notwithstanding their mouldy Pretences as if they had come from far and were descended from Ancient Times their true Original is much later and nearer to this present Age. And now Secondly it will be easie to determine That as the Roman is not the Old Religion so neither ought the Professors of it to appropriate to themselves the Name of Catholick For whether we take it in the Primary and Grammatical sense for Vniversal or in its common acceptation for True Believers The Romanist hath no peculiar Right to this Venerable Title First because their Faith in those Points wherein it differs from the Church of England is not Universal for as the judicious Mr. Brerewood computes the Christians holding the Faith of Rome are not above a fourth part of those who believe in Christ And the excellent Author of Europae Speculum thus makes out the Account The Greek Church saith he in number exceeds any other and the Protestants in number and circuit of Territory are very near equal to the Papal part these are two fourth parts to which if we add the Oriental Christians which are not of the Roman Communion and those under Prester John or the Abassine Christians we have another fourth part of the Christian people and then the Romanists are but one fourth part of Christians only And it is very odd to say that the fourth part is the whole And surely my Friends you cannot seriously think the Roman Church to be the Vniversal or Catholick Church in this sense when you remember that the Pope's Authority is not acknowledged by the Generality of those Christians living in England Scotland and Ireland with the Plantations thereunto belonging nor by those of Denmark and Sweden nor by those of Transylvania Walachia and Moldavia nor by the large Church of Russia nor by the populous States and Provinces of the Dutch with their many Plantations abroad nor by at least five parts of six of the vast Country of Upper Germany nor by two parts of three of the Switzers nor by those of Geneva and Piedmont nor by very many in France Hungary Poland c. How many Millions of Christians are there in the Eastern World who have no dependance on the Roman Church The Christians of the Greek Church properly so called under the three Patriarchs of Constantinople Alexandria and Antioch those of Armenia who are professed Enemies of Rome and yearly Excommunicate the Pope The Georgian Christians with many other lesser Names in Asia the Abassine Christians in Africa all these are not of the Communion of the Roman Church and therefore how can that Church pretend to the Title of Vniversal or Catholick in this sense But secondly if you say you are Catholicks that is true Believers in all Points I desire you to consider that none say so but your Selves and 't is suspicious their Witness is not true who bear witness to themselves S. John v. 31. And where so many Articles of Faith are New it is probable some are False since the Oldest things in Religion are the truest and the best So that upon the whole Enquiry the Church of England may more justly claim the Title of Catholick because the Principles thereof are few and clearly deduced from Scripture believed in the Primitive Church and universally received by all sorts of Christians who differ in some Ceremonies but for the Points which this Church accounts necessary to Salvation the whole Christian World generally agrees in them And since the Religion of the Church of England is the most Ancient and most Vniversal you will be more truly of the Old Religion and more properly styled Catholicks by embracing the Faith professed in your own Country and disowning those who damn all Christians but them of their own Party although it be Evident there are in the World Christians far more in number than they and among those many equal in Learning and superior in Piety to the best of the Roman Church who are reprobated and sentenced to Eternal Flames by their uncharitable Anathema's SECTION II. Whether the said Opinions were not introduced for evil Ends ALthough all this be matter of Fact and acknowledged by your own Writers yet I must expect the venerable Esteem you have so long had for the Roman Church will make you slow to believe this deserved Charge of Innovation and perhaps you will wonder how so pure so Celebrated and so Orthodox a Church as Rome Primitive was should vary so much from her first Faith yet since the Change is so Evident and so well attested I hope at least your Curiosity will tempt you to Enquire First For what ends she should bring in these New Doctrines Secondly By what means they became so generally believed Thirdly Of what nature the things themselves are Fourthly Whether there be Authority sufficient in the Roman Church to Impose them on the whole Christian World Fifthly Whether the Catholicks of England ought to be swayed by that Authority to embrace them And if in examining these Particulars any thing shall be spoken which sounds harshly to your ears accustomed to hear nothing but Encomiums