The TEXTS examined which Papists cite out of the Bible TO PROVE The Supremacy of St. PETER and of the POPE over the whole Church IMPRIMATUR Guil. Needham Febr. 14. 1687. THE Question to be debated in this Paper is Whether the Apostle St. Peter was constituted by Christ himself to be in his stead the Head and supreme Governour of the whole Church This we deny having undeniable Proofs that all the Apostles were placed by Christ in equal Power and Authority over his Church But the Doctors of the Roman Church affirm this with so much Confidence as to say that to deny it is not a simple Error but a pernicious Heresy They are the words of Bellarmine * L. 1. de Rom. Pontif. c. 10 11. who earnestly contends that the Government of the whole Church was committed to Peter especially about Matters of Faith. Which bold Assertion he labours to support three ways First By some places of Holy Scriptures Secondly By many Privileges and Prerogatives of St. Peter Thirdly By Testimonies of Greek and Latin Fathers I am concerned only in the first of these Ways in which if this Cause find no true support we need not trouble our selves about the other two which are so weak that some ingenuous Persons in their Communion have acknowledged the Prerogatives are either feigned at pleasure or no more to the purpose of his Supremacy than the pretended Testimonies of Ancient Fathers which are against it Now the Scriptures which they alledg for the proof of it are two places in the holy Gospels The one in St. Matthew xvi 18 19. the other in St. John xxi 17. In the former of these this Supreme Authority they say is promised to St. Peter in the latter it is conferred I begin with the first Matth. xvi 18 19. And I say unto thee that thou art Peter and upon this Rock I will build my Church c. And I will give unto thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt bind o◠Earth shall be bound in Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven The Sense of which words says Bellarmine is plain and obvious giving us to understand the Soveraignty over the whole Church to be here promised unto Peter in two Metaphors The one is a Metaphor of a Foundation and a Building the other is a Metaphor of Keys For what a Foundation is in the Building that the Head is in the Body the Governour in the City the King in his Kingdom and the Father of the Family in the House and to whom the Keys of a City are delivered he is appointed the King or at least the Governour of that City to admit and shut out whom he pleaseth Unto which I have this to say before I give the true Sense of these words That to call this a plain and obvious Sense of the words which is wrapt up in a couple of Metaphors is to stumble at the very Threshold and to contradict himself in the terms as they ordinarily speak For what is metaphorical is not plain and obvious but needs Explanation by putting it into common words Into which if these Metaphors be reduced we shall find there is no such Sense contained in them as is pretended I shall explain them distinctly and begin with the former part of this Promise Thou art Peter and upon this Rock I will build my Church which we may call the first Proof they bring of St. Peter's being the Monarch of the Church I. Which Sense is so far from being plain and obvious that having considered both the words and all the ancient Expositors upon them I can find nothing plainer than these two things First That there is no certainty St. Peter is here meant by the Rock upon which Christ saith he will build his Church Nor Secondly If he were that Christ intended by calling him a Rock to make him the Lord of his Church First I say there is no Evidence that St. Peter is here meant by the Rock but quite contrary we are led by the general stream of Ancient Interpreters to understand by the Rock upon which the Church is built that Faith concerning Christ which Peter had newly confessed There are more than two that thus expound the words for one that expounds them otherwise as may be seen in a Sermon lately printed on this Subject * Sermon on St. Peter's day 1686. which shows also that the other Expositions do not really differ from this but even they who apply these words to St. Peter had respect in calling him the Rock to his preaching the Doctrine of Christ and having the honour to be the first Preacher of it to the Gentiles Which is all the Priviledg that can be thought to be peculiarly intended to him in these words For excepting this whatsoever was said to him was directed to all the Apostles because Peter as their Mouth spake the Sense of them all when he said Thou art Christ the Son of the Living God and therefore Christ's Answer was returned to them all when he said Thou art Peter and upon this Rock will I build my Church As much as to say Thou