the Intention of the Ordainers And therefore Bellarmine is fain to take up with this that though we cannot be sure that he is a true Pope Bishop or Presbyter that is ordained yet we are bound to obey him But where then is the Certainty of succession 4. What succession of Episcopal Consecration was there in the Church of Alexandria when Hierom Epist ad Evagrium tells us that At Alexandria from Mark the Evangelist even till Heraclus and Dionysius their Bishops the Presbyters did alwayes name one man that Bishop whom they chose from among themselves and placed in a higher degree Even as if an Army make an Emperour or the Deacons choose one of themselves whom they know to be industrious and call him the chief Deacon Thus Hierom shews that Bishops were then made by meer Presbyters And in the same Epistle he proves from Scripture that Presbyters and Bishops were then all one And if so there were no Prelatical Ordinations then at all And your Medina accusing Hierom of error in this saith that Ambrose Austin Sedulius Primasius Chrysostom Theodoret Oecumenius Theophilact were in the same heresie as Bellarmine himself reporteth him So that Presbyters now may either ordain or make themselves Bishops as those of Alexandria did to do it And as Hierom there saith All are the successors of the Apostles and our Bishops or Presbyters are such as much at least as yours yet Apostles as Apostles have no Successors at all as Bellarmine well teacheth lib. 4. de Pontif. cap. 25. saying Bishops do not properly succeed the Apostles because the Apostles were not ordinary but extraordinary and as it were delegate Pastors who have no Successors Bishops have no part of the true Apostolick Authority Apostles could preach in the whole world and found Churches but so cannot Bishops The Apostles could write Canonical Books but so cannot Bishops Apostles had the gifts of tongues and miracles but so have not Bishops The Apostles had Jurisdiction over the whole Church but so have not Bishops And there is no Succession but to a Predecessor but Apostles and Bishops were in the Church both at once as appeareth by Timothy Titus Evodius and many more If therefore Bishops succeed Apostles to what Apostle did Titus succeed and whom did Timothy succeed To conclude Bishops succed Apostles but in the same manner as Presbyters succeed the seventy two Disciples But its manifest that Presbyters do not properly succeed the seventy two Disciples but only by similitude For those seventy two Disciples were not Presbyters nor did they receive any Order of Jurisdiction from Christ Philip Stephen and others that were of the seventy two had never been after Ordained Deacons if they had been Presbyters before Thus Bellarmine See now what 's become of the Popish Apostolical Successors among their Bishops And the scope of all this is to prove that all Bishops receive their Power from the Pope and so their succession is confined to him alone and therefore as oft as there have been interruptions in the Papal Succession so oft the Succession of all their Church was interrupted But if Bishops succeed not Apostles and have not any of the Apostolick Power who then doth the Bishop of Rome succeed Why Bellarmine hath a shift for this but how sorry an one it is you shall bear cap. 25. he saith that The Pope of Rome properly succeedeth Peter not as an Apostle but as an Ordinary Pastor of the whole Church Let us then have no more talk of the Apostolick seat or at least no more Arguing from that name You see then that Peter was not the Universal Vicar as an Apostle nor doth the Pope so succeed him And do you think this doth not give away the Vicarship Which way hereafter will they prove it But an Objection falls in Bellarmines way that If this be so then none of the Bishops of Africk Asia c. were true Bishops that were not made by the Pope To which he answers as well as he can that its enough that the Pope do Consecrate them Mediately by making Patriarchs and Arch-bishops to do it and so Peter did Constitute the Patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch who thus receiving authority from the Pope did Rule almost all Asia and Africk But 1. That almost marreth the whole Cause For where now is the universal Headship 2. Did Bellarmine think in good sadness that Alexandria and Antioch were made at first the seats of Patriarchs having as large Jurisdiction as afterward they attained 3. How will he prove that Peter made these two Patriarchates and that not as an Apostle but as an Ordinary Vicar General 4. Who made the Patriarchate of Constantinople and gave them that vast Jurisdiction Did Peter many hundred years after his death Or did the Pope of Rome that tooth and nail resisted and still sought to diminish his Power Or rather did not the General Councils do it by the Emperors Commands the Pope excepting and repining at it 5. Who made the Patriarch of Jerusalem and who made James Bishop of Jerusalem did Peter And who made Timothy and Titus Bishops did Peter or Paul And who gave Paul that Power not Peter certainly Reader do not these men jest with holy things Or is it like that they believe themselves 6. Bellarmine confesseth that the Potestas Ordinis interioris jurisdictionis are both as immediately from God to every Bishop as to the Pope cap. 22. And why then should it be denyed of the power of exterior Jurisdiction 1. Is one part of the Essence of the Office given by the Pope and the rest without him 2. And what if it be proved that exterior and interior Jurisdiction of a Pastor is all one Though the matter of obedience be exterior yet the Jurisdiction is exercised only on the soul directly in one case as well as another it being the mind on which the obiglation lyeth and the Pastoral Rule is powerful and effectual and further then you procure consent you are despised For it s the Magistrates work to use violence Bishops as Bishops can but perswade and deal by words with the inner man And thus you see what is become of the Papists Succession 5. Most of the Ministers in England till within these few years were ordained by Bishops If that were of Necessity they have it 6. He that is ordained according to the Apostles directions or prescript in Scripture hath the true Apostolical Ordination but so are we Ordained therefore The Apostles never Confined Ordination to Prelates much less to those Prelates that depend on the Pope of Rome The Bishops to whom the Apostles committed this Power are the same that are called Presbyters by them and they were the Overseers or Pastors but of one single Church and not of many Churches And such are those that Ordain among us now Gregor Nazianzen Orat. 18. saith thus I would there were no Presidency nor Prerogative of Place and Tyrannical Priviledges that so we might be known
only by vertue or meer desert But now this Right side and Left side and Middle and Lower Degree and Presidency and Concomitancy have begot us many Contritions to no purpose and have driven many into the Ditch and have led them away to the region of the Goats What Hierom saith both in his Epistle to Evagrius and on Tit. cap. 2. is commonly known The many plain Testimonies of Anselmn are commonly Cited as plain as Hieroms Alphons à Castro advers Haeres lib. 6. in nom Episcop had more ingenuity then to joyn with them that would wrest Hieroms words to a sence so contrary to their most plain importance Tertullian cap. 17. de Bapt. thought Lay-men in Necessity might Baptize and so doth the Church of Rome now Why then may not Presbyters in such a case at least Ordain when as he there saith Quod ex aequo accipitur ex aequo dari potest And ibid. he saith that it is but propter Ecclesiae honorem that Bishops Rule in such matters and that peace may be kept and Schism avoided But that probati quique seniores did exercise Discipline in the Assembly he testifieth in Apologet. Mr. Prin hath cited you abundance of Fathers that were for the parity of the Ministry or against Prelacy jure Divino Isidore Pelusiat lib. 3. Epist 223. ad Hieracem Episcopatum fugientem saith And when I have shewed what difference there is between the ancient Ministry and the present Tyranny why do you not Crown and Praise the Lovers of equality If you would see more of the Antients making Presbyters to be Bishops and Consenting with Hierom read Sedulius on Tit. 1. Anselm Cantuar in Enarrat in Phil. 1. 1. Beda on Act. 20. Alcuinus de Divinis officiis c. 35 36. and on John lib. 5. Col 547. c. Epist 108. And that Presbyters may Ordain Presbyters see Anselmn on 1 Tim. 4. 14. And Institut in Concil Colon. de sacr Ordin fol. 196. see also what 's said by our Mart. Bucer script Anglic. pag. 254 255 259 291. sequ Pet. Martyr Loc. Commu Clas 4. Loc. 1. sect 23 pag. 849. And Wickliffes Arguments in Waldensis Passim And your own Cassander Consult Artic. 14. saith It is agreed among all that of old in the Apostles dayes there was no difference between Bishops and Presbyters but afterwards for Orders sake and the avoiding of Schism the Bishop was set before the Presbyters And Ockam determineth that by Christs Institution all Priests of what degree soever are of equal Authority Power and Jurisdiction Reynold Peacock Bishop of Chichester wrote a Book de Ministrorum aequalitate which your party caused to be burnt And Richardus Armachanus lib. 9. cap. 5. ad Quest Armen saith There is not found in the Evangelical or Apostolical Scriptures any difference between Bishops and simple Priests called Presbyters whence it follows that there is one Power in all and equall from their Order cap. 7. answering the Question Whether any Priest may Consecrate Churches c. he saith Priests may do it as well as Bishops seeing a Bishop hath no more in such matters then any simple Priest though the Church for reverence to them appoint that those only do it whom we call Bishops It seems therefore that the restriction of the Priests Power was not in the Primitive Church according to the Scripture I refer you to three Books of Mr. Prins viz. his Catalogue his Antipathy of Lordly Prelates c. and his unbishoping of Timothy and Titus where you have the Judgements of many writers of these matters And also to what I have said in my Second Disputation of the Episcopal Controversiès of purpose on this point 7. The chief error of the Papists in this cause is expressed in their reason No man can give the Power that he hath not wherein they intimate that it is Man that giveth the Ministerial Power whereas it is the gift of Christ alone Man doth but design the person that shall receive it and then Christ giveth it by his Law to the person so designed and then man doth in vest him and solemnize his introduction As a woman may choose her an husband but it is not she that giveth him the Power over her but God who determineth of that Power by his Law affixing it to the person chosen by her and her action is but a condition fine qua non or cause of the capacity of the matter to receive the form And so is it here When do but obey God in a right choice and designation of the person his Law doth presently give him the Power which for orders sake he must be in a solemn manner invested with But matters of Order may possibly vary and though they are to be observed as far as may be yet they alwayes give place to the Ends and substance of the work for the ordering whereof they are appoineed 8. Temporal power is as truly and necessarily of God as Ecclesiastical and it was at first given immediately by him and he chose the person And yet there is no Necessity that Kings must prove an uninterrupted Succession God useth means now in designing the persons that shall be Governors of the Nations of the earth But not alway the same means nor hath he tyed himself to a successive Anointing or Election else few Kings on earth would hold their Scepters And no man from any diversity in the cases is able to prove that a man may not as truly be a lawful Church-governor as a lawful Governor of the Commonwealth without an uninterrupted succession of Ministerial Collation 9. If Bellarmine be forced to maintain that with them it is enough that a Pastor have the place and seem lawfull to the people and that they are bound to obey him though it should prove otherwise Then we may as well stand on the same terms as they 10. In a word our Ordination being according to the Law of Christ and the Popes so contrary to it we are ready at any time more fully to compare them and demonstrate to any impartial man that Christ doth much more disown their Ordination then ours and that we enter in Gods appointed way Mr. Eliot in New England may better Ordain a Pastor over the Indians converted by him then leave them without or send to Rome or England for a Bishop or for Orders But again I must refer you of this subject to the Books before mentioned and the Sheet which I have written lest I be over-tedious CHAP. XXXIV Detect 25. ANother of their Deceits is In pretending the Holiness of their Churches and Ministry and the unholiness of ours This being matter of fact a willing and impartial mind may the easier be satisfied in it They prove their Holiness 1. By the Canonized Saints among them 2. By the devotion of their Religious Orders and their strictness of living 3. By their unmarried Clergy 4. By their sanctifying Sacraments and Ceremonies In all which they
head or Soveraigns of the Church The Major is of unquestionable verity in Politicks Legislation is the first and chief work of Soveraignty The Minor is proved 1. Ad hominem by the confession of the chief Opponents Grotius de Imperio summar potest doth purposely maintain it and so do others See of this Lud. Molinaeus new Book supposed against the Presbyterians his Paraenesis 2. It is the high Prerogative of Christ the true King and Soveraign of the Church which none must arrogate He was faithfull in all his house as was Moses His Law is perfect It is sufficient to make the man of God perfect even a sufficient rule of faith and life No man must add thereto nor take ought therefrom but do whatsoever he hath commanded Deut. 12. 32. To the Law and to the Testimony if they speak not according to these it is because there is no light in them Isa 8. 20. Object But men may make By-laws under Christ and his Laws Answ True but as those are in this case no proper Laws so no man or men may make them for the Unversal Church For the business of those Laws is only to determine of circumstances which God hath made necessary in genere and left to the determination of men in specie And we may well know that there was some special reason why Christ did not determine of these himself And the reason is plain even because that they depend so much on the several states capacities customs c. of men that they are to be varied accordingly in several times and places If one standing Law would have fitted all the world or all ages in these matters Christ would have made it himself For if you say he makes some Laws and neglect others that are of the like kind and might as well have been done by himself you make him imperfect and insufficient to his work And if it be not fit that one Universal Law be made for the world then a Council must not make it And as the sufficiency of Christs law so the nature of the things declare it that these matters must not be determined of by an universal Law Should there be an universal Law to determine what day of the week or what hour of the day every Lecture or occasional Sermon shall be on Or what place every Congregation shall meet in Or where the Minister shall stand to preach Or what Chapters he should read each day Or what Text he should preach on or how long Whether by an hour-glass or without in what habit of apparrel particularly when many a poor man must wear such as he can get yea or what gestures or postures of body to use when that gesture in one Countrey signifieth reverence which in another rather signifieth neglect with abundance the like And the same is plain from the nature of the Pastoral office Every Bishop or Pastor is made by Christ the Ruler of the flock in such cases and they are bound to obey him Heb. 13. 17. And therefore a General Council must leave them their work to do which Christ hath put upon them and not take it out of their hands especially when being in the place and seeing the variety of circumstances they are more competent judges then a General Council at such distance The plain truth is Christ hath left them none of that work to do which belongeth to a Head or Soveraign but they make work for themselves that there may seem to be a Necessity of a power to do it The Church needeth none of their Laws Let us have but the Holy Scriptures and the Law of Nature and the civil Laws of men and the guidance of particular Pastors pro tempore and the fraternal Consultations and Agreements of Councils not to make any more work but to do this foresaid work unanimously and the Church can bear no more there is nothing left for Legislators Ecclesiastical to do We can spare their Laws and therefore their power and work Their business is but to make snares and burdens for us and therefore we can live without them and cannot believe that the felicity or unity or essence of the Church consisteth in them Argum. 7. All the inferior officers do derive their power from the supream All the other officers of the Catholick Church do not derive their power from the Pope or a General Council therefore a Pope or General Council are not the supream The Major is an unquestioned Maxime in Politicks It s essential to the Sovereaign to be the fountain of power to all under him Yea if it be but a deputed derived Soveraignty secundum quid so called as the Viceroy of Mexico Naples c. yet so far he must be the fountain of all inferiour power The Minor is maintained by most Christians in the world Every Bishop or Presbyter hath his power immediately from Jesus Christ as the Efficient cause though man must be an occasion or causa sine qua non or per accidens The Italian Bishops in the Council of Trent could not carry it against the Spaniards that the Pope only as Head was immediately jure divino and the rest but mediante Papa Moreover it is easie to prove out of Scripture that God never set up any Soveraign power in his Church personal or collective to be the fountain of all other Church power nor sendeth us to have recourse to any such for it Nor can they prove such a power on whom it is incumbent And lastly its most easie to prove de facto that the Bishops or Presbyters now in the several Churches in the world did not receive and do not hold their power from any such visible Head whether Pope or Council Though the Popelings do yet so do not all the rest of the Christian world Who are not therefore no Ministers or no Church of Christ whatever these bare affirmers and pretenders may imagine Nor are all the Ministerial actions in the world null which are not done by a power from him And even the Papists themselves will few of them pretend to receive their several powers of Priesthood from a General Council This therefore is not the Soveraign power or head of the Church Argum. 8. The Head or Soveraign Power hath the finally decisive Judgement and in great causes all must or may appeal to them A General Council hath not the finally decisive judgement nor may all men in great causes appeal to them Therefore a General Council is not the Head or Soveraign power The Major is undenyable The Minor is proved 1. In that it is not known nor hath the world any rule or way to know in what cases we must appeal to a General Council and what not and what is their proper work 2. In that an appeal to them is an absolute evasion of the guilty and in vain to the innocent because of the rarity of such Councils or rather the nullity 3. Because the prosecuting of such an Appeal