of Rome I shall desire you to consider that Truth is seldom grateful to Offenders and I must say with one of the Writers of the Popes Lives We relate these things because they were done and if the Popes would not have base or evil things reported of them they must do no such things or if they do them not fancy they can be so concealed as that they shall not be known nor related to Posterity Papyrius Masson de Vit. Pont. For my own part I profess I take no delight in Accusations nor shall I say any thing out of malice to that Church but out of pity to the Souls of those who without reason dote upon it If you enquire What ends the Roman Church could have to bring in these New Doctrines I Reply The first decay of that Church began in her Manners For after there were Christian Magistrates saith S. Hierome the Church became fuller of Riches and emptier of Vertue And for the Roman Bishops they began very early to affect a Dominion beyond the bounds of Priesthood as Socrates notes which made S. Basil say thirteen hundred years ago I hate the Pride of that Church and caused a Heathen Historian of that Age to say The Roman Bishops were richly clad carried in Litters and profuse in their feastings But the faults of that Age were small in respect of After-times for as their wealth and power increased their manners grew still worse and worse as we find by the complaints of Salvian and many others till at length about the ninth Age your own Baronius saith The face of the Roman Church was become most filthy when lewd and potent Curtezans swayed all there At whose pleasure Sees were changed Bishops placed and which is horrid to Pious ears their Paramors were thrust into S. Peter ' s Chair false Popes which
only serve to fill up so great a space of Time in the Catalogue of Roman Bishops And a Writer who lived in those Times tells us The World was amazed at the Manners of the Romans It is strange saith another Historian how far in that Age they were degenerated from the Piety of the Old Popes This Age as Another speaks was especially unhappy in this that for about an hundred and fifty years there were fifty Popes wholly fallen from the Vertue of their Predecessors being disorderly and Apostatical rather than Apostolical And if our brevity would permit it we could shew out of Platina Onuphrius and Others of your own Writers that there was no Reformation in all the Ages while these New Doctrines were in coyning Now it is the Great Philosopher's observation That Wickedness is destructive of good Principles So that it is no wonder if in such Decays of Piety and such a flood of Iniquity the Roman Church did bring in many New Articles suitable to her Manners and I think when Pride Luxury and Covetousness possess the Chair we can hardly expect any other Laws but such as shall gratifie these affections And the Practices as well as the Decrees of Rome for divers of the latter Centuries have so apparently tended this way that it hath been taken notice of by all those of her own Communion whose affection hath not rob'd them of their discerning Powers yea even in Catholick Countries it hath abated much of the Reverence formerly paid to that See by reason the designs thereof are so apparently Secular tending not to the Salvation of Souls but the support of their own Grandeur Which makes me admire our English Romanists should hug their Chains and adore those who abuse their well-meaning Devotion with Articles of Faith serving rather to carry on the Designs of the Imposers than the Salvation of their over credulous Believers Methinks an easie apprehension might discover that the Roman Guides govern you by Principles that have more of Machiavel in them than of Conscience or Gospel-simplicity and a little consideration will inform you that those things which they teach you to call Religion are Arts to enslave and impoverish you and Engines to advance themselves to the highest pitch of honour and abundance S. Bernard though a great friend to the Roman Church saw this when he said At Rome all regard is given to Honour but to Holiness none at all Were this the fault of particular mens Evil management from which no Society is free it were more excusable but there are Doctrines added to the Old Catholick Faith even most of the Tenets wherein they differ from the Church of England which are plain Artifices to increase the power and wealth of Rome Doctrines for which they dispute with us upon Demetrius's Principle because thereby they have their gain Act. xix 25. And many think the Guides of your Church contend for some of these Principles not because they believe them but because it is their Interest the people should be perswaded of them which makes them secretly laugh at their Credulity who will be imposed on by them as that great Cardinal did when he gave the People who flocked about him his Benediction in these words Qui vult decipi decipiatur And it is a vile suspicion of this which we may gather from that observation of Hospinian That