The several Testimonies to the contrary of S. Ambrose S. Hierom John Patriarch of Constantiople S. Augustine Optatus c. particularly examined and all found short of proving that the Roman Church is the Catholick Church The several Answers of his Lordship to the Testimonies of S. Cyprian S. Hierom S. Greg. Nazianzen S. Cyril and Ruffinus about the Infallibility of the Church of Rome justified From all which it appears that the making the Roman Church to be the Catholick is a great Novelty and perfect Jesuitism p. 289. CHAP. II. Protestants no Schismaticks Schism a culpable Separation therefore the Question of Schism must be determined by enquiring into the causes of it The plea from the Church of Rome's being once a right Church considered No necessity of assigning the punctual time when errours crept into her An account why the originals of errours seem obscure By Stapletons Confession the Roman and Catholick Church were not the same The falsiâ—y of that assertion manifested that there could be no pure Church since the Apostles times if the Roman Church were corrupt No one particular Church free from corruptions yet no separation from the Catholick Church How far the Catholick Church may be said to erre Men may have distinct communion from any oâ—e particular Church yet not separate from the Catholick Church The Testimony of Petrus de Alliaco vindicated Bellarmin not mis cited Almain full to his Lordships purpose The Romanists guilty of the present Schism and not Protestants In what sense there can be no just cause of Schism and how far that concerns our case Protestants did not depart from the Church of Rome but were thrust out of it The Vindication of the Church of Rome from Schism at last depends upon the two false Principles of her Infallibility and being the Catholick Church The Testimonies of S. Bernard and S Austin not to the purpose The Catalogue of Fundamentals the Churches not erring c. referr'd back to their proper places p. 324. CHAP. III. Of keeping Faith with Hereticks The occasion of this Dispute The reason why this Doctrine is not commonly defended Yet all own such Principles from whence it necessarâ—ly follows The matter of fact as to the Council of Constance and John Hus opened Of the nature of the safe conduct granted him by the Emperour that it was not a general one salvâ justitiâ but particular jure speciali which is largely proved The particulars concerning Hierom of Prague Of the safe-conduct granted by the Council of Trent Of the distinction of Secular and Ecclesiastical Power and that from thence it follows that Faith is not to be kept with Hereticks Simancha and several others fully assert this Doctrine Of the Invitation to the Council of Trent and the good Instructions there and of Publick Disputation p. 343. CHAP. IV. The Reformâ—tion of the Church of England justified The Church of Rome guilty of Schism by unjustly casting Protestants out of Communion The Communion of the Catholâ—ck and particular Churches distinguished No separation of Protestants from the Catholick Church The Devotions of the Church of England and Rome compared Particular Churches Power to reform themselves in case of general Corruption proved The Instance from the Church of Judah vindicated The Church of Rome paralleld with the ten Tribes General Corruptions make Reformation the more necessary Whether those things we condemn as errours were Catholick Tenets at the time of the Reformation The contrary shewed and the dâ—fference of the Church of Rome before and since the Reformation When things may be said to be received as Catholick Doctrines How far particular Churches Power to reform themselves extends His Lordships Instances for the Power of Provincial Councils in matters of Reformation vindicated The particular case of the Church of England discussed The proceedings in our Reformation defended The Church of England a true Church The National Synod 1562. a lawful Synod The Bâ—shops no intruders in Queen Elizabeth's time The justice and modâ—ration of the Church of England in her Reformation The Popes Power here a forcible and fraudulent Usurpation p. 356. CHAP. V. Of the Roman Churches Authority The Question concerning the Church of Rome's Authority entred upon How far our Church in reforming her self condemns the Church of Rome The Pope's equality with other Patriarchs asserted The Arabick Canons of the Nicene Council proved to be supposititious The Polity of the Ancient Church discovered from the sixth Canon of the Council of Nice The Rights of Primats and Metropolitans settled by it The suitableness of the Ecclesiastical to the Civil Government That the Bishop of Rome had then a limitted Jurisdiction within the suburbicary Churches as Primate of the Roman Diocese Of the Cyprian Priviledge that it was not peculiar but common to all Primats of Dioceses Of the Pope's Primacy according to the Canons how far pertinent to our dispute How far the Pope's Confirmation requisite to new elected Patriarchs Of the Synodical and Communicatory Letters The testimonies of Petrus de Marcâ concerning the Pope's Power of confirming and deposing Bishops The Instances brought for it considered The case of Athanasius being restored by Julius truly stated The proceedings of Constantine in the case of the Donatists cleared and the evidence thence against the Pope's Supremacy Of the Appeals of Bishops to Rome how far allowed by the Canons of the Church The great case of Appeals between the Roman and African Bishops discussed That the Appeals of Bishops were prohibited as well as those of the inferiour Clergy C's fraud in citing the Epistle of the African Bishops for acknowledging Appeals to Rome The contrary manifested from the same Epistle to Boniface and the other to Coelestine The exemption of the Ancient Britannick Church from any subjection to the See of Rome asserted The case of Wilfrids Appeal answered The Primacy of England not derived from Gregory's Grant to Augustine the Monk The Ancient Primacy of the Britannick Church not lost upon the Saxon Conversion Of the state of the African Churches after their denying Appeals to Rome The rise of the Pope's Greatness under Christian Emperours Of the Decree of the Sardican Synod in case of Appeals whether ever received by the Church No evidence thence of the Pope's Supremacy Zosimus his forgery in sending the Sardican Canons instead of the Nicene The weakness of the Pleas for it manifested p. 382. CHAP. VI. Of the Title of Universal Bishop In what sense the Title of Vniversal Bishop was taken in Antiquity A threefold acceptation of it as importing 1. A general care over the Christian Churches which is attributed to other Catholick Bishops by Antiquity besides the Bishop of Rome as is largely proved 2. A peculiar dignity over the Churches within the Roman Empire This accounted then Oecumenical thence the Bishops of the seat of the Empire called Oecumenical Bishops and sometimes of other Patriarchal Churches 3. Noting Vniversal Jurisdiction over the whole Church as Head of it so never given
in Antiquity to the Bishop of Rome The ground of the Contest about this Title between the Bishops of Rome and Constantinople Of the proceedings of the Council of Chalcedon about the Popes Supremacy Of the Grammatical and Metaphorical sense of this Title Many arguments to prove it impossible that S. Gregory should understand it in the Grammatical sense The great absurdities consequent upon it S. Gregory's Reasons proved to hold against that sense of it which is admitted in the Church of Rome Of Irenaeus his opposition to Victor Victor's excommunicating the Asian Bishops argues no authority he had over them What the more powerful principality in Irenaeus is Ruffinus his Interpretation of the 6. Nicene Canon vindicated The Suburbicary Churches cannot be understood of all the Churches in the Roman Empire The Pope no Infallible Successour of S. Peter nor so acknowledged to be by Epiphanius S. Peter had no Supremacy of Power over the Apostles p. 422. CHAP. VII The Popes Authority not proved from Scripture or Reason The insufficiency of the proofs from Scripture acknowledged by Romanists themselves The impertinency of Luke 22.32 to that purpose No proofs offered for it but the suspected testimonies of Popes in their own cause That no Infallibility can thence come to the Pope as S. Peters Successour confessed and proved by Vigorius and Mr. White The weakness of the evasion of the Popes erring as a private Doctor but not as Pope acknowledged by them Joh. 21.15 proves nothing towards the Popes Supremacy How far the Popes Authority is owned by the Romanists over Kings C's beggings of the Question and tedious repetitions past over The Argument from the necessity of a living Judge considered The Government of the Church not Monarchical but Aristocratical The inconveniencies of Monarchical Government in the Church manifested from reason No evidence that Christ intended to institute such Government in his Church but much against it The Communicatory letters in the primitive Church argued an Aristocracy Gersons testimony from his Book de Auferibilitate Papae explained and vindicated S. Hieroms testimony full against a Monarchy in the Church The inconsistency of the Popes Monarchy with that of temporal Princes The Supremacy of Princes in Ecclesiastical matters asserted by the Scripture and Antiquity as well as the Church of England p. 451. CHAP. VIII Of the Council of Trent The Illegality of it manifested first from the insufficiency of the Rule it proceeded by different from that of the first General Councils and from the Popes Presidency in it The matter of Right concerning it discussed In what cases Superiours may be excepted against as Barties The Pope justly excepted against as a Party and therefore ought not to be Judge The Necessity of a Reformation in the Court of Rome acknowledged by Roman Catholicks The matter of fact enquired into as to the Popes Presidency in General Councils Hosius did not preside in the Nicene Council as the Popes Legat. The Pope had nothing to do in the second General Council Two Councils held at Constantinople within two years these strangely confounded The mistake made evident S. Cyril not President in the third General Council as the Popes Legat. No sufficient evidence of the Popes Presidency in following Councils The justness of the Exception against the place manifested and against the freedom of the Council from the Oath taken by the Bishops to the Pope The form of that Oath in the time of the Council of Trent Protestants not condemned by General Councils The Greeks and others unjustly excluded as Schismaticks The Exception from the small number of Bishops cleared and vindicated A General Council in Antiquiâ—y not so called from the Popes General Summons In what sense a General Council represents the whole Church The vast difference between the proceedings in the Council of Nice and that at Trent The Exception from the number of Italian Bishops justified How far the Greek Church and the Patriarch Hieremias may be said to condemn Protestants with an account of the proceedings between them p. 475. PART III. Of Particular Controversies CHAP. I. Of the Infallibility of General Councils HOw far this tends to the ending Controversies Two distinct Questions concerning the Infallibility and Authority of General Councils The first entred upon with the state of the Question That there can be no certainty of faith that General Councils are Infallible nor that the particular decrees of any of them are so which are largely proved Pighius his Arguments against the Divine Institution of General Councils The places of Scripture considered which are brought for the Churches Infallibility and that these cannot prove that General Councils are so Matth. 18.20 Act. 15.28 particularly answered The sense of the Fathers in their high expressions of the Decrees of Councils No consent of the Church as to their Infallibility The place of St. Austin about the amendment of former General Councils by latter at large vindicated No other place in St. Austin prove them Infallible but many to the contrary General Councils cannot be Infallible in the conclusion if not in the use of the means No such Infallibility without as immediate a Revelation as the Prophets and Apostles had taking Infallibility not for an absolute unerring Power but such as comes by a promise of Divine Assistance preserving from errour No obligation to internal assent but from immediate Divine Authority Of the consistency of Faith and Reason in things propounded to be believed The suitableness of the contrary Doctrine to the Romanists principles p. 505. CHAP. II. Of the Use and Authority of General Councils The denying the Infallibility of General Councils takes not away their Vse and Authority Of the submission due to them by all particular persons How far external obedience is required in case they erre No violent opposition to he made against them Rare Inconveniencies hinder not the effect of a just power It cannot rationally be supposed that such General Councils as are here meant should often or dangerously erre The true notion of a General Council explained The Freedom requisite in the proceedings of it The Rule it must judge by Great Difference between external obedience and internal assent to the Decrees of Councils This latter unites men in errour not the former As great uncertainties supposing General Councils Infallible as not Not so great certainty requisite for submission as Faith Whether the Romanists Doctrine of the Infallibility of Councils or ours tend more to the Churches peace St. Austin explained The Keyes according to him given to the Church No unremediable inconvenience supposing a General Council erre But errours in Faith are so supposing them Infallible when they are not The Church hath power to reverse the Decrees of General Councils The power of Councils not by Divine Institution The unreasonableness of making the Infallibility of Councils depend on the Popes Confirmation No consent among the Romanists about the subject of Infallibility whether in Pope or Councils No evidence from
the sad complaints of the usurpations and abuses which were in it and these abundantly delivered by Classical Authors of both the present and precedent times and to use more of your own words all Ecclesiastical Monuments are full of them so that this is no false calumny or bitter Pasquil as you call it but a very plain and evident truth But that there was likewise a great deal of art subtilty and fraud used in the getting keeping and managing the Popes power he hath but a small measure of wit who doth not understand and they as little of honesty who dare not confess it CHAP. V. Of the Roman Churches Authority The Question concerning the Church of Rome's Authority entred upon How far our Church in reforming her self condemns the Church of Rome The Pope's equality with other Patriarchs asserted The Arabick Canons of the Nicene Council proved to be supposititious The Polity of the Ancient Church discovered from the sixth Canon of the Council of Nice The Rights of Primates and Metropolitans settled by it The suitableness of the Ecclesiastical to the Civil Government That the Bishop of Rome had then a limited Jurisdiction within the suburbicary Churches as Primate of the Roman Diocese Of the Cyprian Priviledge that it was not peculiar but common to all Primates of Dioceses Of the Pope's Primacy according to the Canons how far pertinent to our dispute How far the Pope's Confirmation requisite to new elected Patriarchs Of the Synodical and Communicatory Letters The testimonies of Petrus de Marcâ concerning the Pope's Power of confirming and deposing Bishops The Instances brought for it considered The case of Athanasius being restored by Julius truly stated The proceedings of Constantine in the case of the Donatists cleared and the evidence thence against the Pope's Supremacy Of the Appeals of Bishops to Rome how far allowed by the Canons of the Church The great case of Appeals between the Roman and African Bishops discussed That the Appeals of Bishops were prohibited as well as those of the inferiour Clergy C's fraud in citing the Epistle of the African Bishops for acknowledging Appeals to Rome The contrary manifested from the same Epistle to Boniface and the other to Coelestine The exemption of the Ancient Britannick Church from any subjection to the See of Rome asserted The case of Wilfrids Appeal answered The Primacy of England not derived from Gregory's Grant to Augustine the Monk The Ancient Primacy of the Britannick Church not lost upon the Saxon Conversion Of the state of the African Churches after their denying Appeals to Rome The rise of the Pope's Greatness under Christian Emperours Of the Decree of the Sardican Synod in case of Appeals Whether ever received by the Church No evidence thence of the Pope's Supremacy Zosimus his forgery in sending the Sardican Canons instead of the Nicene The weakness of the pleas for it manifested THat which now remains to be discussed in the Question of Schism is concerning the Authority of the Church and Bishop of Rome Whether that be so large and extensive as to bind us to an universal submission so that by renouncing of it we violate the Vnity of the Church and are thereby guilty of Schism But before we come to a particular discussion of that we must cast our eyes back on the precedent Chapter in which the title promiseth us That Protestants should be further convinced of Schism but upon examination of it there appears not so much as the shadow of any new matter but it wholly depends upon principles already refuted and so contains a bare repetition of what hath been abundantly answered in the first part So your first Section hath no more of strength than what lyes in your Churches Infallibility For when you would plead That though the Church of Rome be the accused party yet she may judge in her own cause you do it upon this ground That you had already proved the Roman Church to be infallible and therefore your Church might as well condemn her accusers as the Apostles theirs and that Protestants not pretending Infallibility cannot rationally be permitted to be Accusers and Witnesses against the Roman Church Now What doth all this come to in case your Church be not infallible as we have evidently proved she is not in the first part and that she is so far from it that she hath most grosly erred as we shall prove in the third part Your second Section supposes the matter of fact evident That Protestants did contradict the publick Doctrine and belief of all Christians generally throughout the world which we have lately proved to be an egregious falsity and shall do more afterwards The cause of the Separatists and the Church of England is vastly different Whether wee look on the authority cause or manner of their proceedings and in your other Instances you still beg the Question That your Church is our Mother-Church and therefore we are bound to submit to her judgement though she be the accused party But as to this whole business of Quô Judice nothing can be spoken with more solidity and satisfaction than what his Lordship saith If it be a cause common to both as certain it is here between the Protestant and Roman Church then neither part alone may be Judge if neither alone may judge then either they must be judged by a third which stands indifferent to both and that is the Scripture or if there be a jealousie or a doubt of the sense of the Scripture they must either both repair to the Exposition of the Primitive Church and submit to that or both call and submit to a General Council which shall be lawfully called and fairly and freely held with indifferency to all parties and that must judge the Difference according to Scripture which must be their Rule as well as private mens When you either attempt to shew the unreasonableness of this or substitute any thing more reasonable instead of it you may expect a further Answer to the Question Quô Judice as far as it concerns the difference between your Church or ours The remainder of this whole Chapter is only a repetition of somewhat concerning Fundamentals and a further expatiating in words without the addition of any more strength from reason or authority upon the Churches Infallibility being proved from Scripture which having been throughly considered already and an account given not only of the meaning of those places one excepted which we shall meet with again but of the reason Why the sense of them as to Infallibility should be restrained to the Apostles I find no sufficient motive inducing me to follow you in distrusting the Readers memory and trespassing on his patience so much as to inculcate the same things over and over as you do Passing by therefore the things already handled and leaving the rest if any such thing appear to a more convenient place where these very places of Scripture are again brought upon
by others by very many instances of the writers about that Age that Authoritas was no more then Rescriptum as particularly appears by many passages in Leo's Epistles in which sense no more is expressed by this than that by the Pope's Answer to the Council drawn out of the Authority of Scripture the Pelagians might more probably be suppressed But what is this to an Vniversal Pastorship given by Christ to him any otherwise then to those who sat in any other Apostolical Sees But your great quarrel is against his Lordship for making all the Patriarchs even and equal as to Principality of power and when he saith Equal as the Apostles were you say that is aequivocal for though the Apostles had equal jurisdiction over the whole Church yet St. Peter alone had jurisdiction over the Apostles but this is neither proved from John 21. nor is it at all clear in Antiquity as will appear when we come to that Subject But this assertion of the equality of Protestants is so destructive to your pretensions in behalf of the Church of Rome that you set your self more particularly to disprove it which you offer to do by two things 1. By a Canon of the Nicene Council 2. By the practise of the ancient Church You begin with the first of them and tell us That 't is contrary to the Council of Nice In the third Canon whereof which concerns the jurisdiction of Patriarchs the Authority or Principality if you will of the Bishop of Rome is made the Pattern and Model of that Authority and Jurisdiction which Patriarchs were to exercise over the Provincial Bishops The words of the Canon are these Sicque praeest Patriarcha iis omnibus qui sub ejus potestate sunt sicut ille qui tenet sedem Romae caput est princeps omnium Patriarcharum The Patriarch say they is in the same manner over all those that are under his Authority as he who holds the See of Rome is head and Prince of the Patriarchs And in the same Canon the Pope is afterwards styled Petro similis Authoritate par resembling St. Peter and his equal in Authority These are big words indeed and to your purpose if ever any such thing had been decreed by the Council of Nice but I shall evidently prove that this Canon is supposititious and a notorious piece of Forgery Which forgery is much increased by you when you tell us these words are contained in the third Canon of the Council of Nice Which in the Greek Editions of the Canons by du Tillet and the Codex Canonum by Justellus and all other extant in the Latin versions of Dionysius Exiguus and Isidore Mercator is wholly against the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. such kind of women which Clergy men took into their houses neither as wives or Concubines but under a pretext of piety In the Arabick Edition of the Nicene Canons set out by Alphonsus Pisanus the third Canon is against the ordination either of Neophyti or criminal persons and so likewise in that of Turrianus So that in no Edition whether Arabick or other is this the third Canon of the Council of Nice and therefore you were guilty either of great ignorance and negligence in saying so or of notorious fraud and imposture if you knew it to be otherwise and yet said it that the unwary reader might believe this Canon to be within the 20. which are the only genuine Canons of the Council of Nice Indeed such a Canon there is in these Arabick Editions but it is so far from being the third that in the Editions both of Pisanus and Turrianus it is the thirty ninth and in it I grant those words are but yet you will have little reason to rejoyce in them when I have proved as I doubt not to do that this whole farrago of Arabick Canons is a meer forgery and that I shall prove both from the true number of the Nicene Canons and the incongruity of many things in the Arabick Canons with the State and Polity of the Church at that time In those Editions set out by Pisanus and Turrianus from the Copy which they say was brought by Baptista Romanus from the Patriarch of Alexandria there are no fewer then eighty Canons whereas the Nicene Council never passed above 20. Which if it appear true that will sufficiently discover the Forgery and Supposititiousness of these Arabick Canons Now that there were no more then twenty genuine Canons of the Council of Nice I thus prove First from Theodoret who after he had given an account of the proceedings in the Council against the Arrians he saith That the Fathers met in Council again and passed twenty Canons relating to the Churches Polity and Gelasius Gricenus whom Alphonsus Pisanus set forth with his Latin version recounts no more then twenty Canons the same number is asserted by Nicephorus Callistus and we need not trouble our selves with reciting the testimonies of more Greek Authors since Binius himself confesseth that all the Greeks say there were no more then twenty Canons then determined But although certainly the Greeks were the most competent Judges in this case yet the Latins themselves did not allow of more For although Ruffinus makes twenty two yet that is not by the addition of any more Canons but by splitting two into four And if we believe Pope Stephen in Gratian the Roman Church did allow of no more then twenty And in that Epitome of the Canons which Pope Hadrian sent to Charles the Great for the Government of the Western Churches A.D. 773. the same number of the Nicene Canons appears still And in a M S. of Hincmarus Rhemensis against Hincmarus Laudunensis this is not only asserted but at large contended for that there were no more Canons determined at Nice then those twenty which we now have from the testimonies of the Tripartite history Ruffinus the Carthaginian Council the Epistles of Cyril of Alexandria and Atticus of Constantinople and the twelfth action of the Council of Chalcedon So that if both Greeks and Latins say true there could be no more then twenty genuine Canons of the Council of Nice which may be yet further proved by two things viz. the proceedings of the African Fathers in the case of Zosimus about the Nicene Canons and the Codex Canonum Ecclesiae Vniversae both which yield an abundant testimony to our purpose If ever there was a just occasion given for an early and exact search into the authentick Canons of the Council of Nice it was certainly in that grand Debate between the African Fathers and the Roman Bishops in the case of Appeals For Zosimus challenging not only a right of Appeals to himself but a power of dispatching Legats unto the African Churches to hear causes there and all this by vertue of a Canon in the Nicene Council and this being delivered to them in Council by Faustinus Philippus and Asellus whom
Zosimus sent into Africa to negotiate this affair no sooner did they hear this but they were startled and amazed at it that such a thing should be challenged by vertue of a Canon in the Council of Nice which they had never heard of before Upon this they declare themselves willing to yield to what should appear to be determined by the Nicene Canons thence they propound that a more exact search might be made into the authentical Copies of them for they profess no such thing at all to appear in all the Greek copies which they had among them although Caecilianus the Bishop of Carthage were present in the Council of Nice and brought home those Copies which were preserved in the Church of Africa For in all the subscriptions of the Nicene Council whether Arabick or others the name of Caecilian appears now Caecilian was immediate Predecessor in Carthage to Aurelius who presided in that Council wherein these things were debated And there it is expresly said There were but twenty Canons But in order to further satisfaction they decree that a message should be sent on purpose to Constantinople Antioch and Alexandria to find out the authentick Copies of the Nicene Canons and after a most diligent search no more Canons could be found then what the African Fathers had before And thence in the Epistle of Atticus of Constantinople written to the Council of Carthage he acquaints them that he according to their desire had sent them the true and compleat Canons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Nicene Council And to the same purpose Cyril the Patriarch of Alexandria mentioning their desires of having 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most true and authentick copies out of the Archives of that Church so he tells them he had sent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most faithful copies of the authentick Synod of Nice Now if there had been any ground in the world for Turrianus his conjecture that the Nicene Canons were translated into Arabick by Alexander who was present at the Council for the Benefit of those in Pentapolis or Aegypt who only understood that language and that before the Nicene Canons were burnt of which Athanasius complains who was more likely to have found out these Arabick Canons then Cyril the Patriarch of Alexandria upon this occasion especially when the full and authentick Copies were so extreamly desired And since no such thing at all appeared then upon the most diligent inquiry What can be more evident then that these eighty Arabick Canons are the imposture of some latter age Besides if these Canons had been genuine and authentick what imaginable reason can be given why they were not inserted in the Codex Canonum as the other twenty were For as Jacobus Leschasserius well observes we are not to imagine that the Ancient Church was governed at Randome by loose and dispersed Canons whereby it had been an easie matter to have foisted in false and supposititious Canons but that there was a certain body and collection of them digested into an exact order so that none could add to or take away any thing from it and whatever Canons were not contained in this body had no power or force at all in the Church And that there was such a Codex Canonum that learned Person hath abundantly proved from the Council of Chalcedon which hath many passages referring to it so that there is now no question made but that which Justellus published is the true collection of those Canons of the Vniversal Church which were inserted into the Codex in which we find but only the twenty Canons of the Nicene Council and that there could possibly be no more appears by the number of the Canons as they are reckoned in the Council of Chalcedon From whence it follows that only these twenty Canons were ever own'd by the Vniversal Church for had the Fathers of the Church known of so many other Canons of the Nicene Council as surely at least the Patriarchs of Alexandria could not be ignorant of them if there had been any such can we possibly think that those who had so great a Veneration for the Nicene Council should have left the far greater part of the Canons of it out of the Code of the Churches Canons I am not ignorant of what is objected by Binius Bellarmin and others to prove that there were more then twenty Canons of the Council of Nice but those proofs either depend upon things as supposititious as the Arabick Canons themselves such as the Epistles of Julius and Athanasius ad Marcum or else they only prove that several other things were determined by the Nicene Council as concerning the celebration of Easter rebaptizing Hereticks and such like which might be by the Acts of the Council without putting them into the Canons as Baronius confesseth but there cannot be any evidence brought of any Canon which concerned the Churches Polity for about that Theodoret and Nicephorus tell us the Canons were made which was not among these twenty So that it appears that these Arabick Canons are a meer forgery of later times there being no evidence at all that they were known to the Church in all the time of the four General Councils and therefore Baronius notwithstanding the pretences of Pisanus and Turrianus from the Alexandrian Copy and that out of Marcellus his Library yet since these Canons were unknown in the Controversie of the African Church about the Nicene Canons leaves the Patronage of them to such as might be able to defend them And Spondanus in his contraction of him though in his marginal note he saith Baronius was sometimes more inclinable to the inlarged number of the Nicene Canons yet he relates it as his positive opinion that he rejected all but the twenty whether Arabick or other as spurious and supposititious You see then what a fair choice you have made of the third Canon of the Council of Nice to prove the superiority of the Pope over other Patriarchs by when neither is it the third Canon nor any Canon at all of the Council of Nice but a spurious figment like those of Isidore Mercator who thought all would pass for gold which made for the Interess of the Church of Rome But were there not such a strong and pregnant evidence from authority to make it appear that these Canons were supposititious yet the incongruity of them with the state of the Church at that time would abundantly manifest it if we had time to compare many of those Canons with it But that which is most material to our purpose concerning the equality of the Patriarchs your following words will put us upon a further enquiry into This also say you viz. That the Pope was head and Prince of all the Patriarchs the practise of the Church shews which is alwayes the best expositor and assertor of the Canons For not only the Popes confirmation was required to all new elected Patriarchs
but it belonged likewise to him to depose unworthy ones and restore the unjustly deposed by others We read of no less then eight several Patriarchs of Constantinople deposed by the Bishop of Rome Sixtus the third deposed also Polychronius Bishop of Hierusalem as his Acts set down in the first Tome of the Councils testifie On the contrary Athanasius Patriarch of Alexandria and Paulus Bishop of Constantinople were by Julius the first restored to their respective Sees having been unjustly expelled by Hereticks The same might be said of divers others over whom the Pope did exercise the like authority which he could never have done upon any other ground then that of Divine Right and as being generally acknowledged St. Peters Successour in the Government of the whole Church Three things I shall return you in Answer to this Discourse 1. That the practise of the Church doth not shew any such inequality as you contend for between the Pope and other Patriarchs 2. That no such practise of the Church can be proved from the instances by you brought And therefore lastly It by no means follows that the Pope exercised any such authority by Divine right or was acknowledged to be St. Peters Successour in the Government of the whole Church I begin with the practice of the ancient Church which is so far from being an evidence of such an inequality of Patriarchs as that you contend for that nothing doth more confirm that which his Lordship saith concerning the equality of them then that doth For which we appeal to that famous testimony to this purpose in the sixth Canon of the Nicene Council Let ancient customes prevail according to which let the Bishop of Alexandria have power over them who are in Aegypt Libya and Pentapolis because this was likewise the custome for the Bishop of Rome And accordingly in Antioch and other Provinces let the priviledges be preserved to the Churches Which Canon is the more remarkable because it is the first that ever was made by the ancient Church for regulating the rights and priviledges of Churches over each other which there was like to be now more contest about not only by reason of the Churches liberty under Constantine but because of the new disposition of the Empire by him which was made not long before the sitting of the Council of Nice But the particular occasion of this Canon is generally supposed to be this Meletius an ambitious Bishop in Aegypt much about the time that Arrius broached his Heresie at Alexandria takes upon him to ordain Bishops and others in Aegypt without the consent of the Bishop of Alexandria This case being brought before the Nicene Fathers they pronounce these ordinations null depose Meletius and to prevent the like practises for the future do by this Canon confirm the ancient customs of that nature in the Church so that the Bishop of Alexandria should enjoy as full right and power over the Provinces of Aegypt Libya and Pentapolis as the Bishop of Rome had over those subject to him as likewise Antioch and other Churches should enjoy their former priviledges Where we plainly see that the ground of this extent of power is not attributed to any Divine right of the Bishop of Rome or any other Metropolitan but to the ancient custome of the Church whereby it had obtained that such Churches that were deduced as it were so many colonies from the Mother-Church should retain so much respect to and dependence upon her as not to receive any Bishop into them without the consent of that Bishop who governed in the Metropolis Which was the prime reason of the subordination of those lesser Churches to the Metropolis And this custome being drawn down from the first plantation of Churches and likewise much conducing to the preserving of unity in them these Nicene Fathers saw no reason to alter it but much to confirm it For otherwise there might have been continual bandying and opposition of lesser Bishops and Churches against the greater and therefore the Discipline and Vnity of the Church did call for this subordination which could not be better determined then by the ancient custome which had obtained in the several Churches It being found most convenient that the Churches in their subordination should be most agreeable to the civil disposition of the Empire And therefore for our better understanding the force and effect of this Nicene Canon we must cast our eye a little upon the civil disposition of the Roman Empire by Constantine then lately altered from the former disposition of it under Augustus and Adrian He therefore distributed the administration of the Government of the Roman Empire under four Praefecti Praetorio but for the more convenient management of it the whole body of the Empire was cast into several Jurisdictions containing many Provinces within them which were in the Law call'd Dioeceses over every one of which there was appointed a Vicarius or Lieutenant to one of the Praefecti Praetorio whose residence was in the chief City of the Diocese where the Praetorium was and justice was administred to all within that Diocese and thither appeals were made Under these were those Proconsuls or Correctores who ruled in the particular Provinces and had their residence in the Metropolis of it under whom were the particular Magistrates of every City now according to this disposition of the Empire the Western part of it contained in it seven of these Dioceses as under the Praefectus Praetorio Galliarum was the Diocese of Gaul which contained seventeen Provinces the Diocese of Britain which contained five afterwards but three in Constantines time the Diocese of Spain seven Under the praefectus Praetorio Italiae was the Diocese of Africa which had six Provinces the Diocese of Italy whose seat was Milan 7. the Diocese of Rome 10. Under the Praefectus Praetorio Illyrici was the Diocese of Illyricum in which were seventeen Provinces In the Eastern Division were the Diocese of Thrace which had six Provinces the Diocese of Pontus 11. and so the Diocese of Asia the Oriental properly so called wherein Antioch was 15. all which were under the Praefectus Praetorio Orientis the Aegyptian Diocese which had six Provinces was under the Praefectus Augustalis in the time of Theodosius the elder Illyricum was divided into two Dioceses the Eastern whose Metropolis was Thessalonica and had eleven Provinces the Western whose Metropolis was Syrmium and had six Provinces According to this division of the Empire we may better understand the Affairs and Government of the Church which was model'd much after the same way unless where Ancient custom or the Emperour's edict did cause any variation For as the Cities had their Bishops so the Provinces had their Arch-Bishops and the Dioceses their Primates whose Jurisdiction extended as far as the Diocese did and as the Conventus Juridici were kept in the chief City of the Diocese for matters of Civil Judicature so the chief Ecclesiastical