give the Presbyterians and the Presbyterians take them to be Antichristian Some of you are Arminians some Calvinists some say Christ dyed for all and some say no some are for Justification only by Christs Passive Righteousness and some also by his active with other such differences even in these fundamentall points I repeat their words just as I have heard they make use of them with the people and now I shall open the deceit of them in particular Answers to each part And 1. For the matter of unity I have spoken of it before and dare leave it to all the world that are judicions whether the Papists or we are more unanimons or more divided Only to the Instances of division I shall speak further now 1. For the matter of Church Government we are all agreed in the substance of it except a very few straglers As concerning the duty of Penitence Confession Restitution Contrition and of the excommunicating the obstinate and Absolving the penitent c. All this we agree is the duty of the Presbyters and we agree that these Presbyters may have a President only some think that the President is ejusdem ordinis of the same order differing but in degree and hath no power jure divino but what the Presbyters have but only the exercise is restrained as to the Presbyters by men but others think that the President is a Bishop eminently of another order having not only the exercise but the power above the Presbyters And is this difference so great a business And do not these cheaters know that if for this they would reproach us they must do so by themselves Know they not that among their own Schoolmen there is the same difference or in most points the same And know they not that if differences in Ceremonies or Modes should unchurch us or disgrace us it would fall as foul on the whole Catholick Church and that in the very primitive times Did they never read of the difference between the Asian and the Roman Churches about the celebration of Easter day and how Polycrates and the rest did plead Tradition against the Church of Romes Tradition and how Irenaeus did reprehend the Bishop of Rome for his uncharitable censure of the Churches for so small a difference And how Polycarp and Anicetus Bishop of Rome could not agree as building upon contrary Traditions but yet maintained Christian peace as Eusebius out of Irenaeus his Epistle to Victor tels us lib. 5. Hist Eccl. cap. 26. And the English and Irish Churches long after that adhered to the Asian way even after the Councill of Nice had ended the controversie on the Roman side And who knows not how many more controversies greater then these of ours have been among the Churches of Christ without their unchurching or disparagement to Religion And for the Doctrinal Controversies mentioned most of them lie more in words then in sence and all of them are far from the foundation though they be about Christ who is the Foundation If one of your picture-drawers mistake the complexion of Christ or if one should say he was not buried in a sheet these are errours about Christ that is the foundation and yet far from the foundation Those of us that say Christ dyed for all and those that say he dyed not for all do agree as your School-men do that he dyed for all as to the sufficiency of his death and price but he dyed not for all as to the actuall efficiency of pardon and salvation Is not this your doctrine and is not this ours and are not you as much disagreed about it as we what else meant the late decision against the Jansenists and what meaneth the present persecution of them in France And yet have you the faces to make this a reproach of us And for the righteousness of Christ we are commonly agreed that it is both his Obedience and Passion that we are justified and saved by though we are not all of a mind about the reason of their several interests which difference is so far from unchristening us that it makes no considerable odds among our selves who are censorious enough in cases of difference And for different forms of worship sure these men do wilfully forget what a number of Offices and Mass books have been among themselves and other Churches and what a number of Letanies or Liturgies of several ages and Churches they have given us in the Bibliotheca Patrum but more of this anon 2. And as for the changes and unfixedness which they charge us with we are contented that 1. Our principles 2. And our practises be compared with the Papists and then let even modest and judicious enemies be judges which of us are more fixed or more mutable 1. For our Principles we take only Christ to be the chief Foundation of our Faith and his inspired Prophets and Apostles to be the secondary foundation whereas the Papists build upon many a most ungodly ignorant man because he is the Pope of Rome And which of these is the firmer foundation 2. We take nothing for our Rule but the sure word of God contained in the holy Scriptures but the Papists take the Decrees of all Popes and Councils for their Rule Our Rule they confess to be Divine and infallible Their Rule we affirm to be humane and fallible Which then is like to be more firm Our Rule the sacred Scriptures in the Originall languages as to the words and the matter of them as to the sence the Papists themselves confess unchangeable but whether they will say as much of their own I will try by two or three Instances 1. What an alteration Pope Sixtus and Pope Clement made in the Vulgar Latine Bible which is one part of their Rule I told you before and Dr. James his Bellum Papale will tell you the particulars 2. The other part is their Decrees of which Pope Leo the tenth in Bulla contr Luth. in Binnius page 655. saith the holy Popes our predecessors never erred in their Canons and Constitutions And yet hear what Pope Julius the second saith in his General Councill at the Laterane with their approbation Cant. pragmat sanct monitor Binnius vol. 4. pag. 560. Though the Institutions of sacred Canons holy Fathers and Popes of Rome and their Decrees be judged immutable as made by Divine Inspiration yet the Pope of Rome who though of unequal merits holdeth the place of the Eternal King and the Maker of all things and all Laws on earth may abrogate these Decrees when they are abused You see here from the mouth of Infallibility it self if the Roman faith have any of what continuance we may judge their Immutable Decrees to be of which are made as by Divine inspiration they are Immutable till the Pope abrogate them who being in Gods place though of unequal merits O humble confession is of power to do it 3. We have a Rule that was perfected by Christ and his Apostles to which
whether the tongues of these men be fit to call us Mercenaries or Hirelings or such as preach for filthy lucre Or whether ever greater impudence was manifested by the vilest Son of Adam then for such men that Lord it over Emperors Kings and Princes and devour the wealth of the Christian world to call poor Ministers of Christ Covetous or Hirelings that are content with food and rayment and a mean education of their children and that have done so much to take down the Lordliness and Riches of the Clergy Judge of this dealing and if you had rather have the Popish Priesthood with the numberless swarm of Fryars and several orders you may take them and say you had your choice CHAP. XXXIII Detect 24. ANother of their designs Conjunct with the last mentioned is to perswade the world that they only have a true Ministry or Priesthood and an Apostolical Episcopacy and true Ordination and that we and all other Churches have no true Ministers but meer Lay men under the name of Ministers because we have no just Ordination And how prove they all this Why they say that they have a Pope that is a true Successor of Saint Peter but we have no Succession from the Apostles and therefore no just Ordination because no man can give that Power which he hath not And we are Schismaticks separated from the Church and therefore our Ordinations are invalid And some of our Churches have no Bishops and therefore say they we have no true Ministry there nor are they true Churches These are their Reasons In answer to which I shall first refer the Reader to my Second sâ—eet for the Ministry in Justification of their Call Where these Reasons are confuted and our calling vindicated and I shall forbear here to repeat the same things again Also I refer you for a fuller Answer to the London Ministers Jus Divinum Ministerii and to Mr. Tho. Balls Book for the Ministry and Mr. Masons Book in vindication of the Ministry of those Reformed Churches that have not Prelates and to Voetius Desper Caus 2. Though we need not fetch our Ordination from Rome yet as to them we may truly say that if they have any true Ordination and Ministry then so have we For our first Reformers were Ordained by their Bishops which is enough to stop their mouths If they say that our Schism hath cut off our power of Ordination I answer ad hominem that though it is they that are indeed the Notorious Schismaticks yet if we were what they falsly say we are it would not null our Ordination Confirmation or such other acts And this is the Judgement of their own writers I shall at this time only cite the words of one of them and of many in that one and that is Thom. Ã Jesis de Conversione Gentium lib. 6. cap. 9. Where he affirms it to be one of the Certainties agreed on that Schismaticks lose not nor can lose any spiritual power consisting in the spiritual Caracter of Baptism or Confirmation of Orders For this is indelible as Dr. Thomas teacheth here Art 3. and Turrecremata confirmeth lib. 4. sum part 1. c. 7. and Silvester verb. Schismatici and it appeareth by Pope Urbans Can. Ordinationes 9. q. 1. Who judgeth those to be truly ordained that were ordained by Schismaticall Bishops And from Austin lib. 6. de Bapt. Cont. Donatist cap. 5. where he saith that A Separatist may deliver the Sacrament as well as have it He next addeth that yet such are deprived of the faculty of Lawfull using the Power which they have so that it will be their sin to use it though it be not a nullity if they do use it and that thus those are to be understood that speak against the Ordination Confirmation c. of Schismaticks viz. that it is unlawfull because their power is suspended by the Church but not a Nullity because they have the Power pag. 316. He puts the Question Whether Schismatical Presbyters and Bishops do want the Power of Order or only want Jurisdiction And he answereth out of D. Thom. 22. q. 39. art 3. that they want Jurisdiction and cannot Absolve Excommunicate or grant indulgences and so they cannot elect and give Benefices and make Laws But yet they have the holy Power of Orders and therefore a schismaticall Bishop doth truly make and consecrate the Eucharist truly Confirm truly Ordain and when he Electeth and promoteth any to Ecclesiastical Orders they truly receive the Character of Order but not the Use because they are suspended if knowingly they are ordained by a Schismatical Bishop He next asketh Whether this punishment depriving them of Jurisdiction take place with all Schismaticks And answers that some say that before the Council of Constance this punishment belonged to all notorious Schismaticks but not to the unknown ones but since that Councill it takes place only on those that are expresly and by name denounced or manifest strikers of the Clergy Others say otherwise But he himself answers that If a schismatick be toleraeted and by the common error of the people be taken for lawfull there 's no doubt but all his acts of Jurisdiction are valid which we shall affirm also of Hereticks But if a Presbyter or Bishop be a manifest Schismatick then some say that those acts that require Jurisdiction are invalid but others say that they are all valid in case the Schismatick be not by name excommunicated or a manifest striker of the Clergy Thus far Thom. Ã Jesu opening the judgement of the Papists Doctors themselves in the point And by the way our new superprelatical Brethren that degrade others that want their Ordination yea or commands and nullifie their Acts should learn not to go beyond the Papists themselves if they will go with them And observe that it is but their own Canons that is their own wills that the Papists here plead when the Council of Constance hath so altered the business 2. Though this that is said is enough as to the Papists yet I add for fuller satisfaction that their succession is interrupted and therefore they are most unfit to be our Judges in this They have had so long schisms in which no man knew who was the right Pope nor knoweth to this day and so long removes and vacancies and such interpositions of various wayes of choosing their Pope and interruptions by Hereticall Popes condemned by General Councils besides Murderers Adulterers Symonists and such as their own Writers as Genebrard expresly say Were not Apostolical but Apostatical yea Popes that by General Councils have been judged or charged with infidelity it self as I have formerly proved that there 's nothing more certain then that their succession hath been interrupted 3. They cannot be certain but its every age interrupted and that there 's no true Pope or Bishops among them because the intention of the Ordainer or Consecrator is with them of necessity to the thing and no man can be certain of
or Infidels that would creep into places of Council Command or Justice or any publick office If ever such as these should have a hand in your affairs or be our Rulers we know what we must expect The Reasons of our jealousies of such men are because we know that the design is agreeable to their principles and interests and we know it is their usual course and we find that such men swarm among us we hear their words we read their writings we see their practices for Popery and Infidelity The jealousies of many wise men in England are very great concerning the present designs of this Generation of men and not without cause We fear the Masked Papists and Infidels more then the bare-faced or then any enemy The men that we are jealous of and over whom we desire you to be Vigilant are these Hiders that purposely obscure and cover their Religion He that wilfully concealeth his Faith alloweth me to suspect it to be naught The chief of them are 1. The Seekers that have not yet found a Church a Ministry Ordinances or Scripture nor some of them a Christ to believe in 2. The Paracelsians Behmenists and other Enthusiasts that purposely hide themselves in self-devised uncouth cloudy terms and pretend to visible familiarity with spirits 3. The Vani whom God by wonders confounded in New England but have here prevailed far in the dark 4. The secret guides of the Quakers 5. Those that make it their business to argue against the Religion of all others but assert little of their own endeavouring to bring all men to uncertainties and loose them from the faith 6. Those that are still vilifying or undermining the faithfull Godly Ministry 7. Those that do secretly or openly plead the cause of Infidels which are alas too many whether ex animo or for promoting Popery time will disclose that deride the Scriptures and deny the Immortality of the Soul the Resurrection of the body or that there are any Devils or is any Hell 8. The Libertines that would have liberty for all that they can call Religion though against the certain Principles of Christianity and that tell us the Magistrate hath nothing to do with mens Religion of which anon 9. The Democratical Polititions that are busie about the change of Government and would bring all into confusion under pretence of the Peoples Liberty or Power and would have the Major Part of the Subjects to be the Soveraign of the rest that is the worst that are still the most and the ignorant that cannot Rule themselves and the vicious that are enemies and hinderers of piety and the worldlings that mind nothing but what is under their feet and have no time to think of Heaven they have so much to do on earth and as Augustine saith had rather there were one Star less in Heaven then One Cow loss in their Pastures these must be our Soveraigns 10. Those that under pretence of defending Prelacy and of uniting us with Rome do adhere to the course of Grotius and Sancta Clara and Unchurch all the Reformed Churches degrade all the Ministers that are not of their way while they maintain the verity of the Church of Rome and the validity of her Ordination and would have the Pope to be the Principium Unitatis to all the Church and the Western Parts to obey him as their Patriatch yea and himself to be the Ruler of the whole so he do it by the Laws of General Councils and deprive not inferiour Bishops of their Priviledges These ten sorts of men we are Jealous of and if ever you advance them into places of Command or Power it will increase our jealousies God knows I have no personal grudge to any of them But the Gospel and the souls of men and the hopes of our posterity are not so contemptible as to be given away as a bribe to purchase these mens good will or to stop their mouths lest they should reproach us As it is the common but a poor redress that after the Massacres of thousands the surviving Protestants have still had from the Papists viz. to disclaim the fact or cast it upon some rash discontented men which will not make dead men alive again So will it be a poor relief to us when these men are our Masters and have deprived us of all that was dear to us in the world that we escaped their ill language while the work was doing 4. We also humbly beseech you that you will go on with the purging and encouraging of the Ministry Casting out the Ignorant and Ungodly and countenancing those that are Able and Faithfull They deny their ease and dignity and the riches of the world which other employments would afford to encounter with Satan and the worlds corruptions for the happiness of souls And therefore the more oppose them and revile them and unthankfully requite them the more are you obliged for the sake of Christ and mens salvation to assist them All their enemies contending to surpass the Devil in impudency accuse them of Covetousness Idleness and Ambition as if these were the things that they seek after in the world If our practice seconding our profession be not enough to confute these calumnies of malignant men let this be added to confute them that we make it our earnest request to your Highness that all such Ambitious Idle Covetous or otherwise scandalous Ministers may be cast out You have Commissioners in every County for this work Require them to do it faithfully If we desired this much against our Reproachers they would say we persecuted them We desire you therefore but to turn this persecution against our selves We also desire you that you will not advance us to Temporal Honours or Dignities or Power nor make us Lord Bishops nor to abound with the riches of this world These things agree not with our caling We only desire food and rayment and necessaries to furnish us for our work and express some charity to the needy that daily expect it from us and we crave of you that we may be no richer We also desire you never to put the sword into our hands nor enable us to execute any of our private passions upon any nor yet to touch mens Bodies or Estates but only to manage the word and Keyes of the Kingdom of Christ upon mens Consciences and Guide his Church according to our office and let it prevail as God shall bless it This is all the advancement we desire We have doubly renounced all the world as Christians and as Ministers of Christ we have given up our selves to a difficult flesh-displeasing work we crave no more of you but so far to countenance us as Christ commandeth you and the good of our peoples souls requires And God will be judge between us and our malitious reproachers whether these requests are Covetous Ambitious or Unreasonable 5. We also humbly crave your aid for the procuring and maintaining an Union and Concord
there must concur a Divine Institution which they can no where shew and a call from man Nemo dat quod non habet what man or men have power to make a Head to the Catholick Church But whether they will call it an Efficient Cause or only a Causa sine qua nen Election and Ordination must go to make a Pope Now either they will put these into their Definition or not If not know of them whether a man without Election and Ordination may be Pope If so what makes him one If Possession then he that can conquer Rome and sit down in the chair is Pope If not possession what then and why may not any man say I am Pope well but doubtless they will tell you that Election or Ordination or both is Necessary If so then first for Election is it Necessary to the being of a Pope that some certain persons Elect who have the Power or will any Electors serve whosoever If any will serve then every Monastery or every Parish may choose a Pope If there must be certain Authorized Electors see that those be named in the Definition or at least declared And then first know whether these Electors are impowered to that work by Divine Law or by Humane If by Divine let them shew it if they can In Scripture they can never find who must choose the Pope And their Tradition if that were a Divine law hath no such precept as appeareth by the alterations and divers wayes And if it be but by a Humane Ecclesiasticall Canon then it seems the Papacy is so too for the Power received can have no higher a cause then the Power giving or authorizing 2. When you come to know who these Electors must be you open their nakedness For first if they say It must be the Cardinals ask them where then was the Pope when there were no Cardinals in the world And whether that were a Pope or not that was chosen by the whole Romane Clergie or whether those were Popes or not that were chosen by the People Or those that were chosen by the Emperours or those that were chosen by Councills If they tell you that it must be the Romane Clergie Know whether the Cardinals be the whole Romane Clergie who are Bishops of other Churches or whether they are not meerly Titular at least many of them And whether the People the Council or the Emperours were the Romane Clergy If they would perswade you that either the people or the Emperour or Council did not elect the Pope but only shew whom the Romane Clergy should elect interposing exorbitantly some unjust force with the Due Election then all currant History cryeth shame against them and we will lay the Dispute on that with them readily though it were with Baronius himself Nothing almost is more evident in the Papal History then that there have been at least these five ways of election among them Let them put it upon this issue with us when they will If they allow of any of these as valid which ever it be as they must or give up their succession then 1. We would know by what Law of God the Emperour of Germany may choose a Head for the Catholick Church any more then the Emperour of Habassia or the King of France or Spain 2. And we would know when the Emperour hath chosen one and the Clergy another if not some others a third whether both were not true Popes if both parties were authorized Electors And if yet the People choose one and the Romane Clergy another and the Cardinals alone a third and the Emperour a fourth and the Councill a fifth must all these stand or which of them and why Or if they tell you that it must be the particular Roman Church then 1. If the people of that Church choose one and the Clergy by major vote another and the Cardinals a third which is the true Pope 2. And then the succession is gone however For they were no Popes that Emperors or Councils chose 2. If they shall tell you that it is not Election but Consecration that makes a Pope yea or that Consceration is of Necessity with Election then 1. Demand of them whether it be any one whosoever that may Consecrate or whether this high power be confined to certain hands If any may serve or any Bishops then he that can get three drunken Bishops to consecrate him may be Pope And then there may be an hundred Popes at once But if it be confined to certain hands 2. Let it be put down in the Definition or at least declared who those are that must ordain or consecrate him 3. And if they say that It must be only the Italian Bishops that must consecrate then 1. Know of them by what Law of God they have power to consecrate a Head to the universal Church when all nations are agreed that quod pertinet ad omnes ab omnibus tractari debet 2. And by what Law they can create or Generate a creature of a more noble species then themselves as if a beast should beget a man Or whether this prove not that as a Bishop at first was but Presbyter primae sedis like the fore man of a Jury and thence sprung an Archbishop who was Episocopus primae sedis and thence a Patriarck who was Archiepiscopus primae sedis so in process of time when Pride grew riper the Pope grew to be Patriarcha primae sedis but not till long after the Head or Governour of the universall Church nor Patriarcha Patriarcharum no more then the Archbishops or Bishops were at first Episcopi Episcoporum But if they can shew us no law of God empowring these speciall consecrators any more then others then where is the Papacy that dependeth on it There is nothing in Scripture to empower the Italian Bishops any more then the Gallicane Germane or Asian to Consecrate a Head for the Catholick Church 3. But suppose there were yet we must be resolved whether it be some or all the Italian Bishops that must do it If but some which be they and how is their power proved If all or any then 1. What shall we do when some of them consecrate one Pope and some another and some a third which hath fallen out which of these is the Pope If Consecration give the Power then all are Popes 2. And still the Papal succession is overthrown while many Popes had no Consecration by Italian Bishops Thus you may see what a case the poor Jesuits or Fryars will be in if you put them but to insert the necessary Electors and Consecrators in their Definition of a Pope 2. But that 's not the worst you must require them to put his necessary Qualification in the Description For if no Disposition of the Matter be necessary but ex quolibet ligno fit mercurius Romanus then a Jew or other Infidel may be Pope which they will deny And if any Disposition of the subject be