in Italy the name Christian is used for an Ideot or Fool But to be more particular let us look over some Instances of such New Doctrines as are taught in the Roman Church for Secular ends We begin with the Doctrine of Implicit Faith or believing as the Church believes a Doctrine unknown in S. Cyrils time who speaking to his young Christians Bids them not meerly believe the things he spoke because he affirmed them unless he did demonstrate them to be so out of the Divine Scripture And truly this Novel Doctrine may agree with Pythagoras's Ipse dixit and is a good shelter for Paganism the best Argument for which Balbus saith is this That he had received it from his Fore-fathers The Jewish Rabbins told their Disciples They must believe whatever they taught them though they should say that their right hand was their left and it was becoming enough in Apelâ—es the Heretick to charge his seduced Scholars not to examine his Principles by Reason But it is below the Honour of true Religion to desire to be taken upon Trust so that this Doctrine is a policy of your Priests to secure their evil Principles from being enquired into and a device to make you depend on them as Infallible Oracles who can by this means lead you blind-fold whither they will and impose any thing on you which serves their Interest under the pretence of true Religion 2. Auricular Confession to a Priest was voluntary of Old and only used in case of a troubled Conscience or a strong Temptation But it is now made necessary at stated times in all probability to make the Priest master of every mans Secrets to discover the least inclination of their Proselytes to leave them to keep the Laity in awe and make them venerate and depend upon their Spiritual Guide who hereby hath them at his Mercy And their Doctors do affirm that in some cases it is lawful to discover what is revealed to them in Confession especially if it concern the Roman Church And thus they have an Intelligencer in the breast of every Great man of their Communion The Exempting the Regular Clergy from their Lawful Bishops Jurisdiction which S. Bernard complains of as an unjust thing And the freeing Ecclesiasticks from their Natural Princes Authority is that the Pope may have Subjects numerous and potent to give Intelligence and abet his Interest in the bowels of all Kingdoms The Popes Supremacy Appeals to Rome the Collation of Benefices and other Preferments the Creating their Maker in the Mass with many others do all aim at the Honour of the Church of Rome and the making its most inferior Priests revered But because the Honour of the Church of Rome cannot be maintained without vast riches it is obvious to all that many of their New Doctrines and Practices have been introduced with design to fill the Churches Treasuries or if Ignorance and Superstition were the Mother of these gainful Devices it is certain Covetousness hath been an officious Nurse unto them As in the case of Purgatory and Prayers to deliver Souls from thence a Novel fancy feared and suspected at first by some but countenanced and Decreed by that Church thereby to oblige the people to give liberally for themselves or their deceased Friends to those who sell their Prayers so commonly that they occasioned that Proverb No penny no Pater Noster It is impossible to reckon the vast sums that this Opinion brings in for so many Masses Dirige's Requiems for those Trentals Obits and Anniversaries which the deluded Romanists purchase
joyn in you will go over to the Church of England where you may Pray with the Spirit and with understanding also In the next place your Private Prayers are not so good a way of worshipping God as other Christians have The Images and Pictures which the Heathens first taught your Doctors to call The books of the unlearned and which are placed before you in time of Prayer are no help but an hindrance to all true Devotion for while your lips are repeating your Oraisons your mind is taken up with the beauty colour lineaments and workmanship of the Image so that your own Conscience will tell you by these diversions you often draw near to God with your lips when your hearts are far from him which is a vain worship Matth. xv 8. And the Casuists of your Church foreseeing that Images would take off the attention have determined most impiously That it is not necessary to Prayer that the person praying should think of what he speaks A Doctrine suitable enough to that slight and formal worship which your Church appoints and the Ordinary people among you think they have prayed sufficiently when they have pattered over so many little Oraisons as agree to the number of their Beads A new Invention which came not into the Church till all serious Devotion was ceased it being a sign he minds his Prayers but little that needs a string of Beads to reckon them by yet these Beads saith one of your own Authors are now the chief Instruments of the hypocrites counterfeit Devotion I shall not ravel into the body of your