condemned for impious and hereticall And this I hope may serve for an explanation of Pope Vigilius his third reason to prove Ibas a Catholike drawne from this profession of faith made in this Epistle untill some Annalist like Baronius will helpe us to a better Commentary 32. The second reason of Vigilius set downe in the words before recited to prove Ibas a Catholike is drawne from his approving of the Ephesine Councell at the judgement before Photius Eustathius He there saith Vigilius most plainly approved the Ephesine Synod and the doctrines decreed therein he professed them to be equall to the Nicene decrees Photius the Iudge exceedingly commended Ibas that hee was so forward
holinesse by the figure called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth so artificially extenuate and almost annihilate them as if in al◠these Ibas did but seeme to speake against Cyrill He seemed what to revile nay he seemed but to speake against him Vigilius was too sparing and diminutive in his reproofe Non laudo 36. The second part of his Artificium concernes Chronology where he saith that when Cyrill had explaned his Chapters Ibas in ejus communionem devote concurrit Ibas then ran and hastened to communicate with Cyril Nor did Ibas alone at that time accord with Cyrill but he cum omnibus Orientalibus Episcopis with all the Easterne Bishops they all then embraced Cyrill for a Catholike and Ibas ever after that usque ad exitum even to his dying day continued in the Catholike communion with Cyrill Thus Vigilius I cannot flatter the Pope nor set any glosse upon this text but this that is utterly untrue All the Easterne Bishops did not at the time of the union betwixt Iohn and Cyrill much lesse at the time when Cyrill declared his Chapters consent or hold communion with Cyrill Of Theodoret it is as evident as the Sun for he after the union writ to Nestorius that he then held Cyrils Chapters hereticall and that hee would not consent to that which was done against Nestorius no not though his hands should be cut off The like is certaine of Ibas for that hee continued a malicious and slanderous defender of Nestorianisme after the union this his impious Epistle written at least two whole yeares after that union wherein he maintaineth all the impieties of Nestorius doth demonstrate So untrue it is which Vigilius affirmeth both in generall that all the Easterne Bishops and particularly that Ibas upon the Explanation of Cyrils Chapters which was before the union consented to Cyrill and communicated with him and much more untrue it is that Ibas ever after that Explanation even to his dying day remained a Catholike 37. I say yet more for the further clearing of this matter that neither all nor so much as any one of all those Easterne Bishops who tooke part with Iohn consented to Cyrill upon his declaration of the twelve Chapters for Cyrill set forth his explanation during the time of the Ephesine Councell while hee was imprisoned at Ephesus Cyrill saith Baronius being left at Ephesus was not idle there but knowing that his twelve Chapters were carped at by adversaries lest by their mis-interpretations they might be infringed ipse illis explanationem adjecit himselfe set out an explanation of them The very title prefixed to that explanation declares the same which is Cyrills explanation of the twelve Chapters Edita Ephesi sacra Synodo exigente published at Ephesus the holy Synod requiring Cyrill to doe the same The Nestorians and their Conventicle witnesse this most clearly for they who stayed at Ephesus writ thus to the Legates whom they sent to the Emperour at Constantinople We have sent unto you recens factam expositionem ab Alexandrino haereticorum capitulorum the Explanation of the hereticall Chapters lately made by Cyrill of Alexandria This was writ by the Ephesine Conventicle before the dissolutiō of the Synod which ended about the eight day of November 38. Now that upon this explanation published by Cyrill the Easterne Bishops did not consent to Cyrill nor runne to communicate with him their owne words in the Epistle of the Conventicle last cited doe make manifest where they say of this explanation of Cyrill that he doth evidentius per illam ostendere suam impietatem more plainly by it shew his impiety then by the Chapters themselves So they more detested that explanation then the Chapters explaned it was more hereticall in their judgement then the other And Iohn himselfe with the other Legates assented to the judgement of their fellowes wee are ready say they to strive unto death and neither receive Cyrill neque capitula ab eo exposita neither the Chapters by him explained Whence it is without all doubt that neither all nor any at all not Iohn himselfe who was the ringleader to the rest did consent to Cyrill and hold communion with him upon his publishing that Explanation of his Chapters or upon their knowing thereof 39. But how long after this explanation was it before their union and communion with Cyrill Peltanus and Binius say that those jarres continued for three yeares after the end of the Councell So directly doe they controule the Popes Constitution wherein Vigilius so often affirmeth that upon the publishing of Cyrills explanation they ranne to communicate with Cyrill But because the account of Peltanus and Binius is certainly false we will not presse the Pope therewith Thus much is evident that the union betwixt Iohn and Cyrill was not concluded till December in the next yeare after the Councell was ended For Cyrill received neither Iohn nor any of the rest save onely Paulus Emisenus till Paulus came the second time to Alexandria bringing with him the orthodoxall profession of Iohn and the other Bishops with him at which time the union was fully concluded and in token thereof both Paulus made that his memorable Sermon at Alexandria on the twenty and ninth day of the month Chyath which answereth to our December and Cyrill writ that Epistle as an hymne of joy which beginneth laetentur coeli so farre were the Easterne Bishops from hastning or running as Vigilius saith to the communion with Cyrill upon his explanation made knowne unto them that they all save Paul stayed a full yeare and more after that explanation before they made peace or consented with Cyrill 40. The third part of the Popes Artificium is his Logicke which in very truth is nothing else but trifling sophistication he supposeth that Cyrills explanation of the twelve Chapters was the cause and occasion of the union betwixt Cyrill and the rest It was not for that was published and knowne unto them more then an whole yeare before the union nay that explanation did more alienate their minds from Cyrill they detested that more then the Chapters themselves as we have clearly proved so far was it from effecting the union that it increased the breach and dis-union The onely true and certaine cause of the union was the relenting of the Easterne Bishops from their former stomacke obstinacie and heresie their subscribing to all that Cyrill required of them to wit to the condemning of Nestorius and his heresies till they did this Cyrill was unmoveable inflexible to any union as soone as ever this was done Cyrill most gladly embraced them and sung his hymne Let the heavens rejoyce for their consenting to the Catholike faith Vigilius still harps on a wrong string and fallaciously puts non causam pro causa which was not fitting for the Popes gravitie judgment 41. The fourth and fift which are the chiefe parts of my Authors Artificium
Sacerdotali quantocunque Concilio the priviledge of never erring in faith was obtained by the prayer of Christ for Peter alone and his Chaire not for any Councell though it be never so great To the same purpose saith Bellarmine If a generall Councell could not erre in their sentence the judgement of such a Councell should be the last and highest judgement of the Church but that judgement is not the last for the Pope may either approve or reject their sentence So Bellarmine professing the Popes onely judgement to be infallible seeing it alone is the last and highest after and above both Church and generall Councell All the infallibility which they have is onely by reason of his judgement to which they accord consent It hence appeareth saith Bellarmine totam firmitatem that the whole strength and certainty of judgement which is even in lawfull Councels is from the Pope non partim à Concilio partim à Pontifice it is not partlie from the Councell and partly from the Pope it is wholly and onely from the Pope and in no part from the Councell When the Councell and Pope consent in judgement saith Gretzer omnis infallibilitas Concilij derivatur à Papa all the infallibility of the Councell is derived from the Pope and a little after when the Pope consenteth with the Councell ideo non errat quia est Papa hee is therfore free from erring because he is the Pope and not because he consenteth with the Councell In like sort Melchior Canus The strength and firmitude both of the whole Church and of Councels is derived from the Pope and againe In generall Councels matters are not to bee judged by number of suffrages but by the waight of them Pondus antem dat summi Pontificis authoritas and it is the Popes gravity and authority which gives waight to that part whereunto he inclineth If he say it one hundred Fathers with him are sufficient but if his assent bee wanting a thousand a million ten thousand millions Nulli satis sunt no number is sufficient Nay if all the whole world be of a contrary judgement to the Pope yet as the Canonist tels us the Popes sentence totius orbis placito praefertur is of more weight and worth than the judgement of the whole world So cleare it is that all their boasting of the authority and infallible judgement of the Church and of generall Councels wherein they please themselves more than ever the Iews did in crying so oft Templū Domini the Temple of the Lord that all this is nothing else but a Viser to hide or actually to draw into mens mindes the Popes infallibility they having no meaning at all to give or allow either to Church or generall Councell any infallibility but onely with a reference to the Pope to whom alone they annex it as a personall gift and peculiar prerogative and who like those leane and ill favoured Kine of Pharaoh hath devoured and quite swallowed up all the authority and infallibility both of Church and Councels yet thus much now is evident that seeing all who are of their present Romane Church beleeve and professe the Church and generall Councels to be infallible seeing their infallibility is none but onely by adhering and consenting to the Pope it necessarily ensueth that they all à fortiori doe beleeve and must professe the Pope to be infallible seeing on his the infallibility of both the other doth wholly and solely depend 12. Let me adde but one other proofe hereof taken from Supremacy of authoritie and judgement It is a ruled case in their learning Si errare non potest debet esse summus judex He who is infallible must be the highest and last Iudge and Vice versa He who is the last and highest judge must be infallible Supremacy and infallibility of judgement are inseparably linked To whomsoever Supremacy is given even for that cause infallibility of judgement is granted unto him also for seeing from the last or supreme Iudge there can be no appeale it were most unjust to binde Christians to beleeve his sentence who might be deceived most unjust to binde them from appealing from a judge that were fallible or from an erronious judgement Consider now to whom Supremacy of judgement in causes of faith belongeth To whom else but to the Pope whereas some dare affirme saith the Canonist that a Councell is above the Pope Falsissimum est This is most false The Successor of Peter saith Stapleton supra omnes est is above all Bishops Church generall Councels above all The Pope saith Bellarmine is simply and absolutely above the whole Church and above a generall Councell Hee further tels us that this assertion That the Pope is above a generall Councell is not only the judgment of all the ancient Schoole Divine the cōmon sentence of their Writers of whom he reckoneth thirteene and if it were fit three times thirtie might bee scored up with them but that it is the publike doctrine of their Church decreed in their Laterane Synod under Leo the tenth There the Councell saith he disertè ex professo docuit did plainly and of set purpose teach the Pope to bee above all Councels yea expressissimè rem definivit that Laterane Councell did most expresly define this and their definition hereof is Decretum de fide a Decree of faith for which cause in his Apology bearing the name of Schulkenius hee professeth that this is Articulus fidei an Article of faith such as every Christian is bound to beleeve that the Pope is Summus in terris totius Ecclesiae Iudex the Supreme last and highest Iudge of the whole Church here upon earth which he proves besides many other authorities by this very Laterane decree and by their Trent Councell The words themselves of those Councels make the matter plaine in that at the Laterane Councell they thus decree Solum Romanum Pontificem supra omnia Concilia authoritatem habere that the Pope alone hath authority above all Councels and this they say is taught not onely by Fathers and Councels but by the holy Scriptures thereby shewing that in this decree they explicate declare the Catholike faith which is one of the Cardinals notes to know when a decree is published by a Councell tanquam de fide as a decree of faith and they threaten the indignation of God and the blessed Apostles to the gainsayers of their decree A censure as heavy as any Anathema the denouncing whereof is another of the Cardinals notes that they proposed this decree as a decree of faith In the other at Trent the Councell teacheth that unto the Pope is given Suprema potestas in universa Ecclesia the Supreme power in the whole Church And this Supremacy is such that from all Councels all other Iudges you may appeale to him and hee may reverse