we have your own Confessions I have elsewhere mentioned some Canus Loc. Theol. lib. 6. cap. 7. fol. 201. saith Not only the Greeks but almost all the rest of the Bishops of the whole world have vehemently fought to destroy the Priviledge of the Church of Rome and indeed they had on their side both the Arms of Emperors and the greater number of Churches and yet they could never prevail to abrogate the Power of the one Pope of Rome Mark here whether the Catholick Church was then your subjects when the greater number of Churches and most of the Bishops of the whole world as well as the Greeks were against you and vehemently fought against your pretended priviledges Rainerius supposed contra Waldenses Catal. in Bibliotheca Patrum Tom. 4. pag. 773. saith The Churches of the Armenians and Ethiopians and Indians and the rest which the Apostles converted are not under the Church of Rome Read and blush and call Baronius a parasite What would you have truer or plainer And what Controversie can there be where so many Nations themselves are witnesses against you And you may conjecture at the numbers of those Churches by what a Legate of the Popes that lived among them saith of one Corner of them Jacob. Ã Vitriaco Histor Orient cap. 77. that the Churches in the Easterly parts of Asia alone exceeded in multitude the Christians both of the Greek and Latine Churches Alas how little a thing then was the Roman Catholick Church If all this were not enough the Tradition of your own Catholick Church is ready to destroy the Papacy utterly For that a General Council is above the Pope and may judge him and depose him and that is de fide and that its Heresie to deny it and that all this is so jure that ne unquam aliquis peritorum dubitavit no wise man ever doubted of it all this is the judgement of the General Council of Basil with whom that of Constance doth agree And whether these Councils were confirmed or not they confess them lawfully called and owned and extraordinary full and so they were their Catholick Church Representative and so the Popes Soveraignty over the Council is gone by I radition but that 's not the worst For if a free General Council should be called all the Churches in the world must be equally there represented And if they were so then down went the usurped Head-ship of the Pope For we are sure already that most of the Churches in the world are against it and therefore in Council they would have the Major vote And thus by the concession of the Roman Representative Catholick Church the Pope is gone by Tradition So that by that time they have well considered of the matter me thinks they should be less zealous for Tradition CHAP. XXI Detect 12. ANother of the Roman frauds is this They perswade men that the Greeks the Protestants and all other Churches were once under their Papal soveraignty and have separated themselves without any just cause and therefore we are all schismaticks and thereforefore have no vote in general Councils c. A few words may serve to shew the vanity of this accusation 1. Abundance of the Churches were so strange to you that they had not any notable communion with you 2. The Greek Churches withdrew from your Communion but not from your subjection If any of the Patriarcks or Emperours of Constantinople did for carnal ends at last submit to you it was not till lately nor was it the act of the Churches nor owned nor of long continuance So that it was your Communion and not your subjection that they withdrew from 2. And as for us of the Western parts we answer you 1. We that are now living our Fathers or our Grand-fathers were not of your Church and therefore we never did withdraw 2. There were Churches in England before the Roman Power was here owned And therefore if it was a sin to change the first change was the sin when they subjected themselves to you and not the later in which they returned to their ancient state 3. And for the Germanes or English or whoever did relinquish you they have as good reason for it as for the relinquishing of any other sin If they did by the unhappiness of ill education or delusion submit to the usurped Soveraignty of the Pope they had no reason to continue in such an error Repentance is not a Vice when the thing Repented of is a vice Justifie therefore your usurpation or else it is in vain to be angry with us for not adhering to the usurper and the many corruptions that he brought into the Church CHAP. XXII Detect 13. ANother deceit that they manage with great confidence is this say they If the Church of Rome be the true Church then yours is not the true Church and then you are Shismaticks in separating from it But the Church of Rome is the true Church For you will confess it was once a true Church when Paul wrote the Epistle to the Romans and if it ceased to be a true Church tell us when it ceased if you can If it ceased to be a true Church it was either by heresie or Schism or Apostacy but by none of these therefore c. A man would think that children and women should see the palpable fallacy of this Argument and yet I hear of few that the learned Papists make more use of But to lay open the shame of it in brief I answer 1. The deceit lieth in the ambiguity of the word Church As to our present purpose observe that it hath these several significations 1. It is taken oft in Scripture for one particular Church associated for personal communon in Gods Worship And thus there were many Churches in a Countrey as Judea Galatia c. 2. It is taken by Ecclesiastical writers often for an Association of many of these Churches for Communion by their Pastors such as were Diocesan Provincial National Churches whereof most were then ruled by Assemblies where a Bishop Archbishop Metropolitan or Patriarck as they called them did preside 3. It is taken oft in Scripture for the Body of Christ the holy Catholick or Universal Church containing all true Believers as mystical or all Professors of true faith as visible 4. It is taken by the Papists oft for one particular Church which is the Mistris or Ruler of all other Churches And now I come to apply these in answer to the argument 1. If the Question be of a true particular Church we grant you that the Church of Rome was a true and noble Church in the daies of Paul and long after and thus Paul owneth it in his Epistle as a true Church And to the question when it ceased to be a true Church I answer 1. What matter is it to us whether it be reasoned or not any more then whether Corinth Ephesus Coloss Thessalonica or Jerusalem be true Churches or ceased In charity we regard them all
the second and third Age produced no Councils the greater deceivers then are the Papists that have found us Councils then and so you have no Catholick succession proved Yea but he saith they have successions of Popes Martyrs and Confessors which is sufficient for their purposes See the strength of Popery Any thing is sufficient for your purposes it seems Rome had Bishops therefore they were the Universal Rulers of the Church A strong consequence Rome had Martyrs and Confessors therefore it was the Mistris of all Churches Who can resist these arguments But why did you not prove that your Confessors and Martyrs suffered for attesting the Popes Soveraignty If they suffered but for Christianity that will prove them but Christians and not Papists Thus you see to the confusion of the Papists that they have nothing to shew for the succession or antiquity of Popery for the three first Ages Yea worse then nothing For here he comes in with some of the Decretals forsooth of some of their Bishops Decretals unknown till a while ago in the world brought out by Isidore Mercator but with so little cunning as left them naked to the shame of the world the falshood of them being out of themselves fully proved by Blondell Reignolds and many more and confessed by some of themselves Here you see the first foundation of Papal succession even a bundle of fictions lately fetcht from whence they please to cheat the ignorant part of the world But in the fourth and fifth ages H. T. doth make us amends for his want of proof from the three first But suppose he do what 's that to a succession while the three first ages are strangers to Popery Well! but lets hear what he hath at last His first proof after a few silent names is from the Council of Nice And what saith that why 1. It defined that the Son of God is consubstantiall to his Father and true God And what 's that to Popery 2 But it defined the Popes Soveraignty But how prove you that Why it is in the thirty ninth Arab. Canon O what Consciences have those men that dare thus abuse and cheat the ignorant As if the Canons of the first General Council had never been known to the world till the other day that Alphonsus Pisanus a Jesuite publisheth them out of Pope Julius and I know not what Arabick book These men that can make both Councils and Canons at their pleasure above a thousand years after the supposed time of their existence do never need to want authority And indeed this is a cheaper way of Canon-making in a corner then to trouble all the Bishops in the world with a great deal of cost and travail to make them But if this be the foundation the building is answerable Their Bishop Zosimus had not been acquainted with these new Articles of an old Council when he put his trick upon the sixth Council of Carthage where for the advancement of his power though not to an universall Monarchy yet to a preparative degree he layeth his claim from the Council of Nice as saying Placuit ut si Episcopus accusatus fuerit c. which was that If an ejected Bishop appeal to Rome the Bishop of Rome appoint some of the next province to judge or if yet he destre his cause to be heard the Bishop of Rome shall appoint a Presbyter his Legate c. In this Council were 217. Bishops Aurelius being president and Augustine being one They told the Pope that they would yield to him till the true copies of the Council of Nice were searched for those that they had seen had none of them those words in that Zosimus alledged Hereupon they send abroad to the Churches of the East to Constantinople Alexandria Antioch c. for the ancient Canons From hence they received several copies which all agreed but none of them had either Zosimus forgery in nor the forged clause which Bellarmine must have in much less the eighty Canons of Pisanus the Jesuite or this one which H. T. doth found his succession on but only the twenty Canons there mentioned which have not a word for the Popes Soveraignty And here note 1. That Zosimus knew not then of Pisanus Canons or else he would have alledged them nor yet of Bellarmines new part of a Canon for the Primacy of the Bishop of Rome 2. That Zosimus himself had not the faith the wit or the memory to plead either Scripture Apostolical Institution or Tradition for his priviledge but only a false Canon of the Council of Nice as looking no higher it seems for his authority 3. How early the Roman Bishops begun both to aspire and make use of forgeries to accomplish it 4. That there was no such Apostolick or Church Tradition for this Roman power as our Masters of Tradition now plead for which all the Catholick Church must know For the whole Council with all the Churches of Constantinople Alexandria Antioch c. that is in a manner all save Rome were ignorant of that which Zosimus would have had them believe and Bellarmine and H. T. would have us to believe 5. Note also how little the Church then believed the Popes infallibility 6. Yea Note how upon the reception of the several Copies of the Nicene Canons they modestly convicted Zosimus of falshood And how the Council resolved against his usurpation See in the African Councils the Epistle of Cyril and Alexandria and Atticus of Constantinople and the Epistles of the Council to Boniface and Celestine In their Epistle to Boniface before they had received their answers from other Churches about the Nicene Canons they tell him that they believed they should not suffer that Arrogancy non sumus istum typhum passuri But to Celestine they conclude more plainly though modestly Presbyterorum quoque sequentium c. i. e. Let your holiness as beseemeth you repell the wicked refuges of Presbyters and the Clergy that follow them because this is not derogate or taken from the African Church by any Definition of the Fathers and the Nicene Decrees most plainly committed both the inferiour Clergy and Bishops themselves to the Metropolitans For they did most prudently and most justly provide that all businesses N. B. all should be ended in the very places where they begun and the Grace of the holy Ghost will not or should not be wanting to each province which equity should by the Priests of Christ be prudently observed and most constantly maintained Especially because it is granted to every one to appeal to the Councils of their own Province or to a Universall Council if he be offended with the judgement of the Cognitors Unless there should be any one that can think that our God can inspire a justice of tryall into any one man N. B. and deny it to innumerable Priests that are congregated in Councill Or how can that judgement that 's past beyond sea be valid to which the necessary persons of the witness
could not be brought either because of the infirmities of sex or of age many other impediments intervening For that any i. e. Legates should be sent as from the side of your holiness we find not constituted by any Synod of the Fathers Because that which you sent us by our fellow Bishop Faustinus as done by the Nicene Council in the truer Councils received as the Nicene sent from holy Cyril our fellow Bishop of the Church of Alexandria and from venerable Atticus the Bishop of Constantinople out of the Authentick Records which also heretofore were sent by us to Boniface your predecessor Bishop of venerable memory by Innocent a Presbyter and Marcellus Subdeacon by whom they were from them to us directed in which we could find no such matter And do not ye send your Clergy executors to potent men do not ye yield to it lest we seem to bring the smoaky Arrogancy of the world or secular arrogancy into the Church of Christ which preferreth the light of simplicity and day of humility for them that desire to see God For of our brother Faustinus we are secure that the safe brotherly charity in your holinesses honesty and moderation can suffer him to stay no longer in Africa Well said Aurelius Well said Augustine Well said all you African Fathers Had others stuck as close to it as you the Papacy had been kept from the Universall Monarchy Note here 1. That this Council lookt no higher for the power of the Pope and other Metropolitans then to the Council of Nice and thought it a good argument that the Pope had no such power because no Council had so subjected the African Church And therefore they never dreamt that Christ or the Apostles had given it him 2. Note that they evince the Nullity of his pretended power out of the Nicene Council 3. Note that they took him not to be above a Council having power to dispense with its Canons 4. Note that by the Nicene Council not some but all business must be ended where they begin and this Council so interpreted them and therefore there 's no appeals to the Pope 5. And that he that saith otherwise unjustly chargeth the Holy Ghost to be wanting to the Church 6. That this order is to be held fast 7. That they took it for a sufficient reason against appeals to Rome because all might appeal to a provincial or general Council 8. Note that they thought it a thing not to be imagined by a man that God should give his Spirit to any one man even to the Pope to enable him to try and judge and deny it to a Council General or Provincial This seemed to them a thing that none should imagine so that they little dreamt of the Roman infallibility or power of Judging all the world 9. Note also that they thought the Pope to be uncapable of this universal judgement were it but by distance and the natural impediments of age sex and many the like that must needs hinder the necessary witnesses from such a voyage or journey So that they give an Argument from Natural necessity against the Popes pretended Soveraignty and judgement 10. Note also that they plainly make such judgements to be invalid for want of necessary witness and means of prosecution 11. And whereas the Pope might object that he could prevent all this by his Legates they flatly reject that too and say they find no such thing Constituted by any Synod so that they both rejected the Popes trying and judging by Legates in other Metropositans jurisdiction and they took it for a sufficient ground to do so that there was no Council had so constituted little dreaming of a Scripture constitution or Apostolical Tradition And if the Pope may neither judge them by himself nor his Legates he may sit still 12. Next they convince the Roman Bishop of sending them a false Canon of the Nicene Council 13. And they shew us here what way the Pope then took to get and keep his Power even by sending to the secular commanders of the Provinces in whom they had special interest by their residence at Rome to execute their wills by force 14. And note how the Council plainly accuseth them for this of introducing secular Arrogancy into Christs Church that better loveth simplicity and humility and light 15. And note how plainly they require the Bishop of Rome to do so no more 16. And how plainly they tell him that Faustinus his stay any longer in Africa will not stand with that honesty and moderation of the Bishop of Rome which is necessary to the safety of brotherly charity I give you but the plain passages of the Council as they lie before you and scrue no forced consequences from them And now let Binnius and his brethren go make women and children believe that it was not Appeals to Rome but a trouble some manner of tryal that the Council was against And let H. T. tell men that take him for infallible of a Nicene Canon for the Popes Supremacy and Monarchy And let him perswade ideots and dotards that the Catholick Church in the fourth and fifth ages was for the universal Government of the Pope And so I proceed to his next proof Saith H. T. The first Constantinop Council decreed the Bishop of Constantinople to be chief next the Bishop of Rome Answ 1. You see then that Primacy was but the Institution of Councils for order sake 2. You see then that it was grounded on a secular reason for so saith the Canon because it is new Rome 3. You see then that the Popes Primacy was but honorary and gave him no universal Government For the primacy here granted to Constantinople gave them no Government over Alexandria Antioch c. 4. Yea expresly the second Canon limits all Bishops without exception to their own Diocess And so doth the third Canon expresly affirming that according to the Nicene Council in every province the provincial Council ought to administer and govern all things See now what a proof here is of Catholick succession of the Roman Monarchy Nay how clearly still it is disproved to that time The next proof of H. T. is from the third Act of the first Council of Ephesus that Peter yet lives and exercises judgement in his Successors Answ He turns us to look a needle in a bottle of hay That Council is a large volume containing six Tomes in Binnius and not divided into Acts. But I suppose at last I have found the place Tom. 2. c. 15. where the words that Peter was the Head of the Apostles though nothing to their purpose are neither spoken nor approved by the Council but only by Philip a Presbyter Celestines Legate And the Council though specially moved by his concurrence to extoll Celestine to the highest yet 1. Never spake a word of his Governing power or Soveraignty but only his concent And when they mention the Roman Church it is only their concent which they predicate 2.