Prayers since the Author of the Reflections on the Romish Devotions hath sufficiently done this but I cannot but remark that the repeating Ave Maria and the name of Jesus so many times over as in those fifteen little Prayers in the Psalter of Jesus where the name of Jesus is thrice mentioned in each Prayer and each Prayer is ordered to be said Ten times over and those numerous names of Saints repeated in your Litanies with no petition annexed but Ora pro nobis This way of Praying is so far from agreeing with the Primitive worship of God among the Christians that it is evidently derived from that Heathenish superstition of praying by repeating a hundred names of their Deities together interposing nothing but O hear us and in this manner Baals Priests are supposed to pray 1 Kings xviii 26. But to Christians Jesus saith When ye pray use not vain repetitions as the Heathens do for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking Matth. vi 7. Wherefore though you have admired this trifling way of worship when you knew no better yet if you would acquaint your selves with the solid and rational way of praying prescribed in the Church of England wherein Great things in an exact method in plain and proper phrases and in a known Language are asked of God alone in the name of Jesus Christ you would easily leave off those formal vain and superficial Devotions which can neither be acceptable to God nor profitable unto your selves Thirdly Let us pass to the last of these particulars and enquire If the Doctrines of Rome differing from those of England do tend to promote our imitating God by a holy life and conversation without which all our worship is in vain For it is a folly and miserable errour saith S. Augustine to humble your self before him in adoration to whom you chuse to be unlike in conversation and to give him religious worship whose Example you will not follow since the sum of all Religion is to imitate him you worship Now there are several Principles of the Roman Church which seem to hinder an holy life as first The custome of Confessing to a Priest weekly or monthly together with the Absolution following of course upon this Confession this is I fear a great hindrance to amendment of life at which it pretends to aim for while men relie on this remedy they go on without fear in those sins for which they have so easie a cure at hand like those who venture without scruple on dangerous Meats because they have their Physicians beside them 'T is true there is a Penance enjoyned sometimes but it is such a one as the rich may buy off and the poor may undergo and yet both retain the sin because the Penance is not its proper cure the going in Pilgrimages giving mony saying or reading over such proportions of Legends or little chiming prayers with others far more impertinent tend not to rectifie a vicious habit and a plaister on the Toe may as soon cure the Head-ach as these Penances effect a Reformation or obtain a pardon at Gods hands And yet all men see when the day of Confession is over and the Penance past that you are generally confident of a Pardon and fancy you begin upon a new score It is not easie to enumerate all the devices which your Church hath invented to convey pardon of Sins Holy water Relicks of Saints visiting some certain Churches saying some certain Prayers making Oblations of mony to such and such uses Indulgences and other such things so that he that hath mony need never want Pardon from Rome but alas these things can never really take away the guilt of one sin and yet they embolden men to commit many For the multitude of Sinners increaseth when hope is given that sin may be bought off and men easily fall into those sins for which Mony will purchase their pardon as Arnobius said to the Heathens who relied on such like fantastical means of Remission and we may say of the Guides of your Church as Seneca in a like case They sin more in such Absolutions than the Offender doth in the Crime For by perswading men they can have Remission on so easie Terms they make them secure before they are safe because Almighty God who only finally can Remit never promised Pardon on these Terms and it is only those who forsake as well as confess their sins to whom he will shew Mercy Prov. xxviii 13. And if either the Pope or any of his Substitutes pretend to have power to forgive sins on any other Terms they abuse those who are so weak to believe them and make them forfeit their Souls I doubt for the sad price of this Credulity S. Basil saith truly The power of Absolving was not absolutely given but upon condition of the Penitents Reformation And we tell our People more sincerely that if a Priest Absolve them a thousand times over and if they give ever so much mony without amendment of life they can have no pardon according as Scripture it self teaches and the Holy Fathers also If thou givest all that thou hast and dost not forsake thy sins thou art twice deceived both in losing thy Mony and thy Pardon also Again as if the Roman Church designed to make men think their own actual Holiness