Apostolicall authoritie decree that none should either write or speake or teach ought contrary to his Constitution or if they did that his decree should stand for a condemnation and refutation of whatsoever they should either write or speake Here was a tricke of Papall that is of the most supreme pertinacy that can bee devised He takes order before hand that none shall ever I say not convict him but so much as manifest the truth unto him or open his mouth or write a syllable for the manifestation thereof and so being not prepared to bee corrected no nor informed neither hee was pertinacious and is justly to bee so accounted before ever either Bishop or Councell manifested the truth unto him Even as he is farre more wilfully and obstinately delighted in darknesse who dammes up all the windowes chinkes and passages whereby any light might enter into the house wherein hee is than hee who lyeth asleepe and is willing to be awaked when the light shineth about him So was it with Pope Vigilius at this time his tying of al mens tongues and hands that they should not manifest by word or writing the truth unto him his damming up of the light that never any glimpse of the truth might shine unto him argues a mind most damnably pertinacious in errour and so far from being prepared and ready to embrace the truth that it is obdurate against the same and will not permit it so much as to come neere unto him 20. The very like pertinacy is at this day in the Romane Church and all the members thereof for having once set downe this transcendent principle the foundation of all which they beleeve that the Popes judgement in causes of faith is infallible they doe by this exclude and utterly shut out all manifestation of the truth that can possibly bee made unto them Oppose whatsoever you will against their errour Scriptures Fathers Councels reason and sense it selfe it is all refuted before it be proposed seeing the Pope who is infallible saith the contrary to that which you would prove you in disputing from those places doe either mis-cite them or mis-interpret the Scriptures Fathers and Councels or your reason from them is sophisticall and your sense of sight of touching of tasting is deceived some one defect or other there is in your opposition but an errour in that which they hold there is nay there can be none because the Pope teacheth that and the Pope in his teaching is infallible Here is a charme which causeth one to heare with a deafe eare whatsoever is opposed the very head of Medusa if you come against it it stunnes you at the first and turnes both your reason your sense and your selfe also into a very stone By holding this one fundamentall position they are pertinacious in all their errours and that in the highest degree of pertinacy which the wit of man can devise yea and pertinacious before all conviction and that also though the truth should never by any meanes be manifested unto them For by setting this downe they are so far from being prepared to embrace the truth though it should be manifested unto them that hereby they have made a fundamentall law for themselves that they never will be convicted nor ever have the truth manifested unto them The onely meanes in likelihood to perswade them that the doctrines which they maintaine are heresies were first to perswade the Pope who hath decreed them to bee orthodoxall to make a contrary decree that they are hereticall Now although this may be morally judged to be a matter of impossibilitie yet if his Holinesse could be induced hereunto and would so farre stoope to Gods truth as to make such a decree even this also could not perswade them so long as they hold that foundation They would say either the Pope were not the true Pope or that he defined it not as Pope and ex Cathedra or that by consenting to such an hereticall decree hee ceased ipso facto to be Pope or the like some one or other evasion they would have still but grant the Popes sentence to be fallible or hereticall whose infallibility they hold as a doctrine of faith yea as the foundation of their faith they would not Such and so unconquerable pertinacy is annexed and that essentially to that one Position that so long as one holds it and whensoever he ceaseth to hold it hee ceaseth to be a member of their Church there is no possible meanes in the world to convict him or convert him to the truth 21. You doe now clearely see how feeble and inconsequent that Collection is which Baronius here useth in excuse of Pope Vigilius for that he often professeth to defend the Councell of Chalcedon and the faith therein explaned Hee did but herein that which is the usuall custome of all other heretikes both ancient and moderne Quit him for this cause and quit them all condemne them and then this pretēce can no way excuse Vigilius frō heresie They all with him professe with great ostentation to hold the doctrines of the Scriptures of Fathers of generall Councels but because their profession is not onely lying and contradictorie to it selfe but alwayes such as that they retaine a wilfull and pertinacious resolution not to forsake that heresie which themselves embrace as Vigilius had not to forsake his defence of the Three Chapters Hence it is that their verbal profession of Scriptures Fathers and Councels cannot make any of them nor Vigilius among them to be esteemed orthodoxall or Catholike but the reall and cordiall profession of any one doctrine which they with such pertinacy hold against the Scriptures or holy generall Councels as Vigilius did this of the Three Chapters doth truly demonstrate them all and Vigilius among them to be heretikes And this may suffice for answer to the second exception or evasion of Baronius CAP. 15. The third exception of Baronius in excuse of Vigilius taken from his confirming of the fift Councell answered and how Pope Vigilius three of foure times changed his judgement in this cause of faith 1. IN the third place Baronius comes to excuse Vigilius by his act of confirming and approving the fift Councell and the decree thereof for condemning the Three Chapters It appeareth saith hee that Vigilius to the end he might take away the schisme and unite the Easterne Churches to the Catholike communion quintam Synodum authoritate Apostolica comprobavit did approve the fift Synod by his Apostolicall authoritie Againe when Vigilius saw that the Easterne Church would be rent from the West unlesse he consented to the fift Synod eam probavit he approved it Again Pelagius thought it fit as Vigilius had thought before that the fift Synod wherein the three Chapters were condemned should bee approved and again Cognitum fuit it was publikely known that Vigilius had approved the fift Synod and condemned the three Chapters The like is affirmed by Bellarmine Vigilius
though as it seemeth he remained in heart hereticall hee fell into so great dislike of those who defended the three Chapters that they did proclamare proclame him to be a colluder a prevaricator or betrayer of the faith one who to please the Emperour revolted from his former judgement yea the Africane Bishops proceeded so farre against him that as Victor Bishop of Tunen testifieth Synodaliter cum à catholica communione recludunt they in a Synod and synodally excommunicated him or shut him from the Catholike communion A thing worthy observing being done by those whom the Cardinall professeth to have beene Catholikes at that time But let that passe Baronius to excuse Vigilius from those imputations of colluder and prevaricator and to shew that hee was not in heart affected with the truth which in his Constitution he declared tells us a rare policy of the Pope which for this time we omit but hereafter will examine the truth and validity thereof and this it was Mox presently after Vigilius had made that Apostolicall decree for condemning the three Chapters he revoked the same touched belike with remorse for so hainous a crime as to professe the Catholike faith and he suspended it and his owne judgement in that cause till the time of a generall Councell decreeing that untill that time all men should be whisht and silent in this cause of faith they must neither say that the Three Chapters were to bee defended nor condemned they must neither speake one word for the truth nor against the truth they must all during that time be like himselfe lukewarme Laodiceans neither hot nor cold neither fish nor flesh This was the great wisedome and policy of the Pope as Baronius at large declares and makes no small boast thereof adding that the Pope remained in this mood till the time of the general Councel Thus you see the second judgmeÌ„t of Pope Vigilius in this cause and his cariage during the second period for a fit which perhaps lasted a weeke or a month hee was in outward profession orthodoxall but being weary of such an ague hee presently becomes a meere neutralist in the faith and in this sort hee continued till the assembling of the generall Councell that is for the space of six yeares and more 8. The third period begins at the time of the fift generall Councell Of what judgement the Pope then was it hath before beene sufficiently declared Then Vigilius turned to his old byas hee condemned the Emperours Edict and all that with it condemned the three Chapters he defends those three hereticall chapters and that after a most authenticall manner publishing a Synodall a Cathedrall and Apostolicall constitution in defence of the â—ame And whereas not only others but himselfe also had written and some sixe yeares before made a Constitution to condemne those Chapters Now after long and diligent ponderation of the cause when hee had examined all matters cum omni undique cautela with all warinesse and circumspection that could possible be used he quite casheires repeales and forever adnuls that former Constitution and whatsoever either himselfe or any other either had before written or should after that time write contrary to this present Decree And this no doubt was the reason why Baronias never so much as once endeavors to excuse Vigilius by that former decree or to prove him to have beene orthodoxall by it seeing by this later the whole force and vertue of that former is utterly made void frustrate and of no effect in the world In this judgement Vigilius was so resolute that hee was ready to endure any disgrace and punishment rather then consent to the condemning of the three Chapters and if wee may beleeve Baronius or Binius he did for this very cause endure banishment It is manifest saith Binius that after the end of the fift Councell Iustinian did cast into banishment both Vigilius and other orthodoxall Bishops so hee termeth convicted and condemned heretikes because they would not consent to the decrees of the Synod and condemning of the three Chapters In like sort Baronius Liquet ex Anastasio it is manifest by Anastasius that Vigilius and those who held with him were caried into banishment Againe Others thought they had a just quarrell in defending the three Chapters when they saw Vigilius even in banishment to maintaine the same and they thought se pro sacro sanctis pugnare legibus that they fought for the holy faith when they saw Pope Vigilius himselfe for the same cause constanti animo exilium ferre to endure banishment with a constant minde Againe Horum solum causa for this cause onely was Vigilius driven into banishment because he would not condemne the Three Chapters So Baronius who often calleth this exiling of Vigilius and others who defended those Chapters persecution yea an heavy and monstrous persecution complaining that the Church under Iustinian and from him endured more hard conditions and was in worse case then under the Heathen Emperors 9. Now this demonstrates that which before I touched that though the Pope upon his comming to Constantinople made a decree for condemning the Three Chapters yet still hee was in heart an affectionate lover of Nestorianisme and a defender of those Chapters seeing for his love to them and defence of them he is ready not onely to bee bound but to goe and dye in banishment for his zeale unto them For had he sincerely embraced the truth as in his former Constitution he professed why doth he now at the time of the fift Councell disclame the same Of all times this was the fittest to stand constanly to the faith seeing now both the glory of God the good and peace of the Church the authority of the Emperor the exaÌ„ple of orthodoxall Bishops and the whole Councell invited urged and provoked him to this holy duty What was there or could there be to move him at this time to defend the 3. Chapters save only his ardent and inward love to Nestorianisme Indeed had he continued in defence of those Chapters untill this time and now relented or changed his judgement it would have bin vehemeÌ„tly suspected that not the hatred of those chapters or of Nestorianisme but either the favour of the Emperor or the importunity of the Easterne Bishops or the feare of exile or deprivation or some such punishment had extorted that sentence and confession from him But now when hee decreeth contrary to the Emperour to the generall Councell and to his owne former and true judgement when by publishing this Decree he was sure to gaine nothing but the censure of an unconstant and wavering minded man the Anathema of the whole generall Councell and the heavy indignation of the Emperor when he goes thus against the maine current streame of the time who can thinke but that his onely motive to doe this was his zeale and love to Nestorianisme Love
himselfe was so far from being silent therein that both by words by writings by pontificall censures and judgements himselfe condemned the 3 Chapters who will again perswade you that the Pope suffered very heavy persecution at the Emperors hands because he would not permit the 3. Chapters to be condemned whereas the Pope himselfe not onely condemned them all that time as well as the Emperor did but both by writings reproved and by judiciall censures punished condemned and deposed such as would not condemne them and that also eo nomine because they would not condemne them nor consent to his judgements whereby he had condemned them Now that Vigilius continued of the same mind both in the 25. 