Councils for the affairs of the Church were to be kept there too for which there is an express passage in the Codex of Theodosius whereby care is taken That the same course should be used in Ecclesiastical which was in civil matters so that such things which concerned them should he heard in the Synods of the Diocese Where the word Diocese is not used in the sense the African Fathers used it in for that which belonged to one Bishop as it is now used but as it is generally used in the Codex of Theodosius and Justinian and the Novells and Greek Canons for that which comprehends in it many Provinces as a Province takes in several Dioceses of particular Bishops These things being premised we may the better understand the scope of the Canon of the Council of Nice in which three things are to our purpose considerable 1. That it supposeth particular bounds and limits set to the Jurisdiction of those who are mentioned in it 2. That what Churches did enjoy priviledges before this Council had them confirmed by this Canon as not to be altered 3. That the Churches enjoying these priviledges were not subordinate to each other 1. That particular bounds and limits were supposed to the power of those Churches therein mentioned For although we grant that this Canon doth not fix or determine What the bounds were of the Roman Bishops power yet that it doth suppose that it had its bounds is apparent from the example being drawn from thence for the limits of other Churches For What an unlikely thing is it that the Church of Rome should be made the pattern for assigning the limits of other Metropolitan Churches if that had not its known limits at that time And Can any thing be more absurd or unreasonable than the Answer which Bellarmin gives to this place That the Bishop of Alexandria ought to govern those Provinces because the Roman Bishop hath so accustomed i. e. saith he To let the Alexandrian Bishop govern them Here is an id est with a witness What will not these men break through that can so confidently obtrude such monstrous interpretations upon the credulous world Is it possible to conceive when the Canon makes use of the parallel of the Roman Bishop and makes that the ground why the Bishop of Alexandria should enjoy full power over those Provinces because the Bishop of Rome did so that the meaning should be That he gave the Bishop of Alexandria power to govern those Provinces They who can believe such things may easily find arguments for the Pope's unlimited Supremacy every where I make no scruple to grant what Bellarmin contends for from the Epistle of Nicolaus 1 That the Council did not herein assign limits to the Church of Rome but made that a pattern whereby to order the Government of other Churches And from thence it is sufficiently clear to any reasonable man that the limits of her Government were though not assigned yet supposed by the Council For otherwise How absurd were it to say Let the Bishop of Alexandria govern Aegypt Libya and Pentapolis because the Bishop of the Church of Rome hath no limits at all but governs the whole Church Doth not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 import some parallel custom in the Church of Rome and name therefore what that is supposing he hath no limits set to his Jurisdiction Yes it may be you will reply He had limits as a Metropolitan but not as Head of the Church Grant me then that he had limits as Metropolitan and then prove you that ever he had any unlimited power acknowledged as Head of the Church Would they ever have made such an instance in him without any discrimination of his several capacities if they had known any other power that he had but only as a Metropolitan Nay might not the Bishops of Antioch and Alexandria be rather supposed to have the greater power because their Provinces were much larger here than his And although Bellarmin useth that as his great argument Why Ruffinus his exposition cannot hold Because the Bishop of Rome would have a lesser Diocese assigned him than either the Bishops of Antioch or Alexandria yet when we consider What hath been said already of the agreement of the Civil and Ecclesiastical Government a sufficient account may thence be given of it For as the Praefectus Augustalis had all the Provinces of Aegypt for his Diocese so had the Bishop of Alexandria and as the Lieutenant of Antioch had that which was properly called the Orient containing fifteen Provinces under him so had the Bishop of Antioch and by the same proportion the power of the Bishop of Rome did correspond to the Diocese of the Roman Lieutenant which was over those ten Provinces which were subject to his Jurisdiction as it was distinct from the Diocese of Italy which was under that Lieutenant whose residence was at Milan Here we see then a parity of reason in all of them and therefore I cannot but think that the true account of the Suburbicary Churches in Ruffinus his exposition of this Canon is that which we have now set down viz. those Churches which lay within the ten Provinces subject to the Roman Lieutenant But of them more afterwards That which I now insist on is that the Bishop of Rome had then a limited Jurisdiction as other Metropolitans and Primats had Nay if we should grant that the title produced by Paschasinus in the Council of Chalcedon to this Canon were not such a forgery as that of Zosimus yet the most that it could prove was only this That the Roman Church had alwaies the primacy within her Diocese i. e. all Metropolitical power but not that it had an unlimited primacy in the whole Church which was a thing none of those Fathers who lived in the time of the four Councils did ever acknowledge but alwaies opposed any thing tending to it as appears by those very proceedings of Paschasinus at the Council of Chalcedon and by the Canons of that Council and of the Council of Constantinople And it is a rare Answer to say That those Canons are not allowed by the Roman Church for by that very Answer it appears that they did oppose the Pope's Supremacy or else doubtless they would have been allowed there But that the Pope's Metropolitical Power was confined within the Roman Diocese so as not to extend to the Italick we have this pregnant evidence that it appears by the occasion of the Nicene Canon that the main Power contested for was that of Ordination and it is evident by Theodoret and Synesius his Epistles that the Bishop of Alexandria did retain it as his due by virtue of this Canon to ordain the Bishops of Pentapolis as well as Aegypt But now the Bishop of Rome did not ordain the Bishop of Milan who was in the Italick Diocese for S. Ambrose was ordained Bishop by a Synod of Italy at the appointment of the Emperour Valentinian
and by an Epistle of Pelagius 1. A. D. 555. it appears that the Bishops of Aquileia and Milan were wont to ordain each other which though he would have believed was only to save charges in going to Rome yet as that learned and ingenuous person Petrus de Marcâ observes the true reason of it was because Milan was the Head of the Italick Diocese as appears by the Council of Aquileia and therefore the ordination of the Bishop of Aquileia did of right belong to the Bishop of Milan and the ordination of the Bishop of Milan did belong to him of Aquileia as the chief Metropolitan of the general Synod of the Italick Diocese Although afterwards the Bishops of Rome got it so far into their hands that their consent was necessary for such an ordination yet that was only when they began more openly to encroach upon the liberties of other Churches But as the same learned Author goes on those Provinces which lay out of Italy did undoubtedly ordain their own Metropolitans without the authority or consent of the Bishop of Rome which he there largely proves of the African Spanish and French Churches It follows then from the scope of the Nicene Canon and the practice of the Church that the Bishop of Rome had a limited Jurisdiction as the Bishops of Alexandria and Antioch and other Primates had 2. That what Churches did enjoy priviledges before had them confirmed by this Canon as not to be altered For it makes provision against any such alteration by ordaining that the ancient Customs should be in force still And accordingly we find it decreed in the second Canon of the Constantinopolitan Council That the same limits of Dioceses should be observed which were decreed in the Council of Nice and that none should intrude to do any thing in the Dioceses of others And by the earnest and vehement Epistles of Pope Leo to Anatolius we see the main thing he had to plead against the advancement of the Patriarch of Constantinople was that by this means the most sacred Decrees of the Council of Nice would be violated We see then that those priviledges which belonged to Churches then ought still to be inviolably observed so that those Churches which then had Primates and Metropolitans of their own might plead their own right by virtue of the Nicene Canon So we find it decreed in that Council of Ephesus in the famous case of the Cyprian Bishops for their Metropolitan being dead Troilus the Bishop of Constance the Bishop of Antioch pretended that it belonged to him to ordain their Metropolitan because Cyprus was within the civil Jurisdiction of the Diocese of Antioch upon this the Cyprian Bishops make their complaint to the General Council at Ephesus and ground it upon that ancient custom which the Niccne Canon insists on viz. that their Metropolitan had been exempt from the Jurisdiction of the Bishop of Antioch and was ordained by a Synod of Cyprian Bishops which priviledge was not only confirmed to them by the Ephesine Council but a general decree passed That the rights of every Province should be preserved whole and inviolate which it had of old according to ancient custom Which was not a decree made meerly in favour of the Cyprian Bishops but a common asserting the rights of Metropolitans that they should be held inviolate Now therefore it appears that all the Churches then were far from being under one of the three Patriarchs of Rome Antioch or Alexandria for not only the three Dioceses of Pontus Asia and Thracia were exempt although afterwards they voluntarily submitted to the Patriarch of Constantinople but likewise all those Churches which were in distinct Dioceses from these had Primates of their own who were independent upon any other Upon which account it hath not only been justly pleaded in behalf of the Britannick Churches that they are exempt from the Jurisdiction of the Roman Bishop but it is ingenuously confessed by Father Barns That the Britannick Church might plead the Cyprian priviledge that it was subject to no Patriarch And although this priviledge was taken away by force and tumult yet being restored by the consent of the Kingdom in Henry 8. time and quietly enjoyed since it ought to be retained for peace sake without prejudice of Catholicism and the brand of Schism If so certainly it can be no Schism to withdraw from the usurped Authority of the Roman Church But these things have been more largely insisted on by others and therefore I pass them over 3. From thence it follows that there was then an equality not only among the Patriarchs whose name came not up till some time after the Council of Nice but among the several Primates of Dioceses all enjoying equal power and authority over their respective Dioceses without subordination to each other But here it is vehemently pleaded by some who yet are no Friends to the unlimited power of the Roman Bishop That it is hardly conceivable that he should have no other power in the Church but meerly as Head of the Roman Diocese and that it appears by the Acts of the Church he had a regular preheminence above others in ordering the Affairs of the Church To which I answer 1. If this be granted it is nothing at all to that Vniversal Pastorship over the Church which our Adversaries contend for as due by divine right and acknowledged to be so by consent of the Church Let the Bishop of Rome then quit his former plea and insist only on this and we shall speedily return an Answer and shew How far this Canonical Primacy did extend But as long as he challengeth a Supremacy upon other grounds he forfeits this right whatever it is which comes by the Canons of the Church 2. What meerly comes by the Canons of the Church cannot bind the Church to an absolute submission in case that authority be abused to the Churches apparent prejudice For the Church can never give away her Power to secure her self against whatever incroachments tend to the injury of it This power then may be rescinded by the parts of the Church when it tends to the mischief of it 3. This Canonical preheminence is not the main thing we dispute with the Church of Rome let her reform her self from all those errours and corruptions which are in her communion and reduce the Church to the primitive purity and simplicity of Faith and Worship and then see if we will quarrel with the Primacy of the Bishop of Rome according to the Canons or any regular preheminence in him meerly in order to the Churches Peace and Unity But this is not the case between us and them they challenge an unlimited power and that by divine right and nothing else will satisfie them but this although there be neither any ground in Scripture for it nor any evidence of it in the practice of the Ancient Church But however we must see what you produce for it First
Nice For if this be taken care for as to the Inferiour Clergy and Laity How much more would it have it to be observed in Bishops that so they who are in their own Province suspended from communion be not hastily or unduly admitted by your Holiness Let your Holiness also reject the wicked refuges of Priests and Inferiour Clerks for no Canon of the Fathers hath taken that from the Church of Africk and the decrees of Nice hath subjected both the Inferiour Clergy and Bishops io their Metropolitans For they have most wisely and justly provided that every business be determined in the place where it begun and that the Grace of the Holy Spirit will not be wanting to every Province that so equity may be prudently discovered and constantly held by Christ's Priests Especially seeing that it is lawful to every one if he be offended to appeal to the Council of the Province or even to an Vniversal Council Vnless perhaps some body believe that God can inspire to every one of us the justice of examination of a cause and refuse it to a multitude of Bishops assembled in Council Or How can a judgement made beyond the Sea be valid to which the persons of necessary witnesses cannot be brought by reason of the infirmity of their sex and age or of many other intervening impediments For this sending of men to us from your Holiness we do not find commanded by any Synod of the Fathers And as for that which you did long since send to us by Faustinus our Fellow-Bishop as belonging to the Council of Nice we could not find it in the truest Copies of the Council sent by holy Cyril our Colleague Bishop of Alexandria and by the venerable Atticus Bishop of Constantinople which also we sent to your predecessor Boniface of happy memory by Innocent a Presbyter and Marcellus a Deacon Take heed also of sending to us any of your Clerks for executors to those who desire it lest we seem to bring the swelling pride of the world into the Church of Christ which beareth the light of simplicity and the brightness of humility before them that desire to see God And concerning our Brother Faustinus Apiarius being now for his wickedness cast out of the Church of Christ we are confident that our brotherly love continuing through the goodness and moderation of your Holiness Africa shall no more be troubled with him Thus I have at large produced this noble Monument of the prudence courage and simplicity of the African Fathers enough to put any reasonable man out of the fond conceit of an Vniversal Pastorship of the Bishop of Rome I wonder not that Baronius saith There are some hard things in this Epistle that Perron sweats and toils so much to so little purpose to enervate the force of it for as long as the records of it last we have an impregnable Bulwark against the Vsurpations of the Church of Rome And methinks you might blush for shame to produce those African Fathers as determining the Appeals of Bishops to Rome who with as much evidence and reason as courage and resolution did finally oppose it What can be said more convincingly against these Appeals than is here urged by them That they have neither authority from Councils nor any Foundation in Justice and Equity that God's presence was as well in Africk as Rome no doubt then they never imagined any Infallibility there that the proceedings of the Roman Bishop were so far from the simplicity and humility of the Gospel that they tended only to nourish swelling pride and secular ambition in the Church That the Pope had no authority to send Legats to hear causes and they hoped they should be no more troubled with such as Faustinus was All these things are so evident in this testimony that it were a disparagement to it to offer more at large to explain them I hope then this will make you sensible of the injury you have done the African Fathers by saying that they determined the causes of Bishops might be heard at Rome Your Answer to the place of S. Gregory which his Lordship produceth concerning Appeals viz. that the Patriarch is to put a final end to those causes which come before him by Appeal from Bishops and Arch-Bishops is the very same that it speaks only of the Inferiour Clergy and therefore is taken off already But you wonder his Lordship should expose to view the following words of S. Gregory where there is neither Metropolitan nor Patriarch of that Diocese there they are to have recourse to the See Apostolick as being the Head of all Churches Then surely it follows say you the Bishop of Rome 's Jurisdiction is not only over the Western and Southern Provinces but over the whole Church whither the Jurisdiction of Patriarchs and Metropolitans never extended See how well you make good the common saying That Ignorance is the cause of Admiration for Wherefore should you wonder at his Lordships producing these words if you had either understood or considered the abundant Answers which he gives to them 1. That if there be a Metropolitan or a Patriarch in those Churches his judgement is final and there ought to be no Appeal to Rome 2. It is as plain that in those ancient times of Church-Government Britain was never subject to the See of Rome of which afterwards 3. It will be hard for any man to prove that there were any Churches then in the world which were not under some either Patriarch or Metropolitan 4. If any such were 't is gratis dictum and impossible to be proved that all such Churches where-ever seated in the world were obliged to depend on Rome And Do you still wonder why his Lordship produces these words I may more justly wonder why you return no Answer to what his Lordship here sayes But still the Caput omnium Ecclesiarum sticks with you if his Lordship hath not particularly spoken to that it was because his whole discourse was sufficient to a man of ordinary capacity to let him see that no more could be meant by it but some preheminence of that Church above others in regard of order and dignity but no such thing as Vniversal Power and Jurisdiction was to be deduced from it And if Gregory understood more by it as his Lordship saith 'T is gratis dictum and Gregory himself was not a person to be believed in his own cause But now as you express it his Lordship takes a leap from the Church of Rome to the Church of England No neither his Lordship nor we take a leap from thence hither but you are the men who leap over the Alps from the Church of England to that of Rome We plead as his Lordship doth truly That in the ancient times of the Church Britain was never subject to the See of Rome but being one of the Western Dioceses of the Empire it had a Primate of its own This you say his Lordship should
What principality do you mean over all Churches But that was the thing in Question So that if you will make Irenaeus speak sense and argue pertinently his meaning can be no other than this If there be such a Tradition left it must be left somewhere among Christians if it be left among them it may be known by enquiry Whether they own any such or no. But because it would be troublesome searching of all Churches we may know their judgement more compendiously there is the Church of Rome near us a famous and ancient Church seated in the chief City of the Empire to which all persons have necessities to go and among them you cannot but suppose but that out of every Church some faithful persons should come and therefore it is very unreasonable to think that the Apostolical Tradition hath not alwaies been preserved there when persons come from all places thither Is not every thing in this account of Irenaeus his words very clear and pertinent to his present dispute But in the sense you give of them they are little to the purpose and very precarious and inconsequent And therefore since the more powerful principality is not that of the Church but of the City since the necessity of recourse thither is not for doubts of Faith but other occasions therefore it by no means follows thence That this Churches power did extend over the faithful every where thus by explaining your Proposition your Conclusion is ashamed of it self and runs away For your argument comes to this If English men from all parts be forced to resort to London then London hath the power over all England or if one should say If some from all Churches in England must resort to London then the Church at London hath power over all the Churches in England and if this consequence be good yours is for it is of the same nature of it the necessity of the resort not lying in the Authority of the Church but in the Dignity of the City the words in all probability in the Greek being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so relate to the dignity of Rome as the Imperial City From whence we proceed to the Vindication of Ruffinus in his Translation of the 6. Canon of the Council of Nice The occasion of which is this His Lordship saith Supposing that the powerful principality be ascribed to the Church of Rome yet it follows not that it should have power over all Churches for this power was confined within its own Patriarchate and Jurisdiction and that saith he was very large containing all the Provinces in the Diocese of Italy in the old sense of the word Diocese which Provinces the Lawyers and others term Suburbicaries There were ten of them the three Islands Sicily Corsica and Sardinia and the other seven upon the firm Land of Italy And this I take it is plain in Ruffinus For he living shortly after the Nicene Council as he did and being of Italy as he was he might very well know the bounds of the Patriarchs Jurisdiction as it was then practised And he sayes expresly that according to the old custom the Roman Patriarchs charge was confined within the limits of the Suburbican Churches To avoid the force of this testimony Cardinal Perron laies load upon Ruffinus For he charges him with passion ignorance and rashness And one piece of his ignorance is that he hath ill translated the Canon of the Council of Nice Now although his Lordship doth not approve of it as a Translation yet he saith Ruffinus living in that time and place was very like well to know and understand the limits and bounds of that Patriarchate of Rome in which he lived This you say is very little to his Lordships advantage since it is inconsistent with the vote of all Antiquity and gives S. Irenaeus the lye but if the former be no truer than the latter it may be very much to his advantage notwithstanding what you have produced to the contrary What the ground is Why the Roman Patriarchate was confined within the Roman Diocese I have already shewed in the precedent Chapter in explication of the Nicene Canon We must now therefore examine the Reasons you bring Why the notion of Suburbicary Churches must be extended beyond the limits his Lordship assigns that of the smalness of Jurisdiction compared with other Patriarchs I have given an account of already viz. from the correspondency of the Ecclesiastical and Civil Government for the Civil Dioceses of the Eastern part of the Empire did extend much farther than the Western did and that was the Reason Why the Patriarchs of Antioch and Alexandria had a larger Metropolitical Jurisdiction than the Bishop of Rome had But you tell us That Suburbicary Churches must be taken as generally signifying all Churches and Cities any waies subordinate to the City of Rome which was at that time known by the name of Urbs or City 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by way of excellency not as it related to the Praefect or Governour of Rome in regard of whose ordinary Jurisdiction we confess it commanded only those few places about it in Italy but as it related to the Emperour himself in which sense the word Suburbicary rightly signifies all Cities or Churches whatsoever within the Roman Empire as the word Romania also anciently signified the whole Imperial Territory as Card. Perron clearly proves upon this subject But this is one instance of what mens wits will do when they are resolved to break through any thing For whoever that had read of the Suburbicary Regions and Provinces in the Code of Theodosius or other parts of the Civil Law as distinguished from other Provinces under the Roman Empire and those in Italy too could ever have imagined that the notion of Suburbicary Churches had been any other than what was correspondent to those Regions and Provinces But let that be granted which Sirmondus so much contends for That the notion of Suburbicary may have different respects and so sometimes be taken for the Churches within the Roman Diocese sometimes for those within the Roman Patriarchate and sometimes for those which are under the Pope as Vniversal Pastor yet How doth it appear that ever Ruffinus took it in any other than the first sense No other Provinces being called Suburbicary but such as were under the Jurisdiction either of the Roman Prefect within a hundred miles of the City within which compass references and appeals were made to him or at the most to the Lieutenant of the Roman Diocese whose Jurisdiction extended to those ten Provinces which his Lordship mentions It is not therefore In what sense words may be taken but in what sense they were taken and what Evidence there is that ever they were so understood Never was any Controversie more ridiculous than that concerning the extent of the Suburbicary Regions or Provinces if Suburbicary were taken in your sense for all the Cities within the Roman
But the Greeks say this answer is unsatisfactory on these accounts 1. Because there is no reason to say that Decree doth not forbid the inserting Declarations into the Creed 2. That if it did not forbid that yet there is as little reason to say this was a meer Declaration 1. Because there is no reason to say that the Council did not forbid the inserting Declarations into the Creed For as Bessarion well observes it never was lawful to add new and distinct Articles of Faith from those which are contained in Scripture but the Church only undertook the explication and declaration of the things therein contained and this was only lawful Therefore the Ancient Fathers had full liberty of explaining Articles of Faith and using those explications as they judged most expedient and to place them where they thought good so it were not in Scripture thence they might insert them into the Creed or elsewhere But afterwards i. e. after this decree of the Ephesine Council this liberty was partly taken away and partly continued For it never was or will be unlawful to explain or declare Articles of Faith but to insert those explications into the Creed is now unlawful because forbidden by the decree of a General Council For saith he the Fathers of the third Council observing what great inconveniencies had followed in the Church upon the inlargement of Creeds and that no injury could at all come by the prohibition of any further Additions to be inserted for by that means they should only be bound to believe no more than what those Holy Fathers believed and who dare charge their Faith with imperfection and they did therefore wisely forbid all other expositions of Faith to be inserted into the Creed as he there at large proves And in the progress of that discourse takes off that which Bellarmin looked on as the only satisfactory answer viz. That the prohibition concerned only private persons For saith he It cannot be conceived that the Council should take care about the Declarations of the Creed made by particular persons whereas it alwaies was and is lawful for such to declare their Faith more particularly as appears by the Creed of Charisius received in this Council but this they looked after that the Creed which was commonly received in the Christian Churches and into which men are baptized should receive no alteration at all And to shew what their meaning was though their Council was purposely assembled against Nestorius yet they would not insert 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into the Creed And the same decree was observed in the 4 5 6 7. Councils which by their actions did declare this to be the meaning of the Ephesine Council that no Declarations whatsoever should hereafter be inserted into the Creed For if they were meer Declarations there was much less necessity of inferting them into the Creed which was supposed to be a Systeme of the necessary Articles of Faith 2. There was as little reason to say that this Article was a meer Declaration For the Latins pretended that the Article of Filioque was only a further explication of that ex Patre For if so then whosoever doth believe the Procession from the Father doth believe all that is necessary to be believed And therefore certainly it can be no Heresie not to believe the Procession from the Son because that is only supposed to be a Declaration of that from the Father And since you are so ready to charge the Greek Church with Heresie I pray tell us whether this Article be a Declaration or not If not then the Latins were all deceived who pleaded the lawfulness of inserting Filioque on that account and consequently it must be a prohibited Addition If it be then shew us what Heresie lyes in not acknowledging a meer explication when all that is supposed necessary is believed in the substance of the Article Moreover Bessarion rightly distinguisheth between an explication 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and therefore grants that the Filioque might be said to be an explication of something contained in the Creed but not out of any thing contained in the Creed and therefore the Medium being extrinsecal it could not be said to be a meer Declaration For there can be no necessary Argument drawn from the Procession from the Father to inferr the Procession from the Son but it must be proved from some extrinsecal distinct Argument 2. Suppose this to be no prohibited Addition yet what right had the Pope and his Council without the consent of the Eastern Churches to make this Addition to the Creed For the Greeks said whatever authority the Church of Rome had it received by the Canons and its authority was therefore less then that of an Oecumenical Council wherefore it could not justly repeal or act contrary to the decree of a General Council as it did apparently in this case By which means the Latins were driven off from those which they looked on as slighter velitations and took Sanctuary in the Plenitude of the Pope's Power that therefore no Council could prescribe to him there could be no necessity of his calling the Eastern Churches to debate this Addition for he could do it of himself by virtue of his own authority in and over the Church Here Anselm and Bonaventure think to secure themselves and hither they are all driven at last So that we plainly see whatever else is pretended the Pope's usurped Power was that which truly gave occasion to the Schism For it was not the Latins believing the Procession from the Son which made the separation between the Eastern and Western Churches but the Pope's pretending a Power to impose an Article of Faith in the Creed against the decree of a former and without the consent of a present Oecumenical Council If you pretend that there hath been since an Oecumenical Council at Florence which hath declared it by that very answer you justifie the Greeks before that Council and so lay the guilt of the Schism wholly on the Pope who did insert and impose this Article before an Oecumenical Council Thus still it appears the cause of the Schism began at Rome and by the same Argument with which you charge them with Heresie viz. the Council at Florence you vindicate the Greek Church from Schism in all the actions of it before that Council And this might suffice to shew that it was not the levity vanity or ambition of the Greeks which gave the great occasion of the Schism but the Pride Incroachments and Vsurpations of the Church of Rome as might largely be manifested from the history of those times when the Schism began The rise of which ought to be derived from the times of the Constantinopolitan and Chalcedon Councils the second and fourth Oecumenical For the Canons of those Councils decreeing equal Priviledges to Constantinople with those of Rome made the Popes have a continual jealousie upon the Greek Church and watch