Master and the Servants the same in all outward expressions only differing in a nice School-distinction must needs be an affront to the King of Saints If you have any tenderness or zeal for the honour of Jesus it cannot but be offensive to you to observe how your Legends tell of greater miracles wrought by some of their fabulous Saints than ever Jesus wrought To hear one of your Church say That Christ did nothing which S. Francis did not do yea that he did more than Christ himself What is more injurious to the honour of the Divine Majesty than your S. Bonaventure's putting in the name of the Virgin Mary into Davids Psalms instead of the name of God To have her adored by the Heathenish Title of the Queen of Heaven and invocated by the impious name of Mother of the whole Trinity These things are rather Blasphemy than Devotion and as dishonourable to God as they are Dissonant from Antiquity Let none saith Epiphanius adore Mary but why do I mention a Woman nay not any Man this Reverence is due only to God nor are the Angels capable of such glorification Fifthly The supposing a necessity of superadding the Saints Merits and the daily Sacrifice of the Mass to the Merit of that one Offering for sin which Jesus made on the Cross Heb. ix 28. is an evident lessening the value and sufficiency of the Death of Christ Sixthly The calling of the Holy Scripture a Nose of Wax a Leaden Rule and an Inky Gospel The putting in the Apocryphal books wherein are some things wicked and others notoriously false into an equal rank with the Word of God indited by the Spirit own Traditions to be equal in value to it are palpable dishonours to God who writ the Holy Scripture These things my Friends can hardly be reckoned matters tending to the honour of God unless you can suppose the cancelling his Laws disparaging his Nature undervaluing the Merits the Mercies and the Miracles of Jesus by cheap and odious Comparisons the diminution of his worship and making him sharer with his Servants therein and the vilifying of his Divine word be no dishonour to him you pretend to serve Secondly Let us examine whether these Doctrines do assist you in the Devout worshipping of God It is very suspicious that Church doth not teach a right way of serving God which deceives you in the first Principle of Religion viz. That God alone is to be worshipped a Sentence so odious to the Roman Doctors that the Index Expurgatorius blots it out of the indices of S. Athanasius and S. Augustines Works and if they could do it undiscovered they would blot it out of the Bible also Matth. iv 10. But there it shall stand for ever to reprove those who divide Religious worship between God and his Creatures thereby diminishing that Devotion which intirely belongs to the Divine Majesty since affections are most vigorous when placed upon one Object and if they be dispersed among many grow weak and trifling whence we may conclude the Protestant who worships none but God is the greater lover of him and worships with a more united and servent Devotion As for your Publick worship it is attended with so many Ceremonies as must needs disturb the Devotion as well of the Priests as the People there is such frequent bowing crossing prostration sprinkling with Holy water beating the breast smoaking with Incense c. that the mind is taken off from a steady intention upon the inward and main part of the Duty while it is entertained with such variety of outward Rites For our mind saith Quintilian cannot sincerely intend its whole self upon many things at once whatever new object it looks upon it gives over the thoughts of that which it first propounded to it self And this is most evident where the Objects are so different as sensible and intellectual things are For where the Senses and their perceptions are vigorously employed there the Intellectual Powers cease to act as a great Philosopher observes So that it is your Passions and your Fancies that are wrought upon not your Mind nor the higher faculties of your Soul by these numerous Ceremonies and therefore that which you think Devotion I doubt is but a fantastical and false fire not kindled by the love of God nor warming your nobler Powers at all and those steady rational and spiritual desires which flow from an undisturbed contemplation of the Divine Goodness and are the very life of Prayer I fear you are strangers to being so often taken off and diverted by variety of sensible Representations Again the making all your Publick prayers in an Vnknown Tongue destroys all true Devotion in the People S. Clemens of Alex. tells us of some Heathens who thought those Prayers most effectual which were uttered in a barbarous Language But Christians know that Prayer is the desiring something of God and if the Mind be not exercised in this desire it avails nothing but where the words are not understood the mind cannot desire the things mentioned so that none