colo c. 1 worship neither the Image nor a Spirit in it but by the bodily likeness I behold the sign of that which I ought to worship Yea that many of them renounced the worshipping of Devils appeareth by Augustines report of their words in Psal 96. Non colimus mala daemonia c. We worship not evil spirits It is those that you call Angels that we worship who are the powers of the great God and the Ministers of the great God To whom Austin answers Would you would worship them that is honour them aright then you would easily learn of them not to worship them And doubtless few could be so silly as to think there were as many Jupiters or Apollos as there were Images of them in the world So that you see here that some of the Pagans as to Image-worship disclaimed that which the Papists ascribe to them viz. Divine worship Oh but saith H. T. tell us not of particular Doctors but of the Doctrine of Gods Church Answ What not of Saint Thomas What! not of the Army of School Divines before mentioned What! not of the Communis sententia Theologorum the common judgement of Divines for so they call it What not of that which is de fide or consonant to it and whose contrary is heresie or savours of Heresies as they say of Durandus opinion what not of Pope Clement the eighth and the Romane Pontifical pag. 672. wonderful are all these no body in your Church O admirable harmony that is in your united Church But you can agree to leave out the second commandment lest the very words should deter the people from Image worship and to make an irrational division of the tenth to blind their eyes And yet you cry up the Testimony of the Fathers when you are fain to hide one of the ten commandments so that thousands of your poor seduced followers know not that there is such a thing No wonder if you cast away Gregory Nyssen's Epistle against Pilgrimages and Epiphanius his words in the end of his Epistle to Johan Herosol against Images and if Vasquez in 3 Thom. disp 105. c. 3. contrary to the plain words do fain that it was the Image of a prophane or common man that Epiphanius puld down and Al. Cope Dial. 5. c. 21. say that the epistle is counterfeit and not Epiphanius's and if Bellarmine de Imag. c. 9. and Baronius ad an 392. say that this part of the Epistle is forged and if Alphons a Castro cont Haeres de Imag. reproach Epiphanius for it as an Iconoclast so well are you agreed also in the confutation of the Fathers Testimonies that any way will serve your turn though each man have his several way Fair fall Vasquez that plainly confesseth that indeed the Scripture doth forbid not only the worship of an Image for God but also the worshiping of the true God in an Image but saith that this commandment is now repealed and therefore under the Gospel we may do otherwise Vasq li. 2. de Adorat Disp 4. c. 3. Sect. 74. 75. c. 4. Sect. 84. But of this point I shall say no more now but this 1. Many Christian Churches do reject Images from their Churches and worship as well as Protestants 2. More reject statues that reject not pictures 3. Many that keep them worship not them nor God in them or by them as by a mediate object 4. General Councils have been against Images that want nothing but the pleasure of the Pope to make them of as good authority as the Council that was for them 5. That Council that was for them Nice 2. condemneth the Schoolmen and Pope Clement himself as Hereticks for worshiping them or the Cross with Divine worship 6. I again urge any Papist to answer Dallaeus book rationally that can 7. To spare me the labour of saying more of the judgement of the ancient Catholick Church against the Popish use of Images I desire the Reader to peruse what Cassander an honest Papist hath written to that end Consultat de Imag. et simulac who begins thus Ad Imagines vero sanctorum quod attinet certum est initio praedicati Evangelii aliquanto tempore inter Christianos praesertim in ecclesiis imaginum usum non fuisse ut ex Clemente Arnobio patet Tandem picturas in ecclesiam admissas ut rerum gestarum historiam exprimentes c. And he produceth abundance from antiquity against the present Popish use of them 4. Another point in which the Papists pretend to better Countenance from Antiquity then we is the point of the Corporal presence with Transubstantiation But of this there is so much said by multitudes of our Divines that I shall now say no more but desire the studious to Read at least Bishop Ushers Answ to the Jesuite of it and Edmundus Abertinus de Eucharistia a Treatise so full of evidence from Scripture Reason and the judgement of the Fathers that I boldly challenge all the Papists in the world to give a tolerable answer to it that is a better then that is given When we have thus shewed them the stream of Antiquity to have been against them they pass us by and thrust into the ignorant peoples hands a few musty scraps of abused words which are answered and cleared over and over Thus do H. T. D. Baily and others 5. In the point of Satisfaction and Purgatory besides what Sadeel Chamier and others have said Usher and the foresaid Dallaeus in a full Treatise have shewed the Papists nakedness from Antiquity so that modesty should forbid them to pretend the Fathers for them any more if any modesty be left 6. About their Fasts though that be no essential of Religion both the time manner c. is so fully spoak to by the said Dallaeus in another just volume de Jejuniis that Popery in this also is openly condemned by the Fathers in the view of the impartial considerate world The point of Free will and most of the rest in which they imagine that we dissent from Antiquity or the Eastern Churches I have spoak to already in my first Book against Popery I had thought to have gone through the rest particularly at least the rest mentioned by H. T. and D. Baily but finding them so frequently and fully handled already I will forbear such labour in vain CHAP. XXVI Detect 17. ANother of the Papists Deceits and one of the Principal that they support their cause with is A false interpretation and application of all the sayings of the Fathers which they can but force to a shew of countenancing their supremacy That you may find out their jugling in this I shall shew you some of of their Footsteps more particularly 1. Any claim that their own ambitious Bishops have made to a further power then was due to them they use as an Argument for their universal soveraignty when as we deny not but that there was too much pride and Ambition in their Prelates
which is all that this will prove even in some that otherwise might be good men We deny not but that Zosimus would fain have extorted a confession of his usurped power and a submission to it from Aurelius Augustine and the rest of the Africane Council But yet he could not do it We confess that Leo the first and Gregory the first and others were very busie for the extending of their power And that the Romane Bishops were long endeavouring to have put the halter on the Africanes heads yea and long about the French before they got them under And shall these partial ambitious men be the witnesses And because they would have had more power doth it follow that it was their due 2. Again if they find that any distressed Churches or Bishops have but sent to Rome for help they presently gather thence that they took the Pope to be Christs Vicar General As when Chrysostome sent to Innocent and Basil and the rest in the East did send so oft for help into the West when as the reasons were but such as these 1. Because Rome during the Emperors residence there was the place where life or death was last pronounced on every mans cause by the secular power and therefore the Bishop of Rome had the greater opportunity to befriend other Churches 2. And afterward Rome had a great secular influence on the Empire 3. And because in the divisions of the East about Arrianisme they thought the countenance of the Orthodox in the West might have done somewhat to turn the scales 4. Because the Bishop of Rome being taken for the Patriarch of the first place his voice might do much against an adversary I will delay you now which no more instances then those of Basils time from the East Eusebius Meletius Basil and the rest of the Orthodox being both pestered with the Arrians and all to pieces also among themselves do send for help to the West Basil Epist 69. But to whom and for what Not to the Bishop of Rome only nor by name but equally to the Bishops of Italy and France without any mention of the Romane power And it was not that the Pope might decide all by his soveraign power which certainly was so neer a way to their relief that no wise man can imagine them so mad as to forget it if it had been a thing then known and approved of But only they desire that some may be sent to help them to be the stronger party in a Synod or at least some one to comfort them and put some countenance on their cause And Epist 70. Basil writeth himself in the name of the rest but to whom To the Bishops of France and Italy and France before Italy without taking notice of an universal Head of the Church at Rome And what doth he so importune them for not that the Pope would decide the controversie but that they would acquaint the Emperour with their state because the West had an Orthodox Emperor and the East an Arrian or send some to them to see how it stood with them so that it was but either help from the Emperor or countenance from the number of Bishops because they were over voted quite at home that they desired So Epist 74. Basil again writes to the Bishops of the West and so no more to the Romane Bishop then the rest and he giveth these as his Reasons For saith he what we here speak is suspected as if we spoke through private contention But for you the further you are remote from them by habitation so much credit you have with the people whereto is added that the grace of God helpeth you to relieve the oppressed And if Many of you unanimously decree the same things it is manifest that the multitude will produce a certain reception of your opinion Wonderfull if there were then a Vicar General of Christ at Rome that it never came into their mind to crave his decision or help as such O but say the Papists that was because they had to do only with the Arrians that cared for no authority that was against them Answ 1. But would these Arrians have so much regarded the votes of the French and Italian Bishops yea or a few men sent from them and yet not regard the Head of the Church The Arrians sure had heard of this Headship if any had And would not the Orthodox desire so much as a word from Rome for this advantage 2. But it is false that they were only the Arrians that they called for help against They expresly say that it was also because they were divided among themselves by personal quarrels How importunately doth Gregory Nyssen afterward call for help from others and telleth Flavianus in his Epist to him of their misery as if all were lost And the only sad instance was that Helladius counted a good Bishop had proudly neglected him and made him stand at his door when he went to visit him a great while before he was let in and then did not bid him sit down and then did not speak to him first but two or three strange angry words This was the great business But to proceed with Basil Epist 77. he falls to chiding the Western Bishops for not sending to them nor regarding them and their communion and to touch their pride he addeth We have one Lord one faith one hope Whether you think your selves the Head of the universal Church the head cannot say to the feet I have no need of you or if you place your selves in the order of other Church-members you cannot say to us we need you not And would you here believe that the Papists have the faces to cite this passage of Basil for their Headship because here is the word Head When as its plain 1. That Basil by the Head means but the chiefest part and not the soveraign power 2. That he speaks to all the Bishops of the West and not only to the Romane Bishop 3. That he doth it as a smart reproof of their arrogancy and not in any approbation at all But any thing will serve them More from Basil I shall have occasion to mention anon 3. Nore also that when the Papists find but any Heresie condemned by the Bishop of Rome they cite this as a testimony of their Soveraignty As if other Patriarch and Bishops condemned them not as well as they Or as if we knew no that the Church desired the most general vote against Hereticks and therefore would be loth to leave so great a Bishop out 4. And when they find the Pope excommunicating forreign Bishops they cry up this as a Testimony of his Headship As if we did not know 1. That to refuse Communion with another Church or Bishop is no act of Jurisdiction over them 2. That other Bishops have made bold also to excommunicate the Pope I 'le now but recite those words of Nicephorus lib. 17. cap. 26. which you use to glory in as many do
in their own shame Vigilius saith he proceeded to that insolency that he excommunicated Mennas for four moneths And Mennas did the same by him But Justinian being moved to anger with such things sent some to lay hold on him But Vigilius being afraid of himself fled to the Altar of Sergius the Martyr and laid hold on the Sacred Pipes would not be drawn away till he had pul'd them down But by the Mediation of the Empress Theodora the Pope was pardoned and Menna and he absolved one another A fair proof of the Vicarship 3. And so it was that Pope Honorius was condemned for an Heretick by two or three General Councils 5. Also when they meet with any big words of their own Popes as I command this or that they take it for a proof of the Vicarship As if big words did prove Authority Or as if we knew not how lowlily and poorly they spoke to those that were above them As Gregory the first for instance was high enough towards those that he thought he could master but what low submissive language doth he use to secular Governors that were capable of overtopping him And what flattering language did his successors use to the most base murderers and usurpers of the Empire 6. Another Roman deceit is this When they find any mention of the exercise of the now thriving Roman Power over their own Diocess or Patriarchal circuit they would hence prove his universal Power over all And by that Rule the Patriarch of Alexandria or Constantinople may prove as much 7. Also when they meet with the passages that speak of the elevation of their Pope to be their first Patriarch in the Roman Empire or any Power that by the Emperors was given him they cunningly confound the Empire with the world and especally if they find it called by the name of the world and they would perswade you that all other Christians and Churches on earth did ascribe as much to the Bishop of Rome as the Roman Empire did It s true that he was in the Empire acknowledged to be first in order of dignity because of Rome the seat of his Episcopacy especially when General Councils began to trouble themselves and the world about such matters of precedency And it s well known from the language of their writers as well as from the words of Luke 2. 1. that they usually called the Empire all the world And from such passages would the Papists prove the Primacy at least of the Pope over all the world But put these Juglers to it to prove if they can that beyond the Rivers Meroes and Euphrates and beyond the bounds of the Roman Empire the Pope did either exercise Dominion or was once so much as regarded by them any more then any other Bishop except there were any adjacent Island or Countrey that had their dependence upon the Empire I hope they will not deny that the Church extended much beyond the Empire Though our History of that part of it be much defective And let them prove if they can that ever any of those Churches had any regard to the Roman Bishop any more then to another man Let them tell you where either the Empire of the Abassines or any other out of the line of the Imperial power was any whit like-subject to the Pope 8. But their chief fraud is about names and words When they meet with any high complemental title given to the Bishop of Rome they presently conclude that it signifieth his Soveraignty Let us instance in some particulars and shew the vanity of their conclusions from them 1. Sometimes the Roman Bishops are called Summi Pontifices the chief Popes and hence some gather their Supremacy But I suppose you will believe Baronius their chief flatterer in such a case as this And he tells you in Martyrolog Roman April 9. that Fuit olim vetus ille usus in Ecclesia ut Episcopi omnes non tantum Pontifices sed summi Pontifices dicerentur i. e. It was the ancient custom of the Church to call all Bishops not only Pontifices Popes but chief Popes And then citing such a passage of Hierom Epist 99. he addeth Those that understand not this ancient custom of speech refer these words to the Popedom of the Church of Rome 2. As for the names Papa Pope Dominus Pater Sauctissimus beatissimus dei amantissimus c. it s needless to tell you that these were commonly given to other Bishops 3. And what if they could find that Rome were called the mother of all Churches I have formerly shewed you where Basil saith of the Church of Caesarea that it is as the mother of all Churches in a manner And Hierusalem hath oft that Title 4. Sometime they find where Rome is called Caput Ecclesiarum and then they think they have won the cause When if you will consult the words you shall find that it is no more then that Priority of Dignity which not Christ but the Emperours and Councils gave them that is intended in the word It s called the Head that is the chief Seat in Dignity without any meaning that the Pope is the universal Monarch of the world 5. But what if they find the Pope called the Archbishop of the Catholick Church or the Universal Bishop then they think they have the day I answer indeed three flattering Monks at the Council of Calcedon do so superscribe their libels but they plainly mean no more then the Bishop that in order of dignity is above the rest And many particular Churches are oft called Catholick Churches There 's difference between A Catholick Church and The Catholick Church And the Bishop of Constantinople had that Title even by a Council at Constant an 518. before the Bishop of Rome had it publikely or durst own it It was setled on the Patriarch of Constantinople to be called the Oecumenical or Universal Patriarch Who knoweth not that Emperours gave such Titles at their pleasure Justinian would sometime give the Primacy to Rome and at another time to Constantinople saying Constantinopolitana Ecclesia omnium aliarum est caput The Church of Constantinople is the Head of all other Churches An. Dom. 530. C. de Episcopis l. 1. lege 24. And it s known that this Justinian that sometime calls Rome the Head did yet when the fifth General Council had condemned Vigilius Pope of Rome permit Theodora his Empress to cause him to be fetcht to Constantinople and drag'd about the street in a halter and then banished till they had forced him to subscribe and submit to the Council even as they had deposed Pope Silverius his predecessor And Baronius himself mentioneth a Vaticane Monument which as it calls Agapetus Episcoporum princeps on one side so doth it call Menna the Apostolick Universal Bishop Which Baronius saith doth mean no more then that he was Universal over his own Provinces aad if that be so any Bishop may be called Universal And do not these