26. yeares of Iustinian that is untill the time that the fift Councell was assembled though there be no particulars to explaine yet by the Emperours words before remembred that per totum tempus perseveravit and ejusdem semper voluntatis fuit it is abundantly testified So that it is most certain that Vigilius at no time observed this decree of Taciturnity and because had there beene any he of all men was the most likely to observe it who as Baronius fableth was so rigorous against others even the Emperor also for not observing thereof his not observing of it is an evidence that he made no such Decree at all but that the whole narration concerning it and the consequents upon it is a very fiction and fable 11. Next after the Pope let us see if the Emperor who as Baronius saith promised to observe this law of Taciturnity was silent quiet in this cause And truly there is a strong presumption that he neither did nor would now refuse or forbeare to condemne the 3. Chapters seeing by so doing he should have anathematized himselfe for by his Imperiall Edict he denoūced all those to be an Anathema who do not condemne and anathematize the same Chapters The very silence in this cause and ceasing or refusing to anathematize the Chapters had made him guilty of his owne just Anathema But to leave presumptions Certaine it is that Iustinian continued the same man constant in condemning those Chapters and that not onely for the time after this supposed Decree but from the first publishing of his own Edict whereof the whole fift Councell is a most ample witnesse who thus say omnia semper fecit facit quae sanctam Ecclesiam recta dogmata conservant The most pious Emperor hath ever done concerning this cause of the three Chapters and now doth those things which preserve the holy Church and sound doctrine and that to be the condemning of these Chapters they by their Synodall sentence doe make evident where they professe the condemning thereof to bee the preserving of the good seed of faith the preserving of the Councell of Chalcedon and the rooting out of hereticall tares 12. And if wee desire particulars of his constant dealing herein Victor Tunavensis declareth the earnestnesse of Iustinian in condemning these Chapters for every yeare since this Decree of Taciturnity is supposed to have beene made The Decree as Baronius sheweth was set out in the sixt yeare after the Consulship of Basilius which account by Consular yeares Victor useth and it answereth to the end of twenty one and most of the 22. yeare of Iustinian In the seaventh yeare after Basilius Coss. that is in the very next to that wherein the Decree was made Iustinian writ most earnestly saith Victor into divers provinces antistites cunctos praefata tria Capitula damnare compellit and hee compelled all Bishops to condemne the Three Chapters In the eight he sheweth that the Illyrian Bishops held a Synod and writ unto the Emperour to disswade him from condemning those Chapters In the ninth he shewes that Facundus did the like and further in this yeare the Emperor commanded the Synod at Mopsvestia to be held against Theodorus that it might appeare how and from how long time before then the name of Theodorus had beene blotted out of the Ecclesiasticall tables the judgement of which Synod the Emperor sent to Vigilius to assure him of the truth thereof that hee might with more constancie continue to cōdemne the Three Chapters In the tenth Victor declares that the Emperor sent for Reparatus and Firmus two Primates for Primasius Verecundus two Bishops to deale with them that they would condemne the same Chapters and that Zoilus Patriarch of Alexandria for refusing to condemne them was deposed which to have beene done by the Emperors command Liberatus sheweth In the eleventh which was the next before the generall Councell Victor tells us both that Firmus Primate of Numidia being wonne by the Emperors gifts so hee partially writeth consented to condemne the Chapters but Primasius Verecundus and Macarius for not consenting were all banished So cleare and undoubted it is that the Emperor continued so constant in his condemning of these Chapters that for every yeare since the Decree of Silence is supposed to be made he was resolute in this cause condemning and banishing such as consented not to the condemning of them 13. Whence the shamelesse untruths of the Baronian narration is demonstrated He tells you and tells it with a Constat that in the next yeare before the fift Councell the Emperour recalled his Edict and abrogated what he had done in this cause of the 3. Chapters whereas not onely the whole generall Councell testifieth on the contrary that hee still persisted constant in condemning of them but Victor one who had good reason to know these matters as feeling the smart of the Emperors severity for his obstinacie in defending those Chapters particularly witnesseth of that very yeare that the Emperor was so eager in maintaining his Edict and condemning the Chapters that he both drew Firmus the Primate of Numidia to his opiniō and banished Macarius Patriarch of Ierusalem Verecundus Bishop of Nica and Primasius another Bishop because they would not consent to his Edict and condemne the same Chapters And what a brainlesse devise was this that the Emperor in his 25. yeare should hang out his Edict at Constantinople so the Cardinall fableth as a matter of some great noveltie to bee published to the Citie whereas his Edict foure or five yeares before was so divulged throughout the whole Church that none may be thought to have beene ignorant thereof seeing universus orbis Catholicus the whole Catholike Church was divided and rent into a schisme about that Edict the one halfe defending the other oppugning the same Or what reason can the fabler give why Vigilius should in the 25. yeare quarrell with the Emperor rather then in the 24.23.22 in every one of which Iustinian was the same man constant in maintaining the truth published by his Edict Did the hanging out of the Edict more provoke the Popes zeale then the banishing imprisoning of those who withstood the Edict more then the
him and laying their necks at his feet say unto him Calcate me salem insipidum punish me as you please for speaking without your Holinesse leave and licence yea that Kings must pull downe abrogate and adnull their imperiall Edicts if the Pope doe but becke unto them though for these considerations hee is here willing that you beleeve that untruth concerning Mennas for all these depend on that one sentence of Anathema against Mennas yet when this matter is over-past when the Cardinall comes to a new argument where hee hopes this which is said about the cause of Vigilius wil be forgotten there he confesseth the truth indeed concerning Mennas and tels you a quite contrary tale For intreating of the Acts of the sixt Councel particularly of that reason of the Popes Legates against the forged Epistle in Mennas name he thus saith Ejusque rei certum illud attulerunt argumentum quod Mennas diem obijt anno 21 Iustiniani Imperatoris The Legates give a certaine proofe that the writing was forged because Mennas dyed in the 21 yeare of Iustinian the Emperour Loe the Cardinall knew and professeth it to bee not onely true but certaine that Mennas dyed in the 21 yeare of Iustinian and yet against his owne certain knowledge for maintaining this fictitious Decree of Silence and the fables thereon depending he perswades you to beleeve that Mennas dealt against this Decree was excommunicated by Vigilius and submitted himselfe to the Pope and rode with the relikes five yeares after he was dead 21. Truly this was scarse faire and honest dealing in the Cardinall by untruths to strive to bolster out forged Acts and writing But the Cardinals Annals are so full of such like stuffe that if you divide them into foure parts I doe constantly affirme there is no more truth in three of those foure than you have seene to bee in this fable which from a most base forgery knowne also to the Cardinall for such hee hath commended for a grave and authentike history unto us And I should grow somewhat out of patience to see the Cardinall so grosly contradict both the truth and his owne writings also but that by my long and serious tossing of his bookes I perceive this is so familiar a tricke with him that for the usuall meeting of it I have long since forgotten to be angry with him for such pettie faults This I hope which hath beene declared will serve for a caveat unto all to take heed how they credit any matter whatsoever upon the Cardinals relation either it is in it selfe untrue or it springs from some untruth or by his purpose in relating it it is made to serve but for a pully to draw you into some untruth aut aliquis latet dolus either in the head or taile there is a sting beleeve him not And I would also have added somewhat for Binius who in this as in other fancies and fables applauds Baronius but I suppose that as hee sucketh his errours from Baronius so hee will thinke that the refuting of Baronius is a sufficient warning for him to purge his Edition of the Councels from such vile and shamelesse untruths Thus much of that former point which concernes the second Period in Vigilius changings CAP. XVII That Vigilius neither by his Pontificall Decree nor so much as by a personall profession consented to or confirmed the fift Councell after the end thereof or after his supposed exile 1. THE other point proposed concernes that fourth and last change of Vigilius judgement whereby as Baronius tels us he by his Apostolicall Decree confirmed the fift Councell when about a yeare after the end thereof he returned out of exile That such a change of Vigilius can no way helpe Baronius or his cause though it should be granted unto him we have before declared but because al which we then said was onely spoken upon a supposall and admission of this Baronian change we will now more nearly examine the whole matter and try whether there was indeed any such Decree ever made by Vigilius and whether he did at any time after the end of the fift Councell change his judgement in such sort that he became a condemner of the Three Chapters and an approver of the fift Synod And truly I could wish so much good to Vigilius as that there might appeare some cleare and ancient records to testifie his renouncing of heresie and condemning of his owne hereticall and Cathedrall decree published in the time of the Councell for defence of the Three Chapters But the truth is more precious unto me than the love of Vigilius or any Pope whatsoever because it is the truth alone which causeth me to discusse this point I must needs confesse that I can finde nothing at all which can effectually induce mee to beleeve it but there are many and pregnant reasons which inforce me to thinke that Vigilius never made any such Decree or Change as Baronius fancieth but that this whole fourth Period and change of Vigilius so gloriously painted out by Baronius is nothing else but another fiction and peece of the Cardinals owne Poetry which without all warrant or ground from any ancient writer hee like a Spider onely out of his owne braine hath woven and devised 2. That Vigilius made no such Decree the reason which Bar. gives in this very case may declare he to prove that Vigilius made not this decree either during the time of the Synod or shortly after the end thereof hath these words If Vigilius had then assented by his letters utique literae illae Actis fuissent intextae verily those letters purchased with so great labour would have beene inserted among the Acts of the fift Synod and a great number of copies would have been taken thereof spred abroad and made knowne to all Churches as well in the East as West even as the Epistle of Leo was because by those letters validarentur quae à Synodo sancita those things which the fift Synod had decreed the Pope contradicting them and thereby they being invalid should now be made of force the Pope consenting to them Thus Baronius Doth not the same reason as effectually prove that he made no such decree at al or not a yeare after as that he made it not within one or two moneths after the end of the Synod with what labour at what price would not the Bishops of the fift Synod have purchased that decree how gladly would they have annexed it to their Acts as the Decree of Leo is to the acts at Chalcedon How many copies and extracts would they have taken of it and dispersed them every where both in the West and East to testifie the truth of their Synodall judgement and that the infallible Iudge had consented to their sentence and confirmed the same Or would they have done this within a month and not a yeare after the end of the Synod what odds to the point
proceedings the Emperours letters were their direction and as themselves professe the very Torch to guide all their actions In the manifold injuries and contumelies which they endured at the hands of Iohn with his Conventicle they fled to the Emperour beseeching him to be Iudge of their equall proceedings and take an equal exact view and examination of their doings which upon their request the Emperour did and called five Bishops of either part to Constantinople to declare the whole cause unto him after which being performed he gave judgement for the holy Councell and adnulled all the acts of the Conventicle as the holy Synod had earnestly and humbly entreated him So fully and cleerly doth that sacred and Oecumenicall Councell wherein was the judgement and consent of the whole Catholike Church both acknowledge this Imperiall right of Presidency in the Emperours and submit themselves unto it 14. For the Councell of Chalcedon the matter is so evident that Bellarmine though strugling against the truth could not deny it There were present saith he in this Councell secular Iudges deputed by the Emperour who were not Iudges of controversies of faith to give a decisive suffrage therein for that belongs to no secular man whatsoever sed tantum an omnia fierent legitime sive vi fraude tumultibus but they were Iudges onely of Synodall order whether all things were done lawfully without force fraud and tumult And in this doth the very Imperiall Presidency consist And truly how religiously and worthily those glorious Iudges performed that honourable office in the synod all the actions thereof doe make manifest for scarce any matter was done in the synod but the same was ordered moderated and guided by their prudence and authority The Popes Legats very insolently took upon them at the beginning willing that Dioscorus might bee put out of the synod and sayd Either let Dioscorus goe out or we will depart The Iudges gravely reproved this stomacke in the Legates telling them If you will be Iudges you must not prosequute as accusers nor did they suffer Dioscorus to goe away but commanded him as was fit to sit in the place of the Ret. The cause of Iuvenalis and Thalassius was proposed to the synod It could not be examined by them till they had leave from the Emperour We said the Iudges have acquainted the Emperour therewith and we expect his Mandate herein and after they had received the Emperours minde they then told the synod Imperator sententiae vestrae permisit de Iuvenale deliberare the Emperour hath upon your intreaty permitted you to discusse and judge the cause of Iuvenalis Thalassius and the rest In the cause of the ten Aegyptian Bish. the Synod had almost pronounced a temerarious sentence against them as hereticall when indeed they were orthodoxall the Bishops cryed out Isti haeretici sunt these ten are heretikes The glorious Iudges knowing which was manifest that they forbore to subscribe by reason of a custome which they had that they might doe nothing without their Patriarke who was not then chosen and not as thinking heretically in the faith moderated the Synod in that matter saying Rationabile nobis clemens videtur it seemes to us to be reason and an act of clemencie not to have condemned them but staid till their Patriarch bee chosen the whole Synod consented to this grave sentence of Iudges and made a Canon for that purpose In making the very definition of faith there grew a great dissention in the Synod some would have it one some another way set downe in so much that the Popes Legates were ready to make a schisme and depart from the Councel and hold another Councell by themselves The glorious Iudges proposed a most equall and fitting meanes to have the matter peaceably debated and the whole Synod brought to unity But when out-cryes and tumult prevailed above reason the Iudges complained of those discords to the Emperour and Imperator praecepit the Emperour commanded them to follow the direction of the Iudges which they did and so with one accord consented on the Definition of faith The Emperour at the earnest entreaty of Bassianus commanded the Synod to examine the whole cause betwixt him and Stephanus to which of them in right the the See of Ephesus belonged The Synod would have given sentence for Bassianus Iustitia Bassianum vocat Equity and right doth call for Bassianus to bee the Bishop of that place The glorious Iudges weighing the cause more circumspectly thought that neither of them both could in right be Bishop The whole Synod being directed by them altered their opinion and said This is a just sentence this is the very jugement of God When there was a difference in the Synod about the dignity of Constantinople the greater part holding one way and the Popes Legates the contrary the glorious Iudges judicially sentenced which was to stand for the Iudgement of the Synod and the whole Councell in their synodall letter consented therunto So many so manifest evidences there are of the Imperiall Presidency in that holy Councell not any of all those Catholikes once repining at or contradicting the same 15. For the fift that it was ordered by the Imperiall authoritie may appeare in that both the Emperor was sometimes by himselfe sometimes by his glorious Iudges present in the Synod and specially in that hee tooke order that liberty and synodall freedome should be observed therein yea as the whole Synod testifieth hee did omnia all things which preserve the peace of the Church and unity in the Catholike faith The sixt Councell is abundant with proofes of this presidency Macarius said O our most holy Lord iubeto libros proferri command that the bookes bee produced and the Emperour answered Iubemus we command them to be brought wee command them to be read and it was done The Popes Legates say Petimus serenitatem vestram we entreate your highnesse that this booke may be examined the Emperour answered Quod postulatum est proveniat let that be done which you request Againe O most holy Lord we intreat that the letters of Pope Agatho may be read the Emperours answer was what you have desired let it be done and they were read Macarius having collected certaine testimonies out of the Fathers for his opinion intreated the Emperour Iubeto relegi that he would command them to be read his answere was let them bee read in order and so they were The Popes Legates said petimus wee intreate your highnesse that the authentike Copies may bee produced out of the Registrie his answer was fiat let it de done The whole Synod intreated If it please your piety let Theodorus and the rest stand in the midst and there make answer for themselves his answer was What the Synod hath moved fiat let it be done George
