this sort of feeding must be allowed to others but he alone was to rule and govern in chief to feed by Authority and Power over all whereby he was to prescribe what was to be taught and believed But this is to return where we were before to the signification of the Word Feed which cannot mean one thing with respect to Peter and another with respect to the rest but signifies the same Power be it what it will common to them all If this need any further Explication those Words of our Lord Go and teach all Nations Matth. xxviii 19. Go ye into all the World and preach the Gospel unto every Creature Mark xvi 15. will satisfy us that Peter had no peculiar Authority conferred on him above the other Apostles For he gave this Charge to them all and it was ushered in with a far more magnificent Preface to it than when he spake here particularly to Peter for he first acquaints them with his own Supreme Authority saying All Power is given unto me in Heaven and in Earth and then adds Go ye therefore and teach all Nations c. which is a Commission as large as could be given to Men including in it all the Power that was necessary for the establishing and governing those Churches which they should gather unto Christ Who can think that they who had this Authority given them were themselves to be taught and governed by Peter alone Nothing could put such a Conceit into Mens Minds but an ambitious desire to advance themselves to the highest Dominion by raising Peter above all others Who it is evident did not take themselves to be all inferiour to him nor to be less able to feed him than he was to feed them For St. Paul who was herein inferiour that he was called late to be an Apostle as one born out of due time did take upon him to feed Peter and that with his Staff too if I may so speak that is with his Reproof and this at Antioch St. Peter's own Seat Where it had been very proper for him one would think to have stood upon his peculiar Prerogative if he had known of any belonging to him Which if he could have challenged we should still be to seek by what right the Bishop of Rome claims the same Authority that St. Peter had O says Boniface the VIIIth * Extravagant L. 1. Tit. 8. de Major Obedientia Christ spake to Peter and to his Successors when he said FEED MY SHEEP But how doth he prove that Why we must take his bare word for it both that he spake these words to Peter's Successors and to them alone and that the Bishops of Rome are his sole Successors All this he delivers as an infallible Dictator and it is not good manners to question that the Universal Flock of Christ is so committed to them that whether Greeks or others shall say they are not committed to Peter and his Successors they must necessarily confess they are none of the SHEEP of Christ But it is worth any bodies while to read on to the end of that Extravagant where he asserts this whereby they will be infallibly satisfied he was no infallible Interpreter but a gross Perverter of the Holy Scriptures For here it is that he proves in the Church there is both the Spiritual and the Temporal Power from those Words Behold here are two Swords Luk. xxii 38. and that the Temporal Power is subject to the Spiritual because the Powers that are are ordained of God Rom. xiii 1. for they would not be in order unless Sword were under Sword and Spiritual things are superiour to Temporal For the Prophecy of Jeremy is verified of the Church and the Ecclesiastical Power ch i. 10. Behold I have set thee this day over the Nations and over the Kingdoms to root up and pull down c. Therefore the Temporal Power if it go out of the way must be judged by the Spiritual but the Supreme Spiritual Power by God alone not by Man as the Apostle bears witness 1 Cor. ii 15. He that is Spiritual judgeth all things but he himself is judged of no Man. After all which goodly Interpretation of Holy Scriptures more like Pasquill than the Pope he concludes most pontifically We declare affirm define and pronounce that it is altogether necessary to Salvation for every humane Creature to be subject to the Pope of Rome This is his Conclusion from FEED MY SHEEP and from other Places of Scripture expounded after the very same fashion as he abuses this Which tho it be very presumptuous yet is not too arrogant for him who could entertain such a monstrous Conceit as this which we read in one of his Decrees * Sexti Decret L. 1. Tit. vi cap. xvii Fundamenta Where he says Christ made Peter the Chief that from him as from a certain Head he might diffuse as it were his Gifts into the whole Body for that having taken him IN CONSORTIVM INDIVIDVAE TRINITATIS into the Partnership of the undivided Trinity He would have him called that which the Lord