all opportunities to disgrace it and infringe the liberties of it Thence came the rage of Leo against Anatolius the Patriarch of Constantinople in the time of Martianus thence the feud between Simplicius and Felix 3. of Rome and Acacius of Constantinople for defending the Priviledges of his See in opposition to the Pope's insomuch that Felix fairly excommunicates him because he would not submit to the Pope's tryal in the case of the Patriarch of Alexandria which continued so long that Euphemius who succeeded Acacius though he excommunited Petrus Moggus of Alexandria yet could not be received into the Communion of the Roman Church by Felix because he would not expunge the name of Acacius out of the Diptychs of the Church and afterwards Gelasius refused it on the same grounds which Euphemius still denying to do the Schism continued And although afterwards the Emperour Anastasius and the Greek Church desired the making up of this difference yet no other terms of communion would be accepted by Hormisdas without the expunging the name of Acacius So implacably were they bent against the very memory of Acacius for defending the Priviledge of his See that they would rather continue that lamentable Schism than not avenge themselves upon him and consequently make all future Patriarchs fearful of opposing the Pope's Authority If we look yet further we shall still find the ambition of the Popes to have caused all the disturbance in the Greek Churches although some of the Patriarchs of Constantinople cannot be excused from the same faults In the time of the second Council at Nice Pope Adrian not only contends for the enlargement of his Jurisdiction but threatens to pronounce them Hereticks who did not consent to it which makes Petrus de Marcâ say That he supposeth that the first time ever any were charged with Heresie on such an account The same pretence we find still in all the Schisms which after happened as that in the time of Photius that afterward in the time of Michael Cerularius and in the successive ages still the terms of communion were Submission to the Church of Rome and acknowledgledging the supremacy of that See which the Greeks did then and do still constantly deny so that it was not the Greeks Levity but the Romanists ambition and usurpation which gave occasion to that fearful Schism But for all this It must still be lawful for your Church to add and Anathematize too which his Lordship thought a little unreasonable but it seems you do not For say you The Church did rightly Anathematize all such denyers why so Because the meaning of the Latin Church being understood by the Addition of Filioque and that whosoever denyed must be supposed to deny the Procession then it became Heresie to deny it and the Church did rightly Anathematize all such denyers So you say indeed but you would do well 1. To shew that the understanding the meaning of the Latin Church is sufficient to make the denyers of what she affirms to be Hereticks 2. How any one that denies the Filioque must be supposed to deny the Procession if you mean the Procession à Filio you speak very wisely but prove nothing for some might grant the Procession and yet deny the lawfulness of your Churches adding to the Creed 3. All this while we are to seek how the Latin Church can make any thing to be a Heresie which was not so before And therefore if your Anathema's have no better grounds the Greeks need not much fear the effects of them That your Church on any occasion is apt enough to speak loud words we may very easily believe but whether she had just cause to speak so big in this cause is the thing in question and we have already manifested the contrary His Lordship sayes It ought to be no easie thing to condemn a man of Heresie in foundation of Faith much less a Church least of all so ample and large a Church as the Greek especially so as to make them no Church Heaven Gates were not so easily shut against multitudes when S. Peter wore the Keyes at his own Girdle To this you answer Neither is the Roman-Catholick Church justly accusable of cruelty though the Bishop taxes her of it because she is quick and sharp against those that fall into Heresie But if she hath power to pronounce whom she please Hereticks and on what account she please as Hadrian I. in case of his Patrimony and then it be commendable in her to deal with them as Hereticks it must needs be dangerous opposing her in any thing for such who dread her Anathema's But his Lordship was not speaking of what was to be done in case of notorious Heresie but what tenderness ought to be used in condemning men for Heresie and much more in condemning whole Churches for it on such slender accounts as you do the Greek Church You should shew When S. Peter or any of the Apostles did exclude Churches from communion for denying such Articles as that you charge the Greek Church with And it would be worth your enquiry why those in the Corinthian Church who at least questioned the Resurrection those in the Galatian and other Churches who asserted the Necessity of the Ceremonial Law under the Gospel both which errours are by the Apostle said to be of so dangerous a nature are not Anathematized presently by the Apostle and thrown out of the Church at least to prevent the infection of other Christians if not for the good of the Libertine Hereticks as you speak Your mentioning S. Peters proceeding with Ananias and Sapphira must be acknowledged a very fit resemblance for your Churches dealing with Hereticks only they whom you are pleased to account Hereticks have cause to rejoyce that since your Churches good will is so much discovered she hath not the same miraculous Power For then she would be sure to have few left to oppose her But do you really think Anania's and Sapphira's fault was no greater than that of the Greek Church that you produce this instance and do you think the Church enjoyes still the same power over offenders which S. Peter then had If not to what purpose do you mention such things here unless to let us see that it is want of some thing else besides will which makes you suffer any whom you call Hereticks to live That S. Paul chastised his untoward Children indeed you tell us from 1 Cor 5.5 1 Tim. 1.20 but if you bring this to any purpose you must make the Greeks Errour as bad as Incest or a denying the Faith and when you have done so you may hear of a further answer On what account your Church punisheth Delinquents will be then necessary to be shewed when you have a little further cleared what Power your Church hath to make Delinquents in such cases as you condemn the Greek Church for But as long as your Church is Accuser Witness and Judge too you must never
them To which you answer 1. It is not credible that Bellarmine who writ so much of Controversie should not have read that Council nor can there be any suspicion of his conâ—ealing the matter had he found it there c. and therefore you suspend your Assent till the Council's words be produced 2. You tell us That it is not enough to prove that Pelagianism was condemned by a General Council because some who were Pelagians were but say you They were condemned not for Pelagianism but Nestorianism and therefore his Lordship shoots wide of the mark Your Argument from Bellarmine will have no great force with them who see no reason to admire his fidelity and they who enquire into the matter of fact in the present debate will have cause to suspect it The short account whereof is this After that Julianus Florus Orontius Fabius and others had been deposed and banished in the Western Churches for the Pelagian Heresie they fly to Constantinople and shroud themselves under the protection of Nestorius the Patriarch there who secretly favoured them and writ several Letters to Pope Celestine in behalf of them who is supposed to have received his Doctrine of the person of Christ from the Pelagians But when he saw that no good was to be done by these Letters but by the daily spreading of Nestorianism the Emperour was forced to summon a Council at Ephesus A. D. 431. The Pelagians accompany Nestorius thither and joyn with Johannes Antiochenus and his party in opposition to the Synod But the Council understanding the proceedings which had been in the Western Churches against the Pelagians ratifies and confirms their deposition as appears by the Synodal Epistle of the Council to Pope Celestine which is extant in the Acts of the Ephesine Council and in the Epistles of Cyril of Alexandria And besides this some of the Canons of that Council do equally concern Celestius and Nestorius the first Canon decreeing as well the favourers of Celestius as Nestorius to be excommunicate and the fourth dereeing the Deposition of all such who should embrace either of them And therefore it is truly said by Jansenius that the Pelagian Heresie and the Bishops who favoured it were again condemned by an Oecumenical Council And thence Prosper in the Epitaph of the Nestorian and Pelagian Heresies as he makes the Nestorian only an Off-spring of the Pelagian so he makes both of them to fall and be condemned together From whence it appears that the Pelagians were not condemned in the Ephesine Council meerly for Nestorianism but for their proper and peculiar sentiments the former deposition of them being ratified by the Council and a new Canon made to that purpose for the future And now let the Reader judge whether his Lordship or Bellarmine were herein the more mistaken His Lordship adds If this Heresie were condemned only by a National Council then the full Authority of the Church here is no more than the full Authority of this Church of Africk And I hope saith he That Authority doth doth not make all Points defined by it to be Fundamental You will say Yes if that Council be confirmed by the Pope And then I must ever wonder why S. Augustine should say The full Authority of the Church and not bestow one word upon the Pope by whose Authority only that Council as all other have their fulness of Authority in your judgement An inexpiable Omission if this Doctrine concerning the Pope were true To this you answer That there was no need of any special mention of the Pope in speaking of the Authority of the Church because his Authority is alwaies chiefly supposed as being Head of the whole Church But by whom was this supposed by you or by S. Augustine Can you prove that S. Austin or any of the African Fathers did ever suppose any such thing that the Pope being Head of the Church his Authority is chiefly supposed in the Acts of National Councils Where was the supposal of this Authority in the Dispute between the African Fathers and the Popes in the case of Appeals These are suppositions only to be obtruded upon ignorant Novices and such who look no further into Antiquity than the Implicit Faith in their Priests will give them leave But what a stranger to all true Antiquity this supposition of the Pope's being Head of the Church is we shall see abundantly when we come to the Controversie of the Pope's Authority Yet granting the Supposition true than which nothing can be more false when the main strength lyes not in the bare Definition of a National Council which you grant of it self hath not full Authority but in the confirmation of that Decision by the Pope which makes that Authority full which was not so before Was it not necessary to declare that the Pope did concurr to the giving it full Authority which without it could not be had You do not say That all National Councils have this full Authority not being confirmed by the Pope if therefore S. Augustine designed to shew that Council to have full Authority the only way to prove it was to produce the Pope's Confirmation of it which cannot therefore be otherwise looked on than as an inexpiable Omission if your Doctrine be true for he left out that which was only pertinent and material to the business Your parallel between S. Austin and your self which is a very worthy one in leaving out the mention of the Pope's Authority when it is understood will then hold when you produce as great evidence that S. Austin was a Jesuit as we have from your principles that you are When you give as manifest proof that the Pope's Power is necessary to all Definitions of Councils as there is in our Laws for our Kings assenting to Acts of Parliament we may give you leave to parallel the Omission of the express mention of one with the other If the Definitions of Ancient Councils did run in the name of Pope and Council as our Acts of Parliament in the name of the King and both Houses we might easily say the Authority of them came from the Pope as of these from the King but there is nothing of that nature but much of the contrary as will appear in due time When you therefore prove that the Pope's Power is implied though it be not mentioned you must prove it by some evident Confession that no Authority of a Council was full unless the Pope concurred with it else you may as well say That the great Mogul hath no full Authority to decree any thing without the Pope's consent for I dare say There is no denial of it in any of his Laws And yet that is more than can be said here for we have sufficient testimony from the records of that age That the Pope's Authority was not supposed necessary to Councils from his being Head of the Church What follows p. 34. n. 5 6. depends wholly upon the
produced is That a Tradition may be known to be such by the Light it hath in it self in which you say you find not one word of Tradition being known by its own Light But who are so blind as those who will not see I pray what difference is there between a Tradition being known to be such by its own Light and a Tradition being known by its own Light Yes say you known to be such implies that is to be God's unwritten Word but are not doctrinal Traditions and an unwritten Word with you the same thing Can therefore a Tradition be known to be an unwritten Word by its own Light and not be known to be a Tradition by its own Light Nay How can it possibly be known to be an unwritten Word unless it first appears to be a Tradition for Tradition containing under it both those that are unwritten Words and those that are not it must in order of nature be known to be a Tradition before it can be known to be the other As I must first know you to be a living Creature before I can know you to be a reasonable Creature and I may much sooner know the one than the other You do therefore very well when you have given us such occasion for sport to give us leave to laugh at it as you do in your next words But before you leave this point you have some graver matter to take notice of which is that you desire the reader to consider what the Relator grants viz. That the Church now admits of St. James and St. Judes Epistles and the Apocalypse which were not received for diverse years after the rest of the New Testament From which you wisely inferr That if some Books are now to be admitted for Canonical which were not alwayes acknowledged to be such then upon the same authority some Books may now be received into the Canon which were not so in Ruffinus his time And therefore the Bishop doth elsewhere unjustly charge the Church of Rome that it had erred in receiving more Books into the Canon then were received in Ruffinus his time To which I Answer 1. By your own confession then the Church of Rome doth now receive into the Canon more Books then she did in Ruffinus his time from whence I enquire whether the present Church of Rome were Infallible in Ruffinus his time in determining the Canon of the Scripture If not then the present Church is no Infallible propounder of the Word of God and then all your discourse comes to nothing If she were Infallible then she cannot be now for now she determins otherwise as to a main point of Faith than she did then unless you will say your Church can be Infallible in determining both parts of a contradiction to be true 2. Is the integrity of the Canon of Scripture an Apostolical tradition or no I doubt not but you will say It is if so Whether were these Books which you admit now and were not admitted then known to be of the Canon by this Apostolical tradition If not by what right come they now to be of the Canon if so then was not your Church in Ruffinus's time much to seek for her Infallibility in defining what was Apostolical tradition and what not 3. Your main principle on which the lawfulness of adding more books to the Canon of the Scripture is built is That it is in the power of your Church judicially and authoritatively to determine what books belong to the Canon of the Scripture and what not which I utterly deny For it is impossible that your Church or any in the world can by any definition make that Book to be Divine which was not so before such a definition For the Divinity of the Book doth meerly arise from Divine revelation Can your Church then make that to be a Divine revelation which was not so All that any Church in the world can do in this case is not to constitute any new Canon which were to make Books Divine which were not so but to use its utmost diligence and care in searching into the authenticalness of those Copy's which have any pretence to be of the Canon and whether they did originally proceed from such persons as we have reason to believe had an immediate assistance of the Holy Ghost and according to the evidence they find the Church may declare and give in her verdict For the Church in this case is but a Jury of grand Inquest to search into matters of Fact and not a Judge upon the Bench to determine in point of Law And that is the true reason why the Books of the New Testament were gradually received into the Canon and some a great while after others as St. James St. Jude the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Apocalypse because at first the Copyes being not so publickly dispersed there was not that occasion ministred to the Church for examination of them upon which when by degrees they came to be more publick it caused scruples in many concerning them because they appeared no sooner especially if any passages in them seemed to gratifie any of the Sects then appearing as the Epistle to the Hebrews the Novatians and the Apocalypse the Millenary's But when upon a through search and examination of all circumstances it did appear that these Copyes were authentical and did originally proceed from Divine Persons then they came to be admitted and owned for such by the Vniversal Church which we call being admitted into the Canon of the Scripture Which I take to be the only true and just account of that which is called the constituting the Canon of Scripture not as though either the Apostles met to do it or St. John intended any such thing by those words in the end of the Apocalypse for that Book being as much lyable to question as any how could that seal the Canon for all the rest much less that it was in the power of any Church or Council and least of all of the Pope to determine what was Canonical and what not but only that the Church upon examination and enquiry did by her Universal reception of these Books declare it self satisfied with the evidence which was produced that those were true and authentick Copyes which were abroad under such names or titles and that there was great reason to believe by a continued tradition from the age and time these Books were written in that they were written by such persons who were not only free from any design of imposture but gave the greatest Rational evidence that they had a more special and immediate assistance of Gods Spirit You see then to how little advantage to your Cause you made this digression As to the third way propounded for resolving the Question How we know the Scriptures to be the Word of God viz. by the testimony of the Holy Ghost three things you object against the Bishops discourse about it First that his discourse
which Cyprian replies Whence comes this Tradition doth it descend from the Lords Authority or from the Commands and Epistles of the Apostles for those things are to be done which are there written And again If it be commanded in the Gospel or the Epistles and Acts of the Apostles then let this holy Tradition be observed We see then what St. Cyprian meant by his Apostolical Tradition not one Infallibly attested by the present Church but that is clearly derived from Scripture as its fountain and therefore brings in the foregoing words on purpose to correct the errours of Traditions that As when channels are diverted to a wrong course we must have recourse to the fountain so we must in all pretended Traditions of the Church run up to the Scriptures as the fountain-head And whereas Bellarmins only shift to avoid this place of Cyprian is by saying that Cyprian argued more errantium i. e. could not defend one errour but by another see how different the judgements of St. Augustine and Bellarmin are about it for St. Augustin is so far from blaming it in him that he saith Optimum est sine dubitatione faciendum i. e. It was the best and most prudent course to prevent errours And in another place where he mentions that saying of Cyprian It is in vain for them to object Custom who are overcome by Reason as though custom were greater than truth or as though that were not to be followed in spiritual things which is revealed by the Holy Ghost This saith St. Augustin is evidently true because reason and truth is to be preferred before custom He doth not charge these sayings on him as Bellarmin doth as part of his errours but acknowledgeth them and disputes against his opinion out of those principles And when before the Donatists objected the authority of St. Cyprian in the point of Rebaptization What kind of answer doth St. Augustine give them the very same that any Protestant would give Who knows not that the sacred Canonical Scripture of the Old and New Testament is contained within certain bounds and ought so far to be prefer'd before the succeeding writings of Bishops that of that alone we are not to doubt or call in question any thing therein written whether it be true and right or no. But as he saith in the following words All the writings since the confirmation of the Canon of Scripture are lyable to dispute and even Councils themselves to be examined and amended by Councils Think you then that St. Augustin ever thought of a present Infallibility in the Church or if he did he expressed it in as odd a manner as ever I read How easily might he have stopt the mouths of the Donatists with that one pretence of Infallibility How impertinently doth he dispute through all those Books if he had believed any such thing It were easie to multiply the Citations out of other Books of St. Austin to shew how much he attributed to Scripture as the only rule of Faith and consequently how farr from believing your Doctrine of Infallibility But these may suffice to shew how unhappily you light on these Books of St. Augustine for the proof of your opinion out of the Fathers The last thing your Discourser objects against his Lordships way is If the Church be fallible in the Tradition of Scripture how can I ever be Infallibly certain that she hath not erred de facto and defined some Book to be the Word of God which really is not his Word To which I answer If you mean by Infallible certainty such a certainty as must have some Infallible Testimony for the ground of it you beg the question for I deny any such Infallible Testimony to be at all requisite for our believing the Canon of Scripture and therefore you object that as an inconvenience which I apprehend to be none at all For I do not think it any absurdity to say that I cannot believe upon some Infallible Testimony that the Church hath not erred in defining the Canon of Scripture If by Infallible certainty you mean such a certainty as absolutely excludes a possibility of deception you would do well first to shew how congruous this is to humane nature in this present state before you make such a certainty so necessary for any act of humane understanding But if by Infallible certainty you mean only such as excludes all possibility of reasonable doubting upon the consideration of the validity and sufficiency of that Testimony I am to believe the Canon of Scripture upon then I assert that upon making the Churches Testimony to be fallible it doth not at all follow but that I may have so great a certainty as excludes the possibility of all reasonable doubting concerning the Canon of Scripture For when I suppose the Churches Testimony fallible I do not thereby understand as though there were as great reason to suspect her deceived as not nay I say there can be no reason to suspect her deceived but by that I understand only this that the Church hath not any supernatural Infallibility given her in delivering such a Testimony or that such Infallibility must be the foundation of believing the thing so delivered For whether I suppose your particular Church of Rome or the Catholick Church to be supernaturally Infallible in her Traditions there will be the same difficulty returning and an equal impossibility of vindicating our Faith from the entanglements of a Circle For still the question unavoidably returns From whence I believe such a supernatural Infallibility in the Church For in that it is supernatural it must suppose some promise on which it depends that promise must be somewhere extant and that can be no where but in Scripture therefore when I am asked Why I believe the Canon of the Scripture to be true if I answer Because the Tradition of the Catholick Church is Infallible the question presently returns Since humane nature is in it self fallible whence comes the Church to have this Infallibility If I answer By the assistance of Gods spirit I am presently asked Since no man by the light of nature and meer reason can be assured of this how know you that you are not deceived in believing such an assistance If to this I answer Because God who is Infallible hath made this promise in his Word I am driven again to the first question How I know this to be Gods Word and must answer it as before Upon the infallible Testimony of the Catholick Church Thus we see how impossible it is to avoid a Circle in the supposition of a supernatural Infallibility in the Churches Tradition But if no more be meant but a kind of rational Infallibility though those terms be not very proper i. e. so great evidence as if I question it I may upon equal grounds question every thing which mankind yields the firmest Assent to because I cannot imagine that so great a part of the wisest and most considerative
Church of Rome First the Church was called Catholick from the Vniversal spread of its Doctrine and the agreement of all particular Churches in it So Irenaeus derives the Vnity of the Church spread abroad over the world from the Vnity of that Faith which was Universally received and from thence saith That the Church is but as one house and having one soul and heart and speaks as with one mouth Nothing can be more plain then that Irenaeus makes the consent in Doctrine to be the ground of Vnity in the Catholick Church And that he did not suppose this consent to arise from the Church of Rome appears from what he saith before That this Faith was received in the Church so universally spread from the Apostles and their Disciples Which must be understood of that universal diffusion of it by the first Preachers of it in the world the continuance of which Doctrine was the ground of the Vnity in the Catholick Church To the same purpose Tertullian gives an account of the Churches Vnity by the adhering to that Doctrine which was first preached by the Apostles who having first delivered it in Judea and planted Churches there went abroad and declared the same to other Nations and setled Churches in Cities from whence other Churches have the same Doctrine propagated to them which are therefore call'd Apostolical Churches as the off-spring of those which were founded by them Therefore so many and so great Churches are all that one prime Apostolical Church from whence all others come And thus they are all prime and Apostolical in regard of their Vnity as long as there is that communication of that title of Brotherhood and common mark of peace and hospitality Wherein we see that which made Churches in Tertullians sense Apostolical is the embracing and continuing in that Doctrine which was first delivered by the Apostles and thus Churches though remote from the Apostolical times may have the denomination of Apostolical from their consent in Doctrine with those which were founded by them But here is not the least intimation of any centre of Ecclesiastical communion infusing unity into the Catholick Church for this unity ariseth from that Doctrine which was declared in and propagated by all the Apostolical Churches So likewise Theodoret speaks That there is one Church throughout the world and therefore we pray for the Holy One Catholick and Apostolick Church extended from one end of the earth to the other Which saith he is divided by Cities and Towns and Villages so that there are infinite and innumerable Churches in the Islands and Continent but all these are reduced to one being united in the agreement of the same true doctrine So Constantine in his Epistle to the Bishops who were absent from the Council of Nice saith That our Saviour would have one Catholick Church whose members though dispersed in many several places yet are nourished by the same Spirit which is the Will of God In all which and many other places which might be produced to the same purpose we see a quite different account given of the unity of the Catholick Church from that which you mention as the cause of it we find the Church call'd Catholick in regard of its large extent in the world as is apparent besides these testimonies from the Controversies between St. Austin and the Donatists and the unity of that Catholick Church not placed in the least respect to the Church of Rome but in the consent in the Apostolical Doctrine in all those Churches which concurred as members to make up this Catholick Church So that the formal reason of any particular Churches having the denomination of Catholick must come not from any communion with the Church of Rome but from the owning the Catholick and Apostolick Faith and joyning in communion with those Churches which did own and acknowledge it And therefore we find that the symbol of communion in the ancient communicatory letters never lay in the acknowledgement of Christs Vicar on earth or communion with the Church of Rome but in such things which were common to all Apostolical Churches And therefore the Church of Rome could not be then accounted the center of Ecclesiastical communion as you speak after Cardinal Perron from whom you have Verbatim transcribed all your former discourse This being therefore the utmost which that great witt of your Church was able to plead in behalf of its being the Catholick Church it deserves to be further considered We come therefore to that kind of unity in the Catholick Church which depends on the Government of it and this is that which is pretended as the ground of the Roman Churches being the Catholick Church because though as Cardinal Perron says she be in her own Being particular yet she may be call'd Catholick causally as the center and beginning of Ecclesiastical communion infusing unity which is the form of universality into the Catholick Church This therefore must be more narrowly searched into to see if this were a known and received truth in the ancient Church Which is so far from it that we find no such causal influence from the Church of Rome then owned or asserted but that the Catholick Church was a whole consisting of homogeneal parts without any such subordination or dependence as the contrary supposition implies This is by none more fully asserted than by such who have with the greatest zeal and industry stood up for the unity of the Catholick Church The first of whom is St. Cyprian in whose time and writings there are very remarkable cases occurring to clear upon what terms the unity of the Catholick Church did then stand The first I begin with is the case which arose in the Church about the Schism of Novatianus which will give us the fuller discovery of the grounds of unity in the Catholick Church because the first rise of this Schism was in Rome it self For Novatus coming to Rome in a discontent from Africa falls in with Novatianus which two names the Greek writers of the Church commonly confound who being likewise under discontent at the election of Cornelius to be Bishop of Rome was ready to joyn with the other in fomenting a Schism For which they made this their pretext That Cornelius had admitted such to communion who had lapsed in the persecution of Decius which tended to the overthrow of the Churches purity upon this Novatianus gets himself ordained by three Bishops Bishop of Rome in opposition to Cornelius the fame of which Schism being spread abroad there was great making of parties on both sides Cyprian and the Churches of Africa after full inquiry into it declare for Cornelius so did Dionysius of Alexandria and the Churches there but Fabius of Antioch with the Churches of Pontus and Cilicia suspend and rather encline to Novatianus for some time till they were after more fully satisfied by Dionysius of Alexandria Now here is a case wherein the grounds of unity in the
Doctrine the Pope could not be Infallible there for you restrain his Infallibility to a General Council and do not assert that it belongs to the particular Church of Rome As well then may any other Provincial Synod determine matters of Faith as that of Rome since that hath no more Infallibility belonging to it as such then any other particular Church hath and the Pope himself you say may erre when he doth not define matters of Faith in a General Council To his Lordships second instance of the Council of Gangra about the same time condemning Eustathius for his condemning marriage as unlawful you answer to the same purpose That Osius was there Pope Sylvester's Legat but what then if the Pope had been there himself he had not been Infallible much less certainly his Legat who could have only a Second-hand Infallibility To the third of the Council of Carthage condemning rebaptization about 348. you grant That it was assembled by Gratus Bishop of Carthage but that no new Article was defined in it but only the perpetual tradition of the Church was confirmed therein Neither do we plead for any power in Provincial Councils to define any new Articles of Faith but only to revive the old and to confirm them in opposition to any Innovations in point of Doctrine and as to this we profess to be guided by the sense of Scripture as interpreted by the unanimous consent of the Fathers and the four first General Councils To the fourth of the Council of Aquileia A. D. 381. condemning Palladius and Secundinus for embracing the Arrian Heresie St. Ambrose being present you answer That they only condemned those who had been condemned already by the Nicene Council and St. Ambrose and other Bishops of Italy being present Who can doubt but every thing was done there by the Popes authority and consent But if they only enforced the decrees of the Council of Nice What need of the Pope's authority to do that And do you think that there were no Provincial Councils in that part of Italy which was particularly distinguished from the suburbicarian Churches under the Bishop of Rome wherein the Pope was not present either by himself or Legats If you think so your thoughts have more of your will then understanding in them But if this Council proceeded according to that of Nice Will it not be as lawful for other Provincial Councils to reform particular Churches as long as they keep to the Decrees not barely of Nice but of the four General Councils which the Church of England looks on as her duty to do In the two following Instances of the second Council of Carthage declaring in behalf of the Trinity and the Milevitan Council about the Pelagian Heresie you say The Bishops of Rome were consulted But what then Were they consulted as the Heads of the Church or only as eminent members of it in regard of their Faith and Piety Prove the former when you are able and as to the latter it depends upon the continuance of that Faith and Piety in them and when once the reason is taken away there can be no necessity of continuing the same resort The same answer will serve for what you say concerning the second Council of Aurange determining the Controversies about Grace and Free-will supposing we grant it assembled by the means of Felix 4. Bishop of Rome as likewise to the third of Toledo We come therefore to that which you call his Lordships reserve and Master-allegation the fourth Council of Toledo which saith he did not only handle matters of Faith for the reformation of that people but even added also something to the Creed which were not expresly delivered in former Creeds Nay the Bishops did not only practise this to condemn Heresies in National and Provincial Synods and so to reform those several places and the Church it self by parts but they did openly challenge this as their right and due and that without any leave asked of the See of Rome For in this fourth Council of Toledo they decree that If there happen a cause of Faith to be setled a general that is a National Synod of all Spain and Gallicia shall be held thereon And this in the year 643. where you see it was then Catholick Doctrine in all Spain that a National Synod might be a competent Judge in a cause of Faith But here still we meet with the same Answer That all this might be done with a due subordination to the See Apostolick but that it doth not hence follow that any thing may be done in Provincial Councils against the authority of it Neither do we plead that any thing may be done against the just authority of the Bishop of Rome or any other Bishop but then you must prove that he had a just authority over the Church of England and that he exercised no power here at the Reformation but what did of right belong to him But the fuller debate of these things must be left to that place where you designedly assert and vindicate the Pope's Authority These things being thus in the general cleared we come to the particular application of them to the case of the Church of England As to which his Lordship say's And if this were practised so often and in so many places Why may not a National Council of the Church of England do the like As she did For she cast off the Pope's usurpation and as much as in her lay restored the King to his right That appears by a Book subscribed by the Bishops in Henry the eighths time And by the Records in the Archbishops office orderly kept and to be seen In the Reformation which came after our Princes had their parts and the Clergy theirs And to these two principally the power and direction for Reformation belongs That our Princes had their parts is manifest by their calling together of the Bishops and others of the Clergy to consider of that which might seem worthy Reformation And the Clergy did their part for being thus call'd together by Regal power they met in the National Synod of sixty two And the Articles there agreed on were afterwards confirmed by acts of State and the Royal assent In this Synod the Positive truths which are delivered are more then the Polemicks So that a meer calumny it is that we profess only a Negative Religion True it is and we must thank Rome for it our Confession must needs contain some Negatives For we cannot but deny that Images are to be adored Nor can we admit maimed Sacraments Nor grant Prayers in an unknown tongue And in a corrupt time or place 't is as necessary in Religion to deny falshood as to assert and vindicate Truth Indeed this latter can hardly be well and sufficiently done but by the former an Affirmative verity being ever included in the Negative to a falshood As for any errour which might fall into this as any other Reformation if