Christian orthodox Emperour who was so earnest with the fift Councell to condemne all that should obstinately persist in the condemning of the true faith and dye out of the communion of the holy Church Divers the like testimonies might be alledged if one would labour to extoll that Empresse as the Cardinall hath strained his wit and pen to vilifie and disgrace her But because that is not my purpose at this time I would onely observe how unjustly the Cardinall hath taxed her in respect of three severall times and three speciall matters 4. The first concernes the placing of Anthimus an Eutychean heretike in the See of Constantinople which Baronius saith was done by Iustinian occultis insidiis Theodorae by the cunning and trecherous meanes of Theodora and thereupon hee breakes into many uncivill termes Wherein the Cardinalls spite and indiscretion is utterly unexcusable for whatsoever Anthimus was secretly and in his heart be at that time when he was placed in the See and afterwards also outwardly shewed and professed himselfe to bee a Catholike he was a wolfe as the Archimandrites and Monkes of Constantinople Ierusalem and other parts of the East doe witnesse in their synodall Epistles to Agapetus but he covered himselfe and his wolvish conditions under sheepes clothing Againe hee and others religionis pietatem dissimulantes counterfeiting the piety of religion thrust themselves into the Church Anthimus lived not an Euangelicall that is sincere sed fictam vitam but a fained and hypocriticall life manifesting forth to all men the counterfeit continency of his government and the shew of piety which by it he made The Emperour testifieth the same Anthimus forsooke and refused those true doctrines which hee often seemed to love simulans sequi sanctas quatuor Synodos faining himselfe to follow the foure holy Synods The whole generall Councell under Mennas in their definitive sentence against Anthimus do expresly witnesse the same He counterfeited himselfe to embrace and receive the foure Councells and he kept them in 〈◊〉 Againe he used deceptibilibus rationibus ad ejus Serenitatem deceitfull and cozening meanes before the Emperour promising to doe all things which the Apostolike See then Catholike did decree and hee writ to the most holy Patriarchs Se sequi per omnia Apostolicam sedem that he did in all things follow the Apostolike See when Anthimus made so holy and orthodoxall a profession better than which no Catholike could desire what marvell if by this faire shew and outward orthodoxy hee deceived both the Emperour and the Empresse and the whole Church They were not nor could they looke into his heart it was their duty to judge him to bee such in deed as he shewed and professed himselfe to be a Catholike Bishop and taking him for such they placed him in that high Patriarchall See Did not Constantine the great the like and without any just blame or reprehension receiving into great favour Eusebius of Nicomedia and others though inwardly and in heart most pestilent Arians yet in outward profession orthodoxall and embracers of the Nicene faith Nay what if Baronius himselfe acknowledge that neither Theodora nor Iustinian advanced Anthimus the heretike but Anthimus then seeming and being in their judgement a Catholike Heare I pray you his owne words The Empresse favoured Anthimus uti orthodoxo as an orthodoxall Bishop and Iustinian sent a Constitution to him ut orthodoxū Antistitem as to an orthodoxal Bishop He did outwardly professe the Catholike faith but inwardly was an Eutychean Againe the Fox had so ordered himselfe that being a most abominable heretike Studeret tamen in omnibus apparere Catholicus yet he endeavoured every way to seeme a Catholike approving the Councell of Chalcedon and all that true Catholikes did yea and when there was a rumour spred of him to bee an heretike the crafty companion throughly purged himselfe of that crime when in plaine termes he professed before the Emperour that he would in all things assent to what the Apostolike See did prescribe these things being dissembled by Anthimus his hypocrisie and heresie were not detected untill Agapetus the next yeare came to Constantinople in the meane space he was held for a professor of the Catholike faith a communicator with the Apostolike See by reason of his publike profession wherein he openly before all mens eyes and before the Emperor himselfe professed to receive all things which the Apostolike See did prescribe Thus Baronius By whose words it is most cleare that Anthimus when hee was placed in that See of Constantinople by the meanes of the Empresse was not knowne to her nor discovered to the Church as yet to be an heretike nor a full yeare after hee was held reputed by all for a Catholike and very orthodoxall Bishop What fault was this now in Theodora or Iustinian to place him in this See whom they knew for no other than a Catholike who professed to hold the foure former Councels and promised to yeeld to whatsoever Agapetus a knowne Catholike did prescribe Nay seeing by Baronius owne confession the Empresse did then favour him uti orthodoxo no otherwise than as being orthodoxall she even therein testified her orthodoxy in faith at that time as favouring him eo nomine because she thought him to be orthodoxall So farre was she in this act either from being an heretike or deserving those epithetes titles which the Cardinall hath fetcht from hell to bestow upon her that in very deed by the Cardinals words she deserveth praise and honour 5. The second point concernes the bienniall contention with Vigilius for restoring of Anthimus which out of Anastasius Baronius hath borrowed all which is nothing but a meere fiction and legend patched up by Anastasius as elsewhere I shall further explaine Vigilius was neither called nor came about that businesse to Constantinople but about the three Chapters the cause of Anthimus was some ten yeares before ended the Empresse knew the resolution of Vigilius therein that he had absolutely refused to restore him And though for a while after the deposition of Anthimus shee being deceived by his faire words and shew of piety fought to restore him yet when shee saw Anthimus to remaine an obstinate heretike and to oppugne the faith of Chalcedon shee quite left off all striving for Anthimus and became with Iustinian a condemner of the three Chapters as Victor testifieth that is in truth an earnest defender of the Councell of Chalcedon and of the Catholike faith So unjustly doth the Cardinall take occasion upon an untruth and legendary fable to revile the Empresse as an heretike 6. The third and last point concernes the direfull thunderblast of Excommunication which Vigilius the Romane Iupiter cast from heaven against Theodora wherewith belike she was smit to death Wherein though the Cardinall is exceeding brag and thinkes his saying to be warranted by no meane witnesses but by Pope Gregory himselfe yet for all
avouch that it had beene much better that the Church had remained without these controversies about the three Chapters nec unquam de his aliquis habitus esset sermo and that there had never beene one word spoken of them Thus Baronius 2. What thinke you moved the Cardinall to have such an immortall hatred to this cause as to wish the condemning buriall and utter extinguishing of those controversies What more hurt did this to the Church than the question about 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 about 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or about the opinion of Eutiches Very great calamity saith Baronius insued upon this controversie both in the East and West True it did so and so there did and far greater and longer about the controversie of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and more againe than that upon the question whether the Gospell or Paganisme should prevaile and yet by moving those controversies was the faith propagated the truth of Christ spred abroad the blood of Martyrs was made the seed of the Gospell No affliction calamity or persecution is a just cause either to wish that there had never beene any such controversie or to forsake the truth of God when the controversie is moved It was an excellent saying of the Aegyptian Bishops in the Councell of Chalcedon Christianus neminem timet a Christian feareth no mortall man si homines timerentur martyres non essent if men should be feared there would be no Martyrs But the truth is it was not as Baronius fancieth the controversie it selfe nor the disputing and debating thereof that caused so great calamities in the East and West that is non causa pro causa the peevishnesse and perversenesse of wicked men maintaining heresies and oppugning the truth that was the true cause thereof The controversie it selfe if you well marke it was very beneficiall to the Church Oportet haereses esse there must be heresies among you that they which are approved might bee knowne Every heresie is a probation and tryall of mens love to God and his truth whether they esteeme it more than their honours pleasures and their owne wilfull conceits and the greater the heresie is and the further it spreads it is still a greater tryall Heretikes saith S. Austen doe much profit the Church though they be out of the Church not by teaching the truth which they doe not know but by stirring up those who are more carnall Catholikes to seeke and those who are more spirituall to defend and manifest the truth This triall and probation of men if I mistake not was never so great in any controversie or question as in this of the three Chapters First it sifted and tryed Vigilius to the full and tryed him to be a wether-cocke in faith an heretike and a defender of heresies even by his Apostolicall authority Next it sifted out divers notable conclusions as first that which I think was never before that tryed that not onely the Pope but the Apostolike See also to wit the Romane Church and with it the Westerne Churches all at once adhered to heresie and forsooke the truth and that even after it was decreed and judged by the generall approved Councell and so it proved both Pope and Romane Church to be properly hereticall the Easterne Churches constantly upholding the truth at that time it shewed that the Catholike faith was tied neither to the Chair nor Church of Rome Another conclusion then tryed was that either persons or Churches may not onely dissent from the Pope and the Romane Church and that in a cause of faith judicially defined by the Pope with a Synod but may renounce communion with them and yet remaine Catholikes and in the unity of the Catholike Church the Pope the Westerne Church and all that adheered unto them being then by forsaking the Catholike faith Heretikes and by forsaking the unity of the Church Schismatikes 3. Neither onely was this controversie a triall to them in that age a tryall of their faith love to God charity to the Church obedience to the Emperour but it is as great a triall even in these our dayes and ever since that doctrine of the Popes infallibility in causes of faith hath beene defined and condemned By this controversie most happly decided by the generall Councell all that hold the Popes definitions of faith to be infallible that is all that are Papists or members of the present Church of Rome they are all hereby tryed to defend this Apostolicall Constitution of Vigilius that is to maintaine all the blasphemies of the Nestorians to deny the Catholike faith the doctrine of the Apostles of the primative Church of the fift generall Councell so to be not only heretikes but convicted anathematized and cōdemned heretikes by the judgement of a generall approved Councell and so by the consenting judgement of the Catholike Church Further yet there is a tryall of them whether upon that ground or foundation of the Popes infallibility they will build up and maintaine any other doctrine or position of faith or religion if they doe as indeed every point of the Romish faith and Religion relyeth upon that they are againe hereby tryed to be hereticall not onely in the foundation but in every position and doctrine of their faith and religion which relyes upon that foundation 4. This was it which netled Baronius and extorted from him those earnest and affectionate wishes that this controversie had never beene heard of nor mentioned in the world he saw what a tryall was like to be made by it of men of doctrines of Churches of the Pope himselfe and their whole Romish Church and seeing that tryall he never ceased to say that it had beene much better that this controversie had never beene moved nor spoken of for so they had avoided this most notable triall Blessed be God for that it pleased him in the infinite depth of his unspeakable wisedome to cause this controversie to be ventilated and discussed to the utmost that among many other tryals this might be one of the Antichristian Synagogue to try them even untill the very destruction of Antichrist It is for heretikes whose errors and obstinacy is tryed and discovered to the world it is for them I say to wish that the controversies about Arianisme Nestorianisme Eutycheanisme and the like had never beene moved they had scaped the just censures and anathemaes by that meanes But Catholikes have cause to rejoyce and triumph in such controversies by which both the truth which they maintaine is made more resplendent and victorious themselves and their faith tryed to be like refined gold the Church thereby is quieted the truth propagated heresies confounded and the glory of Almighty God much more magnified and praysed CAP. XXIII How Baronius revileth both the Imperiall Edict of Iustinian and Theodorus B. of Caesarea and a refutation of the same 1. SEeing now notwithstanding the wishing of Baronius this controversie could not be buried it ought him and all ill-willers