Whorehouse to exhort them from Whoredom though he hath found by experience that when he comes among them he is overcome and playes the Whoremonger with them Lest the vices of your Clergy should be laid open and punished you exempt them from the secular power and will not have a Magistrate so much as question them for whoredom drunkenness or the like crimes It is one of Pope Nicolas Decrees as Caranza pag. 395. recites them that No Lay man must judge a Priest nor examine any thing of his life And no secular Prince ought to judge the facts of any Bishops or Priests whatsoever And indeed that is the way to be wicked quietly and sin without noise and infamy But for our parts we do not only subject our selves and all our actions to the tryal of Princes and the lowest Justice of Peace as far as the Law gives him power but we call out to Rulers daily to look more strictly to the Ministry and suffer not one that is ungodly or scandalous in the Church And if one such be known our Godly people will all set against him and will not rest till they cast him out in times when there is opportunity for it and get a better in his stead The whole Countrey knows the Truth of this If you say as the Quakers do that yet the most among us are ungodly I answer that Those among us that are known ungodly and scandalous are not owned by us nor are members of our Church or admitted to the Lords Supper in those Congregations that exercise Church-discipline but they are only as Catechuments whom we preach to and instruct if not cast out Your eighth General Council at Constantinople Can. 14. decreed that Ministers must not fall down to Princes nor eat at their Tables nor debase themselves to them but Emperors must take them as Equals But we are so far from establishing Pride and Arrogancie by a Law that though we hate servile flattery and man-pleasing yet we think it our duty to be the servants of all and to condescend to men of low estate and much more to honour our Superiors and God in them The same Council decreed Canon 21. that None must compose any Accusations against the Pope No marvail then if all Popes go for Innocents But we are lyable to the accusations of any And because you charge our Churches with Unholiness and that with such an height of Impudency as I am certain the Divel himself doth not believe you that provokes you to it even that there is not One Good among us nor one that hath Charity nor can be saved unless by turning Papist I shall therefore go a little higher and tell you that I doubt not but the Churches in England where I live are purer far than those were in the dayes of Augustine Hierom c. yea and that the Pastors of our Churches are less scandalous then they were then what if I should compare many of them even to St. Augustine St. Hierom and such others both in Doctrine and Holiness of Life should I do so I know you would account it arrogancy but yet I will presume to make some comparison and leave you to Judge impartially if you can As for the Heavenliness of their writings let but some of ours be compared with them and you will see at least that they spake by the same spirit and for their Commentaries on Scripture did we miss it as oft as Ambrose Hierom and many more we should bring our selves very low in the esteem of the Church Even your Cajetane doth more boldly censure the Fathers Commentaries then this comes to And as to our lives the Lord knows that I have no pleasure in opening any of the faults of his Saints nor shall I mention any but what are confessed by themselves in Printed Books and mentioned by others and to boast of our own Purity I take to be a detestable thing and contrary to that sense of sin that is in every Saint of God But yet if the Lords Churches and servants are slandered and reproached as they were by the Heathens of old the vindicating them is a duty which we owe to Christ Those Ministers that I Converse with are partly Marryed and partly unmarryed The Marryed live soberly in Conjugal Chastity as burning and shining lights before the people in exemplary Holiness of Life The unmarryed also give up themselves to the Lord and to his service and I verily think that of many such that converse with me there is not one that ever defiled themselves by incontinency and I am confident would be ready to take the most solemn Oath of it if any Papist call them to it And for the people of our Communion through the mercy of God such sins are so rare that if one in a Church be guilty once we all lament it and bring them to penitence or disown them And were the Churches better in the third fourth fift sixt or following Ages I doubt not And I judge by these discoveries 1. By the sad Histories of the Crimes of those times 2. By the lamentable complaints of the Godly Fathers of the Bishops and people of their times What dolefull complaints do Basil Gregory Nazianz. and Greg. Nyssen and Chrysostom Austin c. make it were too long to recite their words What complaints made Gildas of the Brittish Church What a doleful description have we of the Christian Pastors and People in his dayes from Salvian through his whole Book de Gubernat 3. I judge also by the Canons and by the Fathers directions concerning Offendors For example Gregory Mag. saith of drunkards Quod cum venia suo ingenio sunt relinquendi ne deteriores fiant si à tali consuetudine evellantur And was this the Roman Sanctity even then And was this St. Gregories Sanctity that Drunkards must be let alone with pardon lest if they be forced from their custome they be made worse Then fairfall the Ministers of England If such advice were but given by one of us it would seem enough to cast us out of our Ministry We dare not let one drunkard alone in our Church-communion where Church-discipline is set up So Augustine saith that Drunkenness is a mortal sin Si sit assidua if it be daily or usual And that they must be dealt with gently and by fair words and not roughly and sharply If one of us should make so light of Drunkenness what should we be thought I cite these two from Aquinas 22. q. 150. art 1. 4. ad 4 m art 2. 1. Many Canons determine that Priests that will not part with their Concubines shall be suspended from officiating till they let them go Whereas with us a man deserveth to be ejected that should have a Concubine but one night in his life Gratian Distinct 34. citeth c. 17. of a Toletane Council saying that he that hath not a Wife but a Concubine in her stead shall not be put from the Communion His
to be Papists 6. By this means they have easier access to a greater number then openly they could have 7. And by this means they may insinuate into our Counsels and know all our wayes and how to resist us 8. But above all by this means they may be capable of any office and trust among us They may be Ministers or Justices of Peace They may be Parliament men and Leaders in our Councils and have the conduct of our affairs They may have a great influence on the rest that know them not They may come to have power in our Armies And if once the Masked Papists come to make our Laws or guide our Councils and Affairs and influence or command our Armies you may soon know what would become of Protestants Kings and Parliaments Prelates and Presbyters shall all go one way if they can accomplish it It s easie therefore to discern that their principall Artifice lyeth in Hiding themselves so be it still there be a visible body of their open professors And for my own part I think I have good reason to fear lest the Papists are far stronger at this day in England that are unknown then that are known and that wear the Vizard of Seekers Vanists and other Sects then that appear bare faced Yea I believe that our danger of the open Papists is nothing in comparison of our danger from these Juglers And I confess I think an ingenuous open Papist should have a great deal more gentle dealing from our Magistrates then these Deceivers that have such stretching Consciences For my own part I must confess I feel a great deal of charity in my heart for a conscientious plain dealing Papist and I would never be guilty of cruelty or rigor to them But this jugling in the matters of God and Eternal life my very soul abhors I have been set upon by these Juglers my self and by some of the most renowned of them but as soon as I perceived any of them purposely choose the dark and hide themselves in affected cloudy terms or methods I was more a verse from their documents and took them for men that were either enemies to truth or else had not received it into honest hearts themselves Truth is most beautifull in its nakedness It loveth plain dealing and abhorreth fraud It takes that for its greatest friend that layes it most naked to the view of all and that for its enemy that purposely obscureth it We have all such a natural inclination to truth that he scarce deserves the name of a man much less of a Christian that would not embrace it if he knew it Did I think that the Papists had the truth the Lord knows I would run after them and follow them till I had learned it If ever any of them would work on me they must come bare faced for I naturally abhor a Jugler in Religion and a friend of darkness 3. But how shall these Hiders be Detected Answ 1. You have cause to suspect all that use a Mask and purposely hide their minds To suspect them I say to be Papists or worse They walk not in Gods way that walk in Darkness It is the Kingdom of Satan that is the Kingdom of Darkness and it is he that is the Prince of Darkness and his servants that are the sons of Darkness Me thinks a man that intendeth Deceit what ever his end be should not take it ill to be suspected for a deceiver God is so good a master that no body should be ashamed of him Truth is so amiable that the genuine sons of Truth are not ashamed of it It s no true Religion that assureth not men of that which will save them harmless and bear them out against all the malice of earth and hell and repair all losses that they can sustain in the defending of it Qui non vult intelligi debet negligi He that would not be fully understood shall never be my Teacher nor be much regarded by me And therefore the Vane and Steril language of Paracelsian Behmenists and Popish Juglers doth serve with me for no other use but to raise me into suspicion of their Designs and Doctrines and to signifie a Vaine and Steril mind Who will not suspect that Tradesmans weres that chooseth a dark Shop and refuseth to open his wares in the light I know that Scripture hath its difficulties and strong meats But that is from our incapacity of understanding higher points till we are prepared by the lower It is from the altitude of the matter and not that God doth envy us the truth which he pretendeth to reveal If a Prophesie be purposely obscured which concerneth not the world so neerly yet so are not the Doctrines that our life or death lyeth on But saith Clem. Writer to me recited in his late Book against me Would you not hide your mind or Religion in Spain Answ 1. No I would not whenever I found my self capable of serving God most by the discovery which is the common case 2. Till then I would not put on the vizor of any thing that I knew to be false and make use of Positive Jugling and Dissembling to hide my Religion 3. If Christians against Infidels or Protestants among Papists had thought this dissimulation lawfull there had not been so many thousands of them martyred or murdered as were 4. What Opinion is it that brings men in England into any great danger at this day Either your Opinion must be Atheistical or at least Infidelity if you suppose it will bring you now into any great suffering or if it be some small matter that you fear it seems you think not your Religion worthy to be openly owned in so small a danger I 'le never be of a Religion that is not worthy my openest confession even to the death when there is so much danger 2. The Jugling Papists may be known by this that they are alwayes loosening people from their Religion and leading them into a dislike of what they have been taught that they may be receptive of their new Impressions And therefore of any one Sect in England there is none to be so much suspected of a spirit of Jesuitism as the Seekers of all sorts 3. The Jugling Papists may be much detected by this that they are all upon the Destructive part in their Disputes and very little on the Assertive part They pull down with both hands but tell you not what they will build up till they have prepared you for the discovery They tell you what they are against But what they are for you cannot draw out of them As if any wise man will leave his house or grounds till he knows where to be better or will forsake his staff that he leaneth on or the food that he feedeth on till he know where to have a better provision or support Do they think wise men will be made irreligious They deal by the poor people as one that should say to passengers
against the Papists such as Dr. Fields Crakenthorps Ushers Chillingworths Jewels Rivets Chamiers Ames Reignolds whittakers and such like beginning with Sir Humfrey Linds Via Devia via Tuta du Plessis of the Church and his Mysterie of Iniquity and Dr. John White c. 3. That you will not hearken to Papists secretly nor masked nor coming to you by indirect and Jugling ways but open their perswasions and call to some able studyed Divines to deal with them in your hearing if needs you will hear them that so you may hear one side as well as the other 4. That you take heed what Retainers Servants or Familiars are about you For some that pretend to be acquainted with these men are much mistaken if they be not more frequent at your elbows and in your Bed-chambers then many do imagine If they cannot be of your Councils and your neer attendants they will rather be your Porters or the Grooms of your Stables then they will be kept out We fear not any thing that they can do in an open way in comparison of their secret whispers and deceits when there is no body to gainsay them Had they the Truth we should be glad to entertain it with them It is not therefore Truth in their mouths that we are afraid of But seeing the Nations and our Posterity have so much dependance on your Integrity we call for so much Justice at your hands as that you will not cast open your ears to each deceiver especially in secret or on unequal tearms Let not all our peace and safety be hazarded by the self-conceitedness or imprudence of you that are our Rulers Seeing it is you that must give us Laws or set the Vulgar the pattern which they are so much addicted to imitate We adjure you in the Name of the most High God that you be not too forward and facile in hearkening to Seducers and corrupting those Intellects which the whole Nation hath so great an Interest in and that you be not henceforth as children tost to and fro and carryed about with every wind of doctrine by the the sleight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive Eph. 4. 14. But we beseech you mark them which cause Divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which you have learned and avoid them For they that are such serve not the Lord Jesus Christ but their own belly and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple Rom. 16. 17 18. Hearken not to every one that saith Lo here is Christ or Lo there is Christ here is the Catholick Church or there is the Catholick Church As if Christ were divided or the Catholick Church were more then One Or it were confined to a Sect or Party whether Papal or any other and did not contain all Christians through the world All parts of this Church are not equally pure but all are Parts Be you of the purest part but do not therefore take that part for the whole much less the polluted part Have compassion on the diseased and tumified part but do not therefore so far doat as to love the tumor or disease and say that none is the Church but this We are willing to be as Charitable to that Proud Throne of Rome and usurping Vice-christ as will stand with the safety of our souls and of the Church But God forbid that we should therefore be so blind as to run into their Pest-house and drink the poyson by which they are thus tumified intoxictaed Look on their Principles and see what an aspect they have on Christ on the Catholick Church and upon Princes Look back on their Practises and see what their Principles proved in the fruits Yea what need we go further for a warning then to remind you of that which one would think should be deep and fresh in your minds even what they have brought upon Kings Queens Lords Prelates and this whole Land But this leads me to the next Detection CHAP. XLVIII Detect 39. THE last of their Practical frauds at home and the most desperate is Their Treasons against the lives of Princes and the Peace of Nations and their dissolving the bonds of Oaths and Covenants and making Perjury and Rebellion to seem to be Duties and Meritorious works It would be a voluminous task to relate the Histories of the Papal Tresons How the Roman Vice-christ having laid a claim to both Swords Spiritual and Temporal hath plaid the Traytor against the Greek Emperors dispossessing them of the West and against the Emporors of Germany stirring up their own subjects and the Christian Princes and States against them setting his foot on the neck of one and making another wait barefoot long at the Roman gates and keeping many of them in wars It was this Horrid Treason and Tyrannical usurpation over all the Christians Princes that caused all those Treatises on that subject wrote against him in the Defense of Princes and their Rightt which Mich. Goldastus hath preserves and conjoyned in divers Volumes It was this that caused England Denmark Sweden and so many other Princes to be the readier to shake off his yoke Kings are not Kings where the Pope is fully Pope except only the House of Austria whom he is forced to gratifie as the only prop of all his tyrannie France that hath so much stood for its Liberties hath felt the fruits of the Roman Principles and League and two of their most renowned Kings successively have been basely and inhumanely butchered by them And to this day the numerous swarm of the Popes dependant Clergy doth not only devour as is thought about a third part of the Lands but also aws and swaies the Princes Even in Ireland before our wars a Bishop Bedle in his Letter to Laud in Prins Introduct pag. 102. doth open the Power of the Clergie and their insolencies as such that he concludes His Majesty is now with the greatest part of this Countrey as to their hearts and consciences King but at the Popes descretion And in another Letter to the said Archbishop ibid. pag. 112. he saith I that know that in this Kingdom of his Majesty the Pope hath another Kingdom far greater in number and as I have heretofore signified to the Lords Justices and Council which since is justified by themselves in print constantly guided and directed by the order of the new Congregation de propaganda fide lately erected at Rome see the rest Do I need to tell England of the many treacheries since the Reformation against our Princes Or who it was that would have deposed as well as Excommunicated Queen Elizabeth and exposed her Kingdoms to the will of others Or who it was that wrote against King James his Title to the Crown Or who were the Actors of the Hellish Powder-plot Or who it is that hath been still blowing the fire and casting all into disturbances for their ends Do I need to mention their approving of