you say The Pope's Confirmation was required to all new elected Patriarchs To that I shall return the full and satisfactory Answer of the late renowned Arch-Bishop of Paris Petrus de Marcâ where he propounds this as an Objection out of Baronius and thus solves it That the confirmation of Patriarchs by the Bishop of Rome was no token of Jurisdiction but only of receiving into Communion and a testimony of his consent to the consecration already performed And this was no more than was done by other Bishops in reference to the Bishop of Rome himself for S. Cyprian writing to Antonianus about the election of Cornelius saith That he was not only chosen by the suffrage of the people and testimony of the Clergy but that his election was confirmed by all their consent May not you then as well say That the Bishop of Carthage had power over the Bishop of Rome because his ordination was confirmed by him and other African Bishops But any one who had understood better than you seem to do the proceedings of the Church in those ages would never have made this an argument of the Pope's Authority over other Patriarchs since as the same Petrus de Marcâ observes It was the custom in those times that not only the Patriarchs but the Roman Bishop himself upon their election were wont to send abroad Letters testifying their ordination to which was added a profession of Faith contained in their Synodical Epistles Upon the receipt of which Communicatory Letters were sent to the person newly ordained to testifie their Communion with him in case there were no just impediment produced So that this was only a matter of Fraternal Communion and importing nothing at all of Jurisdiction but the Bishops of Rome who were ready to make use of all occasions to advance their own Grandeur did in time make use of this for quite other ends than it was primarily intended for in case of any suspicions and jealousies of any thing that might tend to the dis-service of their See they would then deny their Communicatory Letters as Simplicius did in the case of the Patriarch of Alexandria And in that Confirmation of Anatolius by Leo 1. which Baronius so much insists on Leo himself gives a sufficient account of it viz. to manifest that there was but one entire Communion among them throughout the world So that if the Pope's own judgement may be taken this Confirmation of new elected Patriarchs imported nothing of Jurisdiction But in case the Popes did deny their Communicatory Letters that did not presently hinder them from the execution of their office as appears by the instance of Flavianus the Patriarch of Antioch for although three Roman Bishops successively opposed him Damasus Syricius and Anastasius and used great importunity with the Emperour that he might not continue in his place yet because the Churches of the Orient Asia Pontus and Thracia did approve of him and communicate with him he opposed their consent against the Bishops of Rome Upon which and the Emperour 's severe checking them for their pride and contention they at last promised the Emperour that they would lay aside their enmity and acknowledge him So that notwithstanding whatever the Roman Bishops could do against him he was acknowledged for a true Patriarch and at last their consent was given only by renewing Communion with him which certainly is far from being an instance of the Pope's power over the other Patriarchs Whereby we also see What little power he had in deposing them although you tell us That it belonged likewise to him to depose unworthy ones restore the unjustly deposed by others But that the power of deposing Bishops was anciently in Provincial Councils appears sufficiently by the fifth Canon of the Nicene Council and by the practice of the Church both before and after it and it is acknowledged by Petrus de Marcâ that the sole power of deposing Bishops was not in the hands of the Bishop of Rome till about eight hundred years since and refutes the Cardinal Perron for saying otherwise and afterwards largely proves that the Supreme authority of deposing Bishops was still in Provincial Councils and that the Pope had nothing to do in it till the decree of the Sardican Synod in the case of Athanasius which yet he saith did not as is commonly said decree Appeals to be made to Rome but only gave the Bishop of Rome power to Review their actions but still reserving to Provincial Councils that Authority which the Nicene Council had established them in All the power which he then had was only this that he might decree that the matters might be handled over again but not that he had the power himself of deposing or restoring Bishops Which is proved with that clearness and evidence by that excellent Author that I shall refer you to him for it and consider the instances produced by you to the contrary We read say you of no less than eight several Patriarchs of Constantinople deposed by the Bishop of Rome Surely if you had read this your self you would have quoted the place with more care and accuracy than you do for you give us only a blind citation of an Epistle of Pope Nicolaus to the Emperour Michael neither citing the words nor telling us which it is when there are several and those no very short ones neither But however it is well chosen to have a Pope's testimony in his own cause and that such a Pope who was then in contest with the Patriarch of Constantinople and that too so long after the encroachments of the Bishops of Rome it being in the ninth Century and yet for all this this Pope doth not say those words which you would fasten upon him that which he saith is That none of the Bishops of Constantinople or scarce any of them were ejected without the consent of the Bishop of Rome And then instanceth in Maximus Nestorius Accacius Anthimus Sergius Pyrrhus Paulus Petrus but his design in this is only to shew that Ignatius the Patriarch ought not to have been deposed without his consent But what is all this to the Pope's sole power of deposing when even at that time the Pope did not challenge it But supposing the Popes had done it before it doth not follow that it was in their power to do it and that the Canons had given them right to do it but least of all certainly that they had a Divine right for it which never was in the least acknowledged by the Church as to a deposition of Patriarchs which you contend for But besides this you say Sixtus the third deposed Polychronius Bishop of Hierusalem Whereas Sixtus only sent eight persons from a Synod at Rome to Hierusalem who when they came there did not offer to depose Polychronius by vertue of the Popes power but a Synod of seventy or more neighbour Bishops were call'd by whom he was deposed and yet after all
of this cause as a thing not belonging to his Authority They who can believe such things as these and notwithstanding all the circumstances of this story can think the Popes Vniversal Pastourship was then owned the most I can say of them is that they are in a fair way to believe Transubstantiation there being nothing so improbable but upon equal grounds they may judge it true That the Pope had no Supremacy over other Patriarchs his Lordship saith That were all other Records of Antiquity silent the Civil Law is proof enough And that 's a Monument of the Primitive Church The Text there is A Patriarchâ non datur appellatio From a Patriarch there lyes no appeal No appeal Therefore every Patriarch was alike Supreme in his own Patriarchate Therefore the Pope then had no Supremacy over the whole Church Therefore certainly not then received as universal Pastor Two things you answer to this 1. That this reacheth not the difference between Patriarchs themselves who must have some higher ordinary Tribunal where such causes may be heard and determined Very well argued against the Pope's power of judging for in case of a difference between him and the other Patriarchs who must decide the difference Himself no doubt But still it is your way to beg that you can never prove for you herein suppose the Pope to be above all Patriarchs which you know is the thing in dispute Or Do you suppose it very possible that other Patriarchs may quarrel and fall out among themselves but that the Popes are alwaies such mild and good men that it is impossible any should fall out with them or they with others that still they must stand by as unconcerned in all the quarrels of the Christian world and be ready to receive complaints from all places If therefore a General Council must not be the Judge in this case I pray name somewhat else more agreeable to reason and the practice of the Church But you answer 2. What the Law saith is rightly understood and must be explicated of inferiour Clerks only who were not of ordinary course to appeal further than the Patriarch or the Primate of their Province For so the Council of Africk determines But 't is even there acknowledged that Bishops had power in their own causes to appeal to Rome This answer of yours necessarily leads us to the debates of the great case of appeals to Rome as it was managed between the African Bishops and the Bishops of Rome by which we shall easily discover the weakness of your answer and the most palpable fraud of your citation by which we may see What an excellent cause you have to manage which cannot be defended but by such frauds as here you make use of and hope to impose upon your Reader by Your Answer therefore in the general is That the Laws concerning appeals did only concern inferiour Clergy-men but that Bishops were allowed to appeal to Rome even by the Council of Africk which not only decreed it but acknowledged it in an Epistle to Pope Boniface And therefore for our through understanding the truth in this case those proceedings of the African Church must be briefly explained and truly represented Two occasions the Churches of Africa had to determine in the case of Appeals to Rome the first in the Milevitan the second in the Carthaginian Councils in both which we have several things very considerable to our purpose In the Milevitan Council they decree That whosoever would appeal beyond the Sea should not be received into Communion by any in Africa which decree is supposed by some to be occasioned by Coelestius having recourse to Pope Zosimus after he had been condemned in Africa No doubt those prudent Bishops began to be quickly sensible of the monstrous inconvenience which would speedily follow upon the permission of such appeals to Rome for by that means they should never preserve any discipline in their Churches but every person who was called in Question for any crimes would slight the Bishops of those Churches and presently appeal to Rome To prevent which mischief they make that excellent Canon which allows only liberty of appealing to the Councils of Africa or to the Primates of their Province but absolutely forbids all forein appeals All the difficulty is Whether this Canon only concerned the Inferiour Clergy as you say and which is all that the greatest of your side have said in it or Whether it doth not take away all appeals of Bishops too For which we need no more than produce the Canon it self as it is extant in the authentick collection of the Canons of the African Church In which is an express clause declaring that the same thing had been often determined in the case of Bishops Which because it strikes home therefore Perron and others have no other shift but to say That this clause was not in the original Milevitan Canons but was inserted afterwards But why do not they who assert such bold things produce the true authentick Copy of these Milevitan Canons that we may see What is genuine and what not But suppose we should grant that this clause was inserted afterwards it will be rather for the advantage than prejudice of our cause For which we must consider that in the time of Aurelius Bishop of Carthage there had been very many Councils celebrated there no fewer than seventeen Justellus and others reckon But a general Council meeting at Carthage A. D. 419. which was about three years after that Milevitan Council which was held 416. as appears by the Answer of Innocentius to it A. D. 417. at the end of the first Session they reviewed the Canons of those lesser Councils and out of them all composed that Codex Canonum Ecclesiae Africanae as Justellus at large proves in the preface to his edition of it So that if this clause were inserted it must be inserted then for it is well known that the case of Appeals was then at large debated and by that means it received a more general authority by passing in this African Council And hence it was that this Canon passed with this clause into the Greek Churches for Balsamon and Zonaras both acknowledge it and not only they but many ancient Latin Copies had it too and is so received and pleaded by the Council of Rhemes as Hincmarus and others have already proved But Gracian hath helped it well out for he hath added a brave Antidote at the end of it by putting to it a very useful clause Nisi forte Romanam Sedem appellaverit by which the Canon makes excellent sense that none shall appeal to Rome unless they do appeal to Rome for none who have any understanding of the state of those Churches at that time do make the least Question but the intent of the Canon was to prohibit appeals to Rome but then say they They were only the appeals of the Inferiour Clergy which were to be ended
by the Bishops of their own Province But this Answer is very unreasonable on these accounts 1. If Appeals do of right belong to the Bishop of Rome as Vniversal Pastor of the Church then Why not the Appeals of the Inferiour Clergy as well as Bishops Indeed if Appeals were challenged only by virtue of the Canons and those Canons limit one and not the other as the most eager pleaders for Appeals in that age pleaded only the Canons of the Church for them then there might be some reason Why one should be restrained and not the other but if they belong to him by Divine Right then all Appeals must necessarily belong to him 2. If Appeals belong to the Pope as Vniversal Pastor then no Council or persons had any thing to do to determine who should appeal and who not For this were an usurping of the Pope's priviledge for he to whom only the right of Appeals belongs can determine Who should appeal and who not and where and by whom those Controversies should be ended So that the very act of the Council in offering to limit Appeals implies that they did not believe any such Vniversal Pastorship in the Pope for had they not done so they would have waited his judgement and not offered to have determined such things themselves 3. The Appeals of the upper and inferiour Clergy cannot be supposed to be separate from each other For the Appeal of a Presbyter doth suppose the impeachment of the Bishop for some wrong done to him as in the case of Apiarius accusing Vrban the Bishop of Sicca for excommunicating him So that the Bishop becomes a party in the Appeal of a Presbyter And if Appeals be allowed to the Bishop it is supposed to be in his favour for clearing of his right the better and if it be denied to the Presbyter it would savour too much of injustice and partiality 4. The reason of the Canon extends to one as well as the other which must be supposed to prevent all those troubles and inconveniencies which would arise from the liberty of Appeals to Rome and would not these come as well by the Appeals of Bishops as of Inferiour Clergy Nay Doth not the Canon insist on that that no Appeals should be made from the Council of Bishops or the Primates of Africa but in case of Bishops Appeals this would be done as well as the other and therefore they are equally against the reason and design of the Canon 5. The case of Presbyters may be as great and considerable as that of Bishops and as much requiring the judgement of the Vniversal Pastor of the Church As for instance that very case which probably gave occasion to the Milevitan Canon viz. the going of Coelestius to Rome being condemned of Heresie in Africa Now What greater cause could there be made an Appeal to Rome in than in so great a matter of Faith as that was about the necessity of Grace And therefore Petrus de Marcá proves at large against Perron that in the Epistle of Innocent to Victricius where it is said That the greater causes must be referred to the Apostolick See is not to be understood only of the causes of Bishops but may referr to the causes of Presbyters too i. e. when they either concern matter of Faith or some doubtful piece of Church-discipline 6. The Pope notwithstanding this Canon looked on himself as no more hindred from receiving the Appeals of Presbyters than those of Bishops If therefore any difference had been made by any act of the Church surely the Pope would have remanded Presbyters back to their own Provinces again but instead of that we see he received the Appeal of Apiarius But for this a rare Answer is given viz. that though the Presbyters were forbidden to appeal yet the Pope was not forbidden to receive them if they did appeal But to what purpose then were such prohibitions made if the Pope might by his open incouragement of them upon their Appeals to him make them not value such Canons at all for they knew if they could but get to Rome they should be received for all them Notwithstanding all which hath been said you tell us That in the Council of Africk it was acknowledged that Bishops had power in their own cause to appeal to Rome for which you cite in your Margent part of an Epistle of the Council to Boniface But with what honesty and integrity you do this will appear by the story Apiarius then appealing to Zosimus he sends over Faustinus to Africa to negotiate the business of Appeals and to restore Apiarius for which he pleads the Nicene Canons an account of which will be given afterwards the Fathers all protest they could find no such thing there but they agree to send Deputies into the East to fetch the true Canons thence as hath been related already in the mean time Zosimus dyes and Boniface succeeds him but for the better satisfaction of the Pope the Council of Carthage dispatch away a Letter to Boniface to give him an account of their proceedings in which Epistle extant in the African Code of Canons after they have given an account of the business of Apiarius they proceed to the instructions which Faustinus brought with him to Africa the chief of which is that concerning Appeals to be made to Rome and then follow those words which you quote in which they say That in a Letter written the year before to Zosimus they had granted liberty to Bishops to appeal to Rome and that therein they had intimated so much to him Thus far you are right but there is usually some mystery couched in your c. for you know very well where to cut off sentences for had you added but the next words they had spoiled all your foregoing there being contained in them the full reason of what went before viz. that because the Pope pretended that the Appeals of Bishops were contained in the Nicene Canons they were contented to yield that it should be so till the true Canons were produced And is this now all their acknowledgement that Bishops might in their own causes appeal to Rome when they made only a Provisional decree What should be done till the matter came to a resolution But if you will throughly understand what their final judgement was in this business I pray read their excellent Epistle to Pope Celestine who succeeded Boniface after they had received the Nicene Canons out of the East Which being so excellent a Monument of Antiquity and giving so great light to our present Controversie I shall at large recite and render it so far as concerns this business After our bounden duty of Salutation we earnestly beseech you that hereafter you admit not so easily to your ears those that come from hence and that you admit no more into communion those whom we have cast out for your Reverence will easily perceive that this is forbid by the Council of
particular place If you speak of the Primacy it self i. e. the independent right of Governing the Churches within the Provinces of Britain then we utterly deny that this was contained in that Grant For Britain having been a Province before in which Bishops did Govern Independently on any Forrein Bishop no Forrein Bishops could take away that Priviledge from it I will not stand here to deduce the History of the Bishops of Britain before Augustines coming into England but it is as certain that there were such as it is that St. Augustine ever came hither For not only all our own Historians and Bede himself confess it but it is most evident from the subscriptions of three of them to the first Council of Arles Eborius of York Restitutus of London and Adelfius de civitate Coloniâ Londinensium which some will have to be a mistake for Colonia Camaloduni whether by that Colchester Maldon or Winchester be meant as it is differently thought from the presence of some of them at the Sardican Synod and the Council of Ariminum as appears by Athanasius and others but this I suppose you will not deny that there were Bishops in England before Austin came And that these Bishops had then no dependence on the See of Rome if it were not sufficiently evident from other Arguments the relation of the proceedings in Bede himself between Austin and them about submission would abundantly discover as likewise that there was then an Archbishop with Metropolitical power over them whose ancient seat had been Caerleon But I consider not this Primacy now as in any particular place but in general as belonging to the Provinces of Britain which I say had a Primacy belonging to it whether at York or London is not material at the time of the Council of Nice according to what hath been formerly said about the state of Churches then now the Council of Nice takes care that the priviledges of all Churches should be preserved i. e. That where there had been a Primacy it should so continue Now therefore I ask How came this priviledge of Britain to be lost which was not only confirmed with others by the Nicene Council but by that of Chalcedon and Ephesus in which the ancient priviledges of Churches are secured what right had Austin the Monk to cassate the ancient Metropolitical power of the Britannick Church and to require absolute subjection to himself If the Pope made him Archbishop of Canterbury by what right was he Primate over the Britain Church How came the Archbishop then in being to lose his Primacy by Austins coming into England Was it because the Britannick Church was then over-run with Pagan-Saxons and the visible power of it confined to a narrow compass Yet I doubt not but there were many Brittish Christians living here among the Saxons though oppressed by them as they were after by the Normans for Where is it that any conquest hath carried away all the inhabitants and that these did many of them retain their Christianity though not daring publickly to own it there are many not improbable circumstances to lead us to suppose But we will grant that the face of the Britannick Church was only in Wales what follows thence that the whole Province had lost its right Let us suppose a case like this as that the Church of Rome should be over-run with a Barbarous people as it was by the Goths and Vandals and the inhabitants destroyed these Barbarous people continuing in possession of it and that a Bishop should have been sent from Britain to convert them to the Faith and upon their Conversion to Govern those Churches and should be made Bishop of that place by the Brittish Bishops Whether would he be bound to continue alwayes in subjection to them or no If not but you say by his succession in the See of Rome he enjoyes the priviledges of that See though the inhabitants be altered the same I say of the Britannick Churches though the inhabitants were altered and Saxons succeeded the Britains yet the priviledge of the Church remains still as to its Primacy and Independency And therefore the Popes making Augustine Archbishop so as to give him withall the Primacy over the Churches in the Province of Britain was an Vsurpation upon the rights of our Church which had an absolute and Independent Primacy within it self as it was in the case of the Cyprian Bishop As supposing those ancient Sects of Churches which are over-run with Turks should again be converted to Christianity the Bishops of those Churches as of Ephesus or the like would enjoy the same rights which the ancient Bishops had so we say it was in our case though the Nation was then over-spread with Paganism yet Christianity returning the priviledges of our Churches did return with it and whosoever were rightly consecrated Bishops of them would enjoy the same rights which they did before So that Gregory might make Austin a Bishop and send him to convert this Nation by which he was capable to Govern the Churches here which he did convert but he could not give to him the right over these Churches which Gregory had no power over himself neither could Austin or any other Archbishop of Canterbury give away the Primacy of England by submitting himself to the Roman See What therefore is Gregories Grant to Austin to the Primacy of England If you ask then How the Archbishops of Canterbury come to be Primates of England I Answer 1. This Primacy must be lodged somewhere and it is not unalterably fixed to any certain place because the Primacy belongs to the Church and not to a particular See 2. It is in the power of Princes to fix the Metropolitan See in what place is judged most convenient thence have been the frequent removes of Episcopal and See's as is evident in many examples in Ecclesiastical history particularly in Justiniana Prima made a Metropolis by Justinian 3. Where ever the Primacy is lodged it retains its ancient priviledges so that there is no need of a succession of our Archbishops from the Brittish Archbishops of Caerleon to preserve the Brittish Primacy but that See being removed by the Power of Princes the Primacy still remains the same that it was in the Brittish Metropolitans And thus I hope I have shewn you that the Original Charter of the Archbishop of Canterbury's Primacy was not contained in the Popes grant to Austin From hence we proceed again to the case of the African Churches for as his Lordship saith the African Prelates finding that all succeeding Popes were not of Melchiades his temper set themselves to assert their own liberties and held it out stoutly against Zozimus Boniface 1 and Caelestine 1. who were successively Bishops of Rome At last it was concluded in the sixth Council of Carthage wherein were assembled two hundred and seventeen Bishops of which St. Augustine himself was one that they would not give way to such a manifest encroachment upon
their rights and liberties and thereupon gave present notice to Caelestine to forbear sending his Officers amongst them lest he should seem to induce the swelling pride of the World into the Church of Christ. And this is said to have amounted into a formal separation from the Church of Rome and to have continued for the space of somewhat more then one hundred years For which his Lordship produceth two publick instruments extant among the ancient Councils the one an Epistle from Boniface 2. in whose time the reconciliation to Rome is said to be made by Eulalius then Bishop of Carthage but the separation instigante Diabolo by the Temptation of the Devil The other is an exemplar precum or Copy of the Petition of the same Eulalius in which he damns and curses all those his Predecessours which went against the Church of Rome Now his Lordship urges from hence Either these Instruments are true or false If they be false then Boniface 2. and his Accomplices at Rome or some for them are notorious forgers and that of Records of great consequence to the Government and peace of the whole Church of Christ and to the perpetual Infamy of that See and all this foolishly and to no purpose On the other side if these instruments be true then 't is manifest that the Church of Africk separated from the Church of Rome which separation was either unjust or just if unjust then St. Austin Eugenius Fulgentius and all those Bishops and other Martyrs which suffered in the Vandalike persecution dyed in actual and unrepented Schism and out of the Church If it were just then is it far more lawful for the Church of England by a National Council to cast off the Popes Vsurpation as she did than it was for the African Church to separate because then the African Church excepted only against the Pride of Rome in case of Appeals and two other Canons less material but the Church of England excepts besides this grievance against many corruptions in Doctrine with which Rome at that time was not tainted And St. Austin and those other famous men durst not thus have separated from Rome had the Pope had that powerful Principality over the whole Church of Christ and that by Christs own Ordinance and Institution as A. C. pretends he had This is the substance of his Lordships discourse to which we must consider what Answer you return Which in short is That you dare not assert the credit of those two Instruments but are very willing to think them forgeries but you say the Schismatical separation of the African Church from the Roman is inconsistent with the truth of story and confuted by many pregnant and undeniable instances which prove that the Africans notwithstanding the context in the sixth Council of Carthage touching matter of Appeals were alwayes in true Catholick Communion with the Roman Church even during the term of this pretended separation For which you produce the Testimony of Pope Caelestine concerning St. Austin the proceeding of Pope Leo in the case of Lupicinus the Testimonies of Eugenius Fulgentius Gregory and the presence of some African Bishops at Rome To all which I Answer that either the African Fathers did persist in the decree of the Council of Carthage or they did not if they did persist in it and no separation followed then the casting off the Vsurpations of the Roman See cannot incur the guilt of Schism for these African Bishops did that and it seems continued still in the Roman Communion by which it is evident that the Roman Church was not so far degenerated then as afterwards or that the Authority of those persons was so great in the Church that the Roman Bishops durst not openly break with them which is a sufficient account of what Caelestine saith concerning St. Austin that he lived and dyed in the Communion of the Roman Church If you say the reason why they were in Communion with the Roman Church was because they did not persist you must prove it by better instances then you have here brought for some of them are sufficient proofs of the contrary As appears by the case of Lupicinus an African Bishop appealing to Leo who indeed was willing enough to receive him but what of that Did not the African Bishops of Mauritania Caesariensis excommunicate him notwithstanding that appeal and ordained another in his place and therefore the Pope very fairly sends him back to be tryed by the Bishops of his Province Which instance as it argues the Popes willingness to have brought up Appeals among them so it shews the continuance of their stoutness in opposing them And even Pope Gregory so long after though in his time the business of Appeals was much promoted at Rome yet he dares not challenge them from the Bishops of Africa but yields to them the enjoyment of those priviledges which they said they had enjoyed from the Apostles times And the testimonies of Eugenius and Fulgentius imply nothing of subjection to Rome but a Praeeminence which that Church had above all others which it might have without the other as London may I hope be the Head-City of England and yet all other Cities not express subjection to it But if after that Council of Carthage the Bishops of Rome did by degrees encroach upon the liberties of the African Churches there is this sufficient account to be given of it that as the Roman Bishops were alwayes watchful to take advantages to inhance their power and that especially when other Churches were in a suffering condition so a fit opportunity fell out for them to do it in Africa For not long after that Council of Carthage fell out that dismal persecution of the African Churches by the irruption of the Vandals in which all the Catholick Bishops were banished out of Africa or lived under great sufferings and by a strict edict of Gensericus no new Bishops were suffered to be ordained in the places of the former This now was a fair opportunity for the Bishop of Rome to advance his Authority among the suffering Bishops St. Peters pretended Successour loving to fish in troubled waters and it being fatal to Rome from the first Foundation of it to advance her self by the ruins of other places But we are call'd off from the ruins of other Churches to observe the methods whereby the Popes grew great under the Emperours which his Lordship gives an account of from Constantines time to Charles the Great about five hundred years which begins thus So soon as the Emperours became Christian the Church began to be put in better order For the calling and Authority of Bishops over the Inferiour Clergy that was a thing of known use and benefit for preservation of Vnity and Peace in the Church Which was confessed by St. Hierom himself and so settled in mens minds from the very Infancy of the Church that it had not been to that time contradicted by any The only difficulty then
the Canons of Sardica 3. Why not at all mentioned in them 1. How comes the Pope's Supremacy if of Divine Right to depend at all upon the Canons of the Church We had thought it had been much more to your purpose not to have mentioned any Canons at all of the Church about it but to have produced evidences that this was constantly acknowledged as of Divine Institution But we must bear with you in not producing that which is not to be found For nothing can be more apparent than that when the Popes began to pierk up they pleaded nothing but some Canons of the Church for what they did as Julius to the Oriental Bishops Zosimus to the African and so others If it had been ever thought then that this Supremacy was of Divine Right What senseless men were these to make use of the worst pleas and never mention the best For supposing they had such a Supremacy granted them by the Canons of the Church Doth not this imply that their authority did depend upon the Churches grant and what the Church might give for her own conveniency she might take it away when she saw it abused to her apparent prejudice And therefore if they had thought that God had commanded all Churches to be subject to them it was weakly done of them to plead nothing but the Canons of the Church for it 2. Why no sooner than the Canons of Sardica Was the Church of Rome without her Supremacy till that time Will no Canons of the Church evidence it before them When this Council was not held till eleven years after the death of Constantine Had the Pope no right of Appeals till it was decreed here Yes Zosimus pleads the Nicene Canons for it But upon what grounds will appear suddenly 3. Why is not the Pope's Supremacy mentioned as the ground of these Appeals then Certainly those Western Bishops who made those Canons should have only recognized the Divine Right of the Pope's Supremacy and not made a Canon in such a manner as they do that would make any one be confident they never knew the Popes Supremacy For their decree runs thus That in case any Bishop thought himself unjustly condemned if it seem good to you let us honour the memory of Peter the Apostle that it be written by those who have judged the cause to Julius the Bishop of Rome and if it seem good let the judgement be renewed and let them appoint such as may take cognizance of it Were these men mad to make such a Canon as this if they believed the Popes Supremacy of Divine Institution What a dwindling expression is that for the Head of the Church to call him Bishop of Rome only when a matter concerning his Supremacy is decreeing And why to Julius Bishop of Rome I pray Had it not been better to S. Peter's successor whosoever he be so it would have been no doubt if they had intended a Divine or Vniversal Right And why for the honour of S. Peter 's memory Had it not been more becoming them to have said out of obedience to Christ's Commands which made him Head of the Church And all this come in with an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if it please you What if it please you Whether the Pope should be Vniversal Pastor or no If it please you Whether the Church should be built super hanc Petram or no If it please you Whether the Bishop of Rome succeeds S. Peter or no Are these the men that give such evidence for the Popes Supremacy You had better by far never mention them for if that was the Lesson they had to say never any Boyes at School said their Lesson worse than they do They wanted such as you among them to have penned their Canon for them and no doubt it had run in a better strain For as much as our Lord and Saviour did appoint S. Peter Head of the Church and the Bishop of Rome to succed him as Christ's Vicar upon earth these are to let you know that he hath an absolute power by Divine Right over all persons and causes and that men are bound to obey him upon pain of eternal damnation This had been something like if you could have found in some Canons of the Church but to produce a poor sneaking If it please you What do you else but betray the Majesty and Grandeur of your Church And yet after all this no such thing as absolute Appeals to Rome are decreed here neither but only that the Bishop of Rome should have power to review the case and in case it was thought necessary that other persons should be appointed to examine it But How much a Review differs from an Appeal and that nothing but a power to review cases is here given to the Bishop of Rome are fully manifested by Petrus de Marcâ to whom I again referr you So that we see from hence you have very comfortable evidence for the Pope's Supremacy 2. Suppose it had been decreed here you had not gained much by it Because notwithstanding this decree it was far from being acknowledged by the Vniversal Church Which I prove from hence That the Sardican Canons were not received by the Church Nothing can be more evident than that these Canons were not so much as known by the African Bishops when Pope Zosimus fraudulently sent them under the name of the Nicene Canons insomuch that Cusanus questions Whether ever any such thing were determined by the Sardican Synod or no And it appears by S. Austin that the Council of Sardica was of no great credit in Africa for when Fortunius the Donatist-Bishop would prove that the Sardican Synod had written to some of their party because one Donatus was mentioned in it S. Austin tells him It was a Synod of Arrians by which it seems very improbable that they had ever received the decrees of the Western but only of the Eastern part of it which adjourned to Philippopolis Neither was this ever acknowledged for an Oecumenical Council for although it was intended for such by the Emperours Constans and Constantius yet but 70. of the Eastern Bishops appeared to 300. of the Western and those Eastern Bishops soon withdrew from the other and decreed things directly contrary to the other So that Balsamon and Zonaras as well as the elder Greeks say The decrees of it can at most only bind the Western Churches and the arrogating of this power of reviewing causes decided by the Eastern Churches by Western Bishops was apparently the cause of the divisions between them the Eastern and Western Churches being after this divided by the Alpes Succiae between Illyricum and Thracia And although Hilary and Epiphanius expresly call this a Western Council yet it was a long time before the Canons of it were received in the Western Church Which is supposed to be the reason Why Zosimus would not mention the Sardican but called them the Nicene Canons which forgery was