art what thy Name imports which I have given thee with respect to this solid Faith thou hast now confessed upon which as upon a Rock I will build my Church by your Ministry and particularly by thine who shalt have the Honour to lay the first Stone of it in the Gentile World. Thus St. Austin †Tract exxiv in Joh. Serm. xiii de verbis Dom c. expounds the words in many places where he observes Peter had his Name from Petra the Rock viz. That Faith which he confessed upon which Christ told him he would build his Church For he doth not say Thou art Peter and upon thee will I build my Church but upon this Rock which plainly relates to another thing viz. that immoveable Foundation confessed by Peter that he was Christ the Son of God. Whence those known words of the same Father I will build thee upon me not me upon thee If it were the intention of this Paper to quote Testimonies I could name a great multitude even the ordinary Gloss which speak to the same purpose But it is wholly needless since the other Exposition which makes St. Peter the Rock here spoken of is against the most unanimous consent of the Fathers of the Church which they of the Church of Rome are bound to follow both by the Doctrine of the Council of Trent * Sess iv and by the form of that Oath of Profession of Faith which Pope Pius IV. drew up and enjoined according to the Mind of that Council And yet so vilely are some addicted to regard nothing but their Interest there are those who to make these words sound as if Christ promised to build his Church upon Peter himself have not blush'd thus to translate them Thou art Peter and upon this PETER will
upon it Particularly Launnoy who on set purpose demonstrates that Bellarmine neither obeyed the Decree of the Trent Council Epist pars v. Gulielmo Voello nor kept the Profession of Faith enjoined by Pius IV. when he drew this Conclusion of the Popes Infallibility from these Words Thou art Peter c. but was guilty of down-right Flattery of the Court of Rome for whose sake he in like manner falfied in the Citations he brings out of the Fathers to maintain the same Untruth But further than this the same Writer presses these words to prove that General Councils cannot err neither in believing nor teaching †L. 2. de Conc. Autor cap. i. Which is as much as to confess that what Christ said to Peter was intended to all Bishops of whom a General Council consists But here he endeavours to bring off himself by this Salvo if the Council be confirmed by the Pope as if they received their Infallibility from him who turns their doubtful Opinions into Oracles Whence it is that from the very same words Thou art Peter c. he proves the Pope to be above a Council * Ib. cap. xv immediately constituted by Christ the Pastor and Head not only of all particular Churches but also of the whole universal Church congregated together If this be to interpret the Scripture I know not what is setting it upon the Rack and stretching it as far as it pleaseth him who takes it in hand No Hereticks ever took so great a liberty as this which according to their way of reasoning makes it necessary to seal up the Bible quite that no body may look into it For if the danger of wresting the holy Scriptures be a just cause for denying the liberty of reading them to illiterate people it ought not to be granted to the most Learned who it appears by this great Cardinal are in as much or more danger of this than any other Men and so farewel the study of the Scriptures which neither Priest nor People must meddle withal But thanks be to God there is such a thing as Honesty and Integrity still remaining in the World which qualifies all Men for the wholsome perusal of them and hath preserv'd the minds of some in that Communion so uncorrupted as to make them disdain and reject these perverse and arrogant Interpretations or Distortions rather of Holy Scripture There is one hath lately declared his sense of this Promise to St. Peter in remarkable words with which I conclude this part of my Discourse †Du Pin de antiquae Eccles Discipl Dissert iv cap. 1. sect 1. Supposing Christ to have spoken these words and upon this Rock of the Person of Peter he meant nothing else thereby but that Peter should labour very much in the Edification of the Church that is in the Conversion of the Faithful and Administration of the Churches And therefore the most that can be deduced from hence is that he should be the first and the chief among those who were to preach the Gospel but it cannot from hence be gathered with Bellarmine that the Government of the whole Church was committed to Peter especially about Faith. II. The truth of this will further appear in the Explication of the next Words which expound those of which I have now treated And I will give unto thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt bind on Earth it shall be bound in Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven The sense of which is not so plain and obvious as Bellarmine pretends but we agree that they are a plain allusion to the Words of the Prophet Isaiah concerning Eliakim Isa xxii 23. I will give thee the Keys of the House of David i. e. make thee not High-Priest as he grossly mistakes but Steward of the Royal Family to take in and thrust out whom thou shalt think fit Such was the Power here promised to Peter by our Lord who saith of himself that he hath the Key of David Rev. iii. 7. i. e. of the House or Family of David which he alone governs by an absolute Power but tells Peter he intended to make him under himself his Supreme Lord and Master such a Steward in the Church as Eliakim had been in the Court. I say in the Church for by the Kingdom of Heaven I think no body now will dispute is meant the Family of Christ or the Christian Church in a great many places of the Gospel and most likely is so to be interpreted here But if any body be so minded as to understand by the Kingdom of Heaven not the Christian Society here below but the Company of the Blessed above let them consider that the sense will still be the same because by admission into the one and abiding in it we come to the other And Baptism is the Key which lets us into the Church out of which such as notoriously break their Baptismal Vow ought to be shut by the Censures of the Church and again received into it upon their hearty Repentance by granting them Absolution Thus the following Words expound it and whatsoever thou shalt bind on Earth c. That binding and loosing are one and the same with the Power of the Keys is acknowledged by the Roman Catechism * De Sacrament Paenitenn 44. and by Bellarmine himself who confesses the plain sense of these Words to be that first of all an Authority or Power is promised defined by Keys and then the Actions or Office of this Power is explained by those words loosing and binding So that to loose and to open to shut and to bind is altogether the same thing †L. 1. de Pont. Rom. cap. xii verùm And we need not further trouble our selves to inquire how far this Power extends for it is certain there is nothing here promised though we suppose it never so large which was intended to him alone but to them all except that of opening the door first to let the Gentiles into the Church This is apparent from what was said before concerning Christ speaking to them all in him as he spake for them all in answer to our Saviour's Question propounded to the whole Company Which produced this Promise from our Saviour not to him alone but to all them in whose Name he spake Which is no new Interpretation but as old as the Church it self for the Antients say with an unanimous consent that these Keys were given to the whole Church in the Person of Peter * Du Pin de antiqua Eccles Disc dissert iv c. 1. Sect. 1. as a late Writer in the Roman Communion honestly confesses St. Austin particularly inculcates this an hundred times as his words are a proof of which may be seen in another of his Brethren †Jo. Launoy Epist par 2. Hadriano Valantio p. 14. c. who hath made a Collection of xxvi places out of his Works to
of the Church as appears by St. Cyprian in ancient times who observes that our Lord who said to Peter Thou art Peter c. gave to all his Apostles equal Power * Parem Potestatem after his Resurrection when he said As the living Father sent me so I send you c. concluding from thence that all the Apostles were what St. Peter was †Hoc utique erant caeteri Apostoli quod suit Petrus pari consortio praediti honoris potestatis c. L. de unitate Ecclesiae Epist xxiii ad Jubianum And by Theophylact in later times who thus glosses upon Matth. xvi 19. Though our Lord said only to Peter I WILL GIVE THEE yet they were given to all the Apostles When at that time when he said Whosoever Sins ye remit they are remitted For the word I WILL GIVE denotes the future time that is after the Resurrection Then he said to them all As my Father hath sent me so I send you Which are words so large that they contain in them a plenitude of Power and confute the conceit of those who say that Christ indeed gave the Power of remitting and retaining Sins to all the Apostles but the Power of the Keys to Peter alone Whereby if they meant that to Peter it was given to open the Gate first to the Gentiles it ought to be allowed to be a true sense tho we are not certain it was the thing peculiarly intended by our Saviour in these words But understanding thereby a distinct Power from that of binding and loosing retaining and remitting which St. Peter exercised when he let the Gentiles into the Church it is certainly false that he gave him such