can properly pray in an Vnknown Tongue nor so much as rationally say Amen 1 Cor. xiv 16. By this absurd Practice therefore you who are unlearned spend the time of the Publick offices in admiring and gazing not in joyning with the Priest or Praying And because the people have no employment while the Mass lasteth they spend the whole time usually in talking and laughing privately as those who Travel in Catholick Countries do inform us And it may occasion your wonder why the Roman Church should so obstinately refuse to reform so irrational a Custom which S. Paul hath written a whole Chapter to condemn 1 Cor. xiv The force of whose Arguments and Authority hath made your wisest Doctors declare against it By S. Paul ' s Doctrine saith Card. Cajetan it is better for the edifying of the Church that Publick prayers were made in the Vulgar Tongue than in Latin To the same purpose Lyra And your Rhemish Annotators say When a man prayeth in a strange Tongue which himself understandeth not it is not so fruitful for Instruction to him as if he knew particularly what he prayed Gabriel Biel also gives several Reasons why Prayers should be in a known Tongue saying It is better 1. For stirring up Devotion 2. for enlightning the Mind 3. for retaining the things in memory 4. for keeping the thoughts from wandring Yet your admired Church will oppose Reason and Scripture and deprive all the Common people that are of her Communion of the exercise of their Devotion in her Offices rather than so far seem to confess a fault as to amend it chusing rather to let you lose the benefit of worshipping God than to reform the most unjust Customes which she hath once espoused but if you be wise if that Church will not pray in such a Language as you can
were never necessary they have other devices to perswade you into a belief of coming off well at the end of your life howsoever ill you have spent it The Hereticks in Tertullians time said It was a meritorious thing to be of their Party And you are told it is a ready way of Salvation to die in the Communion of the Roman Church and if you can but receive the Sacraments of that Church and be Absolved by one of their Priests you scarce doubt of obtaining Heaven at last and if you have no good works of your own they perswade you the Church can sell you the Merits of the Saints or if you should drop into Purgatory by the way the pains of that they say are not endless and if you give liberally on your Death-beds or if any others afterwards give for you to purchase so many Masses and other Prayers for your Soul you will ere long be delivered from thence All which notorious delusions do miserably deceive poor men and most mischievously encourage them to put off their Repentance and to resolve not to be troubled with holiness in the way since they fancy they shall come off so easily in the end and alas they are as false as they are mischievous for the Ancient Fathers unanimously affirm no mans estate can be altered after this life But as the last day of a mans life finds him so the last day of the World finds him Nor will any thing help thee saith S. Augustine but what is done while thou art here Out of innumerable such Testimonies that of S. Salvian may serve Although a man should have so pious a Son who for alleviating his Fathers punishment would desire to give all the goods he left behind him it would do him no good for the Piety of the Son can do nothing to procure that Rest to a man after Death which his own Impiety and Infidelity hath denied him Finally these and the like Principles make so many infamous men and women so many Thieves and Murtherers debauched and prophane persons to take Sanctuary in the Roman Church because the Tenets thereof seem not to oblige them to forsake their evil ways but reconcile wickedness and Salvation together so that this Religion tends not to perswade men to Holiness of life and therefore is no good Religion I grant there are some Persons in that Church who live better than these Opinions engage them to do and do not draw those Conclusions into their practice which naturally follow from these Principles but that is only an evidence of the excellent vertue of such Persons but no proof of the goodness of these Doctrines and if these men be Holy in a Religion which gives such encouragement to evil doubtless they would be more holy by far if they were taught better things I shall only add that as the Roman Church is too loose in matters pertaining to Gods Laws so she is too strict in matters pertaining to her own Constitutions like the Old Pharisees who Tithed Mint and Annise and neglected the weightier matters of the Law Matth. xxiii which is a great obstruction to real Holiness when men place Religion in Ceremonies and slight things for while they are curious in these matters they neglect greater and think by observing the Rules of the Church they compensate for passing by the Laws of God your own Ordinary Gloss saith That is Superstition when Religion is