within two years these strangely confounded The mistake made evident S. Cyril not President in the third General Council as the Popes Legat. No sufficient evidence of the Popes Presidency in following Councils The justness of the Exception against the place manifested and against the freedom of the Council from the Oath taken by the Bishops to the Pope The form of that Oath in the time of the Council of Trent Protestants not condemned by General Councils The Greeks and others unjustly excluded as Schismaticks The exception from the small number of Bishops cleared and vindicated A General Council in Antiquity not so called from the Popes General Summons In what sense a General Council represents the whole Church The vast difference between the proceedings in the Council of Nice and that at Trent The exception from the number of Italian Bishops justified How far the Greek Church and the Patriarch Hieremias may be said to condemn Protestants with an account of the proceedings between them HAving thus far considered the several grounds on which you lay the charge of Schism upon us and shewed at large the weakness and insufficiency of them we should now have proceeded to the last part of our task but that the great Palladium of the present Roman Church viz. the Council of Trent must be examined to see whether it be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or no whether it came from Heaven or was only the contrivance of some cunning Artificers And the famous Bishop of Bitonto in the Sermon made at the opening the Council of Trent hath given us some ground to conjecture its original by his comparing it so ominously to the Trojan-horse Although therefore that the pretences may be high and great that it was made Divina Palladis arte the Spirit of God being said to be present in it and concurring with it yet they who search further will find as much of Artifice in contriving and deceit in the managing the one as the other And although the Cardinal Palavicino uses all his art to bring this Similitude off without reflecting on the honour of the Council yet that Bishop who in that Sermon pleaded so much That the Spirit of God would open the mouths of the Council as he did once those of Balaam and Caiaphas was himself in this expression an illustrious Instance of the truth of what he said For he spake as true in this as if he had been High-Priest himself that year But as if you really believed your self the truth of that Bishops Doctrine That whatever spirit was within them yet being met in Council the Spirit of God would infallibly inspire them you set your self to a serious vindication of the proceedings of that Council and not only so but triumph in it as that which will bring the cause to a speedy Issue And therefore we must particularly enquire into all the pretences you bring to justifie the lawfulness and freedom of that Council but to keep to the Bishops Metaphor Accipe nunc Danaûm Insidias crimine ab uno Disce omnes And when we have thorowly searched this great Engine of your Church we shall have little reason to believe that ever it fell from Heaven His Lordship then having spoken of the usefulness of free General Councils for making some Laws which concern the whole Church His Adversary thinks presently to give him a Choak-pear by telling him That the Council of Trent was a General Council and that had already judged the Protestants to hold errours This you call Laying the Axe to the Root of the Tree that Tree you mean out of which the Popes Infallible Chair was cut for the management of this dispute about the Council of Trent will redound very little to the honour of your Church or Cause But you do well to add That his Lordship was not taken unprovided for he truly answered That the Council of Trent was neither a Legal nor a General Council Both these we undertake to make good in opposition to what you bring by way of answer to his Lordships Exceptions to them That which we begin with is That it was not a Legal Council which his Lordship proves First Because that Council maintained publickly that it is lawful for them to conclude any Controversie and make it to be de Fide and so in your judgement fundamental though it have not a written word for its warrant nay so much as a probable testimony from Scripture The force of his Lordships argument I suppose lyes in this that the Decrees of that Council cannot be such as should bind us to an assent to them because according to their own principles those Decrees may have no foundation in Scripture And that the only legal proceeding in General Councils is to decree according to the Scriptures Now to this you answer That the meaning of the Council or Catholick Authours is not that the Council may make whatever they please matter of Faith but only that which is expressed or involved in the Word of God written or unwritten and this you confess is defined by the Council of Trent in these terms that in matters of Faith we are to rely not only upon Scripture but also on Tradition which Doctrine you say is true and that you have already proved it And I may as well say It is false for I have already answered all your pretended proofs But it is one thing Whether the Doctrine be true or no and another Whether the Council did proceed legally in defining things upon this principle For upon your grounds you are bound to believe it true because the Council hath defined it to be so But if you will undertake to justifie the proceedings of the Council as legal you must make it appear that this was the Rule which General Councils have alwaies acted by in defining any thing to be matter of Faith But if this appear to be false and that you cannot instance in any true General Council which did look on this as a sufficient ground to proceed upon then though the thing may since that Decree be believed as true yet that Council did not proceed legally in defining upon such grounds Name us therefore What Council did ever offer to determine a matter of Faith meerly upon Tradition In the four first General Councils it is well known What authority was given to the Scripture in their definitions and I hope you will not say That any thing they defined had no other ground but Tradition But suppose you could prove this it is not enough for your purpose unless you can make it appear that those Fathers in making such Decrees did acknowledge they had no ground in Scripture for them For if you should prove that really there was no foundation but Tradition yet all that you can inferr thence is That those Fathers were deceived in judging they had other grounds when they had not But still if they made Scripture their Rule and
all his Councils there are these express words Jura honores privilegia authoritatem Romanae Ecclesiae Domini nostri Papae successorum praedictorum conservare defendere augere promovere curabo I will take care to preserve defend increase and promote the rights honours priviledges and authority of the Roman Church and of our Lord the Pope and his Successours aforesaid but lest this should not be full enough there follows another clause Nec ero in Concilio in facto seu tractatu in quibus contra Dominum nostrum vel Romanam Ecclesiam aliqua sinistra sive praejudicialia personarum juris honoris statûs potestatis eorum machinentur Et si talia à quibusdam tractari cognovero aut procurari impediam hoc pro posse quantocyus potero commodè significabo eidem Domino nostro vel alteri per quem ad ipsius notitiam possit pervenire I will not be in any Council action or debate in which they shall plot or contrive any thing to the prejudice of our Lord the Pope or the Roman Church or of any persons right honour state or power belonging to them Was not this now a fit Oath to send Bishops to a free Council with where the main thing to have been debated had been the usurped power of the Pope and Church of Rome He that can believe a Council made up of such persons who judge this Oath lawful to be Free may think those men free to rebell against their Soveraign who had but just taken an Oath of Allegiance to him Not that the Pope had any right or power to impose it or that the Oath is in it self lawful but that those who judged both these things true could not possibly be more obliged not to act in any measure against the Pope then they were And therefore the Pope knew what he did when he utterly denied to absolve the Bishops of this Oath which the States of the Empire pressed him to as necessary in order to the Freedom of the Council No said he I do not mean to have my hands bound up so He knew well enough how much his Interest lay at stake if the Bishops were released of this Oath and therefore he was resolved to hold them fast enough to himself by it What restrictions or limitations can you now find out in this Oath whereby these Bishops might freely debate the power and authority of the Bishop of Rome They that swear not to be in any Council or debate against the Pope are not like to make any Free Council about the matters then in dispute And Do you think now the Protestants had no cause to except against this Council where all the Bishops were swore before-hand to maintain and defend that which they most complained of And Were there nothing else but this Oath so unheard of a thing in all ancient Councils so contrary to the ends of a Free Council this were enough to keep them from ever submitting to the judgement of such a Council as that of Trent was And yet this is not all neither for his Lordship adds That the Pope himself to shew his charity had declared and pronounced the appellants Hereticks before they were condemned by the Council I hope saith he an Assembly of enemies are no lawful Council and I think that the Decrees of such a one are omni jure nulla and carry their nullity with them through all Law All the Answer you give to this is That the Pope did nothing therein but in pursuance of the Canons of the Church which required him so to do and of the Decrees of General Councils which had already condemned their Opinions for Heresie You mend the matter well for it seems the Pope not only did so but was bound to do so For shame then never talk of a Free and General Council to debate those things which you say were already condemned for Heresies by General Councils One may now see What the Safe-conduct had been for the Protestants if they had come to Trent for it seems they were condemned for Hereticks before they came there and nothing then was wanting but execution But if the Protestants Opinions were condemned for Heresies before by General Councils Why was the Council of Trent at all summoned Why was the world so deceived with the promises of a Free and General Council Why did they proceed to make new Decrees in these matters In what ancient General Councils will you shew us the Popes Supremacy the Infallibility of the Church of Rome decreed that those who held the contrary should be accounted Hereticks Speak them out that we may find our selves therein condemned Give us a Catalogue of the rest of your Tridentine Articles and name us the General Councils in which they were decreed as they are there But this is not a work for you to meddle in However What folly and madness would it be to account that a Free Council in which the things to be debated are looked on as condemned Heresies already and no liberty allowed to any persons to debate them The last Exception you say of his Lordship is against the small number of Bishops present at the Tridentine Council and in the first place he mentions the Greeks whom he takes say you to have been unjustly excluded To this you say 1. The Pope called all who had right to come you should say all whom he would judge to have right to come 2. The Greeks by reason of their notorious Schism had excluded themselves And Might not the Greeks if they were in condition every whit as well hold a General Council among themselves and say The Latins had excluded themselves by their notorious Schism You say It is confessed that no known Heretick or Schismatick hath right to sit in Council but still you make your own selves Judges Who are Orthodox and who Hereticks and Schismaticks and Might not the Greeks again say the very same of you and for all that I know with much more truth and reason It was then very like to be a Genegeneral Council when the Pope and his party must sit as Judges Who were to be admitted and who not Might not the Donatists in Africa have call'd their Council of seventy Bishops an Oecumenical Council upon the same grounds because they accounted none to belong to the Church but such as were of their own party And if they did not belong to the Church they could have no right to sit in Council It seems the more uncharitable you are the freer your Councils are For the Pope may by pronouncing men Hereticks and Schismaticks keep them from coming to Councils and appearing against him there and the Council be never the less General for all that If the Greeks be not called to the Council they may thank themselves they are notorious Schismaticks and if we believe you Hereticks too If the Protestants be not admitted it is their own fault they are condemned
yet the best your cause would bear And the greater you say the number of Bishopricks is in Italy the more friends I hope the Pope must make by disposing them and Could they do the Pope better service than to help him in this grand business at Trent wherein they sought to outvy each other by promoting the Popes Interest But not only the Protestants complained of this but the Emperour and other Princes and all impartial men in Germany France nay and in some part of Italy too But here his Lordship encounters an Objection of Bellarmine viz. that in the Council of Nice there were as few Bishops of the West present as were of the East at Trent and manifestly shews the great disparity between the the two Councils 1. Because it is not a meer disparity in number which he insists on but with it the Popes carriage to be sure of a major part but neither the Greek Church in general nor any Patriarch of the East had any private interest to look to in the Council at Nice 2. It was not so much a disparity between the Eastern and Western Bishops but that there were so many more Italians and Bishops obnoxious to the Popes Power than of all Germany France Spain and of all other parts of the West besides 3. Even in the comparison of those two Councils as to Eastern and Western Bishops there is this remarkable difference that Pope Sylvester with 275. Bishops confirmed the Council at Nice but the Council at Trent was never confirmed by any Council of Eastern Bishops To the two first of these you Answer with your best property silence Only you would fain perswade some silly people if there be any so weak in the world that enquire into such things That the Pope had no private interest at Trent but what was common to him with other Bishops You should have done well to have commended the excellency of an implicite Faith before you had uttered a thing so contrary to the sense of the whole Christian World To the third you confess It is some disparity but nothing to the purpose because if the Pope himself had ratified them the Council would have had as much Authority as by that accessory Assembly The more to blame was the Pope a great deal for putting so many Bishops to so needless a trouble But you say further This Council was not held just at the same time But Binius tells you it was held assoon as might be after the notice of what was done at Nice shew us the like of the Eastern Bishops at any time and we will not quarrel with you because it was not at the same time Though these Answers may pass for want of better they come not near your last which is a prodigious one the sense of it being That the Doctrine of Faith defined by the Council of Trent was more universally received in the Church then that of the Council of Nice For that of Trent you say was universally received by the whole Catholick Church and hath been more constantly held ever since whereas many Provinces either in whole or in part deserted the Faith defined at Nice and embraced the Arrian Heresie It seems then the twelve good Articles of Trent have been more generally received by the Catholick Church then the eternal existence of the Son of God and consequently that you are more bound to believe the Doctrine of Purgatory or Transubstantiation then that the Son is of the same substance with the Father For your grounds of Faith being resolved into the Churches Infallibility you cannot believe that which hath been so much questioned in the Church so firmly as that which hath been universally believed and constantly held But the universal reception of the Doctrine of the Council of Trent by the whole Catholick Church is so intolerable a falshood that you would scarce have vented it unless it were your design to write for the Whetstone To C's objection That neither French nor Spanish nor Schismatical Greeks did agree with the Protestants in those points which were defined by the Council his Lordship Answers That there can be no certainty who did agree and who not or who might have agreed before the Council ended because they were not admitted to a fair and free dispute And it may be too some Decrees would have been more favourable to them had not the care of the Popes Interest made them sowrer Here you complain of his Lordships falling again to his Surmizes of the Bishops being over-awed by the Popes Authority in the Council which you call an empty and injurious suspicion an unworthy accusation and arguing the want of Christian charity But usually when you storm the most you are the most guilty For if you call this an empty suspicion c. you charge many more with it besides his Lordship and those the greatest of your own Communion what meant else the frequent Protestations of the French and Spanish Ambassadours in which they often declared that as things were managed the Council was not Free What meant those words of the Emperour Ferdinand in his Letters to the Legats and the Pope That the Liberty of the Council was impeached chiefly by three causes one because every thing was first consulted of at Rome another because the Legats had assumed to themselves only the liberty of proposing which ought to be common to all the third because of the practises which some Prelats interested in the Greatness of the Court of Rome did make The French Ambassadour Monsieur de Lansac writ to the King his Master That the Pope was so much Master of this Council that his Pensioners whatsoever the Emperours or we do remonstrate to them will do but what they list Several of the like nature might easily be produced so that it is not his Lordship only is guilty of this want of charity as you call it but all impartial persons who were most acquainted with the Affairs of that Council Whose judgement is certainly much more to be taken then such who have sworn to defend it But you have an excellent Argument to prove the Council Free because the Bishops of the Council continued in the Faith and Doctrine of it as long as they lived And had they not good reason so to do when they were sworn before hand to defend the Pope and having secured him from danger of reformation by the Council and subscribed the Decrees of it they were as much bound to defend their own acts And although it is well enough known what practises were used to bring off the French and Spanish Bishops yet when they were brought off what a shame would it have been for them to have revolted from their own Subscriptions But what is this to that General freedom which was desired by the Roman Catholick Princes for Reformation of the Court of Rome and by Protestants both of the Court and Church Was the Council any thing
That Saints are not only to be invocated because of their prayers to God but because God bestows many blessings on us eorum merito gratiâ by their merits and favour and after adds Rogaâ—i peccatorum veniam impetrabunt conciliabunt nobis Dei gratiam Being asked they will obtain the pardon of sin and procure for us the savour of God And What can be more said concerning Christ himself Although therefore you say never so much That your prayers are made to the Saints through the merits of Christ and that you conclude all your prayers per Christum Dominum nostrum yet all this cannot clear you from offering the greatest dishonour to the merits and intercession of Christ since it is plain you rely on the Saints merits in order to the obtaining the Blessings you pray for But say you If the Saints being rewarded in Heaven for their merits be not injurious to the fulness of Christâ— merits Why should their being heard by virtue of those merits when they pray to God for us through Christ or our desire that they may be heard for them be thought injurious to Christs merits To which I answer Those merits which you suppose in Saints when they are rewarded in Heaven have either an equal proportion with the reward they receive or not If not then they cease to be merits and the giving the reward though an act of Justice the Promise supposed yet in it self is wholly an act of Grace and Favour if they have then the full recompence is received by that reward and nothing further can be obtained for others on their account But in the sense it is to be suspected you take merits in we as well assert that the proportioning the reward in Heaven to the merits of Saints is injurious to the fulness of Christs merits as their obtaining mercies for others by reason of them Only this latter adds to the dishonour in that there is not only supposed a proportion between Heaven and them but as though that were not enough a further efficacy is attributed to them for obtaining mercies for others too His Lordship therefore does not go about to pervert the sense of the prayers used in your Missal but the plain words and sense of them evidently shew how contrary they are to Christian Doctrine and Piety Bellarmin's saying that the Saints may in some sense be called our Redeemers cannot be vindicated by that saying of S. Paul That he became all things to all men that he might save some because salvation respects the effect of Christs death the promotion of which may in some sense be attributed to the Instruments of it such as S. Paul was here on Earth but Redemption respects the merits by which that effect was obtained and so belongs wholly to Christ and cannot be attributed to any Saints either in Earth or Heaven When you can prove that any subordinate Instruments of Gods Power are called Numina you may then excuse Bellarmin for calling the Saints so but that is so incongruous a sense of the word that it needs no confutation We are now come to the last Errour which his Lordship here charges your pretended General Councils with which is concerning Adoration of Images Of which his Lordship sayes That the Ancient Church knew it not And the Modern Church of Rome is too like to Paganism in the practice of it and driven to scarce intelligible subtilties in her servants writings that defend it And this without any care had of millions of souls unable to understand her subtilties or shun her practice Here you say The Bishop is very bitter but no more than the nature of the thing required All the Answer you return to this lyes in these things 1. That the Church of Rome teaches nothing concerning the Worship of Images but what the second Council of Nice did nine hundred years ago which is that they must be had in Veneration and due Reverence but not have Divine Worship given to them 2. That Images were in common Vse and Veneration too amongst Christians in the Ancient Church 3. That what abuses are crept in are not to be imputed to the Church but to particular persons This is the substance of what you say to the end of the Chapter as to which a brief Answer will suffice because I design not a full handling the Question of the worship of Images If that which you say in the first place be true it doth the more prove that which his Lordship intends viz. that not one barely but two of those you own to be General Councils have erred in this particular If either those Councils or you had intended to have dealt fairly and honestly with the world they and you should have declared what that Veneration and Reverence is which is due to Images What difference you put between that and the Worship due to God and Whether the same pretences and excuses would not as well have justified the Pagan Idolatries For this was it which his Lordship charged you with that you came too near Paganism in your practice But as to this you answer nothing but that if you do so did the Council of Nice too But Is that a sufficient excuse for you It is well enough known What kind of Council that was How much it was opposed by the Synod of Frankford How many persons both in the Eastern and Western Churches declared themselves against the Doctrine of it But What a pitiful plea is it for you to say That the Council of Trent had silenced all calumnies by saying That you attribute no Divinity to the Images but only worship them with such honour and reverence as is due to them Would not any considerate Heathens have said as much as this is But the Question is Whether that Veneration of them which is used by you towards Images be due to them or no This you should have undertaken and set the distinct limits between the worship due to God and that which is given to these You should have proved that this is no prohibited way of worship for if it be it can in no sense be due to them For since God may determine the modes of his own worship what he hath forbidden in his service becomes unlawful and so long as that command continues in force all acts of worship contrary to it are a positive kind of Idolatry For as there is a kind of Natural Idolatry lying in the worship of false Gods instead of the true so there is that which may be called Positive Idolatry which is a worshipping God in a way or manner which he hath forbidden From whence the Israelites in the Golden Calf and the Ten Tribes in the worship of the Calves at Dan and Bethel are charged with Idolatry although they acknowledged the true God and designed that for a Relative worship to him If it were so then you should have shewed us How it comes to be otherwise
have had Antiquity Vniversality and Consent which had not so such as the business of not rebaptizing Hereticks and the observation of Easter which you instance in And withall we add though nothing is to be admitted for matter of Faith which wants those three marks yet some things may have all three of them and yet be no matters of Faith at all and therefore not at all pertinent to this question Such as those things are which you insist on as deposita dogmata which doubtless is a rare way of probation viz. to shew that by dogmata deposita Vincentius means some articles of Faith which are not Fundamental in the matter of them and for that make choice of such instances which are no matters of faith at all but either ritual traditions or matters of order such as the form and matter of Sacraments the Hierarchy of the Church Paedobaptism not rebaptizing Hereticks the perpetual virginity of the Virgin Mary For that of the Canon of Scripture it will be elsewhere considered as likewise those other Church-traditions How the Church should still keep hoc idem quod antea as you confess she ought and yet make some things necessary to be believed by all which before her declaration were not so is somewhat hard to conceive and yet both these you assert together Is that which is necessary to be believed by all the same with that which was not necessary to be so believed if the same measure of Faith will not serve after which would have done before is there not an alteration made Yes you grant as to our believing but not as to the thing for that is the same it was But do you in the mean time consider what kind of thing that is which you speak of which is a thing propounded to be believed and considered in no other respect but as it is revealed by God in order to our believing it now when the same thing which was required only to be believed implicitely i. e. not at all necessarily is now propounded to be believed expresly and necessarily the Fundamental nature of it as an object of Faith is altered For that which you call implicite Faith doth really imply as to all those things to be believed implicitely that there is an indifferency whether they be believed or no nothing being necessary to be believed but what is propounded to be expresly believed Which being so Can it be imagined there should be a greater alteration in a matter of Faith then from its being indifferent whether it were believed or no to become necessary to be expresly believed by all in order to Salvation And where there is such an alteration as this in the thing to be believed who can without the help of a very commodious implicite Faith believe that still this is hoc idem quod antea the very same as a matter of Faith which it was before Though the Church were careful to preserve every Iota and tittle of Sacred Doctrines yet I hope it follows not that every Iota and tittle is of as much consequence and as necessary to be believed as the main substance of Christian Doctrine Although when any Doctrine was violently opposed in the Church she might declare her owning it by some overt act yet thence it doth not follow that the internal assent to every thing so declared is as necessary as to that proposition that Jesus is the Son of God the belief of which the Scripture tells us was the main design of the writing of Scripture That General Councils rightly proceeding may be great helps to the Faith of Christians I know none that deny but that by vertue of their definitions any thing becomes necessary to be believed which was not so before remains yet to be proved You much wonder his Lordship should father that saying on Vincentius That If new Doctrines be added to the old the Church which is Sacrarium veritatis the repository of verity may be changed in Lupanar errorum which his Lordship saith he is loth to English for you tell us That Vincentius is so far from entertaining the least thought of it that he presently adds Deus avertat God forbid it should be so A stout Inference Just as if one should say The Church of Rome may be in time overspread with the Mahumetan Religion but God forbid it should be so Were he not an excellent Disputer who should hence inferr it impossible ever to be so What you add out of Vincentius only proves that he did not believe it was so in his time but doth not in the least prove that he believed it impossible that ever it should be so afterwards but notwithstanding all that you say it is evident enough that Vincentius believed it a very supposable Case by that question he puts elsewhere What if any new contagion doth not only endeavour to defile a part only but the whole Church in which he saith we are to adhere to antiquity If you answer he speaks only of an endeavour it is soon replyed That he speaks of such an endeavour as puts men to dispute a question what they are to do in such a Case and he resolves at that time they are not to adhere to the judgement of the present Church but to that of Antiquity which is all we desire in that Case viz. That the present Church may so far add to matters of Faith that we can in no reason be obliged to rely only upon her judgement Wherein we are to consider the Question is not of that you call the diffusive but the representative Church all which may be overspread and yet but a part of the other but yet if that Church whose judgement you say only is to be relyed on may be so infected it is all one as to those who are to be guided by her judgement whether the other be or no. For here eadem est ratio non entis non apparentis because it is not the reality but the manifestation which is the ground of mens relying on the Churches judgement So that if as to all outward appearance and all judicial acts of the Church she may recede from the ancient Faith and add novitia veteribus whether all particular persons in it do so or no all ground of relying on the judgement of that Church is thereby taken away Whether it be the Church her self or Hereticks in the Church which make these additions is very little material if these Hereticks who add these new articles of Faith may carry themselves so cunningly as to get to themselves the reputation of the Catholick Church and so that which ought to have been Sacrarium veritatis may become impiorum turpium errorum Lupanar which your Church is concerned not to have Englished but by the help of Rider and other good Authours of yours it is no hard matter to come to understand it And thus we see how much you have abused his Lordship
Ignoramus and Impostor if he doth not make your Church infallible I have told you often before how much your Doctrine of Infallibility tends to Atheism and now you speak out For the meaning of your words plainly is If God hath not entrusted your Church with a full and absolute power to declare what is his will and what not Christ was an Ignoramus and Impostor For that is the substance of your next words For had he not framed think you a strange and Chimerical Common-wealth were it alone destitute of a full and absolute power to give an authentical and unquestionable declaration which is the true and genuine Law Now it is evident from all your discourse foregoing you only plead for this full and absolute power in your Church and judge you then what the consequence is to all those who cannot see any shadow of reason for this your pretended Infallibility neither more nor less than that Christ is liable to be accounted by all the world an Ignoramus and Impostor Nay that they are fools who account him not so if they do not believe this present Infallibility of your Church for it is apparent say you that he hath ordered his Common-wealth worse than ever any one did And now let any that consider what pitiful silly proofs you have produced for this present Infallibility nay such that I am confident that you cannot think your self you have in the least measure proved it then judge what thoughts of Christ you are forced to entertain your self upon your own Argument viz. as of an Ignoramus and Impostor Hath not your Infallibility lead you now a fine dance Is not this the way to make Faith certain and to reclaim Atheists I had thought it had been enough for your Canonists to have charged Christ with indiscretion if he had not left a Vicar on earth but now it seems the profound Philosophers learned Divines and expert Historians for such a one you told us your discoursing Christian was supposed by you to be in whose name these words are spoken do charge Christ with folly and imposture if he hath not made your Church infallible For shift it off as you can you cannot deny but that must be the aim of these words for you are proving the necessity of an infallible Declaration by the present Church in order to a sufficient Proposition of the Scripture to be believed and it is notorious you never pretend that any Church hath any share in this Infallibility but your own And therefore the consequence unavoidably follows that since there can be no sufficient Proposition that the Scripture is to be believed without this infallible Testimony since no Church pretends to this Infallibility but yours since without such provision for the Church Christ would have been esteemed by all the world not a wise Law-giver but a meer Ignoramus and Impostor What then follows but that if your Church be not infallible He must be accounted so And if you dread not these consequences I hope all Christians do and have never the better thoughts of your Infallibility for them 6. Let us see how he comes closer to the matter it self and examines how this Light should be Infallible and Divine supposing the Churches Testimony to be humane and fallible The substance of which is this If the Church may erre we may suppose she hath erred in testifying some Books to be God's Word in that case Books that were not God's Word would be equally recommended with those that were And that it would be impossible for any particular person by reading them to distinguish the one from the other To which I answer 1. It is all one with you to suppose a Church fallible and suppose that she hath erred To put a case of a like nature The Testimony of all mankind is fallible May you therefore suppose that all mankind hath erred in something they are agreed in The Testimony of all those persons who have seen Rome is fallible May I therefore question whether they were not all deceived But of this afterwards 2. When you speak of the Church erring Do you mean the Church in every Age since Christ's Coming concerning all the Books of Scripture or the present Church concerning only some Books of Scripture If you suppose the Church of all Ages should be deceived you must suppose some who were infallible should be deceived those were the Apostles in writing and delivering their Books to the Churches of their time or else you must suppose all the Apostolical Churches deceived in taking those Books to have come from the Apostles which did not And is not this a congruous Supposition Well then if it be unreasonable to suppose the Apostolical Churches deceived and impossible to imagine the Apostles deceived in saying They writ what they did not Where then must such an universal-errour as this come in Or Is it not equally unreasonable to suppose all the Christian Churches in the world should be deceived without any questioning of such a deceit supposing but the goodness and common providence of God in preserving such records and the moral industry used by Christians in a matter of such importance It is therefore a very absurd and unreasonable thing to imagine That all the Churches of Christ in all Ages should erre in receiving all the Books of Scripture Let us then see as to the present Churches erring as to particular Books 1. Either the Records of former Ages are left to judge by or no If they be as certainly they are we thereby see a way to correct the errour of the present Church by appealing to these records of the Church in former times if they be not left how could any of these Books be derived from Apostolical Tradition when we have no means to trace such a Tradition by 2. Supposing only some Books questioned or that the present Church erres only in some particular Books then it appears that there remains a far greater number of such Books whose Authority we have no reason at all to question and by comparing the other with these we may easily prevent any very dangerous errour for if they contain any Doctrine contrary to the former we have no reason to believe them if they do not there can be no very dangerous errour in admitting them Thus you see how easily this errour is prevented supposing the Churches testimony not only fallible but that it also should actually erre in delivering some Books for Canonical which are not so but supposing a Church pretends to be Infallible and is believed to be so and yet doth actually erre in delivering the Canon of Scripture what remedy is there then for while we look on the Churches testimony as fallible there is scope and liberty left for enquiry and further satisfaction but if it be looked on as Infallible all that believe it to be so are left under an impossibility of escaping that errour which she is guilty of And the more dangerous such