Constitution was read in their sixt Collation which was on the nineteenth of May foure or five dayes after the date and publishing of it So uncertaine and unlikely is that of which the Cardinall sayth Cognoscitur it is knowne to belong to the fift Collation 3. But indeed as the Imperiall Edict was not so neither was this Papal Constitution publikely read either in the fift or sixt or any other Collation of this Synod much lesse was it ever any part of the Synodall Acts thereof The Emperour and so all the Bishops of the Synod laboured as much as they could to draw the whole Church to unity of faith with themselves especially Pope Vigilius whose consent might happily draw after it if not the whole yet a great part of the Westerne Church which were most earnest in defence of the Three Chapters They knew that in particular and by name to condemne Vigilius or his Constitution might not only have exasperated but even utterly alienated the minde of Vigilius and made him and with him his adherents more obstinate in their heresie They sought by silence to conceale and by charity to suppresse as much as they could that hereticall and disgracefull Constitution of his and by their lenity and faire meanes to gaine him and his consent to them yea even to the truth it selfe for this cause though they knew full well that Vigilius had set out that decree yea though they confuted all the substance thereof and condemned both it and him in generalities yet they forbare at all to name Vigilius or in particular to mētion this his decree that had beene to proclame hostility and have made an absolute breach betwixt them and Vigilius for ever 4. Besides this which was a very just reason not so much as to publish as they did not that Constitution in their Synod the Emperour had alwayes a purpose to have as in the seventh Collation was done the Epistles of Vigilius to Rusticus and Sebastianus to Valentinianus and others opēly read published in the Councel In them Vigilius by his Apostolicall authority decreeth the condemning of the three Chapters what a disgrace had this beene to Vigilius to publish first his Apostolicall Constitution in defence and shortly after his Apostolicall Constitution for condemning the same Three Chapters How justly might this have incensed Vigilius and for ever with-held him from consenting to them who had proclamed him in their Councell recorded him in their Synodall Acts to bee such a Proteus Nay this had extenuated and vilified for ever the authority of Pope Vigilius the holy Apostolike See to record two constitutions both proceeding ex Tripode fighting ex Diametro and by an unreconciliable contradiction opposed the one to the other Seeing then both the Emperour and the Councell meant by their so often expressing the consent of Vigilius to them and by their reciting his Apostolicall Constitution for condemning the Three Chapters in the seventh Collation seeing they meant hereby to draw others to the like consent to the truth by the authority and credit of the Pope and his Apostolicall decree it is not to bee imagined that the Emperour or Councell would at all either publish in their Synod or insert among their Acts the contrary Constitution of Vigilius in defence of the Three Chapters in doing whereof they should not onely have for ever disgraced Vigilius but have much impaired the reputation of their owne wisedome and quite crossed their principall designe Nay what will you say if Baronius himselfe professe the same See and wonder to see him infatuated in this point also The Bishops saith he of this fift Councell that they might pretend to have the consent of Vigilius to those things which they defined expressed in their sentence that Vigilius had before both in writing and by word condemned these three Chapters tacentes omnino quid ab ipso per editum constitutum pendente Synodo pro defensione trium Capitulorum decretum esset wholly concealing or saying nothing at all of that decree which in the time of the Synod hee made for defence of those three Chapters Sicque nullam penitus de Vigilij Constitutione mentionem habendam esse duxerunt so they thought fit to make no mention at all of the Constitution of Vigilius wherein he defended the three Chapters So Baronius whom speaking the truth I gladly embrace and oppose him to himselfe speaking an untruth in malice to these Synodall Acts. 5. Now if none of these reasons nor yet Baronius his owne expresse testimony can perswade but still the Cardinall or his friends will reply with his cognoscitur It is certainly knowne that this Papall Constitution did belong to this Synod yea to the fift Collation thereof I would gladly intreat some of them to tell us in this as in the former concerning Origen who was the thiefe or robber that cut out or pickt away his holinesse Constitution a more capitall crime than the expiling of the Delphian Temple or the house of Iupiter Ammon Touch the Popes owne writings even his Apostolicall decree delivered out of the holy Chaire what Clement what Ravailack might be so impious so audacious so sacrilegious was it some Origenist no certainly the Constitution defending that none after their death might be condemned was a shield and safe charter for Origen to bring him to heaven Was it some Monothelite nothing lesse they knew that this Constitution was the overthrow of the Councell of Chalcedon and all the former holy Coūcels Hoc Ithacus velit they would have wisht the Constitution to have stood for ever whom may we deeme then to have stolne away that Papall decree Truly by the old Cassian rule Cui bono none else but either some of the Popes themselves or some of their favourites who being ashamed to see such an hereticall Constitution of Pope Vigilius stand among the Acts judged theft and sacriledge a lesser crime than to have the Popes Chaire thought fallible and hereticall Now because I can imagine none to have beene so presumptuous and such is my charity and favourable opinion of those holy fathers and their children also that they would never commit such an hainous crime as with sacriledge to maime the Acts of the holy Councels I doe therefore here absolve and acquit them all of this crime promising against any adversary be it Baronius himselfe to defend their innocency in this matter untill some of Baronius his friends can either bring some further evidence against them or else prove which I thinke they will hardly be able that a decree which was never extant among the Synodall Acts can be stolne or cut away out of the Synodall Acts. CAP. XXXI The sixt defect in the Synodall Acts pretēded by Baronius for that the decree which advanced Ierusalem to patriarchall dignity is wanting therein refuted 1. THE sixt and last defect is of all the rest most memorable concerning the advancing of Ierusalem to a Patriarchall See and annexing
two and expresly mentioning them all without these saith Hi sunt libri these are the bookes as well of the old as of the new Testament which in the Church are held for Canonical I doubt the Card. will here say that the case is altered In this hee speaks against them and their Trent faith not against us Here the note of their Index expurgatorius must bee embraced write saith the Index in the margent diminutè Catalogum texuit Leontius Leontius recites not fully the Catalogue of the sacred bookes And yet note one memorable thing by the way God who suffered not Lahan to speak an ill word against Iacob and who turned the curses of Balaam into a blessing to Israell the same God over-ruled their pen or hands as hee did once the tongue of Caiphas and in stead of diminutè texuit they have uttered a Prophecy against themselves printing even in that edition which past through their Purgatorian fire of correction Divinitùs Catalogum librorum divinorum texuit Leontius hath recited this Catalogue by an heavenly inspiration and yet for all that divinitus texuit the Cardinall will not beleeve Leontius whom against us he perswades all men to beleeve But howsoever in other matters as by name in that Catalogue texto divinitus Leontius is to bee beleeved of a certainty hee is no fit witnesse in this cause of the Three Chapters Hee was too partiall that I say not hereticall in this point too much addicted to the writings of Theodorus of Mopsvestia and Theodoret let Baronius himselfe say whether his commending of Theodorus Bishop of Mopsvestia and Diodorus Bishop of Tarsis for illustrating the whole Scripture by their Commentaries for being such worthy men as that no man while they lived did reprove any one saying of theirs bee not untrue and after both the person of the one and writing of both condemned by the generall Councell impious also and hereticall To come yet nearer to his saying concerning Theodoret in the very next sentence save one before those words which Baronius alleageth Leontius saith Verum ne Theodoretum quidem constat unquam admisisse Nestorium it doth not appeare that Theodoret did ever admit of Nestorius or hold communion with him Had not the Cardinall skipt over as is the wont of all heretikes these former words of Leontius hee would have beene ashamed to alleage this testimony For not onely the Synodall acts of the Ephesine Councell but the Cardinall himselfe often teacheth and proveth it by cleare evidence that Theodoret admitted Nestorius and that into a neare band of friendship love and communion In that Epistle which Theodoret writ from Chalcedon to Alexander hee calleth Nestorius their friend 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and saith of him while wee are here in this legacy to the Emperour non cessabimus omni virtute ejus patris curam gerere wee will not cease with all our power to take care for Father Nestorius knowing that wrong is done to him by wicked men There is recorded a very loving Epist. to Nestorius written by Iohn other Eastern Bish. particularly by Theodoret who all writ of themselves tui studiosissimi we are all most affectionate to Nestorius of whom Baronius saith they who writ this to Nestorius eidem intima conjuncti necessitudine being joyned in a most neare band of familiarity stood afterwards for him in the Councell Maximè vero eidem addictus Theodoretus but of them all Theodoret was most addicted unto him And againe having cited some words of Theodoret he addeth Seeing Theodoret saith thus I am non solum cum Nestorio unanimem fuisse vides sed dixerim etiam concorporeum you see that he was not only a loving friend and of one minde but if I may so say one incorporated and concorporated to Nestorius Thus Baronius when himselfe so expresly contradicts his owne witnesse Leontius and in this very cause touching Theodoret and Nestorius yea in that which is the ground of Leontius errour touching this Epistle should hee require us to beleeve that which is but a collection from the former which is his fundamentall errour may Baronius reject him in the former clause must we embrace him in the next which is but a dependant on the other Leontius because hee thought and thought erroniously that Theodoret never embraced the friendship and communion with Nestorius thought also erroniously this Epistle which testifieth Theodorets love and communion with Nestorius to bee a counterfeit the Cardinall who knoweth and professeth against Leontius that Theodoret was most inward and even almost incorporated to Nestorius ought likewise to hold against Leontius that this Epistle which testifieth such ardent affection to Nestorius is the genuine and true Epistle of Theodoret. 4. And that every man may see the force of truth and with what a feared conscience the Cardinall dealt in this cause behold himselfe within few years after against this testimony of Leontius acknowledgeth professeth and sets downe this very Epistle as the true and certaine Epistle of Theodoret to Nestorius which here no doubt against his owne judgement and conscience hee denyeth and proves out of Leontius not to bee the Epistle of Theodoret but a counterfeit and a forgery for thus he writeth Theodoret indeed received the forme of faith sent from Cyrill at the time of the union and subscribed unto it but he could not so quickly forsake the friendship of Nestorius whom hee had so long affected for at this time to wit after the union was made hee writ an Epistle to Nestorius which was read in the fift generall Synod and then repeating every word of the Inscription and Epistle hee adds at the end hactenus ad Nestorium Theodoretus thus writ Theodoret to Nestorius and againe Theodoret obstinately professed in his letters lately recited that hee would never assent to the sentence against Nestorius Thus Baronius who hereby demonstrates himselfe to be a meere calumniator who to disgrace the Synodal Acts of the fift Councell affirmes and would seem by Leontius to prove that Epistle of Theodorets to bee none of his but a forgery which to bee no forgery but the true writing of Theodoret himselfe knew testifieth and professeth Thus much of his former proofe out of Leontius 5. His other proofe is taken out of divers Epistles of Theodoret specially out of that to Dioscorus Bishop of Alexandria to Pope Leo and divers others and because it might bee replyed that these were written long after the time of the union whereas onely at that time and somewhat after Theodoret might bee said to have been hereticall and a favourer of Nestorius as by this Epistle is signified to wipe away this suspition he addes these words post initam quidem pacem truly after the peace and union once made with Cyrill that ever after that time Theodoret was addicted to Nestorius Nulla prorsus est mentio there is no mention at all but there are many monuments