himself was saying THOV ART PETER and upon THIS ROCK I will build my Church Now if Peter be thus exalted into the Consortship of the Blessed Trinity and the Pope have a just claim unto all that belongs to Peter then is the Pope no less than OUR LORD GOD as some of the Canonists have called him unto whom Boniface might well conclude all must be subject upon pain of Damnation I conclude this whole Discourse with these three Observations which are better grounded than their proud Decrees First It is worth considering that this lofty Structure which they have erected in the Church of Rome of the Supremacy of their Bishop is built barely upon three Metaphorical Speeches of our Saviour unto St. Peter without one word or syllable concerning the Bishop of Rome or any other Successor One would have expected that a thing of this mighty moment should have had a stronger Foundation and been delivered in plainer words than upon this Rock I will give thee the Keys and Feed my Sheep and that we should have been told also in down-right terms who should inherit the supreme Power supposed to be conferred by these Metaphorical Speeches when he was dead and gone especially if all Christians in the World must necessarily upon pain of Damnation be subject to Peter's Successor And yet so it is this is all that a Wit of such height as Bellarmine's who is wont to scrape up all that any way seems to make for his purpose durst venture to alledg out of the Holy Scriptures for the proof of so weighty a Point The Rhemists indeed in their Annotations upon the New Testament make bold with two places more which they apply to this business but with so little Reason not to say so ridiculously that he had the discretion to let them alone One is in St. Matthew xiv 29. where upon the word walked
must evidently see without going further that he speaks not a Syllable of the Power of the High-Priest but of the Authority of the Supreme Tribunal or Court among the Jews which consisted of a great number of Persons wherein all Controversies which could not be ended in inferiour Courts were to be finally determined without any Appeal In which Supreme Court the High Priest was so far from being the Chief that he was not so much as admitted to be a Member of it unless he was a wise Man. And then he did not bear an absolute Sway there but the Sentence was passed by the whole Council as appears not meerly from the Jewish Writers but from these repeated Admonitions in the very Body of this Law. THEY shall shew thee the Sentence of Judgment ver 9. and thou shalt do according to that thing which THEY of that Place shew thee and observe to do according to all that THEY inform thee ver 10. according to the Sentence of the Law which THEY shall teach thee according to the Judgment which THEY shall tell thee thou shalt not decline from the Sentence which THEY shall shew thee ver 11. Where he must be blind who doth not see six flat Contradictions to the Assertion of this Catholick Scripturist in this very place which he produces to prove that Moses here sets up the Tribunal of the High Priest and orders his Sentence to be obeyed upon pain of Death in Causes Ecclesiastical This was neither his Court nor were Causes judged by his Sentence nor is there one word here of Causes Ecclesiastical but only of Civil between Blood and Blood Plea and Plea Stroke and Stroke unless we suppose the Word we translate Stroke relates to the Plague of the Leprosy which belonged to the Priests to judg of it but excluded Men from all Civil as well as Sacred Society And if the utmost be granted that can be supposed that there is mention here of something appertaining to Spiritual Causes yet it must be also allowed by all Men of sense that this Text speaks most of Civil Causes and therefore can no more prove an absolute Obedience to be due to Spiritual than to Civil Governours All which considered I do not see but Dr. Reynolds had reason to say they might as well call in the help of the first words of Genesis In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth as this Verse in Deuteronomy to support the Popes Supremacy For there as Pope Boniface VIII very gravely observes in the fore-mentioned Extravagant Moses says God created the Heavens and the Earth in the beginning not in the beginnings and therefore he who resists the Popes Authority resists the Ordinance of God unless with Manichaeus he feign two beginnings or Principles which is false and heretical And by such fine fetches as this Innocent III * Decret Greg. L. iv Tit. 17. c. 13. per venerabilem proved his Power over the whole Church from these words in Deuteronomy But he did not mince the matter as this Catholick Scripturist doth but stoutly