an errour is the worse the condition is of all such who believe the Churches Testimony Infallible Now this is that we justly charge your Church with that while she pretends to Infallibility she hath actually erred in delivering such Books for Canonical which are not so as hath been abundantly manifested by the worthies of our Church The remainder of this discourse of yours concerning knowing Canonical Books by the light in them is vacated by our present answer and so is the other concerning Apostolical traditions by our former upon that subject As to that Scruple How the light should be Infallible and Divine when the Churches Testimony is humane and fallible it signifies nothing unless the light be only supposed to rise from the Testimony which his Lordship denies 7. The judgement of the Fathers is inquired into concerning the present subject out of whom only Irenaeus and St. Augustin are produced as affirming in many places That the Tradition of the Church is sufficient to found Christian Faith even without Scripture and that for some hundreds of years after the Canon of Scripture was written But must we stand only to the judgement of these two concerning the sense of the Primitive Church in this present Controversie We may easily know the judgement of the Fathers if two such lame Citations as these are are sufficient to discover it But your unhappiness is great in whatever you undertake If you meddle with reason you soon find how little it becomes you if you fly to the Fathers they prove the greatest witnesses against you as will appear in this debate if we first examine the citations you produce and then shew how fully and clearly these very persons whom you have picked out of all the Chorus do deliver themselves against you The first citation is that known one out of Irenaeus concerning those barbarous nations who believed without the Scriptures adhering to the Tradition of the Apostles having salvation written without Paper and Ink. But what it is you would hence inferr I cannot imagine unless it be one of these two things 1. That if we had no Scriptures left us it would be necessary for us to believe on the account of Apostolical Tradition that is that the grounds of our Faith were so clear and evident of themselves that though they had never been written yet if they had been conveyed by an unquestionable Tradition from the Apostles there had lain an obligation on us to believe the Doctrine of Christ. But is this our case hath not God infinitely better provided for us when as your other witness St. Augustine speaks Whatever our Saviour would have us read of his actions or speeches he commanded his Apostles and Disciples as his hands to write Christian Religion is now no Cabala to us God hath consigned his will over to us by Codicills of his own appointing and must we then be now in the like case as if his Will had never been written at all 2. But what if the barbarous Nations did believe without the Books of Scripture what doth that prove but only this that there may be sufficient reason to believe in Christ where the Scriptures are not known Is that contrary to us who say The last resolution of Faith is into the Doctrine of Christ as attested by God now if that attestation be sufficiently conveyed there is an obligation to believe but withall we say that to us who enjoy the Scriptures as delivered down to us the only certain and infallible conveyance of Gods Word to us is by them So that the whole Christian world is obliged to you for your civil comparison of them with those Barbarians who either enjoyed not the Scriptures or in probability were not able to make use of them as being probably ignorant of the use of letters 3. Doth Irenaeus in these words say that even these Barbarians did believe upon the Infallible Testimony of the present Church No he mentions no such thing but that they believed that Tradition of Doctrine which was delivered them from the Apostles I ask you then Suppose at that time some honest but fallible persons should have gone into Scythia or some such barbarous places and delivered the Doctrine of the Gospel and attesting the matters of fact as being eye-witnesses of Christs Miracles Death and Resurrection whether would these Barbarians have been bound to believe or no If not then for all I know Infidelity is a very excusable sin If they were I pray tell me what it was their Faith was resolved into was it an infallible testimony of fallible men And the same case is of such who should preach the same Doctrine from these eye-witnesses in another Generation and so on for although there might be no reason to question their testimony yet I suppose you will not say It is Infallible so that still this makes nothing for your purpose 4. Who better understood Irenaeus his mind than himself let us therefore see what he elsewhere tells us is the foundation and pillar of our Faith who have received the Scriptures Doth not he tell us but three Chapters before this That we have received the method or Doctrine of our Salvation from those persons who preached it which by Gods command they after delivered in the Scriptures which were to be the foundation and pillaâ— of our Faith Could any thing be more fully spoken to our purpose than this is Whereby he shews us now the Scriptures are consigned unto us what that is which our Faith must stand upon not the Infallibility of the Church but that Word of God which is delivered to us This therefore he elsewhere calls the Vnmoveable Canon of our Faith as S. Augustine calls it Divinam stateram the Divine ballance we must weigh the grounds of our Belief in By which we may guess what little relief you are like to have from your second witness St. Augustin Two citations you produce out of him and I question not but to make it appear that neither of those Testimonies do make for you and those very Books afford us sufficient against you The first is out of his Books of Christian Doctrine which lest we should think not pertinent you care not to produce it but we must A man who strengthens himself with Faith Hope and Charity and retains them unshaken needs not the Scriptures but only to instruct others for by these three many live without Books in a desert His meaning is that he who hath a principle of Divine life within him which discovers it self in the exercise of those three Graces needs not so much the external precepts because that inward principle will carry him to actions suitable to it only for convincing or instructing others these Books are continually useful but for themselves those good men who first through the fury of their persecution were driven and after others who in imitation of that piety they shewed there did withdraw into remote
part of the world should be so grosly deceived in a matter of such moment especially supposing a Divine Providence then I freely and heartily assert We have such a kind of rational Infallibility or rather the highest degree of actual Certainty concerning the Truth of the Canon of Scripture and that the Catholick Church hath not de facto erred in defining it Thus I have followed your discoursing Christian through all his doubts and perplexities and upon the result can find no ground at all either of doubting concerning the Scripture or of believing the Testimony of your Church or any to be an infallible ground of Faith Your next passage is to tell us how his Lordships Dedalian windings as you finely call them are disintricated A happy man you are at squaring Circles and getting out of Labyrinths And thus it appears in the present case For when his Lordship had said That the Tradition of the Church is too weak because that is not absolutely Divine you repeat over your already exploded Proposition that there may be an infallible Testimony which is not absolutely Divine which when I have your faculty of writing things which neither you nor any one else can understand I may admit of but till then I must humbly beg your pardon as not being able to assent to any thing which I cannot understand and have no reason to believe And withall contrary to your second Answer it appears That if the Testimony of the Primitive were absolutely Divine because infallible the Testimony of the present Church must be absolutely Divine if it be infallible The rest of this Chapter is spent in the examining some by-citations of men of your own side chiefly and therefore it is very little material as to the truth or falshood of the present Controversie yet because you seem to triumph so much assoon as you are off the main business I shall briefly return an Answer to the substance of what you say His Lordship having asserted the Tradition of the Primitive Apostolical Church to be Divine and that the Church of England doth embrace that as much as any Church whatsoever withall adds That when S. Augustine said I would not believe the Gospel unless the Authority of the Catholick Church moved me some of your own will not endure should be understood save of the Church in the time of the Apostles only and some of the Church in general not excluding after Ages but sure to include Christ and his Apostles In your Answer to this you insult strangely over his Lordship in two things First That he should say Some and mention but one in his Margent 2. That that One doth not say what he cites out of him To the first I answer you might easily observe the use his Lordship makes of his Margent is not so much to bring clear and distinct proofs of what he writes in his Book but what hath some reference to what he there saies and therefore it was no absurdity for him to say in his Book indefinitely some and yet in his Margent only to mention Occham For when his Lordship writ that no doubt his mind was upon others who asserted the same thing though he did not load his Margent with them And that you may see I have reason for what I say I hope you will not suppose his Lordship unacquainted with the Testimonies of those of your side who do in terms assert this That I may therefore free you from all kind of suspicion What think you of Gerson when speaking of the greater Authority of the Primitive Church than of the present he adds And by this means we come to understand what S. Augustine said I would not believe the Gospel c. For there saith he he takes the Church for the Primitive Congregation of Believers who saw and heard Christ and were witnesses of what he did Is not this Testimony plain enough for you But besides this we have another as evident in whom are those very words which his Lordship by a lapse of memory attributes to Occham For Durandus plainly sayes That for what concerns the approbation of Scripture by the Church it is understood only of the Church which was in the Apostles times who were filled with the Holy Spirit and withall saw the Miracles of Christ and heard his Doctrine and on that account were convenient witnesses of all which Christ did or taught that by their Testimony the Scripture containing the actions and speeches of Christ might receive approbation Do you yet desire a Testimony more express and full than this is of one who doth understand the Church exclusively of all successive to the Apostles when he had just before produced that known Testimony of S. Augustine You see then the Bishop had some reason to say Some of your Church asserted this to be S. Augustine 's meaning and therefore your Instances of some where but one is meant are both impertinent and scurrilous For where it is evidently known there was but one it were a Soloecism to say some as to say that some of the Apostles betrayed Christ when it is known that none but Judas did it But if I should say that some Jesuits had writ for the killing of Kings and in the Margent should cite Mariana no person conversant in their writings would think it a Soloecism for though I produce him for a remarkable Instance yet that doth not imply that I have none else to produce but only that the mentioning of one might shew I was not without proof of what I said For your impudent oblique slander on the memory of that excellent Prelate Arch-Bishop Cranmer when you say If a Catholick to disgrace the Protestant Primacy of Canterbury should say Some of them carried a holy Sister lockt up in a Chest about with them and name Cranmer only in the Margent His memory is infinitely above your slyest detractions and withall when you are about such a piece of Criticism I pray tell me what doth some of them relate to Is Primacy the name of some men Just as if one should disgrace the See of Rome and say Some of them have been Atheists Magicians debauched c. Though I confess it were a great injury in this case to cite but one in the Margent unless in pity to the Reader yet you may sooner vindicate some of them from a Soloecism in Language when the See of Rome went before than any of them from those Soloecisms in manners which your own Authours have complained of But say you What if this singular-plural say no such thing as the words alledged by the Bishop signifie I have already granted it to have been a very venial mistake of memory in his Lordship of Occham for Durandus in whom those very words are which are in the Margent of his Lordships Book as appears in the Testimony already produced I acknowledge therefore that Occham in that place of his Dialogues doth speak
of the Catholick Church of all Ages comprehending the Apostles and Evangelists in it and in this sense he saith that place of S. Augustine is to be understood But what advantage this is to your cause I cannot imagine For what if the Catholick Church be taken in that comprehensive sense to include not only the Apostles but the Church successively from their times Doth it hence follow That it is not day though the Sun shines Or rather Doth it not follow That you are not so quick-sighted as you would seem to be And Whether his Lordship or you come nearer the meaning of Occham's words let any one judge For they who speak of the Church in that comprehensive sense do only suppose the Infallibility to have been in the Primitive Apostolical Church but the successive Church to be only the chanel of conveyance of that Testimony down to us and so they say no more than we do Thus Driedo expounds that place of S. Augustine who understands it of the Catholick Church which was from the beginning of the Christian Faith increasing according to the course of succession of Bishops to these times which Church comprehends in it the Colledge of Apostles Do you think that these men did believe a present Infallibility in the Church If so To what end are they so careful to carry it so high as the Apostles Whereas on your Principle we can have no Assurance concerning any thing that the Apostles did or said but only for the Infallibility of the present Church You must therefore understand the present Church exclusively of the Apostolical Church and therefore if S. Augustine be understood in their sense he is far enough from serving your purposes But say you It is evident that S. Augustine must speak of the Church in his time because he speaks of that Church which said to him Noli credere Manichaeo which was not true of the Apostolical Church But Why might not the Apostolical Church be a reason to S. Augustine not to believe Manichaeus because he found no footsteps of his Doctrine in the Records of that Church Again suppose he means the present Church Doth he mean the infallible Testimony of the present Church Might not the Testimony of the Church supposing it fallible be sufficient for what S. Augustine saith of it I doubt it not And you seem to have no great confidence in this Testimony your self when you add That though it be a point of Faith to believe that the Church is infallible in delivering Scripture to us yet it is not a point of Faith that her Infallibility is proved out of the cited place of S. Augustine But when you say it is sufficient that it be clear and manifest out of the Text it self what Text do you mean S. Augustines or the Scriptures If S. Augustines you would do well to shew by what engines you force Infallibility out of his words if the Scriptures What becomes of our good Motives of Credibility When his Lordship objects That according to your Principles the Tradition of the present Church must be as infallible as that of the Primitive you very learnedly distinguish That if he means the one must be as truly and really infallible quoad substantiam as the other you grant it But if he mean the one must be as highly and perfectly infallible as the other quoad modum you deny it Very good still It seems there are higher and lower degrees in Infallibility I pray tell us What that is which is more than infallible The present Church you say is infallible but not so highly and perfectly infallible therefore there must be degrees in Infallibility and since the lowest degree is infallible that which is highly infallible must be more than infallible Again What difference is there between the substance and the mode in Infallibility I had thought the substance of Infallibility had layn in the mode and I should rather think Infallibility it self to be a mode of Apprehension then talk of substances and modes in it But it may be you mean such kind of modes of Infallibility as absolute and hypothetical If you do so explain your self by them and that we may better understand your meaning shew us whether the Church be at all capable of absolute Infallibility if not What difference there is in degrees between the hypothetical Infallibility of the present and Primitive Church supposing both infallible in delivering their Testimony and no otherwise For you yet again add Of the Churches Testimony being infallible but not simply Divine but it is the infallible Testimony of a desperate cause to have but one bad shift and to use it so often Because you would be apt to say That upon his Lordships rejecting the Infallibility of Tradition he left no use at all of it He therefore tells you Notwithstanding that it is serviceable for very good ends that it induces Infidels to the reading and consideration of Scripture and that it instructs novices and doubters in the Faith which two ends you say fall short of the end of Tradition For say you it founds and establishes Believers even the greatest Doctors of the Church for which you cite again this same place of S. Augustine But did not his Lordship tell you that some of your own understood that very place either of Novices or Infidels For which besides the Testimony of some of your own party he adds this reason because the words immediately before are If thou find one qui Evangelio nondum credit which did not yet believe the Gospel What wouldst thou do to make him believe Ego vero non c. To which you very prudently say nothing Concerning Almayn's Opinion That we are first and more bound to believe the Church than the Scripture you would seem in terms to disavow it though very faintly it is not altogether true and hope to salve it by a distinction of priority of time and nature and you acknowledge That in priority of nature we are first bound to believe the Church and I suppose in priority of time too if we believe the Scripture for the Churches sake Yet you would not have it said That we are more bound to believe the Church than Scripture but it is not what you would have properly said but what follows from that antecedent which Jacobus Almayn puts It is certain saith he that we are bound to believe all things contained in the Sacred Canon upon that account alone because the Church believes them therefore we are first and more bound to believe the Church than the Scripture which is so evident a consequence that nothing but shame would make you deny it Touching Almayn's and Gerson's reading compelleret for commoveret his Lordship saith That Almayn falsifies the Text notoriously you say No but you had rather charitably think they both read it so in some Copies his Lordship produceth a very ancient M.S. for the common reading you none at all for
one of these three Answers 1. That it is a Principle to be supposed for though it be supposed as to the particular debate depending on Scripture yet it is fond and absurd to say It must be supposed when it is the thing in question 2. That it is known meerly by its own Light for the person I have to deal with supposing himself equally capable to judge of Reason and Evidence as my self it doth but betray the weakness of my cause or my inability to manage it to pretend that to be evident which it is much more evident that he doth not think so and it is only to tell him my Vnderstanding must rule his and that whatever appears to me to have Light in it self ought likewise so appear to him 3. It is as absurd as either of the other two to say That you will prove to a rational Enquirer the Scripture to be Gods Word by an unwritten Word of God For 1. His Enquiry is Whether there be any Word of God or no you prove there is because there is for that is all you prove by your unwritten Word He denies or at least questions Whether there be any and particularly instanceth in Scripture you think to end the Question by telling him He must believe it to be so because there is another Word of God which attests it which instead of ending the first Question begets a great many more For 2. He will be more to seek concerning this unwritten Word than before because he might use his Reason in judging concerning the written Word but cannot as to this unwritten it being only told him There is such a thing but he knows not what it is how far it extends who must deliver it what evidence this hath beyond the other that it comes from God that it must be used as an argument to prove it with If you send him to the Infallibility of the Church you must either presume him of a very weak Vnderstanding or else he would easily discern your perfect jugling in this the veins of which I have discovered throughout this discourse There remains nothing then but Reason a Principle common to us both by which I must prove that the Scriptures are from God which Reason partly makes use of the Churches Tradition not in any notion of Infallibility but meerly as built on Principles common to humane nature and partly uses those other arguments which prove by the greatest rational evidence that the Doctrine contained in Scripture was from God and if this were all the meaning of saying The Scriptures are a Principle supposed because of a different way of proving them from particular objects of Faith you can have no reason to deny it The next thing his Lordship insists on is That the Jews never had nor can have any other proof that the Old Testament is the Word of God than we have of the New In your Answer to which I grant that which you contend for That the Tradition of Scriptures among them was by their immediate Ancestors as well as others I grant That their Faith was not a Scientifical Knowledge but a firm perfect assurance only but understand not what you mean by saying That otherwise it would not be meritorious but am as far to seek as ever for any Infallibility in the Jewish Church which should in every age be the ground of believing the Books of the Old Testament to be divinely inspired And if you will prove a constant succession of Prophets from Moses till our Saviour's appearing which you seem willing to believe you would do something towards it but for your permanent Infallible Authority in the High Priest and his Clergy I have already shewed it to be a groundless if not a wilful mistake What remains concerning the nature of Infallibility which at last his Lordship makes to be no more than that which excludes all possibility of doubting and therefore grants that an Infallible Assurance may be had by Ecclesiastical and Humane proof and how far that is requisite to Faith concerning moral Certainty and what Assurance may be had by it concerning the Canon of Scripture Apostolical Tradition the unwritten Word S. Austin 's Testimony about the Church they are all points so fully discussed before that out of pity to the Reader I must referr him to their several places which when he hath throughly considered I will give him leave to summ up the several victories you have obtained in the management of it which will be much more honourable for you than for your self to do it as you do most triumphantly in the end of this Controversie concerning the Resolution of Faith And although I have not been much surprized with your attempts yet I shall heartily conclude this great Debate with your last words in it The Consequence I leave to the serious consideration of the Judicious Reader I beseech God he may make benefit of it to his eternal felicity PART II. Of Schism CHAP. I. Of the Universal Church The Question of Schism explained The nature of it enquired into Several general Principles laid down for clearing the present Controversie Three grounds of the charge of Schism on Protestant Churches by our Authour The first of the Roman Churches being the Catholick Church entered upon How far the Roman Church may be said to be a true Church The distinction of a Church morally and metaphysically true justified The grounds of the Vnity of the Catholick Church as to Doctrine and Government Cardinal Perron's distinction of the formal causal and participative Catholick Church examined The true sense of the Catholick Church in Antiquity manifested from St. Cyprian and several cases happening in his time as the Schism of Novatianus at Rome the case of Felicissimus and Fortunatus Several other Instances out of Antiquity to the same purpose by all which it is manifest that the unity of the Catholick Church had no dependance on the Church of Rome The several testimonies to the contrary of St. Ambrose St. Hierome John Patriarch of Constantinople St. Augustine Optatus c. particularly examined and all found short of proving that the Roman Church is the Catholick Church The several Answers of his Lordship to the testimonies of St. Cyprian St. Hierom St. Greg. Nazianzene St. Cyril and Ruffinus about the infallibility of the Church of Rome justified From all which it appears that the making the Roman-Church to be the Catholick is a great Novelty and perfect Jesuitism SInce so great and considerable parts of the Christian Church have in these last ages been divided in communion from each other the great contest and enquiry hath been which party stands guilty of the cause of the present distance and separation For both sides retain still so much of their common Christianity as to acknowledge that no Religion doth so strictly oblige the owners of it to peace and unity as the Christian Religion doth and yet notwithstanding this we finde these
freely expatiate super hanc â—etram Touching Ruffinus I grant his Lordship is of opinion That he neither did nor could account the Roman Church Infallible for which he gives this reason For if he had so esteemed of it he would not have dissented from it in so main a point as is the Canon of Scripture as he plainly doth For reckoning up the Canonical Books he most manifestly dissents from the Roman Church Therefore either Ruffinus did not think the Church of Rome was Infallible or else the Church of Rome at this day reckons up more Books within the Canon than heretofore she did If she do then she is changed in a main point of Faith the Canon of Scripture and is absolutely convinced not to be Infallible for if she were right in her reckoning then she is wrong now and if she be right now she was wrong then and if she do not reckon now more then she did when Ruffinus lived then he reckons fewer than she and so dissents from her which doubtless he durst not have done had he thought her judgement Infallible Yea and he sets this mark upon his dissent besides that he reckons up the Books of the Canon just so and no otherwise then as he received them out of the Monuments of the fore-Fathers and out of which the assertions of our Faith are to be taken Now what have you to say to this strong and nervous Discourse of his Lordship Why forsooth this argument of the Bishop is far from being convincing And why so For say you though it should be granted that the Catholick Church the Roman you mean at present declares more books to be contained in the Canon than she did in Ruffinus his time yet this could be no errour in her That is strange that the Church should declare the Canon to be compleat then without these books and now not to be and yet neither time be in an errour No say you unless it be shewed which I am sure cannot be that she condemned those books then as not Divine Scripture or not Canonical which now she declares to be Divine or Canonical Excellent good still that which you are sure cannot be shewed is obvious to any one that hath eyes in his head For I only ask you Whether the Church of Rome did declare any Canon or no in that age If not according to your principles those who lived in that age could have no Divine Faith as to the Scripture if she did declare the Canon of Scripture without these Books did she not thereby condemn these Books to be not Canonical For you say that all are bound to take her judgement what is in the Canon and what not if therefore she did not put them into the Canon did she not leave them out of the Canon or Can you find any medium between being put in and being left out Yes say you these Books were left then under dispute with whom were they under dispute with the Church of Rome or not If with her was she not Infallible the mean while when so great a matter as the Canon of Scripture was under dispute with her But this whole business concerning the Canon of Scripture is largely discussed already only here it is sufficient to shew how you are pent in on every side so that there is no possibility of getting out As to the strait his Lordship takes notice of that the Church of Rome is driven to in borrowing a testimony for her Infallibility from one whom she branded with Heresie in that very Book from whence this testimony is taken You answer That it evidently argues the truth and uncorruptedness of that Church which is so clear that even her Adversaries cannot but confess it But if they confess it no better then Ruffinus doth she will have little cause to applaud her self for her Integrity in that respect And although a Testimony may be taken from persons suspected in some things yet it argues those have but very few friends who are fain to make use of their enemies to bear witness for them What follows concerning a particular Church being Infallible because you disown it although not consonantly to the principles of your party as was shewed in the occasion of the Conference I pass by The errours of the Church of Rome which his Lordship mentions but you say proves not you shall find abundantly proved before our task is over Your vindication of Bellarmin from inconsistency in saying A proposition is most true and yet but peradventure as true as another is so fine and subtil that it were an injury to the Reader to deprive him of the pleasure of perusing it And yet when all is done a Proposition very false might be as true as this which Bellarmin speaks of viz. That the Pope when he teacheth the whole Church in matters of Faith cannot erre And thus I have cleared that there can be no ground of an imputation of Schism on our Church from hence that the Roman Church is the Catholick Church which acception of the Catholick Church I have manifested to be as great a stranger to Antiquity as it is an enemy to Reason And that the calling the Roman Church the Catholick Church is as his Lordship truly saith a meer Novelty and perfect Jesuitism CHAP. II. Protestants no Schismaticks Schism a culpable separation therefore the Question of Schism must be determined by enquiring into the causes of it The plea from the Church of Rome's being once a right Church considered No necessity of assigning the punctual time when errours crept into her An account why the originals of errours seem obscure By Stapleton's confession the Roman and Catholick Church were not the same The falsity of that assertion manifested That there could be no pure Church since the Apostles times if the Roman Church were corrupt No one particular Church free from corruptions yet no separation from the Catholick Church How far the Catholick Church may be said to erre Men may have distinct communion from any one particular Church yet not separate from the Catholick Church The Testimony of Petrus de Alliaco vindicated Bellarmin not mis-cited Almain full to his Lordships purpose The Romanists guilty of the present Schism and not Protestants In what sense there can be no just cause of Schism and how far that concerns our case Protestants did not depart from the Church of Rome but were thrust out of it The Vindication of the Church of Rome from Schism at last depends upon the two false Principles Of her Infallibility and being the Catholick Church The Testimonies of S. Bernard and S. Austin not to the purpose The Catalogue of Fundamentals the Churches not erring c. referr'd back to their proper places BEfore I come to examine the particulars of this Chapter it will be necessary to see what the state of the Controversie was concerning Schism between his Lordship and his Adversary His Lordship delivers his sense clearly