moderation and wisedome of Cyrill that can thinke Cyrill ever to have written in such manner either to any Metropolitane or to any Patriarke specially seeing Cyrill was not ignorant of that Canon of the Councell at Antioch let not a Metropolitane doe any thing in such causes without the advise and consent of the other Bishops in the Province 28. The other doubt is whether that Domnus to whom this Epistle is written bee the same Domnus that was Bishop of Antioch and successor to Iohn The Cardinall is much troubled in removing this doubt and hee windes himselfe divers wayes Sure it is saith Baronius that hee who had such authoritie must needs bee some eminent Bishop and not one of an inferior See True but hee might bee a Metropolitane and so have inferiour Bishops under him and yet bee no Patriarke Againe saith hee There is no Domnus else but this Domnus Bishop of Antioch mentioned either in the Councell of Ephesus or Chalcedon who had such authority as to depose and restore Bishops ad libitum As if Domnus of Antioch might doe it ad libitum But in such lawfull manner as Domnus of Antioch might doe it there were others called by the name of Domnus and those mentioned in those very Councels who might upon just cause and by due and Canonical proceeding depose and restore their inferiour Bishops looke but into those Councels and you will admire both the supine negligence of the Cardinall in this point and his most audacious downâ—facing of the truth for to omit others both in the Conventicle of Ephesus and the Councell of Chalcedon there is often mention of Domnus Bishop of Apamea a Metropolitane Bishop as the words of Miletius doe witnesse I Miletius Bishop of Larissa speaking for Domnus the Metropolitane Bishop of Apamca and for this Domnus hee subscribed And that you may see how fraudulently the Cardinall dealt in this very point he neither would set downe that Epistle nor acquaint you with that which in Balsamon is expresly noted that Peter the Bish. whom that Domnus unto whom Cyrill writeth had deposed was Alexandrinus Sacerdos a Bishop of the patriarchall diocesse of Alexandria what had Domnus of Antioch to doe with the Alexandrian Bishops So cleare it is by Balsamon that this Domnus unto whom Cyrill writ was not Domnus of Antioch as the Card. I feare against his knowledge avoucheth 29. Thus you see all and every reason which the Cardinall bringeth Iohn to bee dead seven yeares before Cyrill not only to be weake and unable to enforce that Conclusion but withall to bee full fraught with frauds and untruths So that if I had not found more sound and certaine reasons to perswade this I could never by the Cardinals proofes have beene induced to thinke that an errour in the Inscription of Theodorets Epistle But seeing upon the undoubted testimonies in the Councell of Chalcedon it is certaine that Iohn dyed before Cyrill I willingly acknowledge a slip of some writer in that Inscription but yet the Epistle it selfe must bee acknowledged truly to bee Theodorets which is all that the Synod avoucheth and which is that which the Cardinall undertooke to disprove but by no one reason doth offer to prove the same And even for that errour also in the Inscription I doubt not but those who can have the sight of the Greek and Originall yea perhaps of some ancient Latine copies of the Acts of this fift Councell shall finde either no name at all or which I rather suppose the name of Domnus expressed therin in stead of which whereas some ignorant audacious exscriber hath thrust in the name of Iohn it is not nor ought it to bee any impeachment at all to the Synodall Acts unlesse the Cardinall will acknowledge his owne Annals to bee of no credit because in them Pascalis is written by some such errour for Pelagius Iohn for Vigilius Instinus for Iustinianus Theodorus for Theodosius Sexta for Quinta Foelicianus for Celestianus and a number the like in other causes most of these slips pertaining to this very cause of the Three Chapters of which wee doe entreate CAP. XXXV That Baronius himselfe followeth many forged writings and fabulous narrations in handling this cause of the fift Councell as particularly the excommunication ascribed to Mennas Theodorus and others and the narration of Anastasius 1. YOV have seene all the exceptions which their great Momus could devise against these Acts to prove them corrupted either by alteration or mutilation or which is the worst of all by additions of forged writings But alas who can endure to heare Baronius declame against corrupted false forged or counterfeit writings Quis tulerit Gracchos better might Gracchus invey against sedition or Verres against bribery than Baronius against the using of false and fained writings Aethiopem albus derideat hee should first have washt away those foule blemishes out of his owne Annals more blacke herewith than any Aethiopian and then have censured such spots in others Were his Annals well purged of such writings their vast Tomes would become a pretty Manuall They who have occasion to examine other passages in Baronius will finde the truth hereof in them for this one concerning the fift Councell Pope Vigilius and the cause of the Three Chapters from which I am loath to digresse I doubt not but whosoever will compare the Cardinals Annals with this Treatise wil easily perceive that all which hee hath said in defence of the Pope relyeth on no other nor better grounds but either forged writings or if truely written by the authors yet on some fabulous narration and untruths which from them the Cardinall hath culd out as onely fit for his purpose Suffer me to give a tast hereof in some of them 2. The first in this kinde is a supplication to Vigilius or a briefe confession made unto him by Mennas Bishop of Constantinople Theodorus Bishop of Caesarea and divers other Easterne Bishops inserted in the beginning of the Constitution of Vigilius and much applauded by the Cardinall in this cause and this to bee a meere fiction is by many evident proofes before mentioned easily discerned The occasion of it as the Cardinall tels us was to humble themselves to Pope Vigilius and acknowledge the injuries they had done in writing and declaming against him and his Synodall Constitution for Taciturnity concerning the Three Chapters Now seeing that whole matter is fictitious for neither was there any such Synod ever held nor any such decree ever made the confession which is grounded on them must be like them fabulous and forged 3. The contents bewray the dulnesse of the forgerer The Easterne Bishops professe there to imbrace the foure former Councels and all the Acts thereof in all causes judgements and Constitutions made with consent of the Popes Legates Why the Easterne Bishops knew right well that some Canons were concluded both in the Councells of Constantinople and Chalcedon not only
without but quite contrary to the minde of the Pope and his Legates as namely that about the dignity of Constantinople which they notwithstanding the resistance of the Legates both approved and knew it to have beene ever held in force by the judgement of the Catholike Church but specially by the Bishops of Constantinople whose Patriarchall dignity which they ever after the second Councell enjoyed was both decreed and confirmed by those Canons Never did the Easterne Bishops in those dayes nor long after esteeme the Popes owne much lesse his Legates consent so necessary to any Synodall Decree but that without them the same might bee made and stand in force as the judgement of the generall Councell and whole Church And to goe no further what an unlikely and uncredible thing is it that Theodorus and the rest in one yeare should make this confession to accept no more of those Synodall decrees then the Pope or his Legates were pleased to allow and the very next yeare after contrary to that their confession themselves hold a Synod and make a Synodall decree in this cause of the Three Chapters not onely without the Popes consent or presence either of himself or his Legate but even contrary to his definitive sentence made known unto them the deviser of that confession shewes himselfe plainely to have beene some of the Vaticane favourites who living perhaps in the time of Gregory by this intended to infringe the dignity of the See of Constantinople and those Canons which were concluded both in the 2. and 4. Councell whereas the Easterne Bishops notwithstanding the contradiction and resistance of the Pope held them ever in as great authority and reverence as any Canons in all the foure former Councels 4. Againe what a silly devise was it to make Mennas Theodorus and a great number of Bishops to aske pardon of the Pope for that wherein they professe themselves no way to bee guilty I have done no injuries to your Holinesse yet for the peace of the Church veluti si eas fecissem veniam postulo I pray you forgive mee that which I never did as if I had done it Can any man thinke this the submission of wise men of such stout and constant mindes as Mennas and Theodorus besides the rest had or what could bee devised more repugnant to that which Vigilius is made to say in his excommunication of Theodorus Thou scandalizing the whole Church and being warned entreated threatned by me hast refused to amend nunquam à pravâ intentione cessasti and never hast thou ceased from thy wicked designe nor to write and preach novelties so he cals the condemning of the Three Chapters yea after the Constitution for silence to which thou hadst sworne thou hast openly read in the Pallace a booke against the Three Chapters thou hast beene the fire-brand and the beginner of the whole scandall thou hast despised the authority of the Apostolike See Thus saith the Excommunication Was Vigilius well advised thinke you to accept as a satisfaction and submission for so many and so hainous crimes of insolency contempt perjury sacriledge and the like this confession at the hands of Theodorus wherein he doth in effect give the Pope the lie saying and avouching I have written no bookes at all contrarie to that Decree of Silence made by your Holinesse and for the injuries which have beene done to your holinesse and to your See eas quidem non feci truely I have done none at all Is not this a worthy submission the Pope saith he hath done innumerable and very hainous injuries to him such as deserved the censure of excommunication No saith Theodorus I have done none at all unto him and this the Pope like a wise man takes for a good satisfaction or an humble submission upon which hee is presently reconciled and shakes hands with that capitall offender Or where was the Cardinals judgment when he saith of this confession that in it Theodorus did supplicitèr humbly intreat pardon of Vigilius de irrogatis in ipsum probris contumelijs for the seoffes and contumelies which hee had used against the Pope If this confession was true and reall then certainly the Excommunication of Vigilius is not only most unjust but a very foolish fiction If the Excommunication was true and reall then must needs this submission bee fained and fictitious True they cannot bee both but that both should be false and counterfaits is not onely possible but certaine 5. If nothing else the time when this Confession was made by Theodorus and Mennas demonstrates this It was made after the Decree of Taciturnity and the Synod wherein that was concluded and that was indeed never that decree and Synod are meerely Chymericall this Confession then made after them and mentioning that decree cannot possibly be reall It was made as the Cardinall assures us after that Vigilius fleeing the persecution of Iustinian had fled first to Saint Peters in Constantinople then to the Church of Enthennia at Chalcedon yea after that the Emperour had revoked and abrogated his Edict against the Three Chapters and Vigilius at the earnest intreaty of the Emperour was now returned from Chalcedon to Constantinople and this was at Nevermasse neither did Iustinian persecute Vigilius neither did Vigilius for feare of his persecution flee either to S. Peters or to Chalcedon neither did Iustinian intreat him to returne from thence whither hee fled not at all nor ever did the Emperour adnull or revoke his Edict against the three Chapters then certainly the confession which by the Cardinalls own profession acknowledgement followed all these must needs be like them a fiction and meere forgery never really truly made by Mennas Theodorus and the rest of those Bishops Lastly it was made the next yeare before the fift Councell was held that is anno 552. which is the twenty sixt of Iustinian as the Cardinall witnesseth before which time it cannot bee imagined to have beene made for the excommunication of Theodorus was published but in that yeare in which Vigilius came to Chalcedon as Baronius confesseth Now it is a riddle which Oedipus cannot dissolve how Mennas who as wee have certainly proved by the Acts of the sixt Councell dyed in the 21. yeare of Iustinian should come now in his 26. yeare that is foure or five yeares after his death to offer up a supplication to Vigilius and aske pardon of him for doing no offence against him Me thinkes either the Pope should be afrighted with such a gastly sight or Baronius ashamed to applaud such sottish fictions as is that excommunication of Mennas made by Vigilius and the Encyclycall Epistle of Vigilius which mentions and approves that excommunication and this forged confession none of which will suffer the ghost of Mennas ro rest but bring a dead man out of his grave to heare the Popes sentence thundred out against him and then come with a bill of supplication
hee would bring Vitiges to Iustinian all these are the fictions of Anastasius For as Procopius who was Counsellor to Bellisarius and present with him in all his warres testifieth Vitiges and the Gothes willingly yeelded themselves and Ravenna unto Bellisarius yea Vitiges perswaded and even entreated him to accept the kingdome and Bellisarius tooke Vitiges himselfe and kept him in custody yea he sent away Iohn and Narses before either he entred in Ravenna or tooke Vitiges and being taken he caried him not to Rome but the straight way by Sea to Constantinople whither himselfe was then called by the Emperour and commanded to come without any delay So in the very entrance of his narration Anastasius hath in few words couched together at the least ten or eleven evident untruths 14. Next Anastasius relates how the Emperour and his wife demanded of Bellisarius when be came to Constantinople how he had placed Vigilius instead of Silverius and thanked him for it Truly Anastasius had small wit to thinke that the Emperour had leasure to confer with Bellisarius concerning a matter done about three yeares before and specially which with the death of Silverius was now dead and buried Yet say he did Againe what an idle discourse was this about the placing of Vigilius in the roome of Silverius seeing the Emperour knew the whole matter long before how Silverius was banished upon an accusation of a Letter written to the Gothish King to come and take possession of Rome and himselfe had taken order that the cause of Silverius should be againe examined and if that letter was truly writ by Silverius that he should be banished if it were found a calumny that he should bee restored as Liberatus sheweth Hee knew also that Silverius was dead and that Vigilius was peaceably and with his consent placed in the Romane See before Bellisarius came for hee had written p unto him as the onely lawfull Pope and both the Emperour and Mennas had received Letters from him the yeare before But Anastasius thought the Emperours discourses to bee as idle as his owne Besides whereas he addes that the Emperour thanked him for placing of Vigilius in the roome of Silverius Binius is bould therein to tell Anastasius of his untruth seeing all that as he saith was done without the knowledge of Iustinian by the plotting of Theodora I will account these for no more than two untruths 15. After this Anastasius tels us that Iustinian then sent Bellisarius againe into Africke who comming thither killed by trechery Gontharis King of the Vandalls and then comming to Rome offered some of the spotles of the Vandalls to Saint Peter by the hands of Pope Vigilius to wit a Crosse of gold beset with precious stones being a hundred pound in waight wherin were writ his victories two great silver tables guilded which unto this day stand saith hee before the body of Saint