placed in observing the Ordinances of men And if so then your wonderful strictness in Crossing Bowing using Holy Water Abstinence on certain days wearing Crosses c. in which you have placed so much Religion are no better than Superstition It cannot be denied that most Roman Catholicks are more afraid to eat flesh on a Fasting-day than to curse or swear they will be drunk on a Holy-day which God forbids but not work on it because the Church forbids it many of them dare fornicate and debauch who dare not neglect Confession nor read a book written by a supposed Heretick And generally they are punctual in crossing sprinkling bowing and observing all Orders of the Church even such as live in the open breach of Gods Commandements and yet fancy themselves more sure of Heaven than the most pious and holy Protestant Thus this Religion is too strict where God gives us more liberty and too remiss where his Holy Law hath bound us with Eternal and Indispensable bonds and it is designed to promote Obedience to the Roman Church rather than Inward holiness towards God The effect of all which Considerations is this That whosoever sincerely desires to glorifie God and worship him with a rational Devotion and whoever would imitate him by a Holy Life ought not to chuse or retain such a Religion whose Principles tend so evidently to the dishonour of Gods Name the hindrance of true Devotion and to the rendring a Holy life unnecessary And as it was proved before that the appropriated Articles of the Roman Faith were not Ancient nor induced for pious ends nor propagated by honest means so now it is evidenced the Articles are not good in their own nature and therefore there is no reason why you should not renounce them unless you retain them in meer Reverence to the Authority of the Pope who doth impose them which Matter is the Subject of our last Enquiries SECTION V. Whether the Roman Bishop have sufficient Authority to impose the said Opinions upon all Christian Churches THe Last and almost the only shelter that your Doctors flie to at this day for the defence of your Principles is That the Bishop of Rome is the sole Vicar of Christ the Infallible and only Judge of Controversies and the Supream Head of the Vniversal Church and hereby their Adherents are awed into the retaining all his Decrees of what nature soever they be But let me beg leave to advise you not to lay so much stress upon these Titles and Authority till you have seriously examined by what Right the Pope laies claim to them for his Power had need be very great and his Proofs very good upon the Credit whereof you receive so many new and suspicious Articles of Religion some of which we ought not to receive though preached by an Angel Gal. 1. 8 9. And first though we stand not much upon Titles you may note that the name of Vicar of Christ is never given to the Pope in the first Ages and when this Title came into use it was not appropriated to the Bishop of Rome but other Bishops and Priests are styled Vicars of Christ also even by a Pope of Rome as also by the Old French Emperours and by our own Saxon Law So that there is no reason for the Roman Bishop to challenge any propriety in this Title or any special Priviledge by virtue thereof Secondly As to his being an Infallible Judge and the Supream Head of the Catholick Church throughout the World you may remember
we have proved there are more Christians in the World who deny this Supremacy of Rome than there are who do acknowledge it And if the belief of this Infallible Headship be the reason why you receive other Articles of Faith this then is the most fundamental Article of all others and ought to be the best attested And if our Lord Jesus had designed to make S. Peter and his Successors at Rome not at Antioch such Supream Infallible Judges we may expect he would have set down this Article plainly in Holy Scripture and not have left his sole visible Vice-gerent to the suspicion of bearing witness to himself As for that place Matth. xvi Thou art Peter and upon this Rock will I build my Church it is indeed by the Popes in their Forged Decretals expounded as a confirmation of their pretences to Supremacy but the Fathers take this Rock not for S. Peter's Person but for his Faith which he confessed and for Christ himself the Object thereof So S. Augustine Nazianzen S. Cyril S. Chrysostome S. Ambrose and Hilary expound the place and if so this belongs no more to S. Peter than to the rest of the Apostles who confessed the same Faith and belongs no otherwise to the Pope than as he varies not from S. Peter's Faith and so far it belongs to all Orthodox Bishops with respect to their several Churches And for the Keys of the kingdom of Heaven ver 19. they were given as much to the other Apostles as to S. Peter Matth. xviii 18. as also the aforesaid Fathers do observe being all equally sharers in the Power of the Keys and all Foundations as well as S. Peter so that S. Cyprian plainly tells us The rest of the Apostles were as