or fifteen Bishops then living in England For the Sees of Salisbury and Oxford fell vacant A. 1557. and were not supplied in the time of Queen Mary Hereford Bristow Bangor were vacant by the death of the several Bishops some weeks before Queen Mary Canterbury by the death of Cardinal Pool the same day with the Queen Norwich and Gloucester a few weeks after her and so likewise Rochester Worcester and S. Asaph became vacant by the voluntary exile of Pates and Goldwell the Bishops thereof so that but fifteen Bishops were then living and remaining in England And Were all those who supplied these vacant Sees Intruders A strange kind of Intrusion into dead mens places So then this circumstance is notoriously false That they All by force intruded themselves into the Sees of other lawful Bishops But let us see Whether the other are more justly charged with a forcible Intrusion into the Sees of the other Bishops For which we must consider what the proceedings were in reference to them It appears then that in the first year of the Queen the Oath of Supremacy formed and enjoyned in the time of Henry 8. was in the first Parliament of Queen Elizabeth revived for the better securing the Queen of the Fidelity of her subjects but yet it was so revived that several considerable passages in the Act concerning it were upon mature deliberation mitigated both as to the Queens title which was not Supreme Head but Supreme Governour a title which Queen Mary had used before as appears by an Act passed in the third Session of Parliament in her time and likewise as to the penalty for whereas the Stat. 28. Hen. 8. c. 10. was so very severe That whosoever did extol the authority of the Bishop of Rome was for the first offence within the compass of a Praemunire and for refusing to take the Oath was guilty of Treason it passed now in Elizabeth's time only with this penalty That such who refused it should be excluded such places of honour and profit as they held in the Church or Common-wealth and that such as should maintain or defend the authority preheminence power or jurisdiction Spiritual or Ecclesiastical of any forein Prince Prelate Person State or Potentate whatsoever should be three times convicted before he suffered the pains of death Upon the expiring of the Parliament Commissioners were appointed to require the Bishops to take the Oath of Supremacy according to the Law made to that purpose which being tendred to them they all Kitchin of Landaffe only excepted unanimously refused it although they had taken it before as Priests or Bishops in the Reign of Henry 8. or Edward 6. But whether by some secret intimations from Rome or their own obstinacy they were resolved rather to undergo the penalty of the Law than to take it now and accordingly before the end of that year they were deprived of their Bishopricks So that the Question about the Intrusion of those Bishops who came into their Sees depends upon the legality of the deprivation of these And certainly whosoever considers their former carriage towards the Queen in refusing to assist at her Coronation and some of them threatning to excommunicate her instead of disputing at Westminster as they had solemnly engaged to do joyned with this contumacy in refusing the Oath will find that these persons did not unjustly suffer this deprivation For which I need not run out into the Princes power over Ecclesiastical persons for you have given a sufficient reason for it your self in that acknowledgement of yours That the Bishops and the King too meaning King Henry left the Pope in possession of all he could rightly challenge If this be true that notwithstanding the Stat. 28. Hen. 8. notwithstanding the Oath of Supremacy then taken the Pope might injoy all that belonged to him of Divine Right he might then do the same notwithstanding this Oath in Elizabeth's time which was only reviving the former with some mitigation and what could it be then else but obstinacy and contumacy in them to refuse it And therefore the plea which you make for those whom you call the Henry-Bishops will sufficiently condemn these present Bishops whom we now speak of For if those Bishops only renounced the Popes Canonical and acquired Jurisdiction here in England as you say i. e. that Authority and Jurisdiction in Ecclesiastical matters which the Pope exercised here by virtue of the Canons Prescription and other titles of humane right and gave it to the King yet they never renounced or deprived him of that part of his authority which is far more intrinsecal to his office and of Divine Right they never denied the Popes Soveraign Power to teach the Vniversal Church and determine all Controversies of Faith whatsoever in a General Council If these things I say be true which you confidently assert the more inexcusable were these Bishops for refusing that Oath of Supremacy which they had not only taken in Henry's time but which by your own confession takes away nothing of the Pope's Authority in relation to the whole Catholick Church And by this means their obstinacy appeared so great as might justly deserve a deprivation It being certainly in the Power of the King and Bishops to assert their own rights in opposition to any Canons or Prescriptions whatsoever of meerly humane right So that by your own confession the more excusable the Henry-Bishops were as you call them the less excusable the Mary-Bishops were as to follow you we must call them in refusing the Oath of Supremacy when tendred to them Was it lawful then in Henry's time to take this Oath or not If not then King Henry's Bishops are infinitely to blame for taking it and you for defending them If it was lawful then why not in Elizabeth's time Had she not as much reason to impose it as her Father Had she not as much power to do it When one of the chief refusers Heath Arch-Bishop of York and then L. Chancellour of England did upon the first notice of the death of Queen Mary declare to the House of Commons That the succession of the Crown did of right belong to the Princess Elizabeth whose title they conceived to be free from all legal Questions this could be then no plea at all for them So that if any persons through the greatest obstinacy might be deprived by a Prince of their Ecclesiastical preferments these might and when you can prove that in no case a Prince hath power to deprive Ecclesiastical persons you will say more to your purpose than yet you have done But till you have done that it remains clear that these Bishops were justly deprived and if so What was to be done with their vacant Sees Must they be kept vacant still or such be put into them who were guilty of the same fault with themselves in refusing the Oath when tendred to them If not such then it was necessary that other fit persons should be legally
the stage in the Questions of the Pope's Authority and Infallibility of General Councils I come to your following Chapter in which you enter upon the Vindication of the Roman Churches Authority 2. That which his Lordship hath long insisted on and evidently proved is The Right which particular Churches have to reform themselves when the General Church cannot for impediments or will not for negligence do it And your Answers to his proofs have had their weakness sufficiently laid open the only thing here objected further is Whether in so doing particular Churches do not condemn others of Errours in Faith To which his Lordship answers That to reform themselves and to condemn others are two different works unless it fall out so that by reforming themselves they do by consequence condemn any other that is guilty in that point in which they reform themselves and so far to judge and condemn others is not only lawful but necessary A man that lives Religiously doth not by and by sit in judgement and condemn with his mouth all prophane livers but yet while he is silent his very life condemns them To what end his Lordship produceth this Instance any one may easily understand but you abuse it as though his Lordship had said That Protestants only by their Religious lives do condemn your Church and upon this run out into a strange declamation about Who the men are that live so Religiously They who to propagate the Gospel the better marry wives contrary to the Canons and bring Scripture for it Yes surely much more then they who to propagate your Church enjoy Concubines for which if they can bring some Canons of your Church I am sure they can bring no Scripture for it They who pull down Monasteries both of Religious men and women I see you are still as loth to part them as they are to be parted themselves but if all their lives be no more Religious then the most of them have been the pulling of them down might be a greater act of Religion then living in them They who cast Altars to the ground More certainly then they who worshipped them They who partly banish Priests and partly put them to death Or they who commit treasons and do things worthy of death But you are doubtless very Religious and tender-hearted men whose consciences would never suffer you to banish or put any to death for the sake of Religion no not in Queen Maries time here in England They who deface the very Tombs of Saints and will not permit them to rest even when they are dead Or they who profess to worship dead Saints and martyr living ones with Fire and Faggot If this be your religious living none who know what Religion means will be much taken with it I shall easily grant that you stick close to the Pope but are therein far enough from the Doctrine or life of St. Peter If any of you have endured Sequestrations Imprisonments Death it self I am sure it was not for any good you did not for the Catholick Faith but if you will for some Catholick Treasons such as would have enwrapt a whole Nation in misery If this be your suffering persecution for righteousness sake you will have little cause to rejoyce in your Fellow-sufferers But if you had not a mind to calumniate us and provoke us to speak sad truths of you all this might have been spared for his Lordship only chose this Instance to shew that a Church or person may be condemned consequentially which was not intentionally But you say Our Church hath formally condemned yours by publick and solemn censures in the 39. Articles Doth his Lordship deny that our Church in order to our own reformation hath condemned many things which your Church holds No but that our Churches main intention was to reform it self but considering the corruption and degeneracy of your Church she could not do it without consequentially condemning yours and that she did justly in so doing we are ready on all occasions to justifie But his Lordship asks If one particular Church may not judge or condemn another What must then be done where particulars need reformation To which his Adversary gives a plain Answer That particular Churches must in that case as Irenaeus intimateth have recourse to the Church of Rome which hath more powerful principality and to her Bishop who is the chief Pastour of the whole Church as being St. Peters Successour c. This is the rise and occasion of the present Controversie To this his Lordship Answers That it is most true indeed the Church of Rome hath had and hath yet more powerful Principality then any other particular Church But she hath not this power from Christ. The Roman Patriarch by Ecclesiastical constitutions might perhaps have a Primacy of order but for principality of power the Patriarchs were as even as equal as the Apostles were before them The truth is this more powerful Principality the Roman Bishops got under the Emperours after they became Christian and they used the matter so that they grew big enough to oppose nay to depose the Emperours by the same power which they had given them And after this other particular Churches especially here in the West submitted themselves to them for Succour and Protections sake And this was one main cause that swel'd Rome into this more powerful Principality and not any right given by Christ to make that Prelate Pastour of the whole Church To this you Answer That to say that the Roman Churches Principality is not from Christ is contrary to St. Austin and the whole Milevitan Council who in their Epistle to Innocent the first profess that the Popes Authority is grounded upon Scripture and consequently proceeds from Christ. But whoever seriously reads and throughly considers that Epistle will find no such thing as that you aim at there For the scope of the Epistle is to perswade Pope Innocent to appear against Coelestius and Pelagius to that end they give first an account of their Doctrine shewing how pernicious and contrary to Scripture it was after which they tell him that Pelagius being at Jerusalem was like to do a great deal of mischief there but that many of the Brethren opposed him and especially St. Hierom. But we say they do suppose that through the mercy of our Lord Christ assisting you those which hold such perverse and pernicious principles may more easily yield by your Authority drawn out of Scripture Where they do not in the least dream of his Authority as Vniversal Pastor being grounded on Scripture but of his appearing against the Pelagians with his Authority drawn out of Scripture that is to that Authority which he had in the Church by the reputation of the Roman See the Authority of the Scripture being added which was so clear against the Pelagians or both these going together were the most probable way to suppress their Doctrine And it hath been sufficiently proved
the lawfulness of his doing it because he was thereto appointed by the Emperour But when you say St. Austin gives this answer only per 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by way of condescension to his adversaries way of speaking you would do well to prove elsewhere from St. Austin that when he lay's aside his Rhetorick he ever speaks otherwise but that it would have been an Vsurpation in the Pope to challenge to himself the hearing of those causes which had been determined by African Bishops But what St. Augustines judgement as well as the other African Fathers was in this point abundantly appears from the Controversies between them and the Bishop of Rome in the case of Appeals It sufficiently appears already That neither our Saviour nor the Canons of the Vniversal Church gave the Pope leave to hear and judge the causes of St. Athanasius and other Patriarchs and Bishops of the Church and therefore you were put to your shifts when you run thither for security But that which follows is notoriously false That when he did so interpose no man no not the persons themselves who were interessed and suffered by his judgement complained or accused him of usurpation when in the case of Athanasius it is so vehemently pleaded by the Eastern Bishops that the Pope had nothing at all to do in it but they might as well call in Question what was done at Rome as he what was done at Antioch Nay name us any one cause in that age of the Church where the Pope did offer to meddle in matters determined by other Bishops which he was not opposed in and the persons concern'd did not complain and accuse him of meddling with what he had no right to which are but other words for Vsurpation You say The Bishops whom the Emperour sent as Judges with the Pope were an inconsiderable number to sway the sentence It seems three to one are with you an inconsiderable number But say you The Pope to shew his authority added fifteen other Bishops of Italy to be his Colleagues and Assistants in the business Either these fifteen Bishops were properly Judges in the cause or only assistants for better management and speedier dispatch if they were Judges how prove you that Constantine did not appoint them if they were only assistants and suffragans to the Bishop of Rome as is most probable except Merocles Bishop of Milan what authority did the Pope shew in calling his Suffragans to his assistance in a matter of that nature which required so much examination of Witnesses But the Pope had more effectually shewn his authority if he had refused the Bishops whom Constantine sent and told him he medled with that which did not concern him to appoint any Judges at all in a matter of Ecclesiastical Cognisance and that it was an unsufferable presumption in him to offer to send three underling Bishops to sit with him in deciding Controversies as though he were not the Vniversal Pastour of the Church himself to whom alone by Divine right all such things did belong Such language as this would have become the Head of the Church and in that indeed he had shewn his authority But for him sneakingly to admit other Bishops as joynt-commissioners forsooth with him and that by the Emperours appointment too What did he else but betray the rights of his See and expose his Infallible Headship to great contempt Do you think that Pope Hildebrand or any of his Successours would have done this No they understood their power far better then so and the Emperour should have known his own for offering such an Affront to his Holiness And if his Bay-leaves did not secure him the Thunder-bolts of Excommunication might have lighted on him to his prejudice For shame then never say That Pope Miltiades shewed his authority but rather give him over among those good Bishops of Rome but bad Popes who knew better how to suffer Martyrdom then assert the Authority of the Roman See I pray imagine but Paul 5. or any other of our stout-spirited Popes in Miltiades his place Would they have taken such things at Constantines hands as poor Miltiades did and for all that we see was very well contented too and thought he did but his duty in doing what the Emperour bid him Would they have been contented to have had a cause once passed the Infallible judgement of the Roman See to be resumed again and handled in another Council as though there could be any suspicion that all things were not rightly carried there and that after all this too the Emperour should undertake to give the final decision to it would these things have been born with by any of our Infallible Heads of the Church But good Miltiades must be excused he went as far as his knowledge carried him and thought he might do good service to the Church in what he did and that was it he looked at more then the grandeur of his See The good Bishops then were just crept out of the Flames of persecution and they thought it a great matter that they had liberty themselves and did not much concern themselves about those Vsurpations which the Pride and Ease of the following ages gave occasion for They were sorry to see a Church that had survived the cruel Flames of Dioclesians persecution so suddenly to feel new ones in her own bowels that a Church whose constitution was so strong as to endure Martyrdomes should no sooner be at ease but she begins to putrifie and to be fly-blown with heats and divisions among her members and that her own Children should rake in those wounds which the violence of her professed enemies had caused in her and therefore these good Bishops used their care and industry to close them up and rather rejoyced they had so good an Emperour who would concern himself so much in healing the Churches breaches then dispute his Authority or disobey his Commands And if Constantine doth express himself unwilling to engage himself to meddle in a business concerning the Bishops of the Church it was out of his tender respect to those Bishops who had manifested their piety and sincerity so much in their late persecutions and not from any Question of his own Authority in it For that he after sufficiently asserted not only in his own actions but when the case of Felix of Aptung was thought not sufficiently scanned at Rome in appointing about four months after the judgement at Rome Aelianus the Proconsul of Africa to examine the case of Felix the Bishop of Aptung who had ordained Caecilian To this the Donatists pleaded That a Bishop ought not to be tryed by Proconsular judgement to which St. Austin Answers That it was not his own seeking but the Emperours appointing to whose care and charge that business did chiefly belong of which he must give an account to God And can it now enter into any head but yours that for all this the Emperour looked on the judgement
was to accommodate the places and precedencies of Bishops among themselves for the very necessity of order and Government To do this the most equal and impartial way was that as the Church is in the Common-wealth not the Common-wealth in it as Optatus tells us So the Honours of the Church should follow the Honours of the State and so it was insinuated if not ordered as appears by the Canons of the Councils of Chalcedon and Antioch And this was the very Fountain of the Papal Greatness the Pope having his Residence in the great Imperial City But Precedency is one thing and Authority another It was thought fit therefore that among Bishops there should be a certain subordination and subjection The Empire therefore being cast into several Divisions which they call'd Dioceses every Diocese contained several Provinces every Province several Bishopricks The chief of a Diocese was call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and sometimes a Patriarch the chief of a Province a Metropolitan next the Bishops in their several Dioceses as we now use that word among these there was effectual subjection respectively grounded upon Canon and Positive Law in their several Quarters but over them none at all all the Difference there was but Honorary not Authoritative To all this part of his Lordships Discourse you only say That it is founded upon his own conjectural presumptions more then upon any thing else and that you have shewed a far different Fountain of the Popes Authority from Tu es Petrus super hanc Petram c. The meaning of what you say is That his Lordships Discourse hath too much Truth and Reason to be Answered solidly but because it is against the Popes interest you defie him and cross your self and cry Tu es Petrus c. and think this will prevent its doing you any harm For if we look for one dram of Reason against it we must look somewhere else then in your Book though you tell us You have often evidenced the contrary but when and where I must profess my self to seek and I doubt shall continue so to the end of your Book But his Lordship proceeds If the ambition of some particular persons did attempt now and then to break these bounds it is no marvel For no calling can sanctifie all that have it And Socrates tells us that in this way the Bishops of Alexandria and Rome advanced themselves to a great height 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 even beyond the quality of Bishops Now upon view of story it will appear that what advantage accrewed to Alexandria was gotten by the violence of Theophilus Patriarch there A man of exceeding great Learning and no less violence and he made no little advantage out of this that the Empress Eudoxia used his help for the casting of St. Chrysostome out of Constantinople But the Roman Prelats grew by a steady and constant watchfulness upon all occasions to increase the honour of that See Interposing and assuming to themselves to be Vindices Canonum as Greg. Naz. speaks Defenders and Restorers of the Canons of the Church which was a fair pretence and took extreamly well But yet the world took notice of this their aim For in all Contestations between the East and West which were not small nor few the Western Bishops objected Levity to the Eastern and they again arrogancy to the Bishops of the West as Bilius observes and upon very warrantable testimonies For all this the Bishop of Rome continued in good obedience to the Emperour enduring his censures and judgements and being chosen by the Clergy and people of Rome he accepted from the Emperour the ratification of that choice Insomuch that about the year 579. when all Italy was on fire with the Lombards and Pelagius the second constrained through the necessity of the times contrary to the example of his Predecessours to enter upon the Popedome without the Emperours leave St. Gregory then a Deacon was shortly after sent on Embassie to excuse it To all these things you give one general Answer by calling them impertinencies which is a general name for all that you cannot Answer The Popes obedience to the Emperours you say was constrained their ratifications of Popes elections only declaring them Canonical Socrates was a Heretick the Eastern Bishops partial This is the substance of all you say whereof the two former are manifestly contrary to the truth of stories as when you desire it may at large be manifested and the two latter the pitiful shifts of such who have nothing else to say But though you cannot answer particulars you can overthrow his whole design though you cannot Fiddle it seems you can conquer Cities but they must be very weak then His main design you tell us is to overthrow the Pope's Supremacy by shewing it was not lawful to appeal to Rome but Catholick Authours to be sure you are in the number frame an unanswerable argument for his Supremacy even from the contrary thus it was ever held lawful to appeal to Rome in Ecclesiastical affairs from all the parts of Christendom therefore say they The Pope must needs be Supreme Judge in Ecclesiastical matters This is evidenced out of the 4 and 7 Canons of the Council of Sardica accounted anciently an Appendix of the Council of Nice and often cited as the same with it Will you give us leave to come near and handle this unanswerable argument a little for persons of your profession use to be very shie of that But however since it is exposed to common view we may take leave to do it And seriously upon consideration of all the parts and circumstances of it I am of your mind without flattering you that it is an unanswerable argument but quite to another purpose than you brought it for even against the Pope's Supremacy as I shall presently discover so that those Catholick Authors have served you just as Lazarillo did his blind Master in bidding him leap over the water that he might run his head full butt against the tree For that which your best Authors shun as much as may be and use their best arts to get besides it you run blindly and therefore boldly upon it as though it were an excellent argument to your purpose You say The evidence for Appeals is from the Canons of the Sardican Synod but if this be an unanswerable argument for the Pope's Supremacy 1. How come these Appeals to be pleaded from the Sardican Synod 2. How come these Appeals to be denied notwithstanding the Canons of it The former will prove that the Supremacy if granted from hence was not acknowledged from Divine Right the latter that it was not universally acknowledged by the Church after and therefore both of them will make an unanswerable argument against that which you would prove viz. the Pope's Supremacy First If the Pope's Supremacy be evidenced from hence 1. How comes it at all to depend on the Canons 2. Why no sooner than
sufficiently detected by the African Bishops And it is the worst of all excuses to lay the blame of it as you do on the Pope's Secretary for Do you think Pope Zosimus was so careless of his business as not to look over the Commonitorium which Faustinus carried with him Do you think Faustinus would not have corrected the fault when the African Bishops boggled so at it What made him so unwilling that they should send into the East to examine the Nicene Canons but intreated them to leave the business wholly with the Pope if he were not conscious of some forgery in the business But you say as a further plea in Zosimus his excuse That the Council of Sardica was an Appendix to the Nicene Council rather than otherwise An excellent Appendix made at two and twenty years distance from the other and called by other Emperours consisting of many other persons and assembled upon a quite different occasion If this had been an Appendix to the Nicene Council How comes that to have but twenty Canons How came Atticus and Cyrillus not to send these with the other How come all the Copies of Councils and Canons to distinguish them How came they not to be contained in the Code of Canons produced in the Council of Chalcedon in the cause of Bassianus and Stephanus If this were the same Council because some of the same things were determined How comes that in Trullo not to be the same with the 6. Oecumenical How comes the Council of Antioch not to be an Appendix to the Council of Nice if this was when it was celebrated before this and the Canons of it inserted in the Code of Canons owned by the Council of Chalcedon So that by all the shifts and arts you can use you cannot excuse Zosimus from Imposture in sending these Sardican under the name of the Nicene Canons And on what account the Pope satisfied the Canons then is apparent enough viz. for the advancing the Interess of his See and this the African Fathers did as easily discern afterwards as we do now But by this we see What good Foundations the Pope's claim of Supremacy had then and what arts not to say frauds they were beholding to for setting it up even as great as they have since made use of to maintain it CHAP. VI. Of the Title of Universal Bishop In what sense the Title of Vniversal Bishop was taken in Antiquity A threefold acceptation of it as importing 1. A general care over the Christian Churches which is attributed to other Catholick Bishops by Antiquity besides the Bishop of Rome as is largely proved 2. A peculiar dignity over the Churches within the Roman Empire This accounted then Oecumenical thence the Bishops of the seat of the Empire called Oecumenical Bishops and sometimes of other Patriarchal Churches 3. Nothing Vniversal Jurisdiction over the whole Church as Head of it so never given in Antiquity to the Bishop of Rome The ground of the Contest about this Title between the Bishops of Rome and Constantinople Of the proceedings of the Council of Chalcedon about the Popes Supremacy Of the Grammatical and Metaphorical sense of this Title Many arguments to prove it impossible that S. Gregory should understand it in the Grammatical sense The great absurdities consequent upon it S. Gregory's Reasons proved to hold against that sense of it which is admitted in the Church of Rome Of Irenaeus his opposition to Victor's excommunicating the Asian Bishops argues no authority he had over them What the more powerful principality in Irenaeus is Ruffinus his Interpretation of the 6. Nicene Canon vindicated The Suburbicary Churches cannot be understood of all the Churches in the Roman Empire The Pope no Infallible successor of S. Peter nor so acknowledged to be by Epiphanius S. Peter had no Supremacy of Power over the Apostles HIs Lordship having undertaken to give an account How the Popes rose by degrees to their Greatness under the Christian Emperours in prosecution of that necessarily falls upon the Title of Vniversal Bishop affected by John the Patriarch of Constantinople and condemned by Pelagius 1. and Gregory 2. This you call a trite and beaten way because I suppose the truth is so plain and evident in it but withall you tell us This Objection hath been satisfied a hundred times over if you had said the same Answer had been repeated so often over you had said true but if you say that it hath been satisfied once you say more than you are able to defend as will evidently appear by your very unsatisfactory Answer which at last you give to it So that if none of your party have been any wiser than your self in this matter I am so far from being satisfied with what they say that I can only pitty those persons whose interest swayes their understandings so much or at least their expressions as to make them say any thing that seems to be for their purpose though in it self never so senseless or unreasonable And I can scarce hold my self from saying with the Oratour when a like Objection to this was offered him because multitudes had said so Quasi verò quidquam sit tam valdè quà m nihil sapere vulgare That truth and reason are the greatest Novelties in the world For seriously Were it possible for men of common understanding to rest satisfied with such pitiful shifts as you are fain to make if they would but use any freedom in enquiring and any liberty of judging when they had done But when once men have given not to say sold away the exercise of their free reason by addicting themselves to a particular interest there can scarce any thing be imagined so absurd but it passeth currently from one to another because they are bound to receive all blindfold and in the same manner to deliver it to others By which means it is an easie matter for the greatest nonsense and contradictions to be said a hundred times over And Whether it be not so in the present case is that we are now to enquire into And for the same ends which you propose to your self viz. that all obscurity may be taken away and the truth clearly appear I shall in the first place set down What his Lordship saith and then distinctly examine What you reply in Answer to it Thus then his Lordship proceeds About this time brake out the ambition of John Patriarch of Constantinople affecting to be Vniversal Bishop He was countenanced in this by Mauricius the Emperour but sowrely opposed by Pelagius and S. Gregory Insomuch that S. Gregory plainly sayes That this Pride of his shews that the times of Antichrist were near So as yet and this was near upon the point of six hundred years after Christ there was no Vniversal Bishop no one Monarch over the whole Militant Church But Mauricius being deposed and murthered by Phocas Phocas conferred upon Boniface the third that very Honour which two of his predecessors had
S. Basil writes to him That he had care of all the Churches as of his own and in the same Epistle calls him The Head and chief over all Hence S. Chrysostome in the praise of Eustathius the Patriarch of Antioch saith That he was instructed by the Divine Spirit that he was not only to have care of that Church over which he was set but of the whole Church throughout the world Hence came the great endeavours of Theophilus and Cyril Patriarchs of Alexandria of Eusebius Vercellensis Hilarius Pictaviensis and several others for rooting out of Heresies not confining themselves to those Provinces allotted to them but extending their care over other Churches Hence came frequent ordinations of persons out of their own Dioceses as of Paulinus at Antioch by Lucifer Caralitanus of many Bishops in Syria and Mesopotamia by Eusebius Samosatenus and of a Presbyter at Bethleem by Epiphanius who when he was quarrel'd at by John of Hierusalem for it he defends his action by this saying That In Sacerdotio Dei nulla est diversitas i. e. where-ever a Bishop was he might exercise his power as such although the Churches prudence had set limits to their ordinary Jurisdiction From these things then we see that a general care and solicitude of the Vniversal Church doth belong to every Bishop and that some of them have been expresly said to have had the care of the whole Church which in other terms is to say They were Vniversal Bishops So that from this sense of the Title you gain nothing to your purpose though the care of the Vniversal Church be attributed to the Bishop of Rome though he acts and calls Councils and orders other things out of his own Province yet all this proves not the Supremacy you intend for this is no more than other Bishops did whom you will not acknowledge to be Heads of the Church or Vniversal Bishops in that sense 2. An Vniversal Bishop denotes a peculiar dignity over the Churches within the Roman Empire For which two things will be sufficient to manifest it 1. That the Roman Empire was then accounted Vniversal 2. That some Bishops in the Great Churches were on that account called Oecumenical or Vniversal Bishops 1. That the Roman Empire was then accounted Vniversal for which multitudes of testimonies might be cited in which orbis Romanus and orbis humanus were looked on as Synonymous thence Trebellius Pollio in Macrianus qui ex diversis partibus orbis Romani restituant and as Salmasius witnesseth in those writers of the Imperial History most of the ancient M S S. for orbis Romanus have orbis humanus for as he saith Eâ gloriâ fuerunt Romani ut totum orbem suum vocarent hinc orbis Romanus passim apud auctores reperitur pro universo orbe thence they called the Roman people omnium gentium victorem and from hence Ammianus Marcellinus calls Rome caput mundi the head of the world and the Roman Senate Asylum mundi totius the Sanctuary for the whole world thence Spartianus saith of Severus orbem terrarum Romamque despexit when as Casaubon observes he speaks only of the Roman Provinces And from hence whatever was out of the Roman Empire was called Barbaria thence the rura vicina Barbariae in Lampridius for the Marches which lay next to the enemies Country thence Marcellinus visus est in Barbarico miles and in the Imperial Constitutions as Justellus observes Barbari vocantur quicunque Imperio Romano non parebant all were called barbarous out of the Roman Empire and in the same sense barbaricum is used in the 58. Canon of the African Code and in the 206. Canon of the Code of the Vniversal Church that the Bishops 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. out of the Roman Empire should be ordained by the Patriarch of Constantinople Now since the Roman Empire was called orbis Romanus and in Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as appears in that Augusius Luk. 2.1 is said to tax 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the whole world which could be only the Roman Empire and the famine in the same is said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Act. 11.28 it is no wonder if these Bishops who enjoyed the greatest dignity in the Roman Empire were called Oecumenical and those Councils so too which consisted of the Bishops within those bounds I come therefore to the second thing That some Bishops in the Great Churches in the Roman Empire were called Oecumenical as that relates to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 viz. the Roman Empire For which we may consider the primary ground of the advancement of the Patriarch of Constantinople was the greatness of the City as is undeniably manifest by the proceedings of the Councils of Constantinople and Chalcedon about him wherein it was decreed since that was New-Rome that it should enjoy equal priviledges with the old And in all probability the ground of the Patriarch of Constantinople's usurping the title of Oecumenical Patriarch was but to correspond with the greatness of his City which at the time of the contest between Pope Gregory and him was in a better condition than Rome it self being the seat of the Empire and therefore he thought it suitable thereto to be called Oecumenical Patriarch But besides this peculiarity of Constantinople it was no unusual thing for the Bishop of the Patriarchal Churches to have expressions given them tantamount to the title of Vniversal Bishop in any sense but that of the Vniversal Jurisdiction which I shall prove as to the three Patriarchs of Alexandria Antioch and Constantinople First Of Alexandria So Greg. Nazianzen saith of Athanasius being made Bishop there he had the Government of that people committed to him which is as much as to say of the whole world and John of Hierusalem writing to Theophilus Patriarch of Alexandria saith That he had the care of all the Churches And St. Basil writes to Athanasius about the establishing of Meletius as Patriarch of Antioch that so he might govern as it were the whole body of the Church But most clear and full to that purpose is the testimony of Theodoret concerning Nestorius being made Patriarch of Constantinople He was intrusted with the Government of the Catholick Church of the Orthodox at Constantinople and thereby of the whole world What work would you make with so illustrious a testimony in Antiquity for the Bishop of Rome as this is for the Patriarch of Constantinople Use therefore and interpret but these testimonies as kindly as you do any for the Roman See and will you not find as large a power over the Church attributed to the other Patriarchs as you do to the Bishop of Rome What is it then you would infer from the title of Vniversal Bishop being attributed to him Will the very title do more then what is signified by it Or must it of necessity import something more when given to the Bishop of Rome