the Murdering of Princes and the pretence of power to dispense with oaths of Allegiance and fidelity and who hath actually so oft pretended to disoblige the subjects and expose Princes and their Dominions to the first occupant I know that many of the seculars in England disowned this doctrine But 1. So never did the Pope but hath owned and practised it 2. By disowning it they disown Popery it self if they know what they do For it is an Article of their Faith and so Essential to their Religion as explicitly held and is determined by a Pope and an approved General Council even 12. the fourth at Lateran under Innocent the third as I before recited the words at large in the third Argument against them here I know some of the Papists would perswade the world that it was none but Mariana the Jesuite that wrote for King killing and that it was first condemned by themselves But the Parliament of Paris tells another story of them as it is recited by Thuanus who was President and then present Hist lib. 130. ad an 1604. And Rivet names them Guignardus that wrote in praise of the murder of Henry the third and of Ode Pichenatus Barterius suborned by Varada c. And Albineus the Jesuite did hear the Murderer of Henry the fourth confess before he did the fact and put off the examiners with this answer that God had given him that special gift to forget when once he had absolved a sinner whatsoever was confessed by him And why was it that France did expel the Jesuites and set up a Pillar of Remembrance of their villanies till Henry the fourth would needs gratifie the Pope by calling them in again and told the Parliament that the peril of it should be on him and so it was for it cost him his life And why did the same Parliament of Paris Novemb. 1610. condemn Bellarmines book against Barclay as an engine of treason and rebellion And the Theological faculty of Paris April 4. 1626. condemned Santarellus Book as guilty of the same villany stirring up people to Rebellion and King-killing And May 12. the University confirmed it And March 13. the Parliament condemned the Book to be burnt And it 's worth the reading which Rivet recites of the Answers of the Jesuites in Paris when the Parliament askt them their judgement of that Book viz. Seeing their General had approved the Book and judged the things that are there written to be certain whether they were of the same mind They answered that Living at Rome he could not but approve what was there approved of But say the Parliament What think you Say the Jesuites the clean contrary Say the Examiners But what would you do if you were at Rome Say the Jesuites That which they do that are at Rome At which said some of the Parliament What! have they one Conscience at Rome and another at Paris God bless us from such confessors as these But yet some of the Papists will seem so honest as to say that private men may not kill a King till he be deposed Very true But withall it is their currant doctrine that if once he be excommunicate he is then no King yea or if he be an Heretick and so being no King they may kill the man and not kill the King This is the jugling of these seeming Loyall subjects You may see it in their own writings Suarez advers Sect. Anglic. lib. 6. cap. 4. Sect. 14. cap. 6. Sect. 22 24. Azorius Jesuita Instit Moral part 1. l. 8. c. 13. He that would see more of their mind in this let him read the Mysterium Patrum Jesuitarum and the Jansenians mysterie of Jesuitism and Bishop Rob. Abbots Antilogia ad Apolog. Eudaemojohan But what need we more then the Decrees of a Pope and General Council and the practice of the Church of Rome for so many ages And for the Popes power to absolve them from all oaths of Allegiance and fidelity the foresaid Pope Innocent and his approved General Council have told the world enough of their mind to put us out of doubt of it But leaving abundance of forreign instances I shall mention but one or two at home The Papists have lately had the confidence to affirm that the Powder-plot and the Spanish invasion in one thousand five hundred eighty eight were not upon a quarrell of Religion nor owned by the Pope King James hath said already so much against them in these points that I think it needless to say any more especially also after Bishop Abbots Antilogia but only here to produce one Testimony of their own concerning the Spanish Invasion Cardinal Ossatus in his 87. Epist ad D. de Ville-roy tels us that Pope Clement the eighth one of the best of all the late ones did press for the King of France to join with Spain in the Invasion of England and the Cardinal answered that the King was tied by an Oath to the Queen of England to which the Pope replyed that The Oath was made to an Heretick but he was bound in another Oath to God and the Pope adding withall that Kings and other Princes do permit themselves all things or tolerate themselves in all things which make for their commodity and that the matter is gone so far that it is not or should not be imputed to them or taken for their fault and he alledged the saying of Franciscus Mariae Duke of Urbine that indeed every one doth blame a Noble man or Great man that is no Soveraign if he keep not his Covenants or fidelity and they account him infamous but supream Princes may without any danger of their reputation make Covenants and break them lye betray and perpetrate other such like things This was good Pope Clement the eighth And can we look for better from the rest You see what Oaths and Covenants are with them And that the design was still carried on against the Queen upon account of Religion and the Realm to have been invaded by the Spaniard on that account and that the principal point of the Plot was to prepare a party within the Realm that might adhere to the invaders all this with much more Sir Francis Walsingham that well knew hath testified to Monsieur Critoy in his Letter Cabal part 2. pag. 39. Thuanus a Moderate Papist and a most knowing and impartial Historian tells you lib. 89. p. 248 249. ad an 1588. that the Spaniards pretended to undertake the expedition only for Religion sake and therefore took with them Martin Alarco Vicar general of the Holy Inquisition with abundance of Capuchins and Jesuites and that they had with them the Popes Bull which they were to publish as soon as they landed and that Cardinal Allan was appointed as the Popes Legate to land at the same time and with full power to see to the restoring of Religion And that the said Bull had these expressions that the Pope by the Power given from God by lawfull
did yet profess to take up offensive Arms only against Delinquents or rather even but defensive against those men that had got an Army to secure them from Justice And they still professed and vowed fidelity to the King which as I have shewed they manifested to the last of their power till they were imprisoned and secluded Read Mr. Irins Speech for Agreement with the King and read the writing of the London Ministers presented to the General and published against the Kings death and Read the Vindication of the secluded members and read the Passages of the war with Scotland and of the Imprisonment of many London Ministers and of the death of Mr. Love and others and tell me whether you can do men greater wrong then to defame them for being causers of that which they disowned though it cost them the loss of Liberty Estate or Life 4. And really if you take either Vanists or Levellers who were the chief agents in this for Protestants you may as well say that Papists are Protestants The world knows that the Prayers the Petitions Protestations and other endeavours of the Protestants even the Presbyterians was for the preventing the death of that King how ever many of them disliked his course and joyned with the Parliament against his adherents This is the very truth which they that have been eye witnesses all along have good reason to know whatever any Papist say to the contrary 5. And what Protestants be they that give power to any man on earth to depose Princes and give their Kingdoms to others or to disoblige all their subjects and warrant them to kill them and dispense with oaths and turn them all into smoak and straw as yours do Renounce your treacherous Principles and we will cease to charge you with them Let a General Council and Pope but Decree the contrary to what the forecited Pope and General Council have Decreed or else do you all declare that you think this Pope and Councill erred and then we will shake hands with you for then you will either cease to be true Papists or at least become tolerable members of humane societies Why doth not the Pope himself at least condemn these doctrines if really he disown them The case is too plain CHAP. XLIX Detect 40. THeir last course when all other fail is To turn from Fraud to Force and open Violence stirring up Princes to wars and bloodshed that they may destroy the professors of the Reformed Religion as far as they are able and do that by flames and sword by halters and hatches which they cannot do by Argument Hence have proceeded the bloody butcheries of the poor Waldenses and Albigenses formerly and now again of late and the wars in Bohemia the League and wars and Massacres in France the desolating wars of Germany the plots invasions and wars in England Most of the flames in Christendom of late ages have been kindled for the Pope by his Agents that he might warm him by that fire that others are consumed by Hence his own pretenses to the Temporal Sword and so many volumes written to justifie it and so many Tragedies acted in the execution And yet these men cry up Antiquity and Tradition I wonder what Bishop in all the world for above three hundred years after Christ did ever claim or exercise the temporal sword as much as to be a Justice of Peace nay it was their judgement that it did not belong to them Neither the Pope nor any Bishop on earth as such hath any thing to do with the coercive power of the sword nor may not inflict the smallest penalty on body or purse but only guide men by the Word of God and the utmost penalty they can inflict is to excommunicate them And they have nothing to do to destroy men when they have excommunicated them nor to cause the Magistrate to do it but rather should still endeavour their Conversion Synesius Epistol 57. against Andronicus saith as followeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. To join together secular government with the Priesthood is to tye together things that are incoherent or such as cannot be tyed together The old times made the same men Priests and Judges For the Aegyptians and Hebrems did long make use of the Government of Priests But afterward as seems to me when Gods work began to be done in an humane manner God separated the two sorts of life and one of them was made sacred and the other appointed for Rule and Command For some he turned to these Materiall or common secular things and some he associated with himself The former were appointed for secular business the later for prayer But from both doth God require that which is honest or Good Why then dost thou revoke this Why wilt thou conjoin what God hath separated who wouldst not have us indeed to do the work of secular Rulers but by doing it to deprave or marr it then which what can be more unhappy Dost thou need a Ruler or Patron Go to him that manageth the Laws of the Commonwealth Dost thou need God in any thing Go to the Bishop or Priest of the City not that thou shalt be sure there to have all that thou desirest but that I will afford thee the best assistance that I can or will do my best in it So far Synesius Which I wonder how Petavius could pass over without some distorting observation considering how low it treads the Roman Kingdom But Baronius had the cunning as to extract even from hence some advantage to his cause even to shew the Power that Pastors have to excommunicate Rulers ad An. 411. as Synesius with the Council did Andronicus But 1. He went not out of his own circuit to play the Bishop in other mens Diocess 2. Much less did he take up the Temporal Sword against him but disclaimeth and detesteth any such thing Why doth not the Pope when he hath past his Excommunications content himself that he hath done his part but he must excite Princes yea force them to execute his rage and fall upon the Lives and Dominions of such Princes as he will call Heretical He knows how small account would be made of his brutish thunderbolts if he had not a secular Arm to follow them Nay why is he and many of his Cardinals and Bishops secular Princes themselves Why joyneth he those Functions of Magistracie and Priesthood which Synesius here tells us God hath separated and made incoherent in one and the same person Let the Pope usurp what Ecclesiastical power he please he would not so much disturb the Church by it if he did not second it by another power It is violence that he trusteth too He knows if it were not for Arms and Violence he would soon be spewed out by the Christian world And yet many of his followers that seem more moderate confess he hath nothing to do as Pope with any but the Spiritual Sword which works no further then Conscience doth
Ecclesiam utramque Gallicanam Brittanicam etiam tum cum Ecclesia Brittanica non communicabat cum Romanâ certe si utraque pars absque prejudicio sese mutuo intelligeret pars extrema de rigore suo vellet remittere ea Brittanicae Ecclesiae cum Gallicana concensio non foret adeo improbabilis atque prima fronte videtur Ecclesiam utramque vel alterutram ignorantibus I add this but to shew the Judgement of those on whom the judgement of Grotius had any influence for a Communion with the French as if we little differed from them Still professing that I would run with the forwardest to meet them upon tolerable terms And that the remembrance of the moderation wisdom charity of the Cassandrian party in France that resisted the violence of the rest long in vain and lamented the massacres and were oppressed by them is very greateful to my thoughts and the names of many of them very honorable in my esteem And it grieves me that Grotius called by Mr. Pierce a Protestant should so far out-go them in Popery whom the same man confesseth to have been Papists He goes much further then Cassander Much further then Thuanus that so plainly and truly openeth abundance of the Popish evills that Grotius patronizeth and so long and successfully did his part to keep out of France the Authority of the Council of Trent which was part of Grotius his Religion And how far he went beyond that excellent man Michael Hospitalius the Head of that party so much commended by Beza as well as by Thuanus and Foxius and others is easie to manifest 5. And I am the more provoked also to perform this task because I see by many more as well as Mr. P. that the design is still on foot and that the Papists that are got so strong in England under the mask of the Vani the Seekers the Infidels the Quakers the Behmenists and many other Sects have so much addition to their strength by Grotians that go under the mask of Episcopal Divines Which yet I should the less be troubled at if France Savoy England Holland Poland Bohemia and all parts where they prevail did not acquaint us by bloody tormenting thundering flaming evidence how they use their power where they dare 6. And it moveth me much also to consider the consequence of the point in hand It is not a meer speculation but a point so practical that the right decision and understanding of it is as much as the Peace of millions of souls yea of all the Churches and Common-wealths in Christendom is worth All that have any thing of the love of God alive within them are somewhat sensible of the sinfulness and misery contained in the divisions and discord of Believers and therefore they must needs be solicitous for the Cure and lay out themselves and all they have or can do to accomplish it if they knew the way And the more zealous any man is for Peace the more resolutely will he carry on his work and bear down all opposition that would hinder him in that which he thinks the way of Peace And when persons thus disposed by humanity and grace shall be quite mistaken in the very thing they seek even in the Nature of the Churches unity and peace they will think themselves bound with all their zeal and diligence to endeavour the doing of an evill work and to accomplish a work neither possible nor desirable And it is not hard for a man of an indifferent wit to fore-see what uncharitableness discomposure of minds of Churches and Common-wealths and abusing and endangering of souls is like to be the fruit of such mistakes about the Churches Unity and Peace And as the School useth to say from Boetius and Anselm Malum non est nisi à bono propter bonum so it will be like by experience to be made a proverb that Bellum discordia non sunt nisi à pacificis propter pacem The greatest discords and wars will be from the Love and Endeavour of Unity and Concord and for the obtaining of them by impossible means These following evills may easily be foreseen 1. If men mistake about the Nature of the visible form of the Catholick Church and its unity it is like to pervert their judgements in many other weighty points of Religion For when they have received this Error as a Truth then they will be exceedingly inclined to bend the rest of their opinions to it and contrive them into a Consistent Form For Truth would to Truth as Fire would to Fire and Water to Water Yea all that is flexible within them shall be bended to the interest of this conceit 2. As soon as ever any man hath received this opinion of the necessity of an Universal Visible Head or common Government of the whole Chruch he is either a Papist or of an opinion equivalent in folly tyrannie and impiety to Popery For if such a Visible Head must be there is no other that can pretend to it with Reason or Honesty any more then the Pope Nor is it our quarrel against Rome that their Bishop rather then another should be this usurping Head but that they would have such a one at all It is not who shall be the man or power but whether there shall be any such man or power that we dispute This Error about the Necessity of an Universal Visible Head is the very thing that turneth most to Popery and this is the common argument that is mannaged by deceivers to that end as their writings commonly declare 3. And then when men are drawn over to be Papists for the avoiding of Schism and the obtaining of Unity they are unawares involved in the most desperate Schism which I have proved that party to be guilty of and with it drink in the dregs of all the Roman abominations When men have set up a new Church-form by setting up a new Head and Center of Unity and then judge of all particular Churches and Members by this standard it leadeth them unavoidably to separate from all the Churches and Christians upon earth that conspire not and center not with them in their new devised Head 4. And by this means Charity is much destroyed in mens souls and he that hath least of Love hath least of God and the Preachers and Pastors turn all their studies into matter of Controversie and their labors into wranglings and all under pretence of Catholick Unity And having not charity they prove not only sounding brass and tinkling Cymbals in their most learned labors but too often burning brass like Perillus Bull and military Trumpets and all this under pretense of Charity when they have destroyed it Hence is it that uncharitable censures are so common and the Lambs of Christ so often cloathed in the skins of Wolves by the Wolves that have by exchange put on the skin of the Lamb. Scarse a man that crosseth or displeaseth that is dissenteth