affirmed that the Pope may exercise Temporal Jurisdiction as well as Spiritual not only in the Churches Patrimony but in other Countries also in certain Causes For Deuteronomy being by Interpretation a Second Law it proves by the very force of the word that what is here decreed in Deut. xvii 8. ought to be observed in the New Testament And then the place which the Lord hath chosen is the Apostolick See viz. Rome the Levitical Priests are his Brethren the Cardinals the High-Priest or Judg is the Pope the Vicar of him who is a Priest for ever after the Order of Melchisedec appointed by God the Judg of Quick and Dead the first sort of Judgments between Blood and Blood is meant of Criminal and Civil Causes the last between Stroke and Stroke is meant of Ecclesiastical and Criminal the middle between Plea and Plea belongeth to both Ecclesiastical and Civil in which if any one contemn the Sentence of the Apostolick See he is doomed to die that is to be separated by the Sentence of Excommunication as a dead Man from the Communion of the Faithful Nothing is more evident than that according to this Catholick Exposition of Pope Innocent the Bishop of Rome is by the Divine Law Head of all Christians as well in Civil Causes as in Ecclesiastical This Text in Deuteronomy proves the one as much as the other that is it proves just nothing but that the Mystery of Iniquity wrought very high when such mystical Senses of Holy Scripture were swallowed glibly to confirm the chiefest Mystery of the Romish Faith. Perhaps the Catholick Scripturist will say that they now argue from this place only by a parity of Reason that there must be but one High Priest among Christians because their was no more among the Jews To which they may have an Answer when they prove that Judaea was as big as the whole Christian World. That 's as hopeful a Task for him to labour in as any he hath undertaken And so I take my leave of him till he hath finished it for it will be too tedious to follow him to his next Text out of the New Testament Matth. xxiii 2. which he calls an unanswerable Text concerning the High Priests of the old Law. Vpon the Chair of Moses have sitten the Scribes and Pharisees all therefore whatsoever they shall say unto you observe and do it For no body but himself can see a Syllable here concerning the High Priests who did not sit in Moses his Chair but were the Successors of Aaron And besides that this place belongs to another Head of their Doctrine about the Popes Infallibility of which if this be a proof it likewise proves the Infallibility of Annas and Caiphas and justifies those that crucified our Blessed Lord and Saviour THE END LONDON Printed by J. D. for Richard Chiswel at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1688. ERRATA PAge 110. Marg. line 4. for Tract read Orat. xxix P. 111. l. 2. r. of his Falls Ib. Marg. penult r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 P. 134. l. 20. r. ransack
them all and Christ promising nothing but what he performed he gave therefore the highest Power to them all which is contained in the Keys Here they are at a great loss and cannot agree how to bring themselves off from this difficulty which strips Peter of his Supremacy Therefore some have devised the above-named Conceit that Peter alone had the Keys given him as their Ordinary and they as his Legats But this seems too gross unto others who acknowledg they all had the Keys immediately from God as much as Peter if they be considered as Apostles but not if they be considered as Bishops and Pastors for these two Offices they fancy they had the Apostolical and the Pastoral Dignity the first immediately from Christ the other by and under Peter But this is in a manner the same thing in a little finer dress which was said before Therefore others unsatisfied with this that the Apostles should receive their Jurisdiction from Peter have ordered the matter on this fashion that Peter might use the Keys alone but they not without him But Sixtus Senensis cannot digest this and therefore hath devised a threefold Power in Peter of Apostleship of Order and of the Kingdom * Biblioth Sanct. l. v. Annot. clxix With respect to the first he grants Paul was equal to Peter because he had the Office of Preaching the Gospel not from Peter but from God as much as Peter himself had With respect to the second also he acknowledges the truth of what St. Jerome writes against Jovinian that all the Apostles equally received the Keys let the Catholick Scripturist mind that and firmly laid the Foundation of the Church and of what he says to Evagrius All Bishops are equal because all the Apostles were so But then with respect to the last viz. the Power of the Kingdom and Authority