of the Apostles as it does to him and that therefore whatever Power may be here promised to him over the Church there is none promised over the rest of the Apostles and that consequently his Successors can claim nothing from hence over the Successors of all the Apostles the other Bishops of the Christian Church But to consider this Matter more particularly we may take notice 1. That the rest of the Apostles did not apprehend that St. Peter had here any peculiar Power promised him above them for we find that not long after they were contending who should be the greatest by which it's plain they did not then apprehend that our Saviour had already determined the Matter And as for our Saviour himself he does not at all endeavour to put them right as it was of great consequence he should do supposing that he designed St. Peter for their Governour but he endeavours to teach them all humility and not to affect Power or Authority over one another And the same instance we have in the Case of Zebedee's Children when their Mother came to desire that the one might sit on his right hand and the other on his left in his Kingdom that is that they might be the Persons of chief Favour and Authority with him their Petition plainly implies that they knew nothing of St. Peter's Prerogatives and our Saviour's Answer which you may see at large Mat. 20. implies as plainly that neither St. Peter nor any body else was to have such Power in the Church as the Bishops of Rome have since pretended to 2. I would observe that these Words of our Saviour to St. Peter do not actually invest him with any Power but are only a Promise to him and therefore the best way to see what was peculiar to him in it above the rest of the Apostles will be to see the fulfilling of the Promise and his being Actually invested in it That this is only a Promise appears from the Words themselves which run in the future tense I will give thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven And I believe they of the Church of Rome will not deny this because they say that the Apostles were not Priests till our Saviour made them so in the Institution of the Lord's Supper Now if we consider the Actual Investiture into this Power there is nothing peculiar to Saint Peter Our Saviour gives them all their Power together in Words much of the same Nature with that Promise before to St. Peter Receive ye the Holy Ghost whose soever sins ye remit they are remitted and whose soever sins ye retain they are retained And as for the Expression Vpon this Rock I will build my Church there is much the same said of all the Apostles The Church is said to be built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Jesus Christ himself being the chief Corner-stone 3. The best way to see whether St. Peter had any such Supremacy will be to see whether he exercised any whether he did any Acts or Offices which belonged to so high a Power There must be constantly so many occasions for the exercise of that Power that if he had any such we could not miss of Instances of it The Times of the Apostles were indeed Times of greater Simplicity than these later Ages and therefore I do not expect they should shew me St. Peter Commanding after the manner of our Modern Popes But if they can shew me any one single Act of Authority over the rest of the Apostles if they can shew me St. Peter of himself making Laws and Orders for the good Government of the Church or so much as presiding in the College of the Apostles if they can shew me any Appeals made to him or Controversies ended by him or among so many Controversies as happened any advice to repair to him or command to obey him I shall not shut my Eyes against the discoveries But to consider this Matter a little more particularly As soon as our Blessed Saviour was Ascended there was an occasion given to exercise this Supremacy in chusing a new Apostle in the room of Judas Acts 1. But we see that the method taken was that the whole Multitude chose Two and then they cast Lots which of the Two should be the Apostle And so as to the choosing of Deacons Acts 7. the whole Multitude chose them and presented them not to Peter but to all the Apostles to be Ordained If we look a little further into the Acts of the Apostles to Ch. 8. We shall find the Apostles not sent by St. Peter up and down to their business as occasion required but St. John and him sent by them to Samaria which was not very mannerly nor very fit had they known him to be their Sovereign Acts 11. we find those of the Circumcision contending with him and forcing him to give an account of his Actions and that without any Ceremony or deference proper for one in so high a Place and we see he patiently submits to it without standing upon his Prerogative of being unaccountable without chiding them for their Insolence or any thing of that kind Acts 15. we find a solemn Meeting of the Apostles and Brethren at Jerusalem where St. Peter speaks indeed as any other Man might have done but does not preside or determine any thing The Appeal was to the Apostles and Elders at Jerusalem not to him alone and if any thing in the whole Meeting was done Authoritatively by any single Person it was by St. James for he passes Sentence as you may see Verse 19. If we go to the Epistles we shall find as little evidence of his Authority as we have in the History of the Church in the Acts of the Apostles The first Epistle is that to the Romans not from St. Peter but from St. Paul where there is not the least notice taken either of St. Peter or of the great Prerogatives of that Church which one would think could hardly be avoided if St. Paul had known any thing of them nay he says some things which directly contradict their Pretences which you may see Chap. 11. He tells them there that he speaks to them who were Gentiles as being the Apostle of the Gentiles and if so St. Peter must not have had so near a relation to them because he was the Apostle of the Jews Then he proceeds to advise them to have a care of themselves lest they should fall away and be cut off as you may see ver 20 21. Be not high-minded but fear for if God spared not the natural Branches take heed lest he also spare not thee It 's plain that St. Paul at that time knew nothing of the great Privileges of that Church of its being the Mother and Mistris of all Churches of its being the Center of Church Vnity and of its being Infallibly secured from Error and Apostacy If we go on to the Epistle to the Corinthians we shall sind there a
very proper occasion to mention St. Peter's Authority if he had any such as they boast of as you may see 1 Eph. Chap. 1. Now this I say that every one of you saith I am of Paul and I of Apollos and I of Cephas or Peter and I of Christ Is Christ divided or was Paul Crucified for you c. Those People certainly knew nothing of St. Peter's Supremacy nor St. Paul neither otherwise he would hardly have omitted to tell them of such an Infallible Cure for their Divisions In the Epistle of St. Paul to the Galatians we have many Arguments against St. Peter's pretended Supremacy St. Paul tells us there that he had no Superior that he had his Authority from none but Christ Ch. 1.17 He compares himself with St. Peter and says that the Ministry of the Vncircumcision was committed to him as the Ministry of the Circumcision was unto Peter Ch. 2. v. 7. He mentions St. Peter as of the same Authority with James and John when James Cephas and John who seemed to be Pillars Verse the 9th And a little further he tells us how he openly withstood Peter to the Face because he was to be blamed All these things might be urged at large but I content my self only tomention them But from all together I think I may well conclude that this Promise of our Saviour did not intend St. Peter any Power over the rest of the Apostles and consequently not any to his Successors if he had any over the Bishops of the Christian Church who are Successors of the Apostles in general tho' we do not deny but St. Peter had a Power over the whole Church but only as the rest of the Apostles had whose Care and consequently Authority was not consined to particular Churches as it was thought fit in order to the better Government of the Church that the Authority of Bishops should be since but was left at large and unconfin'd as to any certain limits either of Person or Places But suppose it should be granted that St. Peter had such Power as they affirm he had yet there is not one Word in Scripture about a Successor or about the vast Privileges of the Church of Rome in this Point And in truth there is as little evidence in the History of the Church for many Ages of this pretended Authority of the Bishop of Rome as there is in the Scriptures Rome was at the time of the Planting the Christian Religion a vast City and the Head of a very great Empire This must of it self give the Bishop of it a great influence in the Affairs of the Church which was almost all within the Roman Empire this made all sort of Communication with him easy by means of the mighty refort that was made from all Parts to the tal City and Greatness of his See did in course of Time bring great Riches to it and if we add to this that it was honoured by the Preaching and Martyrdom of two great Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul we see plain Reasons why the Bishops of Rome were likely to make a great Figure in the Church but as for real Authority such as is now pretended there do not appear any footsteps of it for several Ages As for Speculative Opinions We may not perhaps have so certain an account of them so long after unless of those which by some accident or other came to be Disputed But Government is a Practical thing and there happens every day Occasion to exercise it especially the Government of the whole Church and if the Pope had been from the beginning what he pretends to be and what he now makes himself his Power could have been no more a matter of Controversy than it could be made a Controversy whether there were any Christian Church for the same History that clears the one must at the same time clear the other The Old Body of History of the Christian Church is that of Eusebius which contains an account of the Affairs of it for above 300 Years now if the Pope were Monarch of the Church for those 300 Years we can no more miss to see it in that History than we can read any History of England for such a Number of Years and be uncertain whether we had here any King or no for so long a time No History hardly can be conceived so faulty or imperfect as to leave such a Matter a Secret or uncertain And yet I would Challenge any indifferent Person to read that History over and to shew me but any one thing in it from which it can be probably inferred that the Bishop of Rome was the Governour of the whole Church whereas were it truly so there must have been something of it in almost every Page Because all the business of the Church must in a manner roul upon him He must be the Person appeal'd to in almost all Difficulties we must have found his decrees in all the great Affaires that passed His Decretal Epistles must have been interspersed up and down in the whole Work his Authority must have put an end to all Schisms and Heresies or at least their Rebellion against him must have been reckoned as one great part of their Crime In a word as I said before the thing must have appeared as plain as that there was any King in England for these last 300 Years Next to that History the most likely place to find his Authority if he had any is in the Works of St. Cyprian which contain more of the Ancient Discipline and Government of the Church than is to be found in any other Old Author especially if we add further that a great part of his Works is only Letters to or from Bishops of Rome We could not but see in such a number of Letters whether he wrote to his Sovereign or not we should see it in the Titles which he gives him in his Style in the deference which he pays him In short the whole would some how or other shew that it was his Superior he was writing to but now the contrary to this is true He never speaks to him or of him in his Letters to other People but by the Name of Brother he freely Censures him and his Opinions just as he would do by any other Man and with as little deference or respect and he finally differed from him in a Matter of great consequence that of Re-baptizing Hereticks and called Councils of the Clergy and raised a great Party against him in it and yet was never that I have heard of charged either with Rebellion or Schism or Heresy upon that account but is to this day reputed a Saint in Heaven To conclude this Matter The whole Discipline of the Ancient Universal Church plainly shews that the Government of it was an Aristocracy especially that strict Account that Bishops were to give to their Fellow Bishops up and down the World of their Ordination and their Faith and other Matters in
Instance we have of this kind is that of St. John in the Revelations falling down to Worship the Angel who we see puts him off it with the same kind of general Words that our Saviour uses in the former Instance See thou do it not I am thy fellow servant Worship God Rev. 22.18.19 Here I would observe as in the former Case that the Worship which the Angel rejects and appropriates to God is falling down at his feet to Adore him And in the next place I would observe that had Adoration been due to an Angel the true Answer to St. John had been that he should have a care not to mistake him to be God who was but an Angel and so give him more than was due to him but we see he throws off the whole without any reserve or distinction and for a Reason that will hold against all Creature Worship that he was his Fellow-servant In a word it had been no great secret for the Angel to tell St. John that God was to be Worshipped or that God only was to be Worshipped with an inward apprehension of his being God neither of these were any great Mystery or to the purpose And therefore his meaning must be that Religious Worship such as that Adoration was ought to be given to none but God I shall name but one more place of Scripture in which this Creature Worship is taken notice of and that is Coloss 2.18 Let no man beguile you of your reward by a voluntary humility and Worshipping of Angels The Apostle in this and the following Verses makes use of Two Arguments against the Worshipping of Angels First that it is a voluntary Humility that is tho' Men may pretend a great deal of Humility that it is not fit for such mean Creatures as they to go directly into the Presence of God but that they ought to apply to the Angels of God to be their Introducers yet all this is Humility of their own inventing such as God has not required at their hands 2. That this Worshipping of Angels is leaving Christ their Head He is the only Mediator betwixt God and Men and therefore applying to any other is leaving him who is the Head of the Church and then no wonder if it beguile us of our reward This Argument is very plain and very strong against the practice of Praying to Saints or Angels and it hath this one thing very observable in it That if this Text proves it unlawful to set up any more Mediators but Jesus Christ it must be understood of Mediators of Intercession for no body could so much as pretend that Angels were Mediators of Redemption as those of the Church of Rome without any ground at all make the distinction I might shew farther the Idolatry of this Practice of praying to Saints and Angels from this that it must suppose Divine Perfections in the Creatures to whom we pray as of Power to be able to supply our Wants especially in those Prayers that are put up to them directly to beg such or such Blessings from them and so of Knowledge because Prayer at least Mental Prayer supposes that the Persons we pray to know our Hearts and the secret thoughts and sincerity or insincerity of all the Men and Women in the World and that they can perfectly attend to them all at the same time which are Perfections that the Scripture never attributes to any but God and in the Nature of the thing it is hardly conceivable of any Creature but I shall content my self to have named these things and shall conclude this whole Matter with just proposing those two short Considerations 1. I desire it may be considered that in the Church of Rome there is no External part of Religion appropriated to God and incommunicable to Creatures but the Sacrifice of the Mass and if in the preceding Discourses I have overthrown the foundation of that there is then nothing at all remaining 2. I desire it may be considered that the Reasons commonly given to justify Prayers to Saints and Angels would if well followed hinder Men from ever praying to God at all as in fact this has much estranged Men from God in those Countries where they have had no Protestants among them to make them ashamed of it and even nearer our selves I believe we may justly say that at least Ten Prayers are put up to Creatures for one that is put up to God Of the Pope's Supremacy I now come to consider the Oath of Supremacy which consists of Two Parts I. A Declaration of the Unlawfulness and Impiety of taking up Arms against the King upon Account of His being Excommunicated or Deprived by the Pope II. A Renunciation of the Pope's pretended Supremacy over the Church of Christ particularly over that part of it in this Kingdom As to the First of these I need not insist upon it becanse if I can prove the Second That the Pope has of right no Spiritual Power here the other must of course fall with it I would only observe before I proceed That if those of the Roman Communion among us do believe that the Pope has a Power from God to Excommunicate and to Deprive Princes of their Kingdoms for Heresy and that therefore they are bound to concur with the Pope as far they can to put his Sentence in Execution this must make them Enemies to all Protestants and consequently they have reason to expect that Protestants should have a care of them But if they do believe that God has not given any such Power to the Pope they have then Reason to have a care of their Guide who is doing what he can under pretence of Authority from God to carry them to Treason and Murther and all the Villanies which must follow an attempt to turn out their King and all his Protestant Subjects that will stand by him But I have in some measure taken notice of these things already and therefore shall not now inlarge upon them but proceed to consider the Grounds of the Popes pretence to Supremacy The Opinion of the Church of Rome with relation to his Supremacy is this That Jesus Christ made Saint Peter the Supreme Governor and Head as of all the rest of the Apostles so also of the whole Church That St. Peter was afterward Bishop of Rome and that by Divine Appointment his Successors the Bishops of Rome are to enjoy the same Supremacy over the Church which he had Their Opinion about the Supremacy of St. Peter is founded chiefly upon those Words of our Saviour Mat. 16.18,19 Vpon this Rock I will build my Church And I will give unto thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven They say our Saviour does by these Words promise to St. Peter to make him Monarch of the whole Church We say that tho' these Words were spoken to St. Peter upon occasion of his speaking to our Saviour immediately before yet that this Promise does as much belong to the rest