Natural existence For where is it when called how long have they sate But this none will affirm Not in Moral existence For there is no such thing pretended nor possible I confess the Common wealth is not dissolved at the death of the Prince because a Successor being determined of by Law as in hereditary Government there is one hath presently right to the place though he want solemn admittance or if elective yet Rex non moritur both because the successor hath an Intentional Moral being in the Fundamental Law and the Intention of the Electors conjunctly and they presently make an actual choice or else the power so far as is necessary for execution falls in the mean time into the hands of some Trustees of the Republick while they are electing and the soveraign is in fieri Or if it be in some dissolvable body whose actual Session is intermitted yet they are still in Moral being and ready to assemble and the Soveraignty for so much as is of ordinary exercise even over the Universal body is in the mean time in the hands of some other Assembly who therefore may be said to partake of the Soveraignty But none of this is so in the present case Here is no General Council ordinarily in natural being and therefore in the vacancy not in Moral being There is none that pretendeth to be in Moral being For the Council of Trent which was the last pretended General Council is dissolved and the Pope would not take it well if any shall call another without him and no time is appointed for it The Decennial Council determined of at Constance is an empty name and that Decree did but serve to prove that really General Councils are not the Supream Governors of the Church For no one obeyeth them in that And whether ever the Pope or any one else will call a General Council again we cannot tell So that now there is none nor we know not whether there ever will be But further Argum. 2. That which is the Head or form of the Catholick Church or any way Necessary to its Being or Unity hath ever been found in it or at least within this thousand years or at least in the primitive purer ages or sometime at least But a true General Council is not always in being nor ever was within this thousand years no nor in the purer ages nor ever at all therefore it is no Head of the Church nor necessary to its unity The Major will not be denyed The proof of any branch of the Minor may serve turn much more of all 1. That a General Council hath not been this forty years in being all men will confess If the Church have been Headless forty years or wanted any thing Necessary to its Being or Unity then was it so long no Church or many Catholick Churches which are known untruths 2. If the Church have had any General Council within this thousand years it was either that of Trent that of Canstance Basil Florence the Laterane c. But none of these were such For 1. there were no Bishops from the most of the Christian world I have told you before how few at Trent did the most egregious parts of their work few more then forty The Churches of Syria Armenia Ethiopia and the most of the Christian world were never so much as fairly invited to be there If at Florence the Patriarch of Constantinople and two or three Greeks more were present what 's that to all the Churches of the Greek Profession through the world besides all others The ancient Councils called General contained All the Bishops that could and would come For all were to be there and not one Bishop chosen by two hundred or by a Prince instead of two hundred But at these later Councils were neither all nor so much as any Delegates though but chosen by hundreds to represent them from most of the Churches of the world Besides the packing and fore-resolutions of the Popes that ruled all and many other Arguments that nullifie these pretended General Councils I say not that all of them were useless but none of them were any more like to Oecumenical or Universal then Italy and its few servants are like to all the Christian world And that the Ancient Councils were not General I mean the four first or any like them I easily prove 1. From the Original of them and the Mandates and the Presidents and Ratifications and Executions It was the Roman Emperors that called them and that sent their Mandates to the Lieutenants and other secular Officers to see to the execution and to the Bishops to be there It was the Roman Emperors that by themselves or their Lieutenants were present to Rule them all according to the proportion of secular interest It was the same Powers that Ratified them and what they ratified went for currant and their Ratification was sought by the Bishops to that end It was the same Power that banished them that obeyed not and compelled men to submit to them Now let any man of Reason tell me what Power Constantine Theodosius Martian or any Roman Emperor had to summon the Bishops that were subjects in the Dominions of all other Princes through the world What Authority had they out of their own Dominion 2. Yea de facto the case is known 1. That they did not summon the Bishops of other Princes Dominions 2. That those Bishops at least no considerable number were there What Mandates or Invitations were sent to all the Churches of India Ethiopia Persia or the parts of Parthia Armenia Ireland Scotland c. that were out of the Roman Power Whoever those one or two were that Eusebius calls Bishops of Persis Parthia Armenia it 's a plain case that there were no due Representatives of all or any of these Churches there that were without the verge of the Empire No Brittish Irish that is then Scottish Bishops were there nor any from abundance other Churches And the other Councils after that at Nice make less pretense to such a thing So that it is most evident that General Councils then were but of the Bishops of the Empire or the Roman world unless a Bishop or two sometime might drop in that lived next them And was the Church no wider then the Empire Let Baronius himself be judge that tells you of the Churches planted by the primitive Preachers in India Persia and many other parts of the world Let Godignus be judge that confesseth the Ethiopians had the Gospel since the Apostles days and I pray in what age were they Papists Let Raynerius be judge that saith the Churches of Armenia and others planted by the Apostles were not subject to the Church of Rome Let the Antiquities of Brittain and Ireland be evidence But the case is undenyable All this noyse then of General Councils comes but from a supposition that the Roman world was the whole Christian world A small mistake We home-bred Rusticks may shortly be
a General Council a faction might promote any heresie or carnal interest and no Churches would be so enslaved as those that send at the dearest rates Italy and a few more parts at Trent would over-vote all the Churches of East and South and set up what interest or opinion they please And so if one corner of the Church can err all may err for all the Council Where there is an equal interest there should be an equal power in Councils which will certainly be otherwise 4. If the Pope be he that must call General Councils we shall have none till it will stand with his interest And if he have not the power of calling them no one else hath for none pretendeth to it And if they must be called by universal consent three hundred years is little enough for all the world to treat of the time place and other circumstances and consent 5. And if the Pope must call them he will easily by the very choice of the place procure the accomplishment of his own designs 6. Those that think it the Popes prerogative to call a Council do also affirm as I before shewed in the express words of Binnius and others that a Council hath no more power then the Pope will give them and that when they are convened by him and have done their work it is all of no Validity if he allow it not If he approve one half that half is valid and his approbation will make their Decrees the Articles of our faith when as the other half which he disapproveth shall not be worth a straw And is it not a most foolish thing for all the world to put themselves to so much charge to defray the expenses of their Bishops and hazzard their lives and lose their labours at home for so many years and hazzard the Churches by their absence when for ought they know the Bishops of the whole Christian world do but lose all their labour and nothing shall be valid if they please not the Pope of Rome And is it not most abominable justice in him thus to put all the world to trouble and cost and hazzard the Churches and the Pastors lives for nothing when if the infallible spirit be only in himself he might have done the work himself and saved all this cost and labour 7. By what Justice shall all the Catholick Church be obliged by the Decrees of such a General Council Is it by Law or Contract If by Law it is by Divine Law or by Humane If by Divine let it be shewed that ever God made such a Government for the Catholick Church and then take all If by Humane Laws it is impossible and therefore not to be affirmed For no Humane Soveraign hath power to make Laws for all the world If you say is it by contract then 1. All those Nations that thought not meet to send any Bishops to the Council will be free 2. And so will all those be that sent Bishops who dissented from the rest For contract or Consent bindeth none but Contracters or Consenters And so England is not bound by the Council of Nice Ephesus Calcedon Constantinople c. 8. By what Justice shall any people be required to send Delegates on such terms as these to Councils or to stand to their definitions when they have done When our faith and souls are preciouser things then so boldly to cast upon the trust of a few Delegates so to be chosen and employed What Bishops other Countries will choose we know not And for our own 1. In almost all Countries it is the Princes that choose or none must be chosen but who they will which is all one 2. If the Bishops choose it s those that are highest with the secular power that will have the choice who perhaps may choose such as are contrary to the judgement of most of that Church that is thought to choose them Most Nations have a Clergy much at difference The Remonstrants and Contramonstrants in Holland would not have chosen like members for the Synod In the Bishops days men of one mind were chosen here in England to Convocations The next year we had a Learned Assembly that put down the Prelacy for which a Convocation had formed an Oath to be imposed on all Ministers but a little before And why should the judgment of the Prelates be taken for the judgement of the Church of England any more then the other when for number learning and piety to say the least they had no advantage laying aside ignorant ungodly men in point of number Till the Spanish match began to be treated on the Bishops of England were ten if not twenty to one Augustinians Calvinists or Antiarminians Now the Arminians would be thought the Church of England and their doctrine agreeable to the doctrine of that Church Would they not accordingly have differed if they had been sent to a General Council How bitterly are the Articles of the Church of Ireland decryed by the Arminian Bishops since sprung up both in Ireland and England so that if Delegates be sent to any Council they may speak the minds of those that sent them which perhaps is the King or a small prevailing party but not of the rest which perhaps may the best and most If Jeremiah of Constantinople be of a Council he will go one way If Cyril be of a Council he will go another way And his counterfeit Successor undo what he did 9. No Church that sendeth three or four Bishops to represent a thousand or two thousand Pastors can be sure how those Bishops will carry it when they come thither For ought we know they may betray our cause and cross their instructions They may be perverted by the reasonings of erroneous men or bribed by the powerfull And to cast our faith on so slender an assurance is little wisdom 10. If consent only bind us to the Decrees of Councils to submit to them as our Rule then is Posterity bound that did not consent as their Fathers did or are they not If not we are free If yea by what bond And then why do not the Grotians in Ireland and England obey the Antiarminian Decrees of the Churches in both Did not the Church of England send Bishop Carlton Bishop Hall Bishop Davenant afterward a Bishop Dr. Ward Dr. Goad and Balcanquall Episcopal Divines to the Synod of Dort and so England was a part of that Synod And yet the Grotians and Arminians think not themselves bound to receive the Doctrine of that Synod nor to forbear reproaching it 11. It is unjust that any especially most of the Churches should be obliged by the votes of others and oppressed by Majority meerly because their distance or poverty or the age or weakness of their Pastors disableth them to send any or an equal number or to defray the charge of their abode c. Ah if good Pope Zachary or Archbishop Boniface had considered that the essence or unity of the Church
weighty a point without intolerable accusation of it The Soveraign Power or Headship of Pope or Council is not revealed in the Holy Scripture Therefore c. They have not yet produced a Text to prove either of them Those produced by the Italians for the Popes Headship are disclaimed by the French as meaning no such thing and our Writers have largely manifested their abusing of the Text. So have they done of those that are brought for the Headship of Councils These texts are spoke to so fully by Chamier Whitaker Amesius and abundance more that I think it in vain to do it here again That of 1 Tim. 3. 15. that the Church is the pillar and ground of Truth doth not speak a word of a General Council nor a word of Headship The whole Church united in Christ is the Pillar and Ground that is the certain Receptacle and retainer of the Truth the Law of Christ being written in their hearts None seems more to favour their concecit then Ephes 4. 15 16. which Grotius fastens on But even that is against them and not for them For 1. It is Christ and only Christ that is here said to be the head and all other parts contradistinguished and excluded from Headship and the Body is not said to be united in them 2. And it is by association and mutual communication of their several gifts that the parts are compacted together and edifie the whole and not by meeting in any one and deriving from it Object But were not the Apostles General Officers and so the Church united in General officers Answ This is little to the Question For 1. the Apostles had one among them to be the Soveraign or Head of the rest but were of equal power 2. Nor did a major part of their whole number make such a Head for the Church to unite in nor do we read that ever a Major vote carryed it among them against a Minor for they were all guided by the Spirit Yet its true that they met ofter together then a General Council can 2. The Apostles as extraordinarily qualified and as the Secretaries of the Spirit have no successors But the Apostles as ambulatory unfixed Ministers had even then many companions For Barnabas Luke Apollo and abundance more did then go up and down preaching as well as the Apostles yet had not any one of them a special charge of Governing all the Churches nor yet all of them united in a body For the Apostles called not the Evangelists and other fellow workers to consult in Councils about the Government of the whole But both they and their helpers did severally what they could to teach and settle the Churches 3. Who be they now that are the Apostles successors If all the Bishops in the world the case is as we left it If any small number of Primates or Patriarcks how shall we know which and how many If they be not twelve why should one Apostle have a successor and not others But there are no twelve only that lay claim to the succession And if you go further who can limit and say who and how many they be and how far the number may be increased or decreased and by whom In Cyprians dayes he and his fellows in the Council at Carthage declare that all Bishops were equal and none had power over other And so thought others in those times Nor was there then any number of Bishops that claimed to be the sole successors of the Apostles to rule all the rest And if they had when the Church increaseth the Rulers must increase But this is not to the main point Argum. 20. The Scripture doth appropriate the Universal Headship to Christ only and deny it to all others therefore neither Pope nor Council are the Universal Head Eph. 5. 23. It is the peculiar Title of Christ to be Head of the Church to whom it must be subject 1 Cor. 11. 3. The Apostle would have us know that the Head of every man is Christ and the head of the woman is the man and the Head of Christ is God So that there is a particular Head over some parcell of the body below Christ but to be the Universal Head of every man is the proper Title of Christ In 1 Cor. 12. the unity of the body and diversity of the members is more largely expressed then any where else in Scripture and there when the said unity of the body had been so fully mentioned the Apostle comes to name the Head of that Unity Vers 27. which is only Christ Now ye are the body of Christ and members in particular The Church is never called the body of the Pope or of a Council but the body of Christ yea as was even now said in the next words the Apostles Prophets and Teachers are enumerated to the particular members contradistinct from the Head so far are all or any one of them from being the head themselves And in Col. 2. 10 17 19. it is Christ only that is called the Head and the body is said to be of Christ and he only is mentioned as the Center of its Unity And not holding the Head from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministred and knit together increaseth with the increase of God And Col. 1. 18. And he is the Head of the body the Church If any say that you cannot hence argue Negatively that therefore no one else is the Head I answer They may as well say when it is affirmed that the Lord he is God you cannot thence conclude that Baal is not God The Apostle plainly speaks this of Christ as his peculiar honour And he spoke to men that knew well enough that natural bodies have but one Head unless they be Monsters And he would not so oft insist on this Metaphor intending so great a disparity in the similitude and never discover any such intention So in Ephes 1. 22. He gave him to be Head over all things to the Church which is his Body the fulness of him that filleth all in all And in Ephes 4. the Apostle purposely exhorteth us to the observation of this unity and purposely telleth us by a large enumeration wherein it doth consist but in all he never mentioneth the Pope or a Council yea he plainly excludeth them Vers 3 4. c. Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace There is one body and one spirit even as you are called in one hope of your calling One Lord One Faith One Baptism One God and Father of all who is above all and through all and in you all But unto every one of us is given Grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ He gave some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers for the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the Edifying of the body of Christ till we all come in the unity of the