over all Bishops and Churches Peter was Head of all That is Peter must some way or other be above all the rest but how they do not know For Cardinal Baronius †Ad An. 34. n. ccv will have it that all the Apostles had the use of the Keys equally with Peter by the ORDINARY Power of remitting Sins and by this distinction expounds the fore-named words of St. Jerome But his Brother Cardinal Bellarmine being aware that if Peter had the Keys more than the rest by an EXTRAORDINARY Power his Authority would not descend upon his Successors says quite contrary that the Apostles had the Power of the Keys after an EXTRAORDINARY manner and Peter only by an ORDINARY * L. 1. de Rom. Pont. c. xii Thus what one builds up his Fellow pulls down There is a Confusion of Tongues in this Babel which they labour to erect They cannot agree so much as about the Terms wherein they deliver this new Doctrine For it is a pure Invention without any Reason or any Authority for it but it must be so though they know not how because it is their pleasure As all the rest is which they draw from the last place Feed my Sheep In which they say Christ gave the Power which he had promised and therefore since he promised it to all he gave it to all if any thing was given here And yet against such clear demonstration they will have this to be a peculiar Grant to Peter no body knows how or why but because it seems good to them For this is so little approved by others that they fairly grant the ancient Opinion was and make it theirs that these Words were not spoken to Peter in a Personal but in a Publick Capacity as he represented all the Apostles Insomuch that they can find nothing peculiar to him in the word FEED because of that of St. Austin's †De Agone Christ c. 30. When Christ said to Peter he said to all Feed my Sheep nor in the word SHEEP because St. Ambrose saith in the Place before named Those Sheep not only Peter received but he received them with us and we received them with him Which things are so evident that it hath brought some in that Communion to this Conclusion that out of none of these three Places nor all of them together can be gathered so much as the bare Primacy of St. Peter ‖ Du Pin de antiqua Eccles Discipl dissert iv P. 311. after that manner which Bellarmine collects it but it must be gathered thus that in those places Peter bears the Person of the Church speaks for the rest of the Apostles and is himself spoken unto by Christ in their Name as the first and principal Behold then the UNITY of which they boast in that Church and how little CERTAINTY there is among them even of the main point of their Faith and as Bellarmine * Praefatio in L. de Poutifie Rom. makes bold to call it the Sum of Christian Religion It stands upon such a tottering Foundation that finding how little these Texts in the New Testament avail them they ransack'd the Old to fetch some feeble support unto it from thence And the late Catholick Scripturist fancies the Old Testament helps them thus far in this Point that it teaches †Seventh Point n. 1 3. That among the Priests of the Old Law one was chosen successively to be the highest and chief Priest Commanding all such Causes as are Ecclesiastical Causes to be brought to the Tribunal of the High Priest and his Sentence to be obeyed even under pain of Death And for this he alledges Deut. xvii 8. But this only proves how ignorant such Catholicks as he are in the Holy Scriptures Where it is impossible for him to find that the High Priests were chosen successively for they had that Dignity by Inheritance in one certain Family and not by Election And as for the Power which he ascribes to them though he promises us in his Preface to produce loud speaking Texts for all the Points we mislike in their Religion there is not so much as a whisper of it in the place he alledges The words of which he did wisely not to quote but only the Chapter and Verse Which we that have liberty to read the Bible can easily discern speak loudly against him and confute that Doctrine which he would confirm by them If there arise says Moses in that Text a Matter too hard for thee in Judgment between Blood and Blood between Plea and Plea and between Stroke and Stroke being matters of Controversy within thy Gates then shalt thou arise and get thee up into the place which the Lord thy God shall choose And thou shalt come unto the Priests the Levites and unto the Judg that shall be in those days and enquire and they shall shew thee the sentence of Judgment And thou shalt do according to the Sentence which they of that place which the Lord shall choose shall shew thee c. I need not recite the rest at large to the end of the 12th Verse For every understanding Reader