Peter also hee gave many other gifts and many almes to the poore and built an hospitall in the broad way and a Monastery of Saint Iuvenalis at the City of Orta where hee gave possessions and many gifts Thus Anastasius whose narration as it must needs testifie in what great honour the Romane Church was in those ancient times and how bountifull they were then unto it so may it serve for an incentive to inflame the zeale of Emperours and great persons to doe the like after their victories and conquests and no doubt but by such lyes and fables as this is their Church had gained the best part of her treasures and possessions for all this not one syllable is true or probable Bellisarius when hee came to Constantinople with Vitiges was not then sent into the West but into Persia against Cosroes as Procopius who was present with him testifieth and in those warres hee continued full three yeares When hee was sent Westward hee was not sent into Africk for thither Ariobindus was sent with whom was sent Artabanus Neither did Bellisarius either by villany or victory kill Gontharis but Artabanus killed him treacherously when they sat together at a feast in Gontharis Chamber nor came Bellisarius from Africk to Rome for after his second comming which was from Constantinople into Italy he stayed there till his returne to Bizantium five yeares after and returned backe no more nor brought hee thence with him any of the spoyles of the Vandales nor offered hee them to Saint Peter nor offered he by the hand of Vigilius either than golden Crosse of an hundred pound waight which is a golden lye consisting of an hundred latcheâ—s nor the silver table nor those many other gifts nor built he an Hospitall nor gave hee either possessions or donations All these if they be well summed will make at least twelve grand capitall mother lyes which have many moe in their wombs such an art of devising untruths hath Anastasius Or if this oblation bee referred as Binius saith perhaps it ought to the time when Bellisarius wanne Rome from Vitiges which was as Procopius sheweth in the third yeare of the warres against the Gothes and 12. of Iustinian yet this can excuse no one of all the untruths of Anastasius for neither then was Vigilius but Sylverius the Pope neither did Bellisarius then come out of Africk or bring the spoyles of the Vandals with him of which this oblation was made by the hands of Pope Vigilius 16. Next to this Anastasius saith eodem tempore Theodora scripsit at that same time Theodora the Empresse writ to Vigilius to come to Constantinople and restore Anthimus to his See but Vigilius refused saying I spake foolishly before when I promised that but now I can no way consent to restore an heretike Whence Baronius observes a rare miracle that Vigilius was now turned to a new man now Saul was one of the Prophets of a blasphemer chaÌ„ged to a true Preacher of a Saul into a Paul all which change proceeded from his very sitting in the Popes Chaire momento temporis novam formam accepit at that very moment when he became the true Pope hee had a new forme a new speech and then prophesied consonantly to the fathers and the like miracle doth Binius note statim ut sanctam sedem ascendit as soone as ever Vigilius had stept into the holy Chaire hee was wholly changed into a new man and then condemned the heresies which before hee approved A right Neanthes indeed of whom it is written that before being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 having now got the harpe of Orpheus hee thought he was also able to worke wonders therwith as well as Orpheus had done he would needs then Saxa movere sono testudinis but all in vaine Even so Peters Chaire made Vigilius as infallible as Peter himselfe being once set there hee could doe nothing else but drop Oracles and his fidling
unto the truth which they defended seeing they could not prevaile with him yet they would have the whole world to testifie together with the Popes peevishnesse their owne lenity equity and moderation used towards him and that it was not hatred or contempt of his person nor any precedent occasion but only the truth and equity of that present cause which enforced them to involve him remaining obdurate in his heresie in that Anathema which they in generall denounced against all the pertinacious defenders of the Three Chapters of which Vigilius was the chiefe and standard-bearer to the rest Did the Cardinall thinke with such poore sleights to quit Vigilius of this Epistle If nothing else truely the very imbecillity and dulnesse of the Cardinals reasons and demonstrations in this point may perswade that Vigilius and none but he was the author of it Baronius was too unadvised without better weapons to enter into the sand with old Cardinall Bellarmine in this cause who is knowne to bee plurimarum palmarum vetus ac nobilis gladiator and in this combate with Baronius hee hath played the right Eutellus indeed Come let us give to him in token of his conquest corollam palmam and let Baronius in remembrance of his foile leave this Epistle to Vigilius with this Impresse Vigilio scriptum hoc Eutello palma feratur 29. Vigilius now by just Duell is proved to bee the true author of this Epistle Be it so say they yet that is no prejudice all to the Apostolike See because he writ it in the time of Sylverius while as yet Vigilius was not the lawfull Pope but an intruder and usurper and Pseudopope and herein they all joyne hand in hand Bellarmine with Baronius Gretzer and Binius with them both But feare not the tailes of these smoaking firebrands nor the wrath of Rhesin Aram and Remalias sonne because they have taken wicked counsell against the truth Nor needed there here any long contention about this matter for how doe they prove this saying of theirs that Vigilius writ it whē Sylverius lived and not afterwards Truly by no other but the Colliers argument It is so because it is so proofe they have none at all they were so destitute of reasons in this point that laying this for their foundation to excuse the Pope for teaching heresie they begge this or rather take it without begging or asking by vertue of that place called Petitio Principij Let us pardon Binius and Gretzer who gathered up onely the scraps under the Cardinals tables but for a Cardinal so basely and beggarly to behave himselfe as to dispute from such sophistical topicks is too foule a shame and blemish to his wit and learning And why may not wee take upon us the like Magisteriall authority and to their I say it is so oppose I say it is not so Doe they thinke by their bigge lookes and sesquipedalia verba to down-face the truth 30. But because I have no fancy to this Pythagoricall kinde of learning there are one or two reasons which declare that Vigilius writ this Epistle after the death of Silverius when he was the onely and true lawfull Pope for the former is the narration of Liberatus who in a continued story of these matters after the death of Silverius relates how Vigilius writ this Silverius saith he dyed with famine Vigilius autem implens promissum And Vigilius to fulfill his promise writ this Epistle Oh saith Gretzer Liberatus useth here an anticipation and sets downe that before which fell out after Prove that Gretzer Prove it why his proofe is like his Masters It is so because it is so Other proofe you shall have none of Gretzer He thought belike his words should passe for currant pay as well as a Cardinals but it was too foolish presumption in him to take upon him to dispute so Cardinalitèr that is without reason why should it not be thought seeing we find nothing to the contrary that Liber in his narration followed the order and sequell of things and times as the law of an historian requires rather than beleeve Gretzers bare saying that it is disorderly and contrary to the order of the times and event of things 31. This will further appeare by the other reason drawne from the time when this Epistle was written Baronius referres it to the yeare 538. wherein Silverius was expelled and saith that though Vigilius had truly writ it yet it is no prejudice to the Apostolike See cujus tunc ipse invasor of which hee was an invader and intruder at that time when it was written But the Cardinal is mistaken in this point for it is cleare and certaine by the testimony of Liberatus that Vigilius had not writ this Epistle when Silverius returned out of exile from Patara into Italy for Vigilius hearing of the returne of Silverius and being in great feare of losing the Popedome hee hastened then to Bellisarius and intreated him to deliver Silverius into his custody otherwise said hee non possum facere quod à me exigis I cannot doe that which you require me Bellisarius required of him two things as the same Liberat. witnesseth the one to performe his promise to the Empresse that was the overthrowing of the Councel at Chalcedon the other to pay him the two hundred pieces of Gold which hee promised to himselfe whereby it is most evident that at Silverius returning into Italy Vigilius had done neither of these and so not writ this Epistle Now it is most likely that Silverius returned into Italy an 540. for seeing he dyed in the month of Iune that yeare and being presently upon his returne sent away into the Iland of Palmaria by Vigilius a little time you may be sure would serve to famish an old disheartened man But Gretzer easeth us in this point and plainly professeth that this Epistle was writ in that same yeare 440. wherein Silverius dyed If now you doe consider how little time there was betwixt the death of Silverius and his delivery to Vigilius and how in that short time also Vigilius had a greater worke and of more importance to looke unto than the writing of letters to deposed Bishops to wit to provide that Silverius should not live that himselfe should not bee expelled his owne See and how upon Silverius death himselfe might be againe lawfully chosen Pope none I thinke will suppose that Vig. writ this before Silverius death in that yeare but after it and after all his troubles ended when hee having quiet possession of the See had leisure to thinke on such matters But why stay I in the proofe hereof this being clearly testified by Nauclerus who thus writeth Silverius being dead Vigilius was created Pope quod postquam comperit Theodora which when Theodora understood she writ unto him to performe his promise about Anthimus but Vigilius answered farre be this from me I spake unadvisedly before and I am
within their breasts or if they cannot observe that yet at least to learne to be so lowly and humble in heart as to revoke their impieties and blasphemies although to some blemish and disgrace of themselves yet to the great honour of Gods truth and the satisfaction and edification of the holy Church which they had scandalized If in ambition they will first oppugne the truth and then in a worse pride of heart not be reclamed to the truth nor shew their love unto it why should not the Church by her most charitable judgement shew her open detestation of their persons who in the insolency of their hearts will not shew any open detestation of their heresies That Vigilius writ a papall Constitution in defence of heresie it is apparent and undenyable that he at any time revoked that writing I wish it were but it is not yet evident The like may be sayd of Baronius of Pighius of Eccius of the Laterane Florentine and Trent conspirators of all who have whet their tongues against other truth and specially to uphold that fundamentall heresie of the Popes infallibility Their writings for heresie are evident that they ever reclamed those writings it is inevident and if ever they and their cause come to bee tryed in such a free lawfull and oecumenicall Councell as was this fift under Iustinian they may justly feare and certainly expect from the Church unlesse the disclaming of their writings may by certaine proofe be made knowne the very like sentence though a hundred yeares after theirs as passed upon Theodorus of Mopsvestia an hundred yeares after his death And because the houre-glasse for repentance in runne out to the former all that we can doe is which I seriously now doe from my heart to cry amaine unto others to admonish exhort yea even pray and entreat them by the mercies of God and by the love of their owne soules first that they keepe their tongues and pennes from once uttering any heresie or if they have not done that with the same hands to give the medicine wherewith they gave the wound and as openly nay much more openly to disclame than they have ever proclamed their impious and hereticall doctrines 53. You have now some view both of the life and death of Vigilius The exact pourtraiture of the Popes lives Baronius had beene able to set forth if he had listed but he addeth such fucos and so many sophisticall colours that indeed scarce you shall see any one of them in his Annals set out in his native and naturall habit If ought be amisse in this our description and not set forth according to the lively lineaments of Vigilius and his impieties the equall reader will not too rigorously censure the same I acknowledge that I can but dolare in this kinde to polish and set forth the lively image of their Popes I have not learned That is an Art which may not bee too vulgar lest their Romane policies be too farre divulged But by this it is easie to perceive what a silly excuse it is which Baronius useth in this cause blaming Vigilius for coming to Constantinople as if not the Popes owne hereticall minde but the ayre of Constantinople had wrought such effects as to produce that hereticall and yet as they count it Apostolicall Constitution in defence of the Three Chapters FINIS Laus Deo sine fine Errata haec corrigat benevolus Lector In Textu Pag. 48. lin 2. read Theodorus ibid. lin 9. diptisis p. 509. l. 14. eos p. 99. l. 3. Iohn B. p. 125. l. 38. Catholikes p. 141 l. 35. Binius he was p. 145. l. 39. Son of God p. 163. prope finem substances p. 164. l. 5. explanation p. 172. l. 20. of the Pope p. 182. l. 45. their present p. 199. prope finem Catholica p. 216. l. 17. it p. 224. l. 25. Popes p. 227. l. 5. yeeld p. 289. l. 35. the. p. 350. l. 30. aequiparare p. 425. l. 8. where is ibid. l. 27. Commana ibid. Marcellinus l. 42. inflamed p. 442. in fine Euphemia p. 462. l. 11. quarrels with Pope p. 465. l. 35. all this time p. 478. l. 23. it was written p. 495. l. 37. poysoner of p. 500. l. 35. right hand In Margine Pa. 9. lit c lege Marsorum p. 67. lit e Antiochenum p. 233. lit s emissam ibid. lit e corruptè p. 409. lit e commentitias supposititias p. 410. lit q Consilij 5. p. 437. lit l Concil 5. Coll. 5. AN ALPHABETICALL TABLE OF THE CHIEFE THINGS CONTAINED IN THIS TREATISE A. ACts in Councels not so intire but there may be faults from the exscriber pag. 433. Sect. 17 18. Acts of the fift Councell unjustly excepted against by Baronius pa. 379. sect 3 4. Agnoites and other sectaries called Acephali p. 3. sect 6. Agapetus lost nothing by the Emperours presence p. 464. sect 5. Antichrist the Pope first Antichrist nascent secondly crescent thirdly regnant fourthly in their Laterane Councell he was Antichrist triumphant pa. 186. sect 24. Anthimus a Catholike in shew and outward profession p. 157. sect 4. Anastasius narration not helped by Binius p. 458. sect 23. Anastasius a fabler p. 256. sect 23. and pa. 447. sect 12. c. The Author of that Apologicall Epistle published Anno 1601. a vaunting Braggadochio p. 205. sect 10. To Assent to the Popes or to their Cathedrall definitions in a cause of faith makes one an heretike pa. 172. sect 6. Author of the Edict was Iustinian himselfe p. 366. sect 6 7. B. BAronius nice in approving the Epistle of Ibas and why p. 128. sect 22. Baronius wittingly obstinate in maintaining the heresie of Nestorius by approving the later part of that epistle p. 129. sect 24 25. and p. 31. sect 28. Baronius sports himselfe with contradictions p. 131. sect 27. Baronius revileth the cause of the Three Chapt. p. 361. sect 1. Baronius Annals not altogether intire pag. 435. sect 19. Baronius by his own reasons proves his Annals to be untrue p. 436. sect 19. in fine sect 20. c. Baronius holds it dangerous for Vigilius to leave Rome to come to Constantinople p. 462 sect 1 2. Bellisarius most renowned save in the matter of Silverius p 470. sect 11. Bellarmine and Baronius at variance about the Epistle of Vigilius to Anthimus Severus and others p. 477. sect 19 20. Baronius first reason to disprove it is taken from the inscription p 477. in fine p. 478. sect 21 22 23. c. his second reason from the subscription pa. 482. sect 26. his last reason is because hee was not upbraided for it by the Emperour and others p. 483. sect 27. Bellarmines 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to know when a Councell decreeth any doctrine tanquam de fide pa. 40. sect 9 c. Baronius vilifieth the fift generall Councell p. 266. sect 2. The Banishment of Vigilius after the fift Councell a fiction p. 250. sect 16. and p. 253. sect 19. When and for what