division nor discontent Lay the Churches peace upon no new humane Impositions if you would have it hold Peruse Rom. 14. and the other Text last cited 1 Cor. 6. 12. 11. The Churches Peace or Unity must not be laid on any bare words of mans devising It 's not a work for Councils or Prelates to form the Christian doctrine in new methods and terms and then to force others to subscribe or use those very terms If the same men that refuse this be willing to subscribe to the whole Scripture or to a Confession in Scripture terms you may force him to no more Object But Hereticks will subscribe to Scripture Answ 1. They must wrest it then or wrest their Consciences And by either or both these shifts they may also subscribe to any of your Confessions 2. If his Heresie be latent in his mind you know it not nor can call him an Heretick nor doth it hurt the Church If it he published or preached to others let civil Governors question him for corporal punishment and let the Associate Pastors question him to his Reformation or Rejection You will have a better ground to reject him for delivering falsehood in his own words then for not subscribing to Truth in your words when he subscribed the same Truth in Gods Words There is no Unity to be expected if you will so far depart from the Scripture sufficiency as to make any more for sense or phrase of absolute necessity to our peace By phrase or terms I mean either the same numerically as in the Original or equipollent as in translations And I say not that it 's necessary to the unity of the Church that every word in Scripture Original or Translations be subscribed to for some may doubt of the corruption of a word or Book But that no more is necessary If all Scripture be not of that degree of Necessity much less humane additions Isa 8. 20. 1 Tim. 3. 17. 2 Tim. 1. 13. 1 Cor. 9. 5. 1 Tim. 6. 20. Act. 20. 32. 12. The Churches Unity Peace must not be laid upon all Divine Truths as not on lesser darker points which neither the being nor well-being of Christianity is concerned in so much as to rest upon them Phil. 3. 15 16. Rom. 14. 15 17 20. Heb. 5. 11 12 13 14. 1 Cor. 7. 19. Gal. 5. 6. 6. 15. Col. 3. 11. 13. We ought to love and esteem as Christians and members of the Catholick Church all those that profess to believe the Essentials of Christianity and to be sanctified by the Spirit of God and lead a holy upright life so they make a credible profession not evidently contradicted by words or deeds though these persons may differ from us in many lower points of Doctrine Worship or Government 1 Cor. 1. 2. Eph. 6. 24. Gal. 6. 15 16. Phil. 3. 16. Rom. 15. 1 2. 14. 1 2. 1 Cor. 8. 9. 14. We ought so to manage the Worship of God in our particular solemn Assemblies that no sober peaceable Christian may be repulsed or forced from our local Communion through differences in things of indifferent nature Heb. 8. 5. Mat. 15. 9. Rom. 14. 13. 14 1. 2 Cor. 11. 3. Joh. 4. 23 24. 15. If any Churches differ from us in Ceremonies or smaller things or if any particular Christians differ so that they cannot in conscience hold local Communion with us in the same Assemblies for Worship E. G. if we sit at the Lords Supper and they dare not take it without kneeling if we sing a version of the Psalms which they scrup'e to joyn in If we permit none to joyn that will not conform in disputable things in such cases though it be first our duty to do our best to remove all offences yet if that cannot be done we may and ought in several Assemblies to take each other for Brethren and of the same Catholick Church so be it we all hold the same essentials of Faith and Godliness and walk accordingly and especially if we also hold those weighty superstructures that the welfare of the Church is most concerned in Though here were few or no instances of this case in the days of the Apostles when divisions were not so great as now yet the general rules in the fore-cited Texts do prove it 16. Ecclesiastical Ministerial Government by whomsoever exercised must not degenerate into a secular coercive Government nor may we use carnal weapons nor meddle by force with mens bodies or estates nor yet can we oblige the Magistrate to do it meerly to execute our censures or without sufficient Evidence to prove it his duty nor can we oblige the people against the Word of God clave errante so that neither Bishop nor Council hath any such power as is properly decisively Judicial obliging to execution be the sentence right or wrong But our people must know that though we be their Guides or Rulers yet are we but Ministers and that they have a higher power to regard and must not obey us against the Lord but in and for him The Power of Pastors therefore is not like Magistrates or absolute Judges as is said before but like a Physitian in his Hospital or in an infected City among his Patients and like a Reader of any Science to voluntary Scholars in his School and as an Embassador to them to whom he is sent So that our Governing being but by the Word and on the Conscience is of the same nature with our Directing 1 Pet. 5. 3. Luke 22. 25 26. 3 Joh. 9. 10. 1 Cor. 4. 1 2. 17. Magistrates are Governors of the Church even as a Church and of Christians as Christians though not Absolutely nor in the same respects by the same means to the same neerest Ends as Pastors Magistrates must force us to our duty and punish us if we be wicked or negligent even as Pastors and cast us out of our Benefices and deny us encouragements if we be insufficient so that ad hoc the Magistrate is the only Judge what is sound doctrine and what heresie what Ministers are sufficient or insufficient culpable or not I say ad hoc so far as to Judge who shall have publick Liberty and Countenance and who shall be punished restrained and discountenanced Thus far the Mastrate is Judge in Religion besides that Judgement of Choice which every private man hath And therefore the Princes of the Christian world should hold some correspondencies like General Councils among themselves by their agents for carrying on the work of Christ and much of the unity and prosperity of Christians lyeth on their hands Isa 49. 23. Psal 2. 12. Rom. 13. 1 2 3 4. 1 King 2. 27 35. 2 King 18. 4. 2 King 23. 8 20. 2 Chron. 14. 3 5. Josh 1. 8. 1 Tim. 2. 2. 18. Yet are the Pastors of the Church in their places Rulers or Guides of Princes and Magistrates that is we Guide them by Doctrine and Church discipline as they Rule us
did consist in a General Council that must be fetched partly from the Antipodes they would have thought better on it before they had excommunicated Virgilius for saying that there were Antipodes or quod alius mundus alii homines sunt sub terras Dr. Heylin tels us in his Geography Lib. 1. pag. 25. that Bede de ratione temporum cap. 32. calleth it a fable that there are Antipodes and not to be believed and adds that Augustine Lactantius and some other of the Learned of those better times condemned it as a ridiculous incredible fable whose words saith he I could put down at large did I think it necessary And did that age dream that the Being or Unity of the Church or the salvation of the Believers soul depended on this Article that a General Council partly called from the Antipodes must be the Churches Head or Governours or that the Pope at least must be acknowledged and obeyed by every Christian soul that will be saved at the Antipodes And Sir Fradcis Drake and Cavendish would not have been so famous for compassing the world if men had understood that when the Gospel is spread through the earth so many poor old Bishops must ordinarily take half such Journies or voyages to do their business If the Decree of the Council of Constance had been executed to have had a General Council evry ten years many would scarce have had time to go and come But the charitable Church of Rome hath found out a Remedy not only by the rarity of their Councils let them decree what they will to the contrary but also by condemning the most of the Churches and the remotest as Hereticks and sending them to Hell to save them a journey to the General Council 12. Moreover such Councils are unjust because of the multi tude of Bishops that must there meet and cannot be heard speak As the case standeth already there are many more Bishops in the world then can meet and speak and hear in one or two or three Assemblies And many thousand more may be made If I should say that all the Rectors of particular Churches whom they call Parish Presbyters are Bishops and have votes in Councils they would easilyer deny it then disprove it or invalidate the proofs already brought But to proceed on their own grounds me thinks they that make him a Bishop who hath Presbyters and Deacons under him should admit all those Pastors of particular Churches that have Presbyters under them as their Curates which are many Or if they say that only Cities must have Bishops yet must they on their own grounds admit a Bishop for each City And if every City in a few Kingdoms in Europe had a Bishop in the Council there would be no room for all the rest of the world But how prove they that Countrey Parishes may not have Bishops Why may not on their own grounds every four or six parishes have one Hath God forbid it where and when sure they will not say it is of Divine institution that a Bishop have just so many Parishes and Presbyters under him and neither more nor less The number is confest to be left undetermined And what if Christian Princes Bishops and people agree to settle Bishops in every such small number of Parishes by what Law can they exclude them from a General Council If they say by the Canons of former Councils I answer 1. Those Canons are contrary to Scripture 2. They contradict one another 3. They themselves do not obey the Canons of many such Councils 4. Those Councils have no power to make Laws much less Laws that shall reach to this time and place But they will say Pauls command to Titus 1. 3 5. and the example Acts 14. 23. is only of ordained Elders or Bishops in every City therefore they may not ordain them any where but in Cities But I deny the consequence Most ancient interpreters by Elders Acts 14. 23. Understand meer Presbyters And then it would as much follow that Presbyters must be ordained no where but in Cities What if I can prove that the Apostles never gathered a solemn Assembly of Christians for Divine Worship any where but in Cities or that they never administred the Lords Supper any where but in Cities will it follow that therefore we ought not to Assemble or administer the Sacrament any where but in Cities But what if this were granted they cannot deny but every corporation such as most of our Burroughs and Market Towns in England are may truly be called Cities in that Scripture sence And if every such City had a Bishop Even England France Germany and Italy a little spot of the world would make Bishops enough for two or three Councils and more then could Assemble and do the work Two shifts they have against the over-greatness of the number One is the course now taken to have but one Bishop over many Cities and a very large Circuit of the Countrey The other is to depute one out of many from every Countrey to represent the rest and so it shall be a Representative General Council though not a Real But for the first 1. Who hath authority to make such diminutions 2. What if those that are supposed to have that authority shall be otherwise minded 3. It s apparently against the word of God and tendeth to the frustrating of the Office that true Bishops should be so rare By their own Rule each City should have one And let Brerewoods Enquiries or any such writers help you to conjecture how many that would be And for the other way 1. A Representative General Council is another thing quite different from a Real 2. What word of God have they to prove such a Representative Council Doubtless none And will they give us a Church form and center of Unity meerly of their own brains upon supposition that it is prudential 3. Men are of exceeding different degrees of understanding and of different judgements actually so that if e. g. England should send one or two or ten men to represent the rest to a General Council it s more then possible that they may give their judgements in many points so far contrary to the minds of those that sent them that twenty or an hundred to one at home may be against them For we cannot send our understandings and all our reasons with them to the Council when we send them And so no man can say that any such Council doth express the mind of the greater part of the Church 4. By this rule you may reduce a General Council to a dozen men or to the four or five Patriarks For all the rest may choose them as their representatives 5. But it s not to be expected that all the Churches should be satisfied of the lawfulness or fitness of such substitutions and representations And therefore they will not consent or elect men for such a power and work And who may justly force them 13. Moreover such
Councils are unjust because there can be no just satisfaction given by men that live at so vast a distance that this great number that come thither are truly Bishops yea or Presbyters either It s not possible under many years time so much as to take any satisfactory account of their ordination and abiding in that office and the truth of their deputations or elections And when in their elected Representative Councils there will be perpetual controversies between several parties as there is in Parliaments whether it be this man or that which is truly elected in how many years will all these be decided before they begin their work So that I may well conclude laying all these seven considerations together the distance of places the age and state of the Bishops the state of the Civil Governments which they live under their necessary labours at home and the ruine that will befall their Churches by so much absence the diversity of their languages the multitude of the Bishops and the difficulty of knowing the Ordination and Qualifications of persons so remote to prove their capacity I say all these together do plainly shew that such General Councils are impossible and unjust and therefore not the standing Government or form of the Church or the center of its Unity Argum. 4. As the Synod it self is impossible needless and unjust so it is Impossible that they should do the work of a Head or Soveraign Power if they could Assemble therefore they are not appointed thereunto The Antecedent is partly manifest by what is said from their different languages and other considerations Moreover 1. The persons that will have appeals to them and causes to be judged if really they will do the work of a Soveraign Power and Judge will be so many millions that there will be no room for them about their doors nor any leisure in many years to hear their causes If you say It was not so in former Councils I answer that is because they were not truly General or were called in such times when the Church did lie in a narrow compass and not in such remote parts of the world and because they were assembled indeed but occasionally to advise upon and determine some one particular mans case or few and never took upon them to be the Soveraign power or head of the Church or its essential form or Center of Unity 2. These millions of persons that have so many causes will have so far to travail that it will put them to great cost and labour to come and attend and bring all their witnesses And if they be not sounder bodyed then our English Souldiers the poor people of Mexico and other parts of those Indies to look no further will be a great part of them dead by the way before they can reach the General Council e. g. if it should be in the midst of Europe 3. And the Council will not be competent Judges of so many causes which by distance must needs be much unknown in many weighty Circumstances whose cognisance is necessary 4. And lastly such Councils will sit so seldom that the work will be undone Argum. 5. If God had intended that such a Council should have been the form of his Church or the necessary Governour of it he would have acquainted us with his will concerning some certain Power to summon them or would have authorized some or other to call such a Council But he hath not acquainted us with his will herein nor authorized any to call such a Council therefore it was not his intent that it should be the form or necessary Governour of his Church Either this Council must meet by an Authoritative call or by consent If by such a call who must call them The Popes pretense to this Authority is voluminously and unanswerà bly confuted long ago and it s well known what ever Baronius say that the ancient Councils were called by the Emperors and many since have been called by Emperours and Cardinals And if you say that it belongs to the Emperour I answer what hath he to do to summon the subjects of the French Spaniards Turks Aethiopian c And by this it appears that we never had true Universal Councils They were but General as to the Roman world or Empire For who ever precided it is certain that the Emperours called them And what had Constantine Martian Theodosius or any Roman Emperour to do to call the subjects in India Aethiopia Persia c. to a Council Nor de facto was there any such thing done Is it not a wonderfull thing that the Pope and all his followers should be or seem so blinded to this day as to take the Empire for the whole earth or the Roman world for all the Christian world yet this is their all If you say that it must be done by the consent of Princes then either of Christian Princes or of all If of the Christian only you must exclude the Bishops that are under Mahometan and Heathen Princes and then it will be no General Council especially if it be now as it was in the time of Jacob à Vitriaco the Popes Legate in the East who saith that the Christians of the Easterly parts of Asia alone exceeded in number the Christians both of the Greek and Latine Churches And whether it be all Princes or only Christian Princes that should consent who can tell whether ever it will be God hath not promised to lead them to such a consent And they are unlikely of themselves as being many and distant and of different interests and apprehensions and usually in wars with one another so that if an age should be spent in treating of a General Council among them it s ten to one that the treaty will be in vain and its next to an impossibility that all should consent Besides no man can shew a Commission from God to enable them and only them to such a work But if you say that it must be done by the consent of the Bishops themselves the Impossibility moral is apparent who will be found that will be at the cost and pains to agitate the business among them No one can appoint the time and place but by consent of the rest Who doth it belong to to travail to the Indies Aethiopia Aegypt Palestine and all the rest of the world to treate with the Bishops about the time and place of a Council And how many lives must he have that shall do it And when he findeth them of a hundred minds what course shall he take and how many more journies about the world must he make to bring them to an agreement But I am ashamed to bestow more words on so evident a case Argum. 6. The Head or Soveraign of the Church as of every body Politick hath the Legislative Power over the whole The Pope or a General Council have not the Legislative Power over the whole Therefore the Pope or General Council are not the