a Power which he did not confer upon the rest For should we suppose binding and loosing to be distinct from the Power of the Keys yet this Power of the Keys be it what it will we may be sure is included in these comprehensive words As my Father hath sent me so I send you which were spoken unto them all And therefore as the Keys were not promised to him alone so not to him more than any other Apostle but only the use of them first before any other Apostle That 's the most as I have often said which can reasonably be conceived to be peculiarly promised to Peter in these words that he should first open the Door of Faith to the Gentiles as we read he did Acts x. and as some think to the Jews also Acts ii Tertullian * L. de Pudicitiae c. xxi seems to be of this mind and I shall not here dispute it who mentioning this place I will give thee the Keys c. thus proceeds so the Event teaches us the Church was first built on him that is by him He first handled the Key See what Key Ye Men of Israel hear these words Jesus of Nazareth a Man approved of God among you c. Acts ii 22 c. He in fine did first by the Baptism of Christ unlock the entrance of the Heavenly Kingdom c. He bound Ananias with the Bond of Death and he absolved the Man lame of his Feet from the weakness wherewith he laboured And in the Dispute which arose about the Obligation of the Law Peter first of all by the instinct of the Holy Ghost having told them how God made choice of him that the Gentiles should hear the Word from his Mouth said And now why tempt ye God to put a Yoke upon the Neck of the Disciples which neither our Fathers nor we were able to bear c. where he plainly makes the Power of the Keys and binding and loosing to be the same thing and from the scope of his Discourse it appears as Launoy †Epist par ii Hadriano Vallantio p. 6. hath observed that they then believed at Rome that in the Person of Peter the Keys were given to the Church that is says he the power of binding and loosing Which things if the late Catholick Scripturist had known or would have been pleased to mind how could he have had the Confidence to say that our Lord spake these words to Peter to signify that he was the Head and Chief in ordinary For tho the Power of binding and loosing was afterward given to the other Apostles yet the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven are never in Scripture said to be given to any but to St. Peter * The seventh Point n. 6. By which Keys also he saith is signified the plentitude of highest Power For this vain Conceit is contrary to the common Opinion of the ancient Fathers whom they are bound by their Profession of Faith and Oath to follow contrary to their greatest Schoolmen such as Scotus Aquinas Alex. Alensis who affirm that the Keys promised to Peter in St. Matth. xvi were given to all the Apostles in St. John xx contrary also to their own Catechism as I have shown according to which he ought to have instructed his Followers The Sum of what hath been said is this 1. The Power which our Lord here promised to Peter was not meant to him alone 2. For he did but represent and sustain the Person of the Church as the Ancients speak to whom this Promise belongs 3. And therefore our Lord afterward promises the very same thing in the same words to all the Apostles which he here promises to Peter 4. And accordingly when he performed his Promise he gave this Power to every one of them equally 5. But Christ directed this Promise at the first singularly to him that he might commend Vnity 6. Or at the most he promised him the Honour of opening the Door of Faith first unto the Gentiles 7. From whence we can only gather that he was the first among the Apostles but not that he was promised any Power which the rest had not for the contrary is apparent 8. To all which I must add repeating briefly what I said upon the foregoing words that if we should grant our Saviour to have promised some Power to Peter when he said I will give thee the Keys which the other Apostles had not it would prove a personal Prerogative and cannot be shewn to have descended to any Successor much less to the Pope of Rome who Bellarmine saith is a true Prince who hath Power to make true Laws to bind the whole Church And this he proves from these words Whatsoever thou shalt bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven c. * L. iv de Rom. Pontif. c. xvi Concerning which it will be thought too sharp perhaps to say tho they are the words of one in the Roman Communion †Launoy ubi supra p. 77. simply to relate the words of this Author is simply to confute them they are so very contrary to Truth and Equity The Reader therefore may be pleased briefly to consider what our Lord himself saith to all his Apostles Matth. xxiii 8 9 10. which utterly overturns