your Head of the Church as if they had been spoken by a Protestant against that Doctrine which you all own What is there in all this that implies that others should be no Bishops but only titular yes they may be as much Bishops as you acknowledge them to be i. e. as to their power of Order but not as to their Jurisdiction For this you say and defend comes from the Head of the Church or else your Monarchical Government in the Church signifies nothing Do not you make the Pope Vniversal Pastor of the Church in as high a sense as any of these expressions carry it And when St. Gregory urges so often That if there be such an Vniversal Bishop if he fails the Church would fail too Do you deny the consequence as to the Pope Doth not Bellarmine tell us when he writes of the Pope he writes de summâ rei Christianae Of the main of all Christianity and surely then the Church must fail if the Popes Supremacy doth And I pray now consider with your self Whether this Answer which you say hath been given a hundred times over can satisfie any reasonable man Nay Doth it not appear to be so absurd and incongruous that it is matter of just admiration that ever it should have been given once and yet you are wonderfully displeased that his Lordship should bring this Objection upon the stage again But Do you think your Answers like your Prayers will do you good by being said so often over Indeed therein they are alike that they are both in an unknown tongue Your Literal sense of Vniversal Bishop being in this case no more intelligible than your Latin-Prayers to a Country Congregation These things being thus clear I have prevented my self in the second Enquiry in that I have proved already that the Reasons which St. Gregory produceth hold against that sense of Vniversal Bishop which you own and contend for as of right belonging to the Bishop of Rome Although it were no difficult matter to prove that according to the most received Opinion in your Church viz. that all Jurisdiction in Bishops is derived from the Pope which opinion you cannot but know is most acceptable at Rome and was so at the Council of Trent that that which you call the Literal sense doth follow your Metaphorical i. e. If the Pope hath Vniversal Jurisdiction as Head of the Church then other Bishops are not properly Bishops nor Christ's Officers but his For what doth their power of order signifie as to the Church without the power of Jurisdiction And therefore if they be taken only in partem solicitudinis and not in plenitudinem potestatis according to the known distinction of the Court of Rome it necessarily follows that they are but the Pope's Officers and are taken just into so much authority as he commits to them and no more And this Bellarmine proves from the very form of the Pope's consecration of Bishops whereby he commits the power of governing the Church to him and the administration of it in spirituals and temporals And you may see by the speech of Father Laynez in the Council of Trent How stoutly he proves that the power of Jurisdiction was given wholly to the Bishop of Rome and that none in the Church besides hath any spark of it but from him that the Bishop of Rome is true and absolute Monarch with full and total power and Jurisdiction and the Church is subject unto him as it was to Christ. And as when his Divine Majesty did govern it it could not be said that any of the faithful had any the least power or Jurisdiction but meer pure and total subjection so it must be said in all perpetuity of time and so understood that the Church is a Sheepfold and a Kingdom And that he is the Only Pastor is plainly proved by the words of Christ when he said He hath other sheep which he will gather together and so one Sheepfold should be made and one Shepherd What think you now of the Literal sense of Vniversal Bishop for the Only Bishop Are not the Only Bishop and the Only Pastor all one Will not all those words of St. Gregory reach this which any of you make use of to prove that he takes it in the worst and Literal sense nay it goes higher For Gregory only argues that from the Title of Vniversal Bishop he must be sole Bishop and others could not be any true Bishops but here it is asserted in plain terms that the Bishop of Rome is the only Pastor and that as much as if Christ himself were here upon earth and therefore if your Literal sense hath any sense at all in it it is much more true of the Bishop of Rome than ever it could be of the Patriarch of Constantinople And therefore I pray think more seriously of what he saith That to agree in that prophane word is to lose the Faith That such a blasphemous name should be far from the hearts of Christians in which by the arrogance of one Bishop the honour of all is taken away Neither will it serve your turn to say which is all that you have to say that this is not the definitive sentence of your Church but that many in your Church hold otherwise That there is power of Jurisdiction properly in Bishops For although these latter are not near the number of the other nor so much in favour with your Church but are looked on as a discontented party as appears by the proceedings in the Council of Trent yet that is not it we are to look after What all in your Church are agreed on but what the Pope challengeth as belonging to himself Was not Father Laynez his Doctrine highly approved at Rome as well as by the Cardinal Legats at Trent and all the Italian party Were not the other party discountenanced and disgraced as much as might be Doth not the Pope arrogate this to himself to be Oecumenical Pastor and the sole Fountain of all Jurisdiction in the Church If so all that ever St. Gregory said against that Title falls most heavily upon the Pope For St. Gregory doth not stand upon what others attributed to him but what he arrogated to himself that therein he was the Prince of Pride the forerunner of Antichrist using a vain new rash foolish proud prophane erroneous wicked hypocritical singular presumptuous blaspemous Name For all these goodly Epithets doth S. Gregory bestow upon it and I believe if he could have thought of more and worse he would as freely have bestowed them If therefore John the Patriarch was said by him to transgress God's Laws violate the Canons dishonour the Church despise his Brethren imitate Lucifer How much more doth this belong to him that not only challengeth to be Oecumenical Patriarch but the sole Pastor of the Church and that all Jurisdiction is derived from him And by this time I hope you see that the Answer you say hath
Empire But this extending of the Suburbicary Churches as far as the Roman Empire is like the art of those Jesuits who in their setting forth Anastasius de vitis Pontificum in Stephanus 5. turn'd Papa Vrbis into Papa Orbis for that being so mean and contemptible a title they thought much it should remain as it did but Papa Orbis was magnificent and glorious I wonder therefore that instead of extending the signification of Suburbicary Churches you do not rather pretend that it ought to be read Suborbicary and so to suit exactly with the Papa Orbis as importing all those Churches which are under the power of the Vniversal Pastor For Why should you stop at the confines of the Roman Empire How comes his Jurisdiction to be confined within that By what right did he govern the Churches within the Empire and not those without Surely not as Primate Metropolitan or Patriarch of the Roman Empire for those are titles yet unheard of in Antiquity if as Head of the Church How comes the Jurisdiction of that to be at all limited Were there no Churches without the Empire then I hope you will not deny that If there were To whom did the Jurisdiction over them belong to the Pope or not If not How comes he to be Head of the Church and Vniversal Pastor If they did Why were not these Suburbicary Churches as well as those within the Empire Besides it is confessed by the learnedest among you that when the notion of Suburbicary is extended beyond the Suburbicary Provinces it is not out of any relation to the City but to the power of the Bishop of the City and therefore the Suburbicary Churches may be larger than the Suburbicary Provinces But if this be true as it is the only probable evasion then it is impossible for you to confine the Suburbicary Churches within the Roman Empire without confining the Jurisdiction of the Roman Bishop within those bounds too For if the inlarging the notion of Surburbicary Churches depends upon the extent of his power the fixing the limits of those Churches determines the bounds of his power too Which is utterly destructive to your pretences of the Pope's being Head of the Vniversal Church and not barely of the Churches within the Roman Empire But if it had been Ruffinus his design to express by Suburbicary Churches all those within the Roman Empire surely he made choice of the most unhappy expression to do it by which he could well have thought of For it being then so well known what the Suburbicary Provinces were that in the Code of Theodosius where they are so often mentioned they are not distinctly enumerated because they were then as well understood as the African Gallican or Britannick Provinces How absurd were it for him to take a word in common use and so well known and apply it to such a sense as no example besides can be produced for it For if any one at that time should have spoken of the African Gallican or Britannick Churches no one would have imagined any other than those which were contained in the several Provinces under those names What reason is there then that any thing else should be apprehended by the Suburbicary Churches I know the last refuge of most of your side instead of explaining these Suburbicary Churches hath been to rail at Ruffinus and call him Dunce and Blockhead and enemy to the Roman Church instances were easie to be given if it were at all necessary but besides that it were easie to make it appear that Ruffinus was no such fool as some have taken him for And if they think so because S. Hierom gives him such hard words they must think so of all whom S. Hierom opposed he is sufficiently vindicated in this translation by the Ancient Vatican Copy of the Nicene Canons out of which this very Canon is produced by Sirmondus and the very same word of Suburbicary therein used And that in such a manner as utterly destroies your sense of the Suburbicary Churches for such as are within the Roman Empire for that Copy calls them Loca Suburbicaria and Will you say those are the Provinces within the Roman Empire too Can any one rationally think that any other places should be called Suburbicary but such as lye about the City And by the same interpretation which you here use you may call all England the Suburbs of London because London is the City 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as you speak and therefore all the Churches of England must be Suburbicary to London But if you think this incongruous you may on the same account judge the other to be so too It appears then that the Suburbicary places in the Vatican Copy and in that very Ancient Copy which Justellus had which agrees with the Vatican are the same with the Suburbicary Churches in Ruffinus and if you will explain these latter of the Roman Empire you must do the former too But not only the Vatican Copy but all other different Versions of the Nicene Canon utterly overthrow this Opinion of Cardinal Perron that the Suburbicary Churches must be taken for those within the Roman Empire For in the Arabick Version published by Turrianus it is thus rendred Siquidem similitèr Episcopus Romae i. e. successor Petri Apostoli potestatem habet omnium civitatum locorum quae sunt circa eam Are all the Cities and places in the Roman Empire circa eam about the City of Rome If not neither can the Churches be And in that Arabick paraphrase which Salmasius had of the famous Peireskius it is translated much more agreeably to the Nicene Canon in these words Propterea quod Episcopus Romanus etiam hunc morem obtinet hoc ei adjunctum est ut potestatem habeat supra civitates loca quae prope eam sunt Which is yet more full to shew the absurdity of your exposition for these Suburbicary Churches must be then in places near the City of Rome And agreeably to these Aristinus the Greek Collector of the Canons hath it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Ruffinus his Suburbicary doth exactly render By whom now must we be judged What is meant by these Suburbicary Churches by you who make a forced and strained interpretation of the word Suburbicary to such a sense of which there is no evidence in Antiquity or Reason and is withall manifestly repugnant to the design of the Canon which is to proportion the Dioceses of the Bishops of Antioch and Alexandrina by the example of Rome which had been very absurd if these Suburbicary Churches did comprehend the Dioceses of Alexandria and Antioch and all other Provinces as you make them or else must we be judged by the ancient Versions of the Nicene Canon Latin and Arabick and by other Greek Paraphrases all which unanimously concurr to overthrow that Figment that the Suburbicary Churches are all those within the Roman Empire And this the learned Petrus de Marcâ was so sensible of
man that he contended with 630. Bishops of the Council of Chalcedon about the Primacy of his See and whose Epistles breathe so much of self-denyal in all the contests he had about it And although Pope Agatho and the rest be of later standing when the Popes did begin a little more openly to take upon them yet Can the Protestants think that these men were byassed with their proper Interest Are not these weak pretences for them to reject their Authority upon For your part you say you could never understand this proceeding of Protestants The more a great deal is the pitty and if we could help your understanding and not endanger our own we would willingly do it Well but though Bellarmins pregnant reasons prove so abortive and though the Popes Authorities should not be taken yet his Lordship must needs wrong Bellarmin in saying That he doth upon the matter confess that there is not one Father in the Church disinteressed in the Cause who understands this Text as Bellarmin doth before Theophylact. And the reason is because though Bellarmin cite no more yet there might be more for all that for must he needs confcss there are no more Authours citable in any subject but what he cites himself As though Bellarmin were wont to leave out any authorities which made for his purpose especially in so weighty a subject as this Do you think he was so weak a person to run to Popes Authorities if he could have found any other and when he produces no more is it not a plain confession he found no more to his purpose But I am weary of such great Impertinencies and would fain meet with some thing of matter that might hold up the Readers patience as well as mine All that ever I can meet with that hath any thing of tendency that way is That this priviledge of the Indeficiency of St. Peters Faith doth not belong to him as an Apostle but rather as he was Prince of the Apostles and appointed to be Christs Vicar on earth after him Very handsomely begg'd again but where is the proof for all this Have you no Popes stand ready again to attest the truth of it For none else that have any reason would ever say it did St. Peter deny Christ as Prince of the Apostles Indeed it was then much for his honour that the Captain should fly from his colours first and Christs Vicar upon earth should the most need to have his Faith pray'd for that it should not fail I had thought St. Peter had been head of the Apostles and not Simon if Christ had spoke to him as his Vicar he would sure have call'd him Peter Peter and not Simon Simon But it seems he did not attend that Peter was the Rock on which his Church must be built or else he minded it so much that he thought that name improper when he mentions his falling You have therefore stoutly and unanswerably not proved but demonstrated that these words were spoken of St. Peter not as an Apostle but as Christs Vicar upon earth But suppose it were so what is this to those who pretend to be his Successours Yes very much For say you Whatever our Saviour intended should descend by vertue of that prayer of his did effectively so descend You might have put one of Bellarmins sine dubio's to this For Whoever was so sensless as to question that But you confess It is a very disputable question Whether every thing which Christ by his prayer intended and obtained for St. Peter was likewise intended by him to descend to St. Peters Successours Yet that some special priviledge was to descend to them is you say manifest by Bellarmins Authorities and Reasons If from nothing else I dare confidently say no man in his wits will believe it manifest And what that is neither you nor any one else can either prove or understand Yes say you it is that none of his Successours should ever so farr fall from the Faith as to teach Heresie in Pontificalibus or as you speak with Bellarmine any thing contrary to Faith tanquam Pontifex i. e. in vertue of that Authority which they were to have in the Church as St. Peters Successours Here then we fix a while to see this proved but our expectation is again frustrated For instead of proofs we meet with the old Mumpsimus of the Popes erring as private Doctor but not as Pastour of the Church A distinction so ridiculous that many among your selves deride it as will appear presently And therefore put in your tanquam Pontifex as long as you please you will gain no great matter by it When you can prove that Christ did intend in that one prayer some part of the Gift personally and absolutely to St. Peter and another part conditionally to his Successours I will grant it no absurdity to say that perhaps some part of the Gift did not belong to either of them But these are such strange fetches out of a plain Scripture that those may admire your subtilty who cannot be convinced by your reason Yet to let you see that these things are not so clear as you would have them I shall bring you some Arguments out of your own Writers against your interpretation of this place and I pray Answer them at your leasure Vigorius therefore proves that this place cannot be understood of St. Peter and his Successours that their Faith should not fail for then saith he 1. The Canons had decreed to no purpose that a Pope might be deposed in case of Heresie for those that suppose that he may fall into Heresie do doubtless suppose that his Faith fails Now here is a witness against you from your own Church and that out of your Canons too and that is better worth then twenty Testimonies of Popes for you 2. If this were understood of St. Peters Successours they who succeeded him at Antioch would enjoy this priviledge as well as those at Rome for they are saith he as well St. Peters Successours as the other And saith he if they understand this of one and not of the other totis faucibus se deridendos propinarent they expose themselves to contempt and laughter 3. If this were true of St. Peters Successours at Rome then the decrees of one Pope could not be revoked by the other because it is impossible they should erre in making those decrees But it is not Vigorius alone who hath shewed the weakness of your Arguments from this place for our learned Countryman Mr. White hath more fully and largely discovered the weakness of all your pretences from Scripture Fathers and Reason concerning the Popes succeeding St. Peter in his Infallibility And particularly as to this place he saith that either it concerns the present danger St. Peter was in or else doth represent what was to be afterwards in the Church and that it doth primarily and directly relate to St. Peters imminent tentation all the circumstances perswade us
the matter as much as may be and much more than Baronius and others did who pleaded downright for the Popes Temporal Power yet he must be a very weak Prince who doth not see how far that indirect and reductive power may extend when the Pope himself is to be Judge What comes under it and what not And What may not come under it when deposing of Princes shall be reduced under that you call The Worship of God and absolving subjects from their obedience tend to promote their Eternal Salvation But if the Pope may be Judge What temporal things are in ordine ad spiritualia and bring them under his power in that respect Why may not the Prince be Judge what spiritual things are in ordine ad temporalia and use his power over them in that respect too But in the mean time Is not a Kingdom like to be at peace then If the Pope challenged no other authority but what Christ or the Apostles had his Government might be admitted as well as that authority which they had but What do you think of us the mean while when you would perswade us that the Popes Power is no other than what Christ or the Apostles had you must certainly think us such persons as the Moon hath wrought particularly upon as you after very civilly speak concerning his Lordship Your instance from the Kings of France and Spain his Lordship had sufficiently answered by telling you That he that is not blind may see if he will of what little value the Popes Power is in those Kingdoms further than to serve their own turns of him which they do to their great advantage And when you would have this to be upon the account of Faith and Conscience Let the Pope exercise his power apparently against their Interest and then see on what account they profess obedience to him But as long as they can manage such pretences for their advantage and admit so much of it and no more they may very well endure it and his Lordship be far enough from contradicting himself When you would urge the same inconvenience against the Aristocratical Government of the Church you suppose that Aristocratical Government wholly Independent on and not subordinate to the Civil Government whereas his Lordship and the Church of England assert the Kings Supremacy in Government over all both persons and causes Ecclesiastical And therefore this nothing concerns us And if from what hath gone before it must as you say remain therefore fully proved that the external Government of the Church on earth is Monarchical It may for all that I see remain as fully proved that you are now the man who enjoy this Monarchical Power over the Church And whatever you stile the Pope Whether the Deputy or Vicar General of Christ or Servus servorum or what you will it is all one to us as long as we know his meaning whatever fair words you give him As though men would take it one jot the better to have one usurp and Tyrannize over them because he doth not call himself King or Prince but their humble servant Is it not by so much the greater Tyranny to have such kind of Ecclesiastical Saturnalia when the servus servorum must under that name tyrannize over the whole world We have already at large shewed How destructive this pretended Supremacy is to that Government of the Church by Bishops which his Lordship proves from the ancient Canons and Fathers of the Church doth of right belong to them viz. from several Canons of the Councils of Antioch and Nice and the testimonies of S. Augustine and S. Cyprian To all this you only say That you allow the Bishops their portion in the Government of Christs Flock But it is but a very small portion of what belongs to them if all their Jurisdiction must be derived from the Pope which I have shewed before to be the most current Opinion in your Church And I dare say you will not dispute the contrary His Lordship was well enough aware to what purpose Bellarmine acknowledged that the Government of the Church was ever in the Bishops for he himself saith It was to exclude temporal Princes but then he desires A. C. to take notice of that when Secular Princes are to be excluded then it shall be pretended that Bishops have power to govern but when it comes to sharing stakes between them and the Pope then hands off they have nothing to do any further than the Pope gives them leave What follows concerning the impossibility of a right executing of this Monarchy in the Church hath been already discussed of and you answer nothing at all to it that hath any face of pertinency for when you say it will hold as well against the Aristocratical Form I have plainly enough shewed you the contrary That which follows about the design of an Vniversal Monarchy in the State as well as the Church about Pope Innocent 's making the Pope to be the Sun and the Emperour the Moon the Spanish Friers two Scutchions Campanella 's Eclogue since you will not stand to defend them I shall willingly pass them over But what concerns the Supremacy of the Civil Power is more to our purpose and must be considered His Lordship therefore saith That every soul was to be subject to the higher power Rom. 13.1 And the higher Power there mentioned is the Temporal And the ancient Fathers come in with a full consent that every soul comprehends all without exception All spiritual men even to the highest Bishop even in spiritual causes too so the Foundations of Faith and good Manners be not shaken And where they are shaken there ought to be prayer and patience there ought not to be opposition by force Nay Emperours and Kings are custodes utriusque Tabulae They to whom the custody and preservation of both Tables of the Law for worship to God and duty to man are committed A Book of the Law was by Gods own command in Moses his time to be given to the King Deut. 17.18 And the Kings under the Law but still according to it did proceed to necessary Reformation in Church-businesses and therein commanded the very Priests themselves as appears in the Acts of Hezekiah and Josiah who yet were never censured to this day for usurping the High-Priests office Nay and the greatest Emperours for the Churches honour Theodosius the elder and Justinian and Charls the Great and divers others did not only meddle now and then but enact Laws to the great settlement and encrease of Religion in their several times Now to this again you answer That the civil and spiritual are both absolute and independent powers though each in their proper Orb the one in spirituals the other in temporals But What is this to that which his Lordship proves That there can be no such absolute independent spiritual power both because all are bound to obey the Civil Power and because the
cause otherwise there is just cause of appeal That the Council of Pisa excepted against appearing at Rome on the same accounts and if they durst not venture to Rome upon the offer of safe-conduct much less reason had the Protestants to do it to such a place as Trent a City by reason of the neighbouring woods very subject to treacheries and ambushments that the very designing such a place yielded ground of fear and suspicion especially to such as had not forgotten the late examples of John Husse and Hierom of Prague at the Council of Constance That the States of Germany in the diet at Francford A. D. 1338. pleaded the nullity of the Popes excommunication of Lewis 5 because he was cited to Avignon where the Pope was Lord of the place and the place being not free for him to appear at the summons were not Canonical but void and invalid in Law This and many other instances are there brought by the same learned Authour to justifie the Protestants in not appearing at Trent because the place was not free nor safe although the Authour seems not to have been one himself All these things being considered he must have been an Infidel indeed who would pronounce Trent to have been the most indifferent place for both parties to meet at For what you say That it might have been as unsafe for the Pope and his party if it had been in Germany there is no reason at all for it because of the Emperours openly owning that Interest but if you plead the warrs of Germany which then broke out I hope that may serve as a further plea for the Protestants who were in a good condition to go to a free Council about matters of Religion when a war was already begun upon them upon the account of Religion as most evidently appears not only by the supplies sent by the Pope but by the transactions afterwards between the Pope and the Emperour in some of which it is expresly confessed But supposing the place had been never so free there is another great Exception remaining still viz. That none had suffrage but such as were sworn to the Pope and Church of Rome and professed enemies to all that call'd for Reformation or a free Council To this you Answer 1. That it is no new thing for Bishops to take an oath of Canonical obedience to the Pope for St. Gregory mentions it as an ancient custome in his time and therefore this objection would serve as much against ancient General Councils as this of Trent 2. That the Bishops oath doth not deprive them of the liberty of their suffrage nay it doth not so much as oblige them not to proceed and vote even against the Pope himself if they see just cause but only that they will be obedient to him so long as he commands things suitable to the will of God and the Sacred Canons of the Church But what falshood and fraud lies in both these Answers it will not take up much time to discover Could you without blushing offer to say That no other oath was taken by the Bishops at the Council of Trent then what was taken in ancient General Councils for so much your words imply when you say That the same objection would have held as well against them as this of Trent Why do you not produce some instance of any oath taken to the Pope in any of the first General Councils I dare challenge you to bring any footsteps of any such thing in any ancient Council and you must needs have exceedingly hardened your forehead that durst let fall any thing tending that way It was in much later times before that oath of Canonical obedience from Bishops to their Metropolitan came up and when it did no more took any such oath to the Bishop of Rome then such as were under his Metropolitical jurisdiction In your citation of Gregory you would let us see how far you can out-go Bellarmin himself in these things For Bellarmin only proves that it is not new for Bishops to take an oath of Canonical obedience to the Pope but you say That Gregory mentions it as an ancient custom in his time which is egregiously false For there is not one word in all that Epistle implying any thing of former custome neither doth it contain an oath of Canonical obedience made by every Bishop at his consecration but only a Form of renunciation of Heresie by any Bishop who comes off from it to the Catholick Church and so the title of it is Promissio cujusdam Episcopi haeresin suam anathematizantis and what is this I pray to the oath taken by every Bishop at his consecration wherein he swears to defend and retain the Roman Papacy and the Royalties of St. Peter so their new Pontifical hath it whereas in the old one it was regulas Sanctorum Patrum against all men And was this no more then a bare oath of Canonical obedience The first mention we meet with of any oath of Canonical obedience taken by men in Orders is in the eleventh Council of Toledo cap. 10. held saith Loaysa A. D. 675. and therein indeed they say it is expedibile a matter they judge expedient That those in orders should Promissionis suae vota sub cautione spondere bind themselves by promise to observe the Catholick Faith and obey their Superiours but here is nothing at all concerning any oath to be taken by all Bishops to the Pope though Bellarmin produce it to that purpose For that was much later then the time of this Council it beginning at the time of the contests between the Popes and Princes about Investitures then the Pope to secure as many as he could to himself binds them in oath of Fealty and Allegiance rather then Canonical obedience to himself by which as Spalatensis truly saith he makes the Bishops his slaves and vassals And therefore in another place he justly wonders that any Christian Princes will suffer any Bishops to make that Homage by this oath to the Pope which is only due to themselves For saith he That oath which was only of Canonical obedience before they have turned it into absolute homage to the Pope so that none can be consecrated Bishops without it But yet you would perswade us that notwithstanding this oath they may proceed and vote against the Pope himself Surely Pope Pius 2 was of another mind who as the Appendix to Vrspergensis tells us in an Epistle to the Chapter at Mentz saith That to speak truth against the Pope is to break their oath But all this will more evidently appear if we produce the form of the Oath it self I mean not that in the old Roman Pontifical but that which was taken in Julius the third's time which was in the time of the sitting of the Council of Trent In which besides in the first place a promise of obedience to the Pope and his Successours and a promise of concealment of
fundamental in themselves or only by reduction and consequence Whether you hold all fundamental points literally or no yet if we prove you guilty of any gross dangerous and damnable errours as his Lordship asserts you are that will be abundantly sufficient to our purpose that Yours cannot possibly be any safe way to Salvation And although we should grant your Church right in the exposition of the three Creeds yet if you assert any other errours of a dangerous nature your right exposition of them cannot secure the souls of men from the danger they run themselves upon by embracing the other So much for the Argument drawn from the possibility of Salvation in the Roman Church CHAP. V. The Safety of the Protestant Faith The sufficiency of the Protestant Faith to Salvation manifested by disproving the Cavils against it C's tedious Repetitions passed over The Argument from Possession at large consider'd No Prescription allowable where the Law hath antecedently determined the right Of the Infallibility of Oral Tradition That contrary to the received Doctrine of the Roman Church and in it self unreasonable The Grounds of it examined The ridiculousness of the Plea of bare Possession discovered General Answers returned to the remaining Chapters consisting wholly of things already discussed The place of S. Cyprian to Cornelius particularly vindicated The proof of Succession of Doctrine lyes on the Romanists by their own Principles ALthough this Subject hath been sufficiently cleared in the Controversie concerning the resolution of Faith yet the nature of our task requires that we so far resume the debate of it as any thing undiscussed already offers it self to consideration For I cannot think it a civil way of treating the Reader to cloy him with Tautologies or Repetitions nor can I think it a way to satisfie him rather by some incidental passages than by a full and free debate In all those things then which we have had occasion to handle already I shall remit the Reader to the precedent discourses but whatever hath the face of being new and pertinent I shall readily examine the force of it The occasion of this fresh Debate was a new Question of the Lady Whether she might be saved in the Protestant Faith In answering whereof you say The parties conferring are put into new heats Vpon my soul said the Bishop you may Vpon my soul said Mr. Fisher there 's but one saving Faith and that 's the Roman Since the confidence seems equal on both sides we must examine Which is built on the stronger reason And his Lordship's comes first to be examined which he offers very freely to examination For saith he to believe the Scripture and the Creeds to believe these in the sense of the Ancient Primitive Church to receive the four great General Councils so much magnified by Antiquity to believe all points of Doctrine generally received as fundamental in the Church of Christ is a Faith in which to live and dye cannot but give Salvation And therefore saith he I went upon sure ground in the adventure of my soul upon that Faith Besides in all the points controverted between us I would fain see any one point maintain'd by the Church of England that can be proved to depart from the foundation You have many dangerous errours about the very foundation in that which you call the Roman Faith but there I leave you to look to your own soul and theirs whom you seduce Thus far his Lordship Two things you seem to answer to this 1. That such a Faith may not be sufficient 2. That ours is not such a Faith 1. That such a Faith may not be sufficient because you suppose it necessary to believe the Infallibility of the present Church and General Councils But that we are now excused from a fresh enquiry into but you would seem to inferr it from his own principles of submission to General Councils But by what peculiar Arts you can thence draw that some thing else is necessary to be believed in order to Salvation besides what hath been owned as Fundamentals in all ages I am yet to learn And sure you were much to seek for Arguments when you could not distinguish between the necessity of external submission and internal assent But the second is the main thing you quarrel with viz. That the English-Protestant Faith is really and indeed such a Faith and this you undertake at large to disprove You ask first Whether we believe all Scripture or only a part of it we answer All without exception that is Scripture i. e. hath any evidence that ever it was of Divine Revelation In this you say we profess more then we can make good seeing we refuse many books owned for Canonical by the Primitive Church and imbrace some which were not But in both you assert that which we are sure you are never able to defend since we are content to put it upon as fair a tryal as you can desire viz. That the Church of England doth fully agree with the Primitive Church as to the Canon of Scripture Which hath been already made good by the successful diligence of a learned Bishop of our Church to whom I refer you either for satisfaction or confusion But you are the men whose bare words and bold affirmations must weigh more then the greatest evidence of reason or Antiquity You love to pronounce where you are loath to prove and think to bear men down with confidence where you are afraid to enter the lists But our Faith stands not on so sandy a Foundation to be blown down with your biggest words which have that property of wind in them to be leight and loud When you will attempt to prove that the Books call'd Apocrypha have had an equal testimony of Divine Authority with those we receive into the Canon of Scripture you may meet with a further Answer upon that Subject Just as much you say to disprove our believing Scripture and the Creeds in the Primitive Church For you say The Fathers oppose us we deny it you say The Councils condemn us we say and prove the contrary You offer again at some broken evidences of the Popes Supremacy from Councils and Fathers but those have been discussed already and the sense of the Church at large manifested to be contrary to it But I fear your matters lye very ill concocted upon your stomack you bring them us so often up but I am not bound to dance in a circle because you do so And therefore I proceed but when I hope to do so you pull me back again to the Infallibility of Councils and the Church the question of Fundamentals and the Greek Church and scarce a page between but in comes again the Popes Supremacy as fresh as if it had been never handled before But I assure you after this rate I wonder you ever came to an end for you might have writ all your life time after that manner For the