great as Peter endowed with an equal share of Honour and Power Nor do we find that ever S. Peter pretended to any Power over the other Apostles Peter James and John though preferred by Christ saith Eusebius before the rest challenged not to themselves the glory of Primacy but chose James the Just Bishop of the Apostles And if any were greatest it was S. James who was President in that first Council at Jerusalem and did determine the Question there though S. Peter was present Yea Clemens Bishop of Rome in the first Decretal Epistle a good evidence against the Inventors thereof styles this very S. James Bishop of Bishops governing the Holy Church of the Hebrews at Jerusalem and also all the Churches which were every where founded by the Providence of God And an Ancient Council calls Jerusalem the Mother of all Churches but as for the Primacy of Rome there is no genuine Author for the first Three Centuries takes any notice of it and Aeneas Sylvius afterwards Pope confesseth There was little respect paid to Rome before the Nicene Council If Polycrates and the Asian Bishops had known of this Infallibility and Supremacy they would not have opposed Pope Victor's Opinion nor despised his Excommunication so boldly as they did neither would Irenaeus who calls the Bishops of Rome no more but Presbyters have presumed to reprove the same Victor for his arrogance and indiscretion as we find he did S. Cyprian surely never heard of this Power of the Roman Bishop who calls Cornelius Bishop of that See no more but Brother and Colleague and gives to Pope Stephen his Successor at Rome the Titles of False Apostle Schismatick friend to Hereticks and enemy to Christians utterly despising his Judgment and not regarding his Determinations Besides if this Supremacy had been believed in the first Ages of the Church the Roman Bishops sense would have been enquired of concerning all controverted places of Scripture his Decrees cited to silence Hereticks and all Appeals must have been made finally to him He also should have called and presided in all eminent Councils whereas Cardinal Cusanus affirms That the Emperours or their Deputies were Presidents in Eight General Councils Nor did the Fourth General Council at Chalcedon suppose that the Roman Bishop had any Supremacy given him from Christ when that Council saith Rome hath justly had the Priviledges given unto it by the Fathers because it was the Seat of the Empire and for the same Reason they grant equal Priviledges to the Bishop of Constantinople Yea S. Gregory Bishop of Rome saith The Fathers of the Council of Chalcedon were they who offered his Predecessors the Title of Universal Bishop which yet they accepted not And to convince us that this Vniversal Supremacy is a late Device it is evident that it was not only unknown to others in the first Age but to the very Popes themselves as these few Instances will shew Liberius Bishop of Rome An. 350. sending the Confession of his Faith to Athanasius desireth his Approbation thereof That I may know saith he whether I am of the same Judgment with you in matters of Faith and that I may be more certain and readily obey your commands And when the Bishop of Constantinople began to call himself Vniversal Bishop Pope Gregory in his Epistle to Mauritius the Emperour saith He admires at the Arrogance of assuming this New Title which none of the Bishops of Rome had ever accepted of a Title blasphemous to Christian Ears and with many other words he inveighs against this Title as unfit for any Christian Bishop as may be seen at large in his Epistles And in his Epistle to Eulogius Patriarch of Alexandria he is displeased that Eulogius writes to him by the proud Title of Universal Bishop desiring him wholly to forbear that language for saith he That is a diminution to you which is afforded to another beyond what reason doth require And he there tells Eulegius That the Council of Chalcedon had offered this Title to the Old Bishops of Rome but they would not accept it Of which he gives this Reason in another Epistle Because if one Patriarch be called Universal the name of Patriarch is taken from the rest And so little did Pope Boniface think of deriving his Supremacy from Christ that with intreaty he obtained of the intruding Emperour Phocas to decree That the Roman Church should be Head of all Churches as the Ancient Historians witness But this Imperial Constitution will scarce justifie the Supremacy and Jurisdiction which the Pope now claimeth over all the World and it utterly destroys the pretences of a Divine Right to it It would be too tedious to relate at large all the steps by which the Bishops of Rome attained to their present Grandeur I shall therefore only note that the first Ages began early to complain of his Encroachments and Ambition and all succeeding Times frequently opposed the Pope's Pretences herein The Sixth Council of Carthage allowed not his claim of Appeals The Bishops of France complain of his sending a Legate to Dedicate a