added by the Monothelites Of the seventh Binius thus writeth This fourth Action is in divers places faulty and in the History of the Image crucified at Beritus it containeth divers Apocryphall narrations concerning the Image of Christ made by Nicodemus Of the eighth Councell that the Canons thereof are corrupted and some inserted by Anastasius their owne Raderus will perswade them Let the Baronian reason against the Acts of this fift Councell bee applyed to these He having found among these one Epistle of Theodorets which hee supposeth to bee a counterfait concludeth upon that one example in this manner quam fidem rogo merentur acta hujusmodi quae sunt his contexta commentis what credit I pray you doe such Acts as these of the fift Councell deserve which are intangled in such fictions May not the selfe same reason be much more justly alleaged against the Nicene and Constantinopolitane Canons against the Acts of the Councell at Ephesus at Chalcedon against the sixt seventh and eighth Synods in every one of which some in divers more corruptions not onely mutilations but alterations and commentitious writings are inserted by their owne confession Let Baronius answer here his owne question Quam fidem rogo I pray you then what credit may bee given to such Canons or Acts as are those of Nice of Constantinople of Ephesus of Chalcedon of the sixt seventh or eighth Councell they all must by the Cardinals reason be rejected as Canons and Acts of no worth of no credit at all Nor they onely but all the workes of Augustine of Athanasius of Ierome and almost all the holy Fathers none of them all by this Baronian reason deserve any credit for among their writings are inserted many suppositious and factitious tracts as the book de variis Quaestionibus Scripturae the Sermon of the Assumption of the blessed Virgin and many moe in Athanasius the Epistle of Augustine to Cyrill and Cyrils to Austen the author of which was not onely an Impostor but an heretike the booke de Spiritu litera the booke of questions of the old and new Testament which is hereticall and an heape of the like in Austen the Commentaries on Pauls Epistles which savour of Pelagianisme the Epistle to Demetrias concerning virginity and 100. like in Ierome Quae fides rogo what credit can bee given to these bookes or writings of Austen Athanasius Ierome or the rest in which are found so many fictitious heretical treatises falsly ascribed unto them mingled and inserted among their writings Truly I cannot devise what might move the great Card to make such a collection and reason as from some corruptions crept into the bookes of fathers or Acts of Councels to inferre that the whole Acts or writings are unworthy of any credit but onely as Iacke Cade had a purpose to burne all authentick records and writings of law that as hee boasted all the law might proceed from his own mouth so the Cardinal intended to play a right Iacke Cade with all the ancient Councels and Fathers that having utterly though not abolished yet disgraced and made them all by this his reason and collection unworthy of any credit his owne mouth might bee an Oracle to report without controulment all histories of ancient matters and what his Cardinalship should please to say in any matter or to set downe in his Annals that all men should beleeve as if the most authentick Records in the world had testified the same How much better and more advisedly might the Cardinall have done to have wished all corruptions to bee removed whatsoever can be certainly proved in any Acts of Councels or writings of Fathers to be added unto them that to be quite cut off whatsoever might bee found wanting that to bee added whatsoever to be altered or perverted that to be amended and not in the blindnesse of his hatred against this one fift Councell to fight like one of the Andabatae against al the rest and with one stroke to cashire all the Acts and Canons of Councels all the writings of Fathers or Historians because forsooth one or some few corruptions have either by negligence or errour of writing or by fraud and malice of some malignant hand crept into them 4. The third thing which I observe is that whereas Baronius so often and so spightfully declameth against the Acts of this Councell as imperfect and corrupted this his whole accusation proceedeth of malice to the Councell and these Acts rather than of judgement or of truth for I doe constantly affirme and who so ever pleaseth to peruse the Councels shall certainly finde and if he deale ingenuously will confesse the same that as of al the general Councels which go before this fift for integrity of the Acts none is better or any way comparable to this save that of Chalcedon so of all that follow it none at all is to bee preferred nor any way to bee counted equall with it unlesse that which they call the sixt Councell that is so much of the Acts of that Synod as concerne the cause of the Monothelites leaving out the Trullane Canons This whosoever is exercised in the Volumes of Councels cannot choose but observe The Nicene Constantinopolitane being so miserably maimed that scarce wee have so much as a few shreds or chips of the most magnificent buildings of those Councels which if they could bee recovered no treasures are sufficient to redeeme a worke of that worth and value a worke non gemmis neque purpura a vaenale neque auro That of Ephesus is a little helped indeed by Peltanus but yet it remaines so imperfect so confused and disorderly that as Diogines sought men in the most thronged multitudes of men so among those very Acts large Tomes of the Coūcels the reader shall be forced to seeke the Acts of the Ephesine Councell The Acts of the second Nicene and of the next to it which they call the eighth are so doubtfull that not onely this or that part but the whole fabrick of them both is questionable whether they were the Synodall Acts or but a relation framed by Anastasius as hee thought best Of all the eight Councels the Acts of Chalcedon this fift and the sixt have beene most safely preserved and like the river Arethusa have strongly passed through so many corrupt ages and hands and yet without tainture of the salt deliver unto us the cleare and sweete current of antiquity and truth And verily when I seriously compare the wrack of other Councels with the entirenesse of these three I cannot but admire and magnifie with all my might the gracious providence wisdome and love of God to his Church for in every one of these there is an unresistable force of truth against that Antichristiā authority supremacy which is now made the foundation of the Popish faith the sixt in the cause of Honorius the fift in this cause of Vigilius and that of Chalcedon in curbing the
Popes Legates in crossing the decree and knowne resolution of Pope Leo and in being a most lively patterne of that rightfull and ancient authority which Emperours then held above all the Bishops in the Councell but now the Pope usurpes both above all Bishops Emperours and Councels God would by these monuments of antiquity pull downe the lofty Towers and raze from the very bottome that foundation of Babylon which can never be firme and setled hee would have besides other particular witnesses these unconquerable and irresistible forces of these ancient and generall Councels against which no just exception can be taken and although I will not excuse the acts of these nor any of them from all defects and blemishes whatsoever yet I dare boldly averre that they are so few so light and of so small importance that the maine controversies handled in them or relying on them cannot be prejudicated thereby they being rather the errours of the Collectors or of the writers and exscribers of these Councels than of the Councels themselves And particularly for this fift Councell against which Baronius doth so furiously declame I doubt not to make it evident that all the faults which after much prying hee hath objected unto the Acts thereof will prove so many evident testimonies of his owne most fraudulent and corrupt dealing and not the defects or corruptions in the Acts of this Councell But let us view the particulars CAP. XXV The first alteration of the Synodall Acts pretended by Baronius for that the text of the Councell at Chalcedon is changed therein refuted THE corruptions which Baronius and out of him Binius objecteth are according to the grammaticall division reduced to three sorts of irregularity Some by variation or alteration others by defect or mutilation the rest by redundance or addition In the first ranke bee pretendeth three examples the first which seemeth to be of greatest moment and carieth the greatest colour of probability is the corrupting of a certaine text of the Councell at Chalcedon cited by this fift Synod Heare the accusation in Baronius his owne words We may not here omit saith he to note the craft of the Grecians who contrary to right and equitie have corrupted the holy text of the Synodall Acts by adding unto the Councell of Chalcedon those words about which there was much contention in the time of Pope Hormisda when certaine suspected of Eutycheanisine specially some Scythian Monkes did labour that unto the holy Councell of Chalcedon these words might bee added Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum unum esse de sancta Trinitate which when they could not obtaine because the Synod was well enough without that addition here now in this fift Councell where the Epistle of Ibas is compared with the profession of the Councell at Chalcedon they recite these words of the Synod Chalcedonensis sancta Synodus in definitione quam de fide fecit praedicat Deum verbum incarnatum esse hominem the holy Synod of Chalcedon in the definition which it made of faith doth professe God the Word to have beene incarnate and made man and they adde unto the words of the Synod qui est Dominus noster Iesus Christus unus de sancta Trinitate who is our Lord Iesus Christ one of the holy Trinitie as if the Synod of Chalcedon had professed that whereas they rather would call Christ unam personam sanctae Trinitatis than unum de sancta Trinitate Thus Baronius In which few words of his there are contained so many notable untruths and hereticall frauds that without a rare dexterity in that craft hee could not have easily contrived and couched them in so small a roome 2. First that they who contended to have Christ called unum de sancta Trinitate were heretikes or Eutycheans or unjustly suspected thereof is not onely untrue but bewrayes the Cardinals obstinate and obdurate affection to Nestorianisme for as Dionysius Exiguus in his Preface to the Epistle of Proclus witnesseth and most truly the disciples of Theodorus Mopsvestenus began to teach an impious faith to the people with most crafty subtilty professing the Trinity to bee in such sort of one Essence ut Christum Dominum nostrum unum ex Trinitate nullatenus faterentur that they would by no meanes confesse Christ our Lord to be one of the Trinity and thereupon they taught a quaternity in the persons If Baronius esteeme it heresie to professe Christ unum de sancta Trinitate then is hee certainly by this besides all other evidences convicted to be a Nestorian heretike for it is an Article of their Nestorian and repugnant to the Catholike faith to deny or doubt to call Christ unum de sancta Trinitate 3. Secondly that the Councell of Chalcedon made ever any doubt to professe Christ to bee unum de sancta Trinitate or that they would rather call him unam personam Trinitatis is another vile Nestorian slander and hereticall untruth of Baronius The Councell of Chalcedon saith Iustinian approved the Epistle of Proclus wherin it is taught that we ought to confesse our Lord Iesus Christ to be one of the holy Trinity Proclus saith Dionysius Exiguus did marvellously resist that impiety and hee taught our Lord Iesus Christ unum de Trinitate esse to bee one of the Trinity When the Nestorians troubled the Church about this matter Iustinian set forth a most religious Imperiall Edict wherein hee commanded all to professe Christ to bee unum de Trinitate wee anathematize saith he every heresie especially Nestorius and those who thinke or have thought as he did wee anathematize those who deny or will not confesse our Lord Iesus Christ unum esse ex sancta consubstantiali Trinitate to bee one of the holy and consubstantiall Trinitie This Imperiall Edict the very next yeare after it was published was confirmed by Pope Iohn who thus writeth to the Emperour You for the love of the faith and to remove heresie have published an Edict which because it agreeth with the Apostolike doctrine wee confirme by our authority and againe You have writ and published those things which both the Apostolike doctrine and the venerable authority of the holy Fathers hath decreed nos in omnibus confirmamus and we confirme it in all points This your faith is the true and certaine religion this all the Fathers Bishops of Rome and the Apostolike See hath hitherto inviolably kept this confession whosoever doth contradict hee is an alien from the holy Communion and from the Catholike Church Thus Pope Iohn What can any man in the world now thinke else of Baronius but condemne him for an accursed heretike Hee denyes the Councell of Chalcedon to embrace that profession unum de Trinitate which as the Emperour and Pope witnesse it earnestly embraceth he not onely suspecteth in this place but in plaine termes else-where he calleth the Scythian Monks Eutycheans heretikes and oppugners of the Councell of Chalcedon and that