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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29039	A brief enquiry into the grounds and reasons, whereupon the infallibility of the Pope and the Church of Rome is said to be founded by Edward Bagshawe ...	Bagshaw, Edward, 1629-1671.	1662 (1662)	Wing B404; ESTC R9275	31,865	56

minu● probi Bell. Prafat cannot but force them to acknowledge that he is liable to Errour but in his Politicall or which is all one his Ecclesiasticall capacity as he is the pretended Head of the Church and vested with all those Immunities and Priviledges which his Favourers suppose to be due unto the Universall Bishop 2. By the Church of Rome I mean not the diffused and scattered Body of the Papists but according to their own Sense how Absurd and Insignificant soever the Bishops and Doctours of their Church assembled together in a Councell where they may be supposed to meet with the greatest Advantage and Opportunity for the Disquisition and Search of Truth 3. By Infallible I mean to have a certain fixed and unerring Judgement in Religious matters which things alone do properly belong to the determination and cognizance of a Church as it is a Church And in this sense of the Question thus explained in as great a Latitude as any Papist can possibly understand it in I deny the Pope whether considered as apart from or conjoyned with as a part of a Councell to be Infallible For the proof of which Assertion though I might find out great variety of Arguments from the express and direct contradictions which have been among the Popes themselves some reversing that which others have ratified and others establishing that which their Predecessors under the severest Penalties have forbid Yet since the proper and direct way of Arguing lyes in shewing the weakness and insufficiency of those Arguments which are brought in defence of the Popes Infallibility that is the Method which I purpose altogether to insist on For since this great and so much admired Diana of the Papists is no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. a thing to be discerned by its own Light and to be credited meerly for it self as the testimony of the Spirit is when it bears witness unto the truth of Scripture and besides it being generally denied by all the Protestants who make the Errours of the Church of Rome the ground of their separation from them hence it cannot be expected that we should tamely give up out Assent to believe this Infallibility unless there be some evident and concluding Reasons to enforce it from us If therefore it shall appear that whatever Bellarmine and when I mention him I mean the strength of the whole Popish Party hath said is altogether impertinent and unconcluding indeed nothing else but a plain begging the thing in Question my Deduction from thence will be Infallible viz. that we have as yet no Reason to believe the Popes Infallibility To clear up this the best way will be to take a short view of those Arguments which Bellarmine alleadgeth in his Books De Pontifice Romano and they are briefly these three 1. Some Texts of Scripture in the New Testament 2. Some Analogicall Inferences out of the Old 3. Some Absurdities and Inconveniences which would follow in the Church of God should we not allow the Pope and Church of Rome to be Infallible 1. The Texts of Scripture which Bellarmine and all Writers since him do urge to prove the Popes Infallibility by are these three Mat. 16.18 19. Luk. 22.31 32. Job 21.15 17. From which they draw these three Conclusions 1. That in those fore-mentioned places our Saviour did confer upon Peter some speciall Priviledges above and beyond the rest of the Apostles and they were 1. Supremacy in Matthew 2. Infallibility in Luke 3. Universall Episcopacy in John 2. They Assume that whatever was bestowed upon Peter was not confined unto his Person but was promised likewise unto his Successours since what was granted unto Peter was given for the good of the Church and therefore ought not to die with him 3. They take for granted that the Pope was Peter's Successour both in the Bishoprick of Rome and also in all his other Priviledges and for the last they alleadge nothing but the credit of that which they call Apostolicall Tradition Whether or no these Deductions are cleare in the Texts or violently haled and wrested from them with so much impudent and shamelesse Sophistry as a wise and disinteressed Person would blush to be guilty of will best appeare by examining the places themselves and if when they are put upon the Racke they can be forced to confesse so much as Bellarmine and the Popes Parasites conclude from them I shall then consent to dethrone Scripture from its plainnesse and Perspicuity but till then I must take leave to thinke that that Church doth very wisely which makes Ignorance and Implicite Faith the Mother of Devotion for nothing lesse then an over-awed and Religious stupidity would make any man submit unto such Impossible and farre fetched interpretations 1. The place in Mat. 16.18 19. runs thus And Jesus answered and said unto him i. e. to Peter Blessed art thou Simon Barjona for flesh and bloud hath not revealed this to thee but my Father which is in Heaven And I say also unto thee that thou art Peter and upon this Rock will I build my Church and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it And I will give unto thee the Keyes of the Kingdome of Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in Heaven Which place they thus interpret 1. By the Rock upon which Christ saith he will build his Church is meant the Person of Peter and the Churche's being built upon him signifies say they that the care and government of it was committed to him and thus they understand likewise his Having of the Keyes 2. By the power of Binding and Loosing they understand the power of commanding and punishing of making and repealing Laws with all such things as belong to a Soveraign and Legislative Power 3. They tell us that whatever Peter had here was likewise granted to the Pope who is his Successour and therefore he being the Rock and the Foundation of the Church cannot be tossed about with every wind of Doctrine and therefore is Infallible But I answer 1. Upon supposition that Peter here was constituted as they call him Head and Prince of the Apostles yet how would this Personall Priviledge any more belong to the Bishop of Rome if he were Peter's Successour than what our Saviour elsewhere saith to Peter Why didst thou doubt O thou of little faith doth note the Pope's uncertainty and instability in Believing Or Mat. 14.31 what our Saviour presently after speaks Get thee behind me Satan doth signifie that every Pope is an Incarnate Devil or to take the mildest Interpretation an Adversary to Christ and to the good of mankind For what Reason can be assigned why the Pope may not as well succeed in Peter's Personall Defects as into his Priviledges since the Scripture is utterly silent either that he had or that he was to have a Successour in either But 2. I deny the Supposition upon

it Act. 15. why did not Peter then Preside as chiefe Why did he suffer the businesse to be disputed after he had declared his own Judgment Why doth James who spoke after him give him no more Honourable stile then plaine Simeon and seemes himself in saying My sentence is to give the whole solution of the Query as also the Forme of the Future Decree without taking any notice of Peter's decision Whence comes it that after a strict Debate the result was in the Councell It pleased the Apostles and Elders with the whole Church and the superscription of the Letter runs The Apostles and Elders and Brethren and the decree It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us without any mention of Peter at all whose Supremacy and Infallibility ought not to have been thus silently passed over that the Churches afterwards might know whether to to have recourse for satisfaction of their scruples How comes it to passe that we hear no Newes of Peter after but the story is continued wholy about Paul as if the Primacy had been transferred to him sure the Holy Penman who mentions so many of Paul's travells that were of farre lesse moment would not have omitted Peter's Journey to Rome his sitting Bishop there for eighteen yeares and fixing the Succession and Infallibility to boot upon that See had he understood any thing of it Afterwards when Paul meets Peter at Antioch Gal. 2. Why did he not vaile to him but Irreverently stand upon his Termes and Openly reprove him Lastly For Instances are infinite in this kind why doth that blessed Apostle Peter himself 1 Pet. 5. disclaime any such kind of Jurisdiction stiling himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Fellow-Elder and utterly forbiding any pretentions of Lordship and Soveraignty even over the Flocks they fed much more over their Fellow Ministers Certainly none of these things can consist with that grant which Bellarmine fondly supposeth was here made to Peter and therefore we may justly conclude that the words have another Interpretation which is plainly this Our Saviour asking his Disciples what men thought of him and whom they took him to be after he had heard the various opinions of others he continues to aske them theirs whereupon Peter in the name of the rest replies thou art the Christ the Son of God which being the Article that then was oppugned our Saviour pronounces him Blessed for it not as if other Believers were not equally blessed and did not obtain this Faith by Revelation too for so the Apostle Paul saith expressely 1 Cor. 12. that none can call Jesus Lord i. e. Christ but by the Holy Spirit but those words are spoken exclusively as to any outward meanes whereby he might attain that knowledge For that no lesse power than the Imediate action of the Spirit of God can make a man to Believe on Christ is not onely evident from the nature of the thing which exceeds all created ability but likewise from those perpetuall contradictions and doubtings which Beleivers themselves have before the Spirit of God hath explained and solved them The promise therefore which our Saviour makes to Peter of giving him the Keyes c. concerned all the Apostles since they were Believers and Disciples as well as he and so our Saviour enlarges it after his Resurrection in that generall Commission Whose sins soever you retain they are retained i. e. By your Preaching whom you doe declare to be under the power of sin if they Repent not and Believe the Gospell their sins are retained i. e. Bound and tied fast to them for God will never pardon such but others that embrace the Gospell are remitted i. e. loosed and absolved So that the result of all is this From this place cannot be inferred either 1. That Peter is that Rocke upon which Christ will build his Church but rather Christ himself confessed by Peter Or 2. That Peter here had any Preeminence of Power Authority and Infallibility above the rest of the Apostles he receiving this Promise onely as a Prolocutor of the Apostles in whose names he spoke and they being afterwards joyned all equally in the same Commission Much lesse can it be deduced 3. That the Pope who is not once mentioned was Peter's Sucessour or hath the least pretension to claime any thing from him unlesse it be his Errors and Fallibility 2. The second place of Scripture which is brought for the Patronage of Peters first and then of the Popes Infallibility is that which if they had searched the whole Scripture they could not have found one that doth more directly make against it The place is Luc. 22.31 32. Simon Simon behold Satan hath desired to have you that he may sift you as Wheat But I have prayed for thee that thy Faith faile not and when thou art converted strengthen thy Brethren Here though by a most miserable instance we find how fraile and fallible Peter was yet Bellarmine draws from hence two priviledges that were conferred upon Peter 1. That Peter might never fall from the Faith how much soever he was tempted of the Divell 2. That none of his Successors should ever teach any thing contrary to the truth The First of these I grant and acknowledge that it was by virtue of this Prayer of our Saviours that Peter recovered his station again after so great a shaking but withall I adde that this was no peculiar Priviledge to Peter but in common to all the rest as is more cleare in Joh. 17. v. 9. and the Reason why Peter was particularly spoken to was because our Saviour foresaw he should more foully miscarry and therefore stood in need of this Cordiall to relieve him But the second is so little to be gathered from the Text viz that the Pope as Peter's Successor should never teach false Doctrine that it would be an extream vanity in me to go about to confute it Onely one fetch of Bellarmines is not to be omitted when we object that if this place be to be understood of Peter's Successors then it must presuppose that all the Popes who will needs intrude into that Title must first deny Christ and after that be converted before they can strengthen their Brethren or be confirmed in the Faith themselves To this Bellarmine replies that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth not signifie Peters being turned from sin but his turning himself to the weak Brethren to discourse with them which is a piece of so merry Sophistry that it only serves to show the wretched boldnesse of Partiall and self-designing men when they make use of Scripture to shore up and to underprop their ill got greatnesse the plainest places then shall not escape their perverse and irregular fancies as this wherein there is a gracious Promise made of Peters Recovery and Conversion is made to signifie just nothing but the Impiety of those men who dare thus abuse it 3. The Third and